Question of the Day
With no requirement to give it, of course, should you prefer to remain anonymous, do you like your first name? Do you use a name other than the one you were given? If you were forced to pick a new name for yourself, what would you choose?
I like Melissa. It suits me well enough, and I like its meaning—it’s Greek for honey bee. I’ve never gone by anything else, except shortened versions of Melissa, usually either Lissa or Liss, and never Missy.
If I had to choose a new name, I’d probably be really boring and pick something that was close to Melissa, like Miranda, because I like the rhythm of my name and the alliteration: Melissa McEwan. It feels like a good name for me.
Caption This Photo
“This here’s the biggest tomata I ever seen! Heh heh.”
Actual Caption: President Bush examines a pumpkin which he later purchased during an unscheduled stop while campaigning for Sen. George Allen, R-Va., in Richmond, Va., Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006.—AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
This means that not only is Preznit Pumpkin campaigning with a Congressman accused of choking his mistress during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, but he’s also campaigning with a racist during National Character Counts Week.
The Wrong and Whining Toad
Shocking, I know, but it doesn’t seem as though the Tyrannosaurus of Turpitude inspired a lot of loyalty from his underlings—at least not the kind that would move them to lie under oath to protect his lying, whimpering ass:
Jeff Trandahl, the former House clerk who oversaw the Congressional page program, testified for more than four hours today before the House ethics committee about his recollections of how Republican leaders handled complaints of former Representative Mark Foley’s behavior around young workers on Capitol Hill.Toad-boy Denny hasn’t testified yet, as the investigation moves into its third week. They should have put his lumbering pooper on the stand first, so he wouldn’t have had time to create his story based on everyone else’s leaked testimony.
…People close to the case, who asked not to be identified because of the continuing investigation, said Mr. Trandahl’s version of events would corroborate that the speaker’s office had been advised of complaints about Mr. Foley’s behavior for at least three years. Mr. Hastert’s office has denied that assertion, saying it learned of concerns about Mr. Foley only a year ago when a former page from Louisiana turned over e-mail exchanges he had with south Florida congressman.
Supporting the Troops
Something to think about on Election Day.
Congress' approval rating is at 16%.
This would be the same Congress that voted to give themselves yet another raise this year. As they've done every year they've been in power. Because they're doing such a good job, apparently.
Meanwhile, Military families are relying on food stamps and food banks to eat.
The women and children who formed a line at Camp Pendleton last week could have been waiting for a child-care center to open or Disney on Ice tickets to go on sale.Tip 'o the Energy Dome to Badtux, who adds:
As the Iraq war marches toward its fourth anniversary, food lines operated by churches and other nonprofit groups are an increasingly valuable presence on military bases countywide. Leaders of the charitable groups say they're scrambling to fill a need not seen since World War II.
Too often, the supplies run out before the lines do, said Regina Hunter, who coordinates food distribution at one Camp Pendleton site.
“Here they are defending the country. . . . It is heartbreaking to see,” said Hunter, manager of the on-base Abby Reinke Community Center. “If we could find more sources of food, we would open the program up to more people. We believe anyone who stands in a line for food needs it and deserves it.”
The base's list of recipients swells by 100 to 150 people a month as the food programs streamline their eligibility process, word spreads among residents and ever-proud Marines adjust to the idea of accepting donated goods.
At least 2,000 financially strapped people in North County qualify for food and other items given out at the center and a Camp Pendleton warehouse run by the Military Outreach Ministry.
Fact #2: Republican Senatorial candidate Thomas Kean Jr. releases his income tax return, showing that he had over $200,000 of income, paid $8,100 in taxes (i.e., 4% tax rate!), and then whines that his taxes are too high.Feeling the rage yet?
(Things that make you go cross post.)
125 Arrested in Child Porn Probe
Including a Bible camp counselor and a Boy Scout leader. (Please note that there is a disturbing description contained in this blockquote.)
A Bible camp counselor and a Boy Scout leader were among 125 people arrested nationwide in an Internet child pornography case in which subscribers purchased photos and videos of children engaged in sex acts with adults, federal authorities said Wednesday.Suddenly tag ain’t looking so bad.
The case originated in New Jersey, but quickly spread to 22 states. The defendants were charged with either possession or receipt of child pornography. Additional arrests are expected.
…“When I say ‘hard-core’ pornography, I am talking about child pornography that includes images of children as young as six months involved in bondage and sodomy,” U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said. “This type of depraved conduct is something a civilized society cannot tolerate.”
Every single time there’s a story like this, inevitably among the list of busted are a camp counselor, a Scout leader, a teacher, a minister—someone in a position with whom people should feel comfortable trusting their kids. But that’s the thing about pedophiles; they very carefully and deliberately place themselves in positions where they will be trusted with kids. And they’re scarily good at what they do. To put sex offenders’ “success rate” into perspective, a 2000 study done on imprisoned sex offenders found that they had an average of 110 victims and 318 offenses, though they had only two known victims on average. Consider those numbers for a moment, and then consider how much damage just a few of these people can do.
(Hat tip Holly.)
Warning: Painful Irony Ahead
Well, it’s happened. My head has finally just gone and exploded.
The nation's Roman Catholic bishops said Wednesday that they are developing new guidelines for ministry to gays, reaffirming church opposition to same-gender marriage and adoption by the couples, while condemning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.That was certainly enough to get it spinning. The steam was already coming out of my ears as the searing irony sizzled away inside my skull. But then there was this.
The draft document encourages parishes to make gays feel welcome and provide them pastoral support, and notes that many "are ardently striving to live their faith within the Catholic community so as not to fall into the lifestyle and values of a 'gay subculture.' "My poor wee noggin just couldn’t take it. New guidelines to condemn discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation…which affirm the right to…discriminate on the basis on sexual orientation.
But the authors repeatedly state that any such ministries must be led by people who uphold church teaching on sexuality, and assert that Catholic leaders have a right to "deny roles of service" in the church to people who violate that teaching.
Goodbye, cruel world. I go to a better place where irony is only used for the amusement of sardonic bitchez, and never, ever as a weapon of cranial destruction.
I Hate Bill O’Reilly: Part 9,386,172 in an Ongoing Series
He’d like to take care of all of us bloggers who have the temerity to involve ourselves in politics, no less get pissed about our president doing things like eradicating habeas corpus and endorsing torture, with a hand grenade.
The hat tip goes to Griffin, who says: “Bill O'Reilly decrying the personal vitriol in political discourse is pretty much the definition of the pot calling the kettle black.” Indeed. Check out this Greatest Hits Reel of O’Reilly making personal attacks (which he claims he never makes).
You’ll notice that many of these come from his daily radio show, for which, as I’ve noted before, O’Reilly uses to display the depth of his conservative extremism. It was there he offered up San Francisco as a target to al-Qaeda, for instance—something he never would have said on his nightly show. There, he parades himself as Mr. Pragmatic Everyman, appealing to moderates, while he uses his radio outlier to generate support among extremists, who are primed by peers like Rush Limbaugh. It’s a truly nefarious little operation he has going. I imagine many of the center-right people who watch his show and line his pockets by buying his books have no idea the scope and level of extremism he has been purveying on his radio show every day—though they will now, since it’s evidently beginning to creep into his telly broadcasts as he begins to lose his audience.
Name That Winger
in their high school or college yearbook photos?
Guess all eight correctly and you'll get 1,000 points!
Wallowing in the Filth
The GOP just can't help themselves. Max Blumenthal posted today about a new GOP campaign ad in which two "black male" voices call women "ho's."
Oh, and those Democrats? They loves them some abortions.
No one can criticize the GOP for failing to produce sophisticated propaganda that successfully exploits the hopes and fears of white middle Americans. But can the right-wing distraction factory woo minorities with the same techniques? Check out the following transcript of a new Republican ad targeting black voters in 10 battleground states this year and you be the judge:Wow. Just... wow.
BLACK MAN #1: "If you make a little mistake with one of your 'hos,' you'll want to dispose of that problem tout suite, no questions asked."
BLACK MAN #2: "That's too cold. I don't snuff my own seed."
BLACK MAN #1: "Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican."
But wait, there's more! And I thought the bottom of this barrel was scraped clean!
Another spot attempts to link Democrats to a white supremacist who served as a Republican in the Louisiana Legislature, David Duke.The ad makes reference to Duke's trip to Syria last year, where he spoke at an anti-war rally.And...
"I can understand why a Ku Klux Klan cracker like David Duke makes nice with the terrorists,"a male voice in the ad says. "What I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke."
Another ad in this year's campaign notes that Democratic presidents oversaw wiretapping and that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the targets. "Unlike the Al Qaeda butchers Bush is wiretapping, Martin was fighting to promote voting rights. He wasn't plotting mass murder," the ad says.
"Republicans respect the Latino soldier," one of the Spanish-language spots declares. "After all, it was our own General Ricardo Sanchez who commanded the American troops in Iraq. Enough with these Democrats."
Many of the ads with conservative social themes are sandwiched between hip-hop songs that convey blunt sexual messages. A spokesman for America's Pac, John Altevogt, said no stations have refused the ads, but a few asked for minor edits, such as the removal of the word "cracker" from the David Duke spot.
And who is the stellar example of humanity behind these delightful radio spots?
This ad was financed by J. Patrick Rooney, a white billionaire notorious for funding several misleading anti-Kerry ads that ran on urban radio stations in 2004. The money for Rooney's newest ad flowed through a little-known group called America's PAC, which was founded by Richard Nadler, a veteran Republican consultant who pushed Intelligent Design in Kansas public schools, declaring, "Darwin is bunk."But of course. Because they have nothing to offer minority voters. Nothing. What would they say? "Remember how we took care of you during Hurricane Katrina! Vote Republican!" "Hey, Latino voters! Don't pay attention to that fence we're buildling... vote Republican!" These people are desperate.
Nadler has an apparently dim view of the minorities he hopes to court. In 2000, he produced an ad in 2000 for school vouchers in which a white parent declared that his child's public school "was a bit more diversity than he could handle." The Republican National Committee flatly denounced that ad as "racist."
But about Rooney and Nadler's latest creation, which portrays black men as promiscuous misogynists and black women as submissive "ho's," the RNC is silent.
Even worse:
"They're awful.They're repulsive," a Democratic activist and community leader in South Bend, Gladys Muhammad, said. "When they say Democrats don't like black babies, that's damn fools.They're very insensitive."I thought I had seen and heard some sleazy campaign ads before, but these are just vile.
"This is so dirty, but it works," a sociology professor at Indiana University, Johnnie Griffin, said. "These are race ads. It's incredible."
While Ms. Griffin said she felt insulted by the ads, she also said a student in her class reported that a relative was thinking of switching to the Republican Party because of them. "Black people are more conservative than anybody thinks. We do have strong family values that people don't seem to stress as much," the professor said.
Update: Konagod has more.
(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to my buddy Grendel. Eep, Op, Ork, Cross-post.)
From the You Can’t Make This Shit Up Files
Maru: “President Stupie McStupidson proclaims October as ‘National Domestic Violence Awareness Month,’ then plans to headline fund-raiser for Congressman accused of choking his mistress.”
Hey, Feminists
Looks like that sworn oath we took to oppress the mighty male chromosome wasn’t really necessary. We can return our focus to destroying the American family.
I know it’s a little tedious on its own. Maybe at the next meeting we could talk about putting that whole ritualistic castration thing into action.
An Ugly Intersection
Per Paul's post below, the whole story is terribly depressing—and familiar. Foley’s parents didn’t believe him. The priest thinks Foley is trying to “destroy” him, even though all he did was teach him "some wrong things" related to sex. The things that happened aren't intrinsically wrong; it's just that they're things Foley “might perceive as sexually inappropriate.”
Gee, I can’t imagine why anyone might have “misconstrued” those things as sexually inappropriate. I’m sure if my parents had found our minister massaging me while I was naked when they picked me up from confirmation class, they would have been fine and dandy with that.
Anyway, it's sad and infuriating and paints a very stark picture of the intersection between the Catholic Church and the GOP, who have both endeavored to protect sexual predators—Foley a victim of one, and a victimizer protected by the other. And that ugly intersection demands scrutiny. There are things the Catholic Church and the GOP have in common, starting with an emphasis on sexual repression. It's long past time we, as a society, look at what that means, what we're abetting and/or creating.
But I'm quite sure we won't.
Foley Update
Priest Admits Foley Relationship
"Relationship." Ugh. I'm sorry, nothing in this story resembles anything like a "relationship."
SARASOTA, Fla. - A Roman Catholic priest said he had an inappropriate two-year relationship with former Rep. Mark Foley in the 1960s that included massaging the boy in the nude, but he did not specifically remember having sex, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, described several encounters that he said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. They include massaging Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being nude in the same room on overnight trips.
Mercieca said there was one night when he was in a drug-induced stupor and there was an incident but he couldn't clearly remember, the newspaper reported.
"I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown," the newspaper reported Mercieca as saying from his home on the island of Gozo, south of Italy. "I was taking pills — tranquilizers. I used to take them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit."
It wasn't me! It was the priest!
It wasn't me! It was the drugs!
Sick, sick, sick.
And They Would Have Gotten Away With it, Too...
...if it weren't for those meddling State Investigators!
Get ready to be shocked. Are you ready? Get ready.
Voter Warning Linked to GOP Campaign
Send in the slime. (Bolds mine)
SANTA ANA, Calif. - State investigators have linked a Republican campaign to letters sent to thousands of Orange County Hispanics warning them they could go to jail or be deported if they vote next month, a spokesman for the attorney general said.Gee, I wonder if anyone involved in this sleazy little trick have parents or grandparents that are immigrants?
"We have identified where we believe the mailing list was obtained," said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
He declined to identify the specific Republican campaign Wednesday, citing the ongoing investigation. The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register both reported Thursday that the investigation appeared to be focused on the campaign of Tan D. Nguyen, a Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez.
The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."
In fact, immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens can vote.
Your American GOP: We have nothing to offer. Please stay home on Election Day.
Bush, Iraq, and Vietnam
I imagine this is going to mean even more to the people who lived through the Vietnam War, especially the Shakers who fought in it, but the significance of it certainly won’t be lost on the rest of us, either:
President Bush said in a one-on-one interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that a newspaper column comparing the current fighting in Iraq to the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam, which was widely seen as the turning point in that war, might be accurate.Bush then announced he would be relocating to Alabama for the rest of his presidency.
Stephanopoulos asked whether the president agreed with the opinion of columnist Tom Friedman, who wrote in The New York Times today that the situation in Iraq may be equivalent to the Tet offensive in Vietnam almost 40 years ago.
"He could be right," the president said, before adding, "There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."
Oh My.
Congress’ approval rating is at 16%:
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll illustrates the political toll Republicans are paying for rising discontent over the Iraq war, as well as a spate of scandals including the disclosure that Republican House leaders knew of inappropriate emails to House pages from Florida Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned late last month. Voters' approval of Congress has fallen to 16% from 20% since early September, while their disapproval has risen to 75% from 65%.That is One. Stinky. Congress.
That 16% rating statistically matches Congress's lowest point in the 17 years the Journal and NBC have polled…
By 52% to 37%, voters say they want Democrats rather than Republicans to control Congress. That 15-point advantage is the widest ever registered by either party in the Journal/NBC surveys. Also, the result marks the first time voter preference for one party has exceeded 50%.
…Two-thirds of the electorate rates this year's Congress "below average" or "one of the worst" -- the poorest showing on that question since it was first asked in 1990.
It looks like the voters are offering up an October Surprise of their own. It’s about bloody time.
Question of the Day
It occurred to me yesterday, when I arrived at home and inhaled, that I've got a bit of a weird obsession.
I was smelling one of the new pumpkin candles I got over the weekend. Actually, I should say, one of the new pumpkin candles that I added to the stockpile. See, pumpkin stuff only comes out during this time of the year... a little bit before Halloween, and a little while into November, before we're completely smothered with Christmas. And if you like pumpkin candles, you've got to stock up so you don't run out before January rolls around.
And I like pumpkins.
I mean, I really like them. It's a little silly how much I like them. And it's more than just liking pumpkins themselves... I mean... I even find their basic shape very aesthetically pleasing and comforting. They're the perfect shade of orange, my favorite color. Not that brash Florida oranges orange, but a soothing autumn mellow orange. (Autumn is my favorite time of year, in case you couldn't tell.) They even look cool when they're growing, with their curly vines and whatnot. Strolling through a pumpkin patch is so autumn-y, I can barely stand it. I've actually considered getting a little pot of dirt and trying to grow one pumpkin on our porch.
Pumpkin pie? So delicious, I could eat nothing else for the rest of my life. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin sauces, pumpkin ravioli, baked pumpkin with brown sugar... gimmie gimmie gimmie. I can eat an entire bag of pumpkin seeds in one sitting. I bought a pumpkin cookbook, even though the husband hates the taste of pumpkin and squash and I'll probably never make anything out of it.
Jack O'Lanterns. How cool are they? Nothing else so perfectly encapsulates the greatest holiday ever, Halloween. And how can you not simply love that smell a jack o'lantern emits when the candle inside is lightly cooking the pumpkin lid? Confession: I once actually considered buying a jack o'lantern beanie baby. I've bought jack o'lantern toys for the dog, just because *I* wanted to see her play with them.
Hell, I even like the way the word "pumpkin" sounds.
Have I embarrassed myself enough yet? Obviously, I need help. Lots and lots of help. In the meantime, I'm going to burn my pumpkin candles, eat a pumpkin muffin, drink some pumpkin coffee, and say "pumpkin" until my eyes cross and I pass out.
So, what about you? Are there any weird little all-encompassing obsessions you have? Or am I alone here? Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? *tap tap tap*
