Silent Right
In November 2005, two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed by US Marines. In May 2006, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) said that the massacre, known by the its location, Haditha, was carried out in cold blood. His comments unleashed a cataclysmic fury in the rightwing blogosphere, reaching a fevered crescendo a month later with Ann Coulter suggesting Murtha ought to be fragged.
Yesterday: "The U.S. military on Thursday charged four Marines with murder and four others with dereliction of duty in the 2005 killing of 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, scene of what Iraqi witnesses say was a massacre by American troops."
Any noises of amends from the Right? Any notion that, charges now having been brought, perhaps calling for Murtha's death was a bit premature? Nope.
Quelle surprise.
Happy Holidays!
Walls for the wind,
And a roof for the rain,
And drinks beside the fire;
Laughter to cheer you,
And those you love near you,
And all that your heart may desire.
~Irish blessing
Be well, be safe. I'll see you on the other side of the holidays!
Thank You
One of the reasons I've never been very good at asking for help is because I always feel I'm quite terrible at conveying how appreciative I am for it. So, bearing in mind my awkward incompetence, please accept my fervent gratitude to everyone who so graciously offered their support, whether financial or a kind word or both, to Mr. Shakes and me after his accident on Tuesday. It really means so much to both of us to have such an amazing support network.
Sometimes I get ribbed a bit around here (which, as I'm sure you've notice, I don't mind in the least) for seeming weirdly optimistic at perhaps the most bemusing times. It's true that being a progressive blogger these past few years has certainly strained even the most resolute believers in the goodness of people, but it also means membership in an amazingly generous and supportive community of people. I have been the beneficiary of this generosity and support, and I have been as generous and supportive as I've been able as we have pulled together on behalf of bloggers who lost their computers or their jobs or simply couldn't make rent one month.
In every case, there has arrived a conservative or two or ten to exploit a vulnerability and grouse about the person being helped taking "unearned" money from strangers. Conservatives say they believe the pulling together of community, the generosity of others to help those in need, is precisely on what those in need should rely, rather than the government, but in the end, it seems, what many of them really believe is that people with a bit of bad luck deserve no help, nor sympathy, nothing but misery and mockery as they slowly fall off the edge. In the end, it turns out, the best conservatives seem to be progressives.
And I am, and shall always be, profoundly thankful and proud to blog among you.
Bill O'Reilly: Wrong Again
According to Bill O'Reilly, expert on all things Woman and all things Christmas, "women who like artificial trees ... have artificial breasts."
This is, of course, total bullshit. My titties are 100% Natural Grade Double-D and I love artificial trees. [May be NWS.]
Happy Holidays from Shakes Manor!
Joementum
Washington Wire (via): "After Bayh exits Democrats' 2008 presidential race, Biden's camp insists he's in. One adviser notes the Delaware Democrat's $5.5 million raised through September represents more new money than most would-be rivals to Clinton and Obama. The 34-year Senate veteran will announce an exploratory committee after New Year's, citing foreign-policy experience and the fact that he has never lived in Washington."
Hmm. Maybe that's because Biden has been doing dog-and-pony shows for largely Republican audiences. I'm sure it is easier to raise money at the Rotary Club riffing on the good ol' days of slavery than, say, spending time on a picket line with low-income workers. John Edwards should stop being such a goody two-shoes and start spending more time hobnobbing with bitchez with cash, yo.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
"What does a yellow light mean?"
"Slow down."
"What...does...a...yellow...light...mean?"
Question of the Day
What is your favorite pasta and/or sauce recipe?
I cook all my sauces from scratch, because neither Mr. Shakes nor I particularly care for very salty things and most jarred sauces are terribly salty. I'd love to be able to post one of my sauce recipes, but unfortunately I cook by instinct and don't ever measure anything, so it would just be a list of ingredients with portion descriptions like "lots" and "a good shaking" and "bunches." I'm great at showing people how to recreate my dishes, though!
My favorite pasta dish that I make is pasta tossed with prawns in an avocado cream sauce in which I use beautiful smooshily-ripe avocados and fresh asiago cheese. Yummy. Tres yummy.
[No round-up today, sorry. I've been running all over town for the last couple of hours, and now it's time for dinner... I'll get back to it tomorrow.]
My only question…
…after reading Mary Grabar's The Girls on The View, a charming screed which uses the frequent vapidity of a daytime talk show to illustrate "the danger of giving women the vote," is why, if a woman's opinion is only as valuable as the quality of guidance provided by "a man in the form of a husband or intellectual mentor," it is her name on the byline and not her husband's?
Or her intellectual mentor's, of course.
Proving yet again that sexism does a disservice to both women and men, and that sexism is inextricably tied to homobigotry, Grabar goes on to condemn the men who would let their women run so wild:
Probably many of the women watching the View are stay-at-home moms. But I question what kind of men they have for husbands, or "partners"; they’re probably English professors who have "Peace is Patriotic" bumper stickers on their Volvos. They’re probably the ones who work under department heads who have imposed the popular pedagogical policy of the "maternal presence" in the classroom. These male teachers try to be "facilitators" and nurture spoiled college students who are text-messaging insults about them as they drone on about the "other" and feelings. They write conference papers agreeing with their colleagues that the whole canon of dead white male authors should be eliminated to make way for women writers who eschew linear (read logical) and therefore patriarchal thought. They probably sit down to pee.Grabar goes on to condemn in vivid detail every possible feminine trapping she could presumably call to mind as she tapped out her column in between "mentoring sessions" with her husband, without whose guidance she would have no idea how silly and useless women are. She defends her position, however, by explaining that she is simply "not a typical woman. I read philosophy. I hate to shop. I don’t care what I’m wearing. Nothing in my house is coordinated. If I had been on The View I probably would have taken that old-lady-Elizabeth-Taylor-perfume out of the handbag that Rosie pulled up and dumped it on her head." I could say the same (and nearly have), although I don't pretend that my nonconformity confers upon me a superiority to women whose personalities and preferences more closely hold to any stereotype. It might blow Grabar's mind that I've even known women who enjoy baby showers and reading philosophy. Dear god, what madness!
…I know many women will disagree with me. They will be hurt. Maybe angry. There may be some tears. The lesbians will come to their defense.
Grabar, to her credit, is at least honest about to whom the thronging masses of independent-thinking women really pose a threat:
But it’s a sign of our crumbling civilization that a bunch of girls of varying ages and ethnic backgrounds, sitting around all dressed up for a coffee klatch, some of them with cleavage spilling out of Victoria’s Secret Infinity Edge Push-Up bras, spout off opinions borrowed from disturbed teenagers and Michael Moore, and call it a talk show.Uh huh. We uppity women with the temerity to have our own opinions and shit, who (gasp!) race mingle and look sexy in public and dare to believe our brains are as sufficiently equipped with the capacity for complex thought as a man's, we bitches and our lousy men who refuse to control us, we are a danger to conservatives. Not only are we likely to vote against them, but we're likely to raise entire generations of girls who also think for themselves, and boys who don't feel obliged to control them. Oh. Mah. Gawd.
This was the danger of giving women the vote. The danger to conservatives (and the survival of this country) is the voting bloc of single women, i.e., those who lack the guidance of a man in the form of a husband or intellectual mentor.
That would be very devastating to conservatives, all right. It's no wonder Grabar's hubby is telling her to get out there and write this important column. I hope she rewarded him with an indulgent blowjob for giving her such good advice. Or whatever gratuity intellectual mentors request of their female pupils these days.
(Thanks to Mike for passing that along.)
HOT HOT HOT
Appalachian State University is, like, totally hot or something. Found this at After School Snack, where Christopher says: "If I needed another degree, I'd definitely go to Appalachian State, just on the strength of this recruitment video." LOL.
Personally, I can't decide which bit I like best. I'm pretty partial to the picture they chose to accompany the lyrics: "Building our hopes / upon a great tradition."
A great tradition—you know, that straight old white dude tradition! *wink*
But then I also like the part where they try to prove they welcome black people, too, and as the male black gospel voice swells in the totally hot ASU theme song, they put up this picture:
See? Black people go here, too!
Tough call. The whole thing is really just magnificent from top to bottom. You've completely sold me, ASU. You totally are HOT HOT HOT!
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
A while ago, I posted about polar bears turning to cannibalism due to global warming. Unfortunately, these bears aren't the only ones having their natural patterns affected by climate change.
Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world.Apparently, warmer climates are making it possible for the bears' food to be available nearly year-round. As a result, they find it "energetically worthwhile" to stay awake and continue to forage.
In a December in which bumblebees, butterflies and even swallows have been on the wing in Britain, European brown bears have been lumbering through the forests of Spain's Cantabrian mountains, when normally they would already be in their long, annual sleep.
Bears are supposed to slumber throughout the winter, slowing their body rhythms to a minimum and drawing on stored resources, because frozen weather makes food too scarce to find. The barely breathing creatures can lose up to 40 per cent of their body weight before warmer springtime weather rouses them back to life.
But many of the 130 bears in Spain's northern cordillera - which have a slightly different genetic identity from bear populations elsewhere in the world - have remained active throughout recent winters, naturalists from Spain's Brown Bear Foundation (La Fundación Oso Pardo - FOP) said yesterday.
Now, I'm sure there are global warming deniers/pooh-poohers out there that would argue that this is a good thing. What's the problem? After all, there's more food for the bears! How is that a bad thing?
Well, providing the bears are actually finding enough food to live on, that's one way of looking at it. But, if anything, this should definitely be an indicator that global warming is definitely happening. When have we not looked to animal behavior as an indicator of current conditions? Dismissing it as a "good thing" because the bears are finding food is a simplistic way of making global warming seem less threatening. Bears abandoning the need to hibernate should be a pretty big red flag.
"Meteorological data in the high mountains is scarce, but it seems that the warming is more noticeable in the valleys where cold air accumulates," Dr GarcÃa Cordón said. "There is a decline in snowfall, and in the time snow remains on the ground, which makes access to food easier. As autumn comes later, and spring comes earlier, bears have an extra month to forage for food.Those bolded bits are the only part of this article that your average global warming denier will actually read. If it can't be proven, then it must not be happening; therefore, nothing needs to be done, and we can continue heating up the planet.
"We cannot prove that non-hibernation is caused by global warming, but everything points in that direction."
Spanish meteorologists predict that this year is likely to be the warmest year on record in Spain, just as it is likely to be the warmest year recorded in Britain (where temperature records go back to 1659). Globally, 2006 is likely to be the sixth warmest year in a record going back the mid-19th century.
Mark Wright, the science adviser to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the UK, said that bears giving up hibernation was "what we would expect" with climate change.
"It does not in itself prove global warming, but it is certainly consistent with predictions of it," he said. "What is particularly interesting about this is that hitherto the warming has seemed to be happening fastest at the poles and at high latitudes, and now we're getting examples of it happening further south, and heading towards the equator.
But, it is happening...
* The osprey found in the lochs and glens of the Scottish Highlands in the summer months, usually migrate to west Africa to avoid the freeze. This winter, osprey have been spotted in Suffolk and Devon. Swallows, which also normally migrate to Africa for the winter have been also seen across England this winter.... and the animals (and plants) know it.
* The red admiral butterfly, below, which hibernates in winter, has been spotted in gardens this month, as has the common darter dragonfly, usually seen between mid-June and October, which has been seen in Cheshire, Norfolk and Hampshire.
* The smew, a diving duck, flies west to the UK for winter from Russia and Scandinavia. This year, though, they have been mainly absent from the lakes and reservoirs between The Wash and the Severn.
* Evergreen ivy and ox-eye daisies are still blooming and some oak trees, which are usually bare by November, were still in leaf on Christmas Day last year.
* The buff-tailed bumblebee is usually first seen in spring. Worker bees die out by the first frost, while fertilised queen bees survive underground between March and September. This December, bees have been seen in Nottingham and York.
* Primroses and daffodils are already flowering at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, in Carmarthenshire. 'Early Sensation' daffodils usually flower from January until February. Horticulturalists put it down to the warm weather.
* Scientists in the Netherlands reported more than 240 wild plants flowering in the first 15 days of December, along with more than 200 cultivated species. Examples included cow parsley and sweet violets. Just two per cent of these plants normally flower in winter, while 27 per cent end their main flowering period in autumn and 56 per cent before October.
They'll deny it until we're up to our nipples in salt water, but something needs to be done, now.
Reason #1,339,862 that McCain Shouldn't Be President
It's no secret that McCain was pissed—PISSED!—that he lost the nomination in 2000 to a doofussy, undeserving whippersnapper named Dubya. It's also no secret that he lost in no small part because the doofussy, undeserving whippersnapper had in his employ a scheming and soulless operative named Karl Rove, who orchestrated lowdown, dirty whisper campaigns and "push polls" against McCain about his wife being a junky and his adopted Bangladeshi daughter being his illegitimate black child. And now it's no secret that the lesson McCain took away from that unscrupulous trouncing is that it doesn’t pay to have integrity at the top of the GOP anymore, so he's spent the intervening six years selling away every last scrap of his honor, piece by bloody piece.
Now that he's gearing back up for another run at the White House, McCain has decided to build himself a truly heinous campaign team, perfectly befitting the monstrous, stumbling zombie corpse of a once-credible and formerly honorable man that he has become. He started with hiring Terry Nelson, the man responsible for the infamous bimbo ad attacking Harold Ford, Jr. and who was wrapped up in Tom DeLay's criminal shenanigans, as his national campaign manager. And now he has hired Jill Hazelbaker as his communications director. Hazelbaker was exposed as a sockpuppeteer and a liar while working as Republican Tom Kean, Jr's. press secretary, using fake identities not only to defend the candidate for whom she worked but her own proficiency as his employee—and then repeatedly lying about doing it, even when she'd been totally busted.
It's understandable, in some sad and pitiable way, why McCain feels compelled to pull together the meanest, morally-challenged campaign team, after the hideous Rove Machine crushed him in 2000 and particularly since its specter haunts him yet; Jebby or Romney or Giuliani could certainly hire that gun and point it at McCain. Again. But the company a man keeps is important when considering whether he's fit for the presidency—a lesson we all should have learned by now. Bush surrounded himself with cretins, cronies, and yes-men, and look at how that turned out. No doubt McCain considers himself beyond the pitfalls to which Bush has succumbed, because McCain is inarguably more knowledgeable and thusly less dependent on aides and advisors than the ill-prepared, excruciatingly unqualified, and chronically incurious dopesack that beat him. But what of the men and women with whom he surrounds himself just to get there…?
Ambition can be a good, an admirable, thing—and an almost-unhealthy surfeit of it is probably a prerequisite for any presidential candidate. But it must be tempered with an equally obvious supply of zeal for service. Even those who dislike Hillary Clinton would have a difficult time making the case against the existence of her clear enthusiasm for service, for finding solutions, for being a part of government, in equal measure to her ambition to govern. The same, I would once have said, was true for McCain—but no longer. His ambition has eclipsed his willingness to serve; the presidency has become a prize he feels he has earned. That he is keen to hire people who are demonstrably willing to do Whatever It Takes to Win is further evidence that winning is the last thing he deserves.
*Snicker*
Something else to make the "a MUSLIM was elected to CONGRESS and wants to swear in on teh KORAN OMG!!!!!!!111!!!" hysterics wet their short pants:
Mohammed Overtakes George in List of Popular Names
Mohammed, and its most common alternative spelling Muhammad, are now more popular babies' names in England and Wales than George, reflecting the diverse ethnic mix of the population.Of course, this is in the UK... but I do predict some more hysterical "start having more babies, white people!" editorials.
The Office for National Statistics said there were 2,833 baby boys called Mohammed in 2006.
The name is 22nd in the list of most popular boys' names, moving up a place from last year.
Spelled Muhammad, it is the 44th most popular name and enters the top 50 for the first time along with Noah, Oscar, Lucas and Rhys.So... they could have titled the article "Mohammed Overtakes Joseph in List of Popular Names." I can't imagine why they chose to use "George" instead.
There were 2,833 babies called Mohammed born in 2006 and 1,422 called Muhammad. The total exceeds the number of Georges (3,386) or Josephs (3,755).
Heh.
Two other things:
There were 38 babies called Cruz (after David Beckham's third child) this year, raising the name from 1,508th to 650th. There were 14 Peaches (after the daughter of Bob Geldof), raising that name from 4,509th to 1,561st.People. Stop naming your child after the child of a celebrity. Just... stop it. It demeans us all as a species.
As usual, the boys' top 50 is more stable, but Harrison jumped six places to number 36. Alfie, Cameron and Henry all rose five places to numbers 16, 30 and 39 respectively.I'm just glad to see that I'm not the only person that likes the name "Alfie." I don't know if I'd curse a kid with that name, but I do like it.
What's it all about, Alfie?
The No-Account has left him with No Future.
Poor Jebby.
"No tengo futuro (I have no future)," Jeb Bush told Spanish-language reporters in Miami, when asked about any possible political ambitions after he steps down next month.Wah wah wah. It would be a damn shame if we didn't get a third President Bush after the first two were so awesome. Yeesh.
The popular, two-term governor has often been touted as a savvy politician with a good chance of following both his brother and father, George H.W. Bush, into the White House.
But the unpopularity and dismal job-approval ratings of his brother may have scuttled any plans Jeb Bush may have had for a future in politics after running one of America's most crucial swing states for the past eight years.
Floridian Mustang Bobby comments: "Compared to his brother, Jeb is the smarter of the two (then again, so is the philodendron I have in my living room), and he hasn't completely trashed the place. That, however, is not a positive recommendation for a job: 'He didn't screw up too badly'."
Indeed. Let's just retire the Bushes, yes? Enjoy your time on the ranch, boys, doing whatever it is you nutbags do until Babs yells at you to knock it off before she whips your ass with the pearls.
Fuck Trump
So Donald Trump is threatening to sue Rosie O'Donnell for reasons about which he's being pointlessly coy. (She talks smack about him—duh.) Now, quite honestly, I have no great love for either of these people, both of whom can be amusingly clever but also ridiculously annoying—and neither of whom are any stranger to being rude and offensive. But check this out—in his tirade on Access Hollywood about how he's going to sue O'Donnell, Trump throws in this unbelievable comment:
Rosie is somebody out of control, who really just doesn't have it, and she ought to be careful, because I'll send one of my friends to pick up her girlfriend, and I think it would be very easy.And if you watch the video at the link, you can hear whatever dumb woman who's interviewing him off-camera start laughing. "Oh no!" she giggles, like it's a big fucking joke to threaten to kidnap someone. In the story at the link, this comment is reported as "He also sent a stern warning over O'Donnell's outburst and suggested she watch her partner." Uh, no. He also made an overt threat against O'Donnell that she'd better stop criticizing him or else he'd hurt the person closest to her, which is a criminal act, not "a stern warning."
The fact that it was framed as "a stern warning" and elicited an amused "Oh no!" from the woman interviewing Trump is fucked up on so many levels, with issues of sex, sexuality, class, and power all at work, I barely know where to begin. If O'Donnell threatened to have Trump's wife kidnapped, it would absolutely not be called "a stern warning," but a threat, which it precisely what it is. But coming from a powerful and extremely wealthy man, directed at a woman—and a woman whose partner is also a woman, no less—it's just "a stern warning," which sounds for all the world like an admonishment issued by Daddy. Of course O'Donnell is herself wealthy and powerful, but not in the same league as Trump—the audience for her all-female chatfest is mostly housewives, after all. He does the business of men. She's middle class all the way. He's champagne and caviar. And when you piss off champagne and caviar, you'd better "be careful" or your girlfriend is toast.
Trump, man among men and issuer of stern warnings, likes a little toast with his fish eggs.
Heaven knows, if anyone bothers to call Trump on this thuggish bullshit, he'll just explain it away as "a joke" (though it clearly wasn't intended as such), and woe to O'Donnell if she doesn't have a good yuk over the uproarious threats against her partner. Trump can then add "humorless" to his list of complaints against O'Donnell (which also include "fat" and "unattractive"). NBC should immediately sever ties with Trump for making such unconscionable threats, but they won't. Much of their prime-time programming depends on sexist and homophobic swill, and making fun of "ugly" people, so Trump's stern warning against two lesbians will no doubt make them proud as a peacock.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
The intro to this show was pitifully short, so
enjoy this hawt AMV set to Eiffel 65's Turn Around.
