Oh My Stars and Garters!
I do believe he has given me the vapors!
Non-Virtual Dem Headquarters Break-in
Here's an interesting wrinkle... vandalism and theft at Democratic Headquarters this week aren't limited to the virtual world. Concord and Manchester in New Hampshire have been hit recently, and the story is a little strange:
Break into one office, take nothing... then another office is broken into, and computers are stolen.The burglary over the weekend at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s Concord headquarters came five weeks after a break-in at a Democratic Party office in Manchester.
The door to the Manchester Democratic Committee office was broken down sometime over the weekend of Jan. 20 to 21, according to party officials and the Manchester police. Raymond Buckley, chairman of the city Democrats and vice chairman of the state Democratic Party, said he doesn’t believe anything was taken from or vandalized in the Manchester office, and he dismissed any connection between that incident and the burglary of the party’s headquarters in Concord last weekend.
Several Democrats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that laptops and other equipment had been taken from the [Concord] party headquarters, though they said it appears that any sensitive information was protected by passwords or stored on servers that were not taken from the building.
It'll be very interesting to see what this investigation turns up.
Upcoming radio interview on LaVena Johnson
I've been invited to do a live radio interview on The Sloan Ranger Show with host Lloyd Sloan regarding Pfc. LaVena Johnson and the drive to have the Army reinvestigate her suspicious death in Iraq. The interview is scheduled for Friday, March 9; the interview is slated for 6:15 pm Central. (The overall show runs from 5 pm to 7 pm.) Locally (St. Louis), that's AM920, WGNU.
The show can be heard over the Web; you're invited not only to listen in (the “listen live” link is on the top right side of the masthead), but to call in with questions or comments. I'll answer as best I can.
Local callers: 314-454-0400
Toll free: 1-877-920-WGNU (9468)
Don't forget to sign the petition! Thanks much.
(Lest I forget: On the show, they'll most likely call me by my name - Philip Barron - rather than "Waveflux.")
(Cross-posted.)
We're Such Dirty Bitchez!
In what has to be one of the most pathetic wastes of time and energy I've ever seen, some dude has calculated that the top 18 progressive blogs use Carlin's "seven dirty words" (shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits, for the uninitiated) way more than the top 22conservative blogs. Evidently, the ratio is 18:1. Scandalous!
Unsurprisingly, Shakespeare's Sister was right at the top of the list of "potty mouths."
I love how Bitch, PhD doesn't even get her name spelled out.
Our big, fat, potty-mouthed ranking might seem a particularly impressive feat considering that Shakes doesn't have in-page commenting, but, on the other hand, it's decidedly less impressive when one considers my uses of "cunt" or "tits" are often references to my own actual body parts, or part of a discussion of someone else using the former as an insult.
Anyhow, you can find all the idiotic details of this important undertaking at Instaputz, where Blue Texan concisely makes the case for why counting naughtywords is, perhaps, not the best way to prove "that it's the right which is still concerned with ideas while it's the left that's obsessed with the lowest kind of hateful invective."
Ohhh-kay. Let's do a trial run.Yeah. Pretty much.
Putz: What we really should be doing is killing Iranian civilians. Heh.
Malkin: Exactly. And the NY Times publishers should be locked up for treason.
Denny K: Yeah! Let's hunt them down and find out where their kids go to school.
Coulter: My only regret is that Tim McVeigh didn't blow up the NY Times.
Misha: Forget the Times, I want the Supremes. Five robes, five ropes, five trees.
Lefty Blogger: You're all fucking crazy.
InstaPunk: See? The lefty bloggers are more hateful.
…[W]hy not run a few chapters of Mein Kampf or The Turner Diaries through your little Shrill Detector, and then compare those results with a Richard Pryor set from the '70s.
Idiots.
This whole thing reminds me of nothing so much as the whole person of faith vs. person of genuine good will dichotomy, in which, as long as one asserts to be "a person of (an approved) faith," one is presumed to be a person of genuine good will, often in spite of all evidence to the contrary. People of genuine good will are either religious or they're not, but it doesn't matter because that's not what defines them; their behavior does. Here, it's not the actual ideas being expressed that matter; it's whether one uses naughtywords. In either case, content and belief count far less than appearances. May you be known only by your façade.
I have indeed used the seven dirty words—and lots of other objectionable vocabulary, when the legendary seven won't do—in plenty of instances. You see, I find the Bush administration, the modern conservative movement, and its assorted accomplishments, including war, torture, and an astonishing contempt for the rule of law, absolutely obscene, and obscenity of that magnitude deserves, at minimum, the occasional verbal obscenity in response. I'm not interested in being polite about an unjust war. I don't feel particularly inclined to be polite about state-sanctioned torture. I'm not compelled to be polite about the determined dismantling of our Constitution. But being impolite is not the same as being hateful.
That distinction isn't, however, something I expect those who celebrate the same things I abhor to understand.
Much has been made, since Bill Donohue took notice of me, of my moniker Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain, the ultimate evidence, natch, of what a filthy, horrid little person I am. Well, it's as good a time as any to revisit from whence it came:
Too many of us speak in calm and measured tones when there’s so much at stake. You won’t find that here. …This blogger, this American, is as mad as hell, and she’s not going to take it anymore.If the worst thing anyone can honestly say about the writers of Shakespeare's Sister is that we can be foul-mouthed because we're passionate about defending our vision of America from thieves and thugs, well, fuck—I'd say we're not doing too badly.
On a related note, fearing that we face a whole new level of bullshit about which we will, and should, be visibly angry, and preparing myself thusly, comments and emails composed specifically to tell me to stop using bad language or to start being less aggressive, less hostile, less antagonistic, less bitchy, less arrogant, less belligerent, less vitriolic, less nasty, less acerbic, or less of a poopyhead, are as welcome as any other, but I feel obligated to inform all potential authors of such missives that they are, however, a waste of time.
If I get my facts wrong, let me know. If you don’t like my tone, tough. At this bus stop in the blogosphere, I’m Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain, and I’m mean for a reason. Once we get our country back on the right track, there will plenty of time for nursery rhymes.
Oy
JMM:
Because of a weapons program that may not even have existed (and no one ever thought was far advanced) the White House got the North Koreans to restart their plutonium program and then sat by while they produced a half dozen or a dozen real nuclear weapons—not the Doug Feith/John Bolton kind, but the real thing.Hilzoy:
It's a screw-up that staggers the mind. And you don't even need to know this new information to know that. Even if the claims were and are true, it was always clear that the uranium program was far less advanced than the plutonium one, which would be ready to produce weapons soon after it was reopened. Now we learn the whole thing may have been a phantom.
We used to have a deal, the Agreed Framework, that kept North Korea from getting plutonium. We supposedly discovered that they were cheating on that deal by enriching uranium....Robert Farley:
If they didn't have a uranium program, then we scrapped the Agreed Framework, and let North Korea access its plutonium and build nuclear weapons, FOR NOTHING.
North Korea has nuclear weapons today because George W. Bush is a stupid, stupid man.cleek:
i wonder how this will turn out to be Clinton's fault...Chet:
Sometimes I think that when historians of the future write the history of the Bush administration, they will marvel at how the United States didn't just implode, with such a bunch of clowns running the place. Maybe the saving grace is the country's federal structure. If there weren't the extra layer of state governments able to keep some basic infrastructure going, the place might have collapsed like a soufflé already.Me: When, on January 29, 2002, President Bush famously dubbed Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the Axis of Evil, I wasn't particularly concerned about any of their capacity to "threaten the peace of the world … pose a grave and growing danger … provide arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred … attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States." I'm concerned now.
Mind you, I'm not saying I thought these were countries led by well-intentioned men and filled with happy, well-fed, and content people who danced their days away alongside unicorns. I'm saying that I thought what threat the regimes in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea posed was regional—and mostly pointed at their own people, which, no matter how outrageous and deserving of our attention (*cough* Darfur *cough*), still isn't the same thing as an imminent threat to America. Or "the world."
Bush said, after identifying the axis of evil, that "the price of indifference would be catastrophic." Good thing we had Mr. Man O'Action at the helm then, eh?
Eeeeeewwwwwwww...
So, how long is it going to be before Glenn Beck is tossed out on his fat 'n pasty? As if his past shenannigans weren't enough to make your gorge rise, wait until you see this:
Put this clip in the dictionary under "Uncomfortable Silence." I love how we on the "left wing" are taking all kinds of tut-tutting from the right about our naughty, naughty language, but in the meantime, this kind of sexist, sleazy scumbaggery gets a free pass.BECK: Dina, let me tell you something. I don`t think you have to be famous. I think you just work in the average environment in America now, somebody would get a picture of you, and then it would be posted all around, and it will happen in your office.
SANSING: Possibly.
BECK: You don`t think so?
SANSING: Well, it depends. You know, it depends…
BECK: Dina, I`ve got some time and a camera. Why don`t you stop by? No? OK.
Frankly, I'd rather hear all of George Carlin's "seven words" on television (shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits, for you keeping score) every day than hear Glen Beck make another sleazy innuendo. That guy just drips grease.
Quote of the Day
Yesterday, actually: "Anyone remember when George Allen was the unstoppable force for the Republican nomination for president? Good times." — Ezra.
V for Vandalism
John Edwards' Vandalized Second Life Headquarters
One of the reasons I had been really excited to take the job with the Edwards campaign is because their internet outreach is truly cutting edge. Case in point: John Edwards was the first presidential candidate to open virtual headquarters in Second Life, an online, 3-D, virtual world built and owned by its over 4 million users/residents.
But fates forbid that conservative wankers could resist destroying it.
Shortly before midnight (CST) on Monday, February 26, a group of republican Second Life users, some sporting "Bush '08" tags, vandalized the John Edwards Second Life HQ. They plastered the area with Marxist/Leninist posters and slogans, a feces spewing obscenity, and a photoshopped picture of John in blackface, all the while harassing visitors with right-wing nonsense and obscenity-laden abuse of Democrats in general and John in particular.Completely pathetic. I mean, just truly, deeply, contemptibly sad. Only an absolute slack-jawed moron could so thoroughly delight in such wanton destruction of a virtual property because of ideological differences.
I witnessed this event, taking names and photos, including the owners of the pictures. I also kept and saved a copy of the chat log. I have filed an abuse report with Linden Labs, and am awaiting their investigation.
I'm so utterly sick of there being not the teensiest wee shred of "live and let live" among the worst elements of the rightwing—they've got to silence and destroy everything and anyone who disagrees with them. They live to ruin and demolish and spoil—and if anyone different than them has the temerity to be having fun or feeling good for one bloody second, the sorry blighters can't resist swooping in to piss all over the parade, then revel in their own success. Bullies—all of them.
It's so childish, so petty, so pointlessly cruel. I've never understood bullies, and I never bloody will. Fucking wankstains.
(Related: You may remember this previous discussion about Second Life, in which rape was put up for sale.)
Katrina Survivors to Bush: We Rebuke You
Bush will be in New Orleans today. A Rebuke of Bush is planned at 2pm. Via Humid City is the statement of rebuke from Katrina Survivors....Pass it on.JOIN THE KATRINA SURVIVORS’ REBUKE OF PRESIDENT BUSHIf you have a blog please consider posting this today.
2:00 PM THURSDAY MARCH 1
SAMUEL GREEN SCHOOL
2319 VALENCE ST.
(Near Freret and Napoleon)
NEW ORLEANS
New Orleans Needs Federal Aid, Not Presidential Photo-Ops.
Mr. President: Katrina Survivors Do Not Welcome You, We Rebuke You!
We live in a devastated city and you are a big part of the reason why it sill sits in ruins. Your administration has abandoned our children by savaging their public schools. Your administration has tortured our working class people by refusing to reopen the city’s public housing developments. And your administration is fully complicit in placing our uninsured in harms way by ruthlessly pursuing the privatization of local public healthcare in the aftermath of Katrina. And, finally your administration is guilty of sending our sons and daughters of to war for oil and empire just when we need them most to help us rebuild our community.
Mr. President, we, Katrina Survivors all, do not welcome you to our city, we rebuke you!
Sponsored by Survivors Village, United Front For Affordable Housing.
Petition: Reopen the LaVena Johnson investigation
I received a letter from a gentleman who asked if there was a letter circulating which demands that the Army reopen its investigation of the death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson. Something that people might sign and pass along to others.
I replied that there was no such letter so far as I knew. But it was a good idea. There ought be such an opportunity for people work both individually and communally to help the Johnson family determine the truth of what happened to their daughter. And now there is.
This web-based petition to the Armed Services Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives asks the members of those bodies to compel the Army to reexamine the clouded circumstances of the death of LaVena Johnson. Please read the petition. Please sign it. Please share it with everyone you know. Thank you.
(Other suggestions for action can be found here.)
(Cross-posted.)
Question of the Day
If you were asked to describe yourself using only one word, what word would you choose?
I think I'd go with irrepressible, which can be both complimentary and critical, depending on context, and each are certainly applicable when the context is me.
It's been that kind of a day
Apparently, I was so overwhelmed to see that Shakes was up and running again that I deleted both the Star Trek post I'd written earlier and the most likely (I didn't get to read them) very insightful comments that went along with it.
No, it doesn't make any sense at all. And yet it happened.
I'd like to blame Blogger for this, but I don't think I can.
We're Back
Sorry for silence today, Shakers.
Huge Stinking Turdz: The blog evidently got flagged by some sort of Blogger bot as a possible spam site and locked us all out until a human being could verify that the reason for all the links is because we're a BIG, BUSY BLOG WHOSE CONTRIBUTORS LIKE TO POST A LOT!!!
But we're back up now, and there are three new posts for your reading pleasure below that were waiting in the queue during lockdown. Onward, bitchez.
Supporting the Troops
Bad Soldier. No biscuit.
Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.Doubleplusgood. I suppose they should be grateful that they weren't simply sealed into blocks of lucite and taken to that warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant is hidden.
“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.
Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.
They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.
Meanwhile, it's time to add a new enemy to the Axis of Evil... Cavity Creeps! After all, they're the ones causing our soldiers to seek medical help, not mental disorders or physical problems! It's all about the choppers, and I don't mean helicopters.
Video at the first link, if you can stomach it. Forget those 73,000 veterans with mental disorders. Forget the 61,000 with diseases of the nervous system. It's all about the toofies. It's just "possible" that they're coming in because of problems associated with the war.Through the lens of his own personal recovery from a traumatic brain injury suffered in Iraq, ABC’s Bob Woodruff last night examined the plight of military families dealing with injuries to their loved ones.
While the Department of Defense reports that there have been about 23,000 nonfatal battlefield casualties in Iraq, Woodruff reported — through an internal VA document — that more than 200,000 veterans have sought medical care for various ailments.
When Woodruff confronted VA Secretary Jim Nicholson about the disparity in the administration’s figures, Nicholson responded that Americans are probably “surprised to know that 200,000 come to the VA for some kind of medical treatment. That’s probably more than they think.” But Nicholson quickly downplayed the high numbers, claiming a lot of veterans simply “come in for dental problems.”
The Extreme Silliness of the Silliest Subject of the Silly Season
The Silliest Subject, in case you're just tuning into this Silly Season, is Matching Parts Voting. Waveflux and I, having Matching Parts—respectively: he, skin; I, ovaries—to the two candidates bringing whole new parts to the Silly Season this year, have had a bit of fun discussing this phenomenon. And if there are any journos, pundits, or advisors reading who are curious whether it's offensive to assume that Matching Parts guarantees a vote, I've got several snarktastic email exchanges between Wave and I which I'd be happy to share.
Or, you could just read Wave's brilliantly titled post Obama's skin causes IQs to drop sharply, wankery to rise, and my note here in its comment thread: "And you know I'll be voting for Hillary, just because we both have vaginas! Wheeeeeeeeeeee!"
I guess the best you can do when so many people assume seeing Matching Parts makes (white?) women and black people (how do black women choose?!) lose all capacity for rational, critical thought, is laugh. And laugh I did as I grabbed this screen capture off Memeorandum earlier:
The problem now, you see, is that the media was saying for so long that Obama wasn't authentically black enough to explain why he wasn't as popular as Hillary with black voters, so now that he's gaining traction, it will look like all kinds of silliness as various news organizations get up to speed with the new meme at different times and try to explain why he's now, apparently, authentically black enough. It couldn't possibly be that Obama, first-term junior senator from Illinois, was simply an unknown quantity to most of America, and, as he becomes better known, more Americans of all races will embrace him. (How could they not?—he's so clean and articulate, right, Joe?) Honestly, the silliness is almost as astounding as the insult of treating entire demographic blocks like half-witted Pavlov's dogs who think they'll get a magical treat if they pull the lever for Matched Parts.
Jill notes that the trend appears to be "the longer Hillary's campaign goes on and the more arrogantly it behaves, the less people like her." Seems like there might be something to that—except my vagina keeps insisting she's The One…
Congratulations, Mayor Daley
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley cruised to victory for the sixth time last night, garnering over 70% of the vote.
A jubilant Daley walked into a ballroom of the Chicago Hilton & Towers to the strains of "Takin' Care of Business" and, in a speech that lasted just a few minutes, claimed victory before excited supporters.LOL—"Takin' Care of Business." That's so Daley.
Daley, 64, was first elected mayor in 1989. If he serves out his term, he will surpass his father's time in office on Dec. 26, 2010, when he hits 7,915 days as mayor.Last night, as Mr. Shakes and I were watching the returns, we were just laughing about how crazy it is for anyone to run against Daley. The dude doesn't even have to campaign—we saw maybe three campaign ads for him, and they were all during the last week.
"Who's goona voote against Daley?!" said Mr. Shakes.
"I know, right?" I replied. "The guy's an institution. It would be like voting against the Sears Tower."
[Mannion once posted my favorite picture ever of Richard J. Daley, the aforementioned record-holding father of Richard M. Daley.]
