Via Queerty: “This cute PSA reminds the world why we have courts and a legislative body to protect our civil liberties, and why referendum votes on things like gay marriage bans are so deplorable.” Just watch.
PSA
That Darn Clenis
Why didn’t it stop 9/11 nine months after it left office? Why does the Clenis hate America?
Shakespeare’s Sister Theater Presents…
When last we left our intrepid superbloggers, they were returning from Mars, having just deposited Michelle Malkin in a giant ditch of despair. The Pink Petulance lit a smoke off the heat which would soon engulf their doomed nemesis, while Dr. Zero set the Spudmobile on a course back to Earth, shouting, “Intern this, bitch!” with an evil laugh.
Once they had reached home, trouble was soon a-brewing again in no time. They’d barely had the chance to wash the Martian dust out of their hair and down a pair of Brandy Manhattans before their superphone started ringing. On the other end was SuperKos, from whom they and all superbloggers take their marching superorders.
”Dr. Zero! Pink Petulance! There’s trouble in Blogtopia!” (©Skippy)“Trouble in Blogtopia?!” (©Skippy) Dr. Zero cried.
“Bloody Blogtopians,” The Pink Petulance muttered.
“Listen, Pink Petulance—I don’t have time for your women’s studies set nonsense!” SuperKos exclaimed. “A hideous hydra is on the loose, devouring all remnant of logic and rational discourse everywhere she goes. We need you and Dr. Zero to get over to Wingnuttia and slay the beast!”
“Wev,” sniffed The Pink Petulance. “We’re on it.”
“Mwah ha ha ha!" laughed Dr. Zero. “To the Spudmobile!”
Through the Valley of Vacuity, over the Moors of Mendacity, and just past the Land of Lunacy the Spudmobile sped, skidding to a stop at the base of Mount Mayhem.
“There she is,” said The Pink Petulance.
“My god, she’s grotesque!” said Dr. Zero. “Why do we always get the shittiest jobs?”
“It’s never tough to find the gay and women bloggers when there’s a hydra to take out,” said The Pink Petulance, grabbing her Integrity Ray.
Dr. Zero snapped his Spritzing Clown Flower of Doom onto his lapel. “Let’s roll.”
The two superbloggers approached the beast. She threw back her heads and roared. “You’re no match for me, weaklings!” snarled one head. “I have the power of all Wingnuttia at my disposal!” growled another. “Peekaboo sandwich monkey spunk,” said the third.
Dr. Zero and The Pink Petulance looked at each other.
“Something’s not right with that head,” said Dr. Zero, knitting his brow.
The Pink Petulance nodded. “Let’s start with that one.”
Dr. Zero crouched at the feet of the hydra, aiming his Spritzing Clown Flower of Doom at the weak head’s throat. He squirted, sending a stream of Undeniable Logic right at its jugular. The thick skin began to sizzle and melt, and the hydra shrieked, then stumbled. The Pink Petulance shot the Integrity Ray at the joint of the other two heads, landing a glob of Conscience right on the mark, which began to ooze across the beast’s frame. The superbloggers alternated shots of Undeniable Logic and Conscience all over the hydra’s weakening form.
“Nooooooooo!” screeched the hydra. “I’ve got an interview with Sean Hannity next week!”
“Guess again, you disgusting wretch!” yelled Dr. Zero. “We hoisted him on his own petard yesterday!”
The hydra gave one last mighty shudder, then slumped to the ground. The Pink Petulance kicked it with her footie pajama-protected feet to make sure it was dead.
“Looks like our work here is done,” she said.
“Yeah,” agreed Dr. Zero. “Hey—did you know this is National Clown Week?”
“Fuck, I hate clowns,” grumbled The Pink Petulance.
Tune in next week when the superbloggers come face to face with…The Tyrannosaurus of Turpitude!
The gods must be crazy
Bizarro GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt has pat answers for "why they hate us" in the Middle East (or just about anywhere else):
- they think we're capricious, uncaring gods
- they're ungrateful buggers
- they don't understand technology
But out of the mouths of the deranged comes occasional wisdom. This deep thinker representing the Second District of Ohio did manage, despite herself, to get one thing absolutely right:
For the United States the lesson must be -- as we head down a different path of foreign diplomacy - Evil that is ignored is indeed Evil that is assisted. The oppressed will always remember.
Or as the considerably more thoughtful Robert Fisk warns regarding the American-blessed war on Lebanon:
I’m traveling around the south, increasingly outraged at what I see, as a human being. And I’m not a Muslim. I’m not a Muslim. And I keep saying to myself, “If I was a Muslim, how much more outraged might I be?” I turned to an American friend of mine tonight back in Beirut before I came home, and I said, “You know, I’ve been watching this now for more than two weeks, and there's going to be another 9/11.” There’s going to be another 9/11, and then we’re going to hear all the usual claptrap about how it’s good versus evil, and they hate us because we’re good and democratic, and they hate our values, and all the other material that comes out of the rear end of a bull that your president and my prime minister talk.
The oppressed will always remember. God help us.
(Hat tip to Atrios. Cross-posted.)
Why won't you tell me 'bout the mystery dance?
Alan Moore has a new book coming out. In case your unfamiliar with the name, Moore is probably the most talented writer in comics today; his seminal work, Watchmen (with art by Dave Gibbons), was one of the first graphic novels to draw serious critical attention and acclaim, he's responsible for the original V for Vendetta, and he’s one of the few people in the medium who I’d recommend to anyone, funny book fan or no. His latest, Lost Girls (illustrated by his fiancée, Melinda Gebbie), is a three volume set about the lives of three of children’s literatures most famous heroines: Alice Liddel, Wendy Darling and Dorothy Gale. Only, instead of dealing with talking rabbits, flying pirates and tin men, Moore details the sexual exploits of each woman in frank, intentionally pornographic terms. The result- which has yet to be officially released in the States- is a literate erotica that, with its depiction of teenage sex and incest, has attracted its fair share of complaint. (The children’s hospital which J.M. Barrie left the performance rights of Peter Pan to is threatening a lawsuit.)
I can’t speak directly about the book itself; obviously incest and kiddie sex aren’t exactly appealing topics, but Moore is a great enough writer that I’m more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. There’s a great interview with him in this week’s edition of the AV Club where he talks about the book and the controversy. I highly recommend the whole thing- despite the fact that Moore’s picture gets creepier with each passing year (he looks like a homeless person who might actually be God), the man is intelligent and well-spoken, and well worth listening too.
Here’s a brief excerpt I rather liked:In countries like the U.S. and Great Britain, we exist in a wholly sexualized culture, where everything from cars to snack food are sold with a healthy slathering of sex to make them more commercially appealing. But if you're using sex to sell sneakers, then you're not just selling sneakers, you're selling sex as well, and you're contributing to the sexual temperature of society. You're going to get people who, unsurprisingly, become overheated in that kind of sexual environment, and if they attempt to assuage their desires by resorting to the widely available medium of pornography, they're going to have their moment of gratification, and then they're going to have a much longer period of self-loathing, disgust, shame and embarrassment. It's almost like a kind of a reverse Skinner-box experiment, where once the rat has pushed the lever and successfully received the food, then he gets the electric shock.
What with all the other bullshit going on these days- y’know, wars, the swiftly tilting planet, where the hell is baby Sari, that sort of thing- I often forget just how fucked up we are when it comes to sex. The basic model is that since this is a capitalist society, a good deal of our culture is going to be informed by the manner in which we buy goods; and of course, companies will find the most effective way to sell those goods, and since sex is a biological imperative that nearly everyone has a connection to, inevitably, we get sold lots of and lots of sex. As Moore points out, this creates an over-sexualized environment in which everything becomes about fucking. But there’s still that built-in “morality,” which uses shame to try and keep everyone in line, going waaaay back to our Puritan days (not that we can ignore the delightful Christians, of course), and so what we have is the so-called irresistible impulse- all that damnable lust (and lust’s more upscale, mature cousin, love), running into the immovable object of our own guilt. Sure, there are socially approved ways of handling sex, but the guilt-free ones are surprisingly narrow, at least if you go by the long view; we’ve gotten more open-minded over the years, but far too often, especially in the upper-levels of government, one finds oneself trapped in a sort of grey-area inhabited by giggling pre-teens who can’t say the word condom without turning bright read, and to whom Maxim and Cosmopolitan represent the height of adult sophistication.
I’m over simplifying, of course (tis my one true gift), but it’s frustrating how horribly, horribly immature we are culturally. The damage this does to the civil rights of people who don’t line up with the increasingly rigid norm, the terrible treatment of women, the endless rapes and molestations- all because we’re locked into a cycle that exists only to perpetuate itself and prevent the basic maturation which is essential to us going anywhere as a race.
It gives me a headache, y’know? Between that and the blue balls I’ve had since I was eleven (yes I have seen a doctor, and no, he never did stop laughing), it’s a wonder I haven’t joined the church. I’ll be getting a copy of Lost Girls, though, and to hell with what the neighbors think. Maybe if they’re lucky, I’ll photocopy some of the naughtier bits.
You Mean This Shit Was Still Going On?
No more tiptoeing around the "F" word on Capitol Hill...
The fries on Capitol Hill are French again.Not only is it completely ridiculous that this bullshit happened in the first place, it's also skull-thumpingly insane that they've been keeping this up for the last three years. Then add to that the fact that people feel the need to refuse to comment on this fucking stupidity.
So is the breakfast toast in the congressional cafeterias, with both fries and toast having been liberated from the appellation "freedom."
Three years after House Republicans trumpeted the new names to get back at the French for snubbing the coalition of the willing in Iraq, congressmen don't even want to talk about french fries, which are actually native to Belgium, and toast.
Neither Reps. Bob Ney of Ohio nor Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, the authors of the culinary rebuke, were willing this week to say who led the retreat, as it were, from the frying pan. But retreat there has been, as a casual observer can see for himself in the House's basement cafeterias.
"We don't have a comment for your story," said a spokeswoman for Mr. Ney.
Several Republican staffers and lawmakers suggest that the change isn't worth investigating, unlike the eagerness in March 2003 to get into the headlines about patriotism on the menu.
Three goddamn years.
Jesus, these people are fucking stupid.
(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to August. Two triple cheese, side order of cross-posts...)
The Bad Old Days
In this completely batty article in the Times, which details Senators grousing about interlopers on their Senator-only elevators, in what one can only imagine are tones befitting Prince Charles grumbling bitterly that his cucumber sandwiches are soggy, I come upon this amusing little tidbit about girl-baiting and sexual harassment outside and in the elevators:
To be sure, such tactics took place only in earlier eras, when senators held a less enlightened view of women.Yes, to be sure, such tactics took place only in earlier eras…like 1994.
(In 1994, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was said to have engaged in excessive touching of his then-freshman colleague Patty Murray of Washington. Ms. Murray later asked for and received an apology from Mr. Thurmond, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported at the time. Through a spokeswoman, Ms. Murray declined to comment.)
I also love the turn of phrase "when senators held a less enlightened view of women," which not only manages to imply that there are still no women senators, but also that senators have an enlightened view of women now.
America 2.0
Blogger Jailed After Defying Court Orders:
A freelance journalist and blogger was jailed on Tuesday after refusing to turn over video he took at an anticapitalist protest here last summer and after refusing to testify before a grand jury looking into accusations that crimes were committed at the protest.The ACLU and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors are on the case. The Society of Professional Journalists are contributing to Wolf’s defense fund.
The freelancer, Josh Wolf, 24, was taken into custody just before noon after a hearing in front of Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court. Found in contempt, Mr. Wolf was later moved to a federal prison in Dublin, Calif., and could be imprisoned until next summer, when the grand jury term expires, said his lawyer, Jose Luis Fuentes.
Scary stuff. With more and more bloggers start delving into original reporting, and streaming their own video footage, this may be only the first skirmish in what could turn into an ugly battle between citizen journalists and a government increasingly hostile to the media.
(Hat tip BlogActive.)
Your Reassuring Thought for the Day
Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott said he expects in the near future that businesses will assume more of a leadership role in solving the U.S. health-care crisis. Scott’s remark was part of an hour-long interview on PBS’s Charlie Rose show that aired Tuesday night.Wow, I can’t wait for the indubitably superb healthcare solution for America which business leaders like Wal-Mart will devise for us. Free colonoscopies on Aisle 12—woohoo!
The world’s largest retailer has received repeated criticism over the years for providing health benefits that are too expensive for many of its employees. The company recently has increased added a lower monthly premium option, and reduced the eligibility requirements for part-timers to a year from two years.
Veracity Fair
For a couple of days now, I’ve been hearing about the Vanity Fair article that “reconstructs the chaotic military history of [9/11]—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up,” using previously unheard tapes from NORAD’s control room. Well, here it is. An excerpt is below the fold…In the chronology presented to the 9/11 commission, Colonel Scott put the time NORAD was first notified about United 93 at 9:16 a.m., from which time, he said, commanders tracked the flight closely. (It crashed at 10:03 a.m.) If it had indeed been necessary to "take lives in the air" with United 93, or any incoming flight to Washington, the two armed fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia would have been the ones called upon to carry out the shootdown. In Colonel Scott's account, those jets were given the order to launch at 9:24, within seconds of NEADS's receiving the F.A.A.'s report of the possible hijacking of American 77, the plane that would ultimately hit the Pentagon. This time line suggests the system was starting to work: the F.A.A. reports a hijacking, and the military reacts instantaneously. Launching after the report of American 77 would, in theory, have put the fighters in the air and in position over Washington in plenty of time to react to United 93.
The whole thing is worth your time to read.
In testimony a few minutes later, however, General Arnold added an unexpected twist: "We launched the aircraft out of Langley to put them over top of Washington, D.C., not in response to American Airlines 77, but really to put them in position in case United 93 were to head that way."
How strange, John Azzarello, a former prosecutor and one of the commission's staff members, thought. "I remember being at the hearing in '03 and wondering why they didn't seem to have their stories straight. That struck me as odd."
The ears of another staff member, Miles Kara, perked up as well. "I said to myself, That's not right," the retired colonel, a former army intelligence officer, told me. Kara had seen the radar re-creations of the fighters' routes. "We knew something was odd, but we didn't have enough specificity to know how odd."
As the tapes reveal in stark detail, parts of Scott's and Arnold's testimony were misleading, and others simply false. At 9:16 a.m., when Arnold and Marr had supposedly begun their tracking of United 93, the plane had not yet been hijacked. In fact, NEADS wouldn't get word about United 93 for another 51 minutes. And while NORAD commanders did, indeed, order the Langley fighters to scramble at 9:24, as Scott and Arnold testified, it was not in response to the hijacking of American 77 or United 93. Rather, they were chasing a ghost.
A Two-Week, No-Gallivanting Vacation
President Bush will leave town tomorrow for a two-week working vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., with the White House underscoring the word working.Fair enough. Operation Monitor and Want can obviously be executed just as competently from Crawford as it can from D.C.
…Asked about the president heading to the ranch in the midst of a deadly Middle East conflict, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said today: "My guess is, he's going to be working pretty hard. This is not a situation where he is gallivanting and ignoring the situation.''
This man is not a gallivanterator.
He is a decider.
Holy Laughter and Spiritual Drunkenness
I really, really, really don’t get this. What’s the point? It reminds me of this extremely lame hypnotist I saw in college, who could supposedly hypnotize the entire audience. I sat there stony faced and increasingly annoyed with the people clucking like chickens around me.
This certainly isn’t relatable to anything I ever saw or learned at church, but, then again, I was raised a solemn Lutheran. The zaniest thing that ever happened inside those doors was ambrosia salad at pot luck night made with two different flavored Jell-Os.
In defense of the spiritual drunks, none of them blurted out anything about Jews being responsible for all the wars in the world.
(Via Konagod.)
LOLOLOL
Yes, I am totally immature...and this is totally cracking my shit up.
More videos of Hummer Humping at I Humped Your Hummer. Passed on by—who else?—Angelos.
When I hear "Pussycat Dolls," I think "female empowerment"
I swear, it's the very first thing that comes to mind. That's how the folks who are peddling this latest reality show-slash-band recruitment drive would like you to think, too:
"At its core, this show goes beyond just finding a new Pussycat Doll; it's about female empowerment, self-discovery and personal transformation," said Dawn Ostroff, CW's president of entertainment.
Fathers, sign up your daughters.
( Don't cha wish your cross-post was hot like me?)
I’ll Go With the Trained Primate
There are some journalism rules that are steadfastly unbreakable. Bush administration reports will contain at least one lie. Anything written by Christopher Hitchens will be complete horseshit. Monkeys are always funny. So I like to start my day with a headline like this: India tries to chase monkeys from trains.
The authorities, I read, have hired a langur wrangler to keep the monkeys off the trains, because the monkeys are scared of langurs. I don’t know what the hell a langur is, so I look it up.
Am I not a fucking monkey?
No, evidently you’re a primate. Although, I grant you, you really look like a fucking monkey.
So, Mr. Vidyacharan Patel of Mumbai has the choice of sharing his train with a wild monkey (who will probably try to steal his cigarettes) or a primate that looks like a monkey on a leash. It’s not much of a choice, but anyone with any sense would choose the primate on a leash.
Which is why, when every election rolls around, I vote for the Democrats.
There are a lot of apathetic jerkoffs in this country who love to take a long slug of shitty beer and utter what they consider the epitome of nuanced political thought: “There’s no difference between the two parties, anyway.” Stunningly original, I’ll acquiesce, but incorrect nonetheless. That this tired drip of dogwank wisdom is still hanging around after six years of indisputable evidence that there was indeed a great deal of difference between George Bush and Al Gore, whose contest in 2000 was defined by that nugget of nonsense, is indicative of how lazy and unengaged the people who employ it really are. I’d have more respect for them if they were honest enough to admit, “I don’t care enough to pay attention, so I don’t have an opinion.” And if they were brave enough to add, “Which makes me a completely useless fuck who has no basis for complaint,” I’d give them a bloody medal.
Because there is, after all, a difference between a wild monkey and a trained primate on a leash. Sure, the latter might give you a surly look you don’t like or scratch his balls at embarrassing moments or have the temerity to do something a bit clever and remind you rather uncomfortably of how little DNA actually separates your hairless ass from his, but a wild monkey is quite likely to throw his shit at you, then screech and jump around maniacally in celebration. And if that doesn’t remind you of the marauding band of wild monkeys known as the GOP Congressional majority, then you really haven’t been paying attention.
To wit, the American Values Agenda, which was the centerpiece of House legislation before the hardworking wankers of Congress left for their much-needed break, new raise in hand. The retrofuck jackholes known as the House GOP debated the federal marriage amendment, which had not a Republican’s chance in heaven of passing, but did it anyway, because it’s fun to fling poo at the gays. They debated the Pledge Protection Act, designed to protect the Pledge of Allegiance from legal challenges to the phrase “under God,” because it’s fun to fling poo at the atheists. The American Values Agenda also included bills to ban human cloning, require women seeking late-term abortions to be informed that the fetus feels pain, ban internet gambling, and protect gun rights, because what Americans are really worried about these days is making sure they have guns to fight to married gay clones who convince women to have whimsical late-term abortions so they can dedicate their days to online gambling instead of mothering a future generation of voter monkeys who will screech with delight at all the poo-launching.
American values, bitchez! Ooh-ooh-ooh ahh-ahh-ahh!
Personally, I’d prefer to look down at my voting card and see some grown-up humans as options. (I’ve heard they’ve got them in Europe; maybe we can import some.) But failing that, I’ll go for the primate on a leash, who might not be ready for dinner with adults, but will at least be discrete with his excrement, because all I really want is to ride the train in peace, with some decent healthcare coverage, an alternative energy plan, a functioning foreign policy, and no wild monkeys blocking the door if I want to get off at Gay Rights Gully, Abortion Junction, or Stem Cell Station. Is that really so much to ask?
(Crossposted at The Rude Pundit.)
Dear Shakers: Should I see this movie?
So I'm thinking about Scoop, and I'm completely at sixes and sevens about it. There's sufficient prurient interest for both the wife and myself in this movie; M can scope out Hugh Jackman, and I can leer at Scarlett Johansson, and it's, like, all good. Except that it's a recent Woody Allen film - and featuring (sigh) Woody Allen - which means it will most profoundly suck.
Well. What to do?
I've got good news and bad news...
The Bad News: Senate backs expanded offshore drilling—“The Senate wants to expand oil and gas drilling to a large chunk of the Gulf of Mexico that has been off limits to energy companies. But the House has a more ambitious plan: Open coastal waters to drilling everywhere unless a state objects. …[Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM] called it ‘welcome news for the people of the United States’ — for homeowners facing high heating bills as well as for manufacturers and chemical companies that have seen natural gas costs soar. Never mind that no oil or gas would flow from the new area for four or five years, perhaps longer.”
The Good News: Evolution opponents lose in Kan. primary—“Conservative Republicans who pushed anti-evolution standards back into Kansas schools last year have lost control of the state Board of Education once again. The most closely watched race was in western Kansas, where incumbent conservative Connie Morris lost her Republican primary Tuesday. The former teacher had described evolution as "an age-old fairy tale" and "a nice bedtime story" unsupported by science. As a result of Tuesday's vote, board members and candidates who believe evolution is well-supported by evidence will have a 6-4 majority. Evolution skeptics had entered the election with a two-person majority.”
Oh the cat came back...
I finally got around to watching Syriana last night. It was quite good, although I can understand people who complained that it was difficult to follow; the characters tend to deliver large chunks of exposition (often involving unfamiliar names) in low-key, muted tones which, while thematically appropriate, make mapping out where everybody stands on one’s internal plot map a tricky business. Still, I felt my efforts were ultimately well rewarded, and I especially enjoyed the myriad of supporting performances. The film has no real “hero,” just a bunch of talented actors like Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, Christopher Plummer, Amanda Peet, Mazhar Munir and Alexander Siddig.
Oh, and George Clooney. Can’t forget him. He does fine work here, although I admit to being somewhat baffled by the Oscar nod; the movie as a whole is much too ensemble oriented for any one actor to stand out, so he most likely got the award in recognition of his other great achievement last year, Good Night and Good Luck. It ain’t the Academy Award if the system makes sense.
Clooney’s next project, though, is a bit different:
The who to the what now? George Clooney starring in a remake of Stephen King's PET SEMATARY? Sure it was an effective thriller back in the 80s and one of the better Stephen King adaptations but... George Clooney? He seems to be sticking to the Oscar-caliber material lately. But the boys at Bloody-Disgusting say the news of Clooney in SEMATARY is "100% confirmed" as being true.If your unfamiliar with the novel, Pet Sematary is King’s meditation on death, a grim, surprisingly painful tragedy about a father who is led to a burial ground which brings the dead back to horribly life, and about just what he’s willing to bury there, regardless of the consequences. It’s not my favorite King work, but I’d say it’s one of his best books; part of the reason I can’t love it completely is that it’s so well done as to be almost unbearable.
The movie was, er, not a complete waste, although it came close. (Here’s my review.) It has its fans- I have at least one friend who considers it the most faithful King adaptation ever filmed, which makes me sad- but I definitely wouldn’t dismiss a remake of it out of hand. Especially not with Clooney involved. The official casting hasn’t been announced yet, and there’s a chance all of this is just somebody’s sick idea of a joke anyway, but the only person Clooney could really make a go at in the novel is the protagonist, Louis Creed. And I think he would be amazing in the part. Like Christopher Walken as Johnny Smith amazing. So, fingers crossed.
