Shakesville

Polling Trolling

One poll says that the Republicans have a lead over Hillary Clinton. Another says that Sen. Clinton has a lead over every Republican. Both are from ostensibly neutral and scientific polling organizations -- Zogby and Gallup -- and both stake their reputation on their results, or they wouldn't have published them.

Polling is an extremely statistic-laden science that most people, including yours truly, do not presume to understand or even bother reading. We just look at the headlines and take from them what we want...not unlike the Oracle of Delphi, whose cryptic revelations could be either good or bad depending on the agenda of the questioner. Pollsters themselves know that they are dealing with a shifting and detached electorate, and asking who they want for president eleven months before the general election is always problematic; the voters aren't really paying attention to the presidential race and are probably answering the pollsters' questions based on who's name they've heard most recently. Trying to predict the outcome of an election without the first vote being cast is roughly equivalent to predicting the win-loss record of the 2008 Detroit Tigers based on the size of Brandon Inge's biceps.

At this time in 2003, Howard Dean led the Democratic field, John Kerry was in third place, and several polls indicated that any Democrat would beat an embattled George W. Bush. We all know how that turned out. So read the polls and rejoice or weep for the moment, knowing that the next one will be just as certainly enigmatic as the last one.

Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Alleged Lott Loverboy Nixes Rumor

Late yesterday, I posted an item rumoring that the reason behind Trent Lott's resignation from Congress was a rent boy stage-named Benjamin Nicholas. Now Max Follmer reports at the HuffPo that BN is dousing the red hot rumor with the cold water of categorical denial.

"There's nothing to be said, as Lott and I have no connection whatsoever," Nicholas wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "How these 'quotes' have been fabricated are beyond me. The Senator is someone I have had no personal dealings with, ever."

In a subsequent posting on his own Web site, Nicholas wrote, "I have not, nor have I ever seen or had contact with Senator Trent Lott. It's as simple as that. It never happened."

So: Not True according to the escort, and I'm going to guess Not True according to the Senator who purportedly procured his services, though I haven't seen an official denial from Lott. Anyone surprised there's been no tearful confession? No? Didn't think so.

Then again, maybe there's really nothing to confess, anyway. Except, perhaps, just boring old run-of-the-mill avarice.

Stay tuned.

"I Just Lost It"

Rafael Robb, a tenured economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, faces a likely prison sentence of 4 ½ to seven years for the December 22 bludgeoning of his wife, Ellen. She was planning to move out the next month and seek a divorce after a rocky 16-year marriage.

Robb, 57, testified Monday that he argued with his wife about a trip she and their daughter were taking over the holiday break. He did not want the 12-year-old to miss any school.

"We started a discussion about that. The discussion was tense," Robb said. "We were both anxious about it. We both got angry. At one point, Ellen pushed me. ... I just lost it."

Robb said he picked up the chin-up bar, which was lying nearby, and struck his wife with it repeatedly. ... The 49-year-old homemaker was found dead in the kitchen, near the partially wrapped presents.

Huh. I wonder if the daughter missed any school to, say, attend a funeral or, oh I dunno, intensive therapy sessions after her father bludgeoned her mother to death.

I also love this: "Robb adored his daughter Olivia and feared he would see less of her in a divorce." Well, he's bound to see her absolute tons while he's in prison!

WTF is wrong with people?

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

The Cosby Show

Opening sequence from Season 2.

Quote of the Day

"Doesn't it go without saying: if Klein doesn't have the time or background to understand what he's writing about, then he ought not to write about it? Doesn't anyone at Time agree with that?"—Glenn Greenwald, going after the idiot Joe Klein with the fearsome tenacity of a junkyard dog, and deservedly so.

Question of the Day

Every year around this time, I know which of my friends are going to be joyfully singing about how much they just love love love the holiday season, and which of my friends are going to be moaning about how much they hate the holiday season and can't wait for it to be over. And then there's me, right in the middle, classically unsentimental and pretty indifferent about the whole thing, just looking forward to spending a couple non-working lazy days with Mr. Shakes doing whatevthefuck we want.

So...are you a holiday-lover, a holiday-hater, or are you even shrugging at the mere question?

Lott Had a Boytoy?

So sayeth Big Head DC:

Once upon a time, there was a twentysomething boy-next-door type with reddish blond hair and a brilliantly white smile. Not one to shy away from attention, he wrote a blog called “Fifteen Minutes,” and also became a freelance writer for various publications, including The Stranger in Seattle. He’d often focus on his non-traditional lifestyle as a gay male escort — a topic that often fascinated his readers, which, in turn, helped him to garner a substantial amount of powerful business acquaintances through the years.

Based in San Antonio, he would travel all over the world to meet his clients, which included high profile celebrities, businessmen and even politicians in the United States Congress.

This boy-next-door type gay male escort is stage-named Benjamin Nicholas, and he's fiercely discrete and protective of his clients, even having scolded escort Mike Jones for outing Ted Haggard. But Big Head DC has "learned he's alleged to have been involved with is the married Sen. Trent Lott," who abruptly announced his retirement earlier today. Nicholas declined to comment earlier in the day for Big Head DC's story, except to say that having no comment was "the professional thing" for him to do, but the following update was added at 5:30:

"Here's my public comment, on-the-record: Sen. Lott and I have no current affiliation with one another. I'm sure he would appreciate no further scrutiny," Benjamin Nicholas tells Big Head DC.

I'll bet he would.

Maybe that's what this was all about.

Caption This Photo

Gore: Adouchehoundsayswhat?

Bush: What?
U.S. President George W. Bush (R) hosts a meeting with 2007 Nobel Award winners in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington November 26, 2007. At left is Peace Prize winner and former U.S. vice president Al Gore. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES)

Breaking News from Cloud Cuckoo

John McCain is proud to be a maverick. Cool. Good for him. And I'm proud to be an astronaut.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Since she brought it up...

A bitch was pleased to read that Senator Clinton would increase funding into autism research and education, but I’d like to see some of that money go to adult autistics too.

Oh, I know that the press is in love with autism right now because the revised spectrum has resulted in a better understanding of just how common an autism diagnosis is. But the press has failed…horribly…to point out that autism is not a childhood illness just because symptoms appear when a person is a child.

Autistics grow up. Education is great and more funding will certainly help the many families who can not afford programs that will help their child become an adult who can participate in society. But autistics grow up and that 1 in 150 estimated figure should be a warning bell to policy makers that major funding increases in adult care and job training programs are needed now and sure as shit will be needed in a few years.

So go forth and fund research for a cure and research into treatments. I hope all the candidates intend to fund education and expand the availability of those programs to all families. But all y’all need to know that the thousands of autistic adults who woke up autistic today and will, by the grace of God, wake up autistic tomorrow need a commitment to healthcare, job training, work programs and residential care.

I’ll say it one more time…autistics grow up.

This Missouri voter would like some of that $700 million to go towards funding adult programs for people like my older autistic as hell but loves to work brother so his ability to participate and add value to our community isn’t on the quarterly cutting block. A bitch would like everyone and anyone who talks about autism to recognize that some of us caregivers are siblings or aunts or uncles or even cousins. As autistics grow up my family’s story will be more common…siblings emerging as co-guardians when parents are no longer there.

My brother is 37 years old…he ain’t a child anymore…and I will welcome funding that acknowledges that. Senator Clinton’s proposal it is a good first step.

Cross Posted at AngryBlackBitch.com.

I Am a Huge Nerd

You all knew that already, but I just needed to say it once again, to cushion the imminent blow of mind-shattering nerdity, because I'm about to admit to one of my nerdiest of all nerderiffic pastimes: I love to watch videos of Rube Goldberg machines on YouTube.

I once hinted at this obsession by linking to a most excellent RG machine originally found by The Disgruntled Chemist, but I didn't really come all the way out of the closet with my fetish.

Well, now here I am in all my glory. I'm a Rube Goldberg voyeur—I don't need to build my own machines; I just like to watch. So this will pretty much be like my own personal porn:

The Discovery Channel is casting for a reality show called "Super Rubes," in which the contestants will build elaborate Rube Goldberg machines.
Super Rubes is a weekly one-hour show that follows a band of talented creators as they design, build, and set off a massive Chain Reaction Machine in front of a cheering crowd. The point of a Chain Reaction Machine is to do something very simple, like turn on a light bulb, using as many steps as possible. This is an opportunity for engineers to let their creative hair down and have some fun building a giant Chain Reaction Machine. Our team will take on impossible challenges (i.e. "Can you crack an egg with a human hair?") in a race against the clock.
Link

Ooh yeah, baby.

Now I just need someone to build me a machine from a ruler, an empty paper towel roll, six marbles, and an eggbeater that will sensually massage my feet every time I tune the remote to the Discovery Channel.

If You're Happy and You Know It...

...clap your hands. 721 times in one minute.

Yowza.

Of Course He Does

Bush Pushes for More Abstinence Only Funding:

President Bush is pushing for more funding for abstinence only programs even as a Congressional study shows they are ineffective. The US has spent about $1 billion on failed abstinence-only sex education programs over the past decade and President Bush proposes a 2008 budget of $204 million for such programs, reports Women’s eNews.

In fact, a November 7th study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy showed that programs that combine abstinence and contraception were most effective.

W Stands for ~~Women~~ We Don't Give a Fuck What Your Stupid "Science" Says.

Let us take just a brief moment to acknowledge the utter absurdity of a president who tacitly encourages teen and/or unplanned motherhood—i.e. the birth of children most likely to be born into poverty, without healthcare coverage, and most in need of government services—while simultaneously refusing to expand the very programs that provide the services those children and their parents are likely to need, using as a justification the straw-specter of welfare queens re-imagined for the new millennium, like parents who will use SCHIP as a substitute for private health coverage.

You know, this shit, right here, would be why crazy, long-haired hippie liberal types, ahem, say things like "Republicans want more babies so they have plenty of soldiers for their wars"—because promoting abstinence-only sex education despite mountains of evidence that it doesn't work, which will inevitably create more of the families otherwise held in contempt, is totally inexplicable.

Black and Missing...

I make a point to visit Black and Missing, a site which seeks to bring attention to the cases of missing people of color, at least once a week. It is a weekly dive into one of my worst nightmares…to have someone I know who is a woman of color go missing in this country.

Even after an attempt at self analysis and sorta-correction, the mainstream media continues to not cover missing person’s cases when the person missing is black. I’ve watched story after story of a certain police officer and his missing wife followed by story after story speculating about the cause of death for his previous wife and I struggle to not resent them. There are elements of the story that are beyond newsworthy. But I have to question, had the police officer and his wife been black, what are the odds that we would know their story? Shit, we probably wouldn’t have even heard their name.

I can’t help but wonder if decades of consuming their own product haven’t resulted in the media buying the notion that black people being the victims of crime isn’t news because black people are the acceptable victims of crime.

We are not throw away people and our missing are worthy of concern, but Google Angie Tucker and then Google Stacy Peterson.

Blink.

Please visit Black and Missing where there is a profile of Angie Tucker and too many others.

A Tale of Two Stories

Day Two.

Actually, this isn't a tale of two stories, but two tellings of the same story—and it's a terrible (and possibly triggering) story about a Brazilian young woman, perhaps as young as 15, who was arrested on dubious charges, possibly just to serve as a sex toy for male prisoners, then reportedly left in a police cell with about two dozen men, where she was repeatedly raped until police finally transferred her to a women's facility. The incident is currently being investigated.

First, we'll look at how the BBC, whose headline is Brazil shock at woman's jail rape, reported it:

Authorities in Brazil are investigating reports that a young woman was left in a police cell with some 20 men for a month and repeatedly sexually abused.

…[Human-rights workers] say that she was raped relentlessly and forced to have sex in order to obtain food.

Pretty straightforward. It's a heinous scenario, and the Beeb doesn't mince words. What's being investigated is rape, repeated rape, over the course of a month, in addition to coerced sex in exchange for food (which itself meets the legal definition of rape). The allegations are clear, and they aren't soft-pedaled.

And now the AP, whose headline avoids the word "rape" altogether and instead reads Sex said forced on jailed Brazil girl:

A teenage girl was locked up on theft charges in an Amazon jail for weeks with 21 men who she said would only let her eat in return for sex, according to authorities, setting off a national scandal over the treatment of women by Brazil's justice system.

The 15-year-old said she was required to have sex with at least two inmates, police spokesman Walrimar Santos said by telephone Thursday from Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, where the victim was transferred after nearly a month living with male inmates.

…Santos said the girl was not beaten or injured. But the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, which said it had access to private testimony after her transfer from the jail, reported she was tortured with lit cigarettes on her fingers and bare feet to force her to have sex. Her cellmates cut her hair to make her look more like a boy and difficult to recognize, Estado said.

She said her only reprieve from obligatory sex was on Thursdays — when intimate visits were allowed — and things "calmed down," Estado reported.

Obligatory sex? Jesus.

So, the AP makes the editorial choice to report the gruesome details of the allegations, but still can't find anyplace in its 781-word article to use the word "rape"—and, in fact, only refers to the crime of sexual assault (as opposed its ridiculous euphemisms) once, when it notes: "The Associated Press generally does not identify people who may have been victims of sexual assault."

And, worse than that, the AP frames the story from the outset as a he-said/she-said situation, alternating between what the police spokesman said in an interview (who, let's note, is effectively serving as a spokesman for the accused rapists) and what the victim reportedly said—while simultaneously burying that another allegation currently being investigated, beyond the undisputed fact that the police put this girl in a cell with men, is that they did so after arresting her specifically "for the sexual gratification of the prisoners."

It's just terrible, terrible reporting. And the whole "sex said forced" and "required to have sex" and "forced to have sex" and "have sex in exchange for food" and "obligatory sex" soft-pedaling is infuriating. There's no earthly justification for it, except to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of the people who are reading about this girl's horrendous ordeal from half a world away. And I'm not remotely convinced that's an honorable goal.

[H/T to Shaker Thom for the AP article and Jezebel for the BBC link.]

This Just In, Fred...

Fred Thompson is just now finding out that Fox News might have an agenda.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) suggested on Sunday that Fox News is biased against his campaign, charging that the network highlights commentators who have been critical of his run for the presidency.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," host Chris Wallace pressed Thompson on how some conservatives have lambasted Thompson's campaign and showed clips of Fox conservative commentators Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes criticizing the former senator.

Thompson said, "This has been a constant mantra of Fox, to tell you the truth." He noted that other conservatives have praised his bid for the GOP nomination and took issue with a Fox promo that focused on polling in New Hampshire, where Thompson is registering in the single digits.

He said he is running second in national polls and has been leading or tied for the lead in South Carolina for "a long, long time."

Thompson, in a firm, but measured tone, scolded Wallace: "...for you to highlight nothing but the negatives in terms of the polls and then put on your own guys who have been predicting for four months, really, that I couldn't do it, kind of skew things a little bit. There's a lot of other opinion out there."

Just wait until he finds out that the world is round...

Think Progress has the video.

Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Cloverfield: From "what?" to "wev" in ten minutes flat

Yawn.

In a cultural sense, I am almost always Late to the Party, whatever and wherever the Party might be. Example: Because I never saw Transformers, I never saw the trailers that accompanied the movie's theatrical release. As a result, I was completely unaware of the mysterious teaser for some Untitled J.J. Abrams Project that launched a mighty (though completely unnoticed by me) blogospheric buzz. It wasn't until this weekend, when I visited the Apple QuickTime movie trailer page on an unrelated matter that I ran across the ads for the movie that seems to be named Cloverfield, and so finally became aware of all the viral, cross-referenced hoopla. Guesswork abounds regarding the nature of the menace - Godzilla? Cthulhu? The Stay-Puft marshmellow man? - while Internet sleuths analyze cryptic photos (if you leave the browser open long enough at the site, you get a surprise; adjust your speaker volume) and chase down clues (some red herrings, some perhaps less fishy) across the Web.

This approach (what is it?) constitutes, to some folks, legitimate suspense. To others - all right then, to me - and in this context, it's just a big tease. Teasing can pay off, though. I envision executives at Paramount Pictures high-fiving each other in hallways and toasting their viral conquest (with cups of Slusho, no doubt).

I should note here my raging indifference toward J.J. Abrams. Watched Alias until I became utterly bored with its narrative convolution. Same with Lost, except that the boredom set in much more quickly. Now comes Cloverfield, formerly designated as 1-18-08, and the standard Abrams byzantinity is well at work long before you even settle into your seat at the megaplex, now crafted to deprive you of even the initial comforting notion that you know what's going on.

The upside to this approach, of course, is that you can make people spend days wondering just what's going on. The viral campaign is indeed working; the rampant buzz surrounding this movie makes Snakes on a Plane look like a straight -to-video project. The downside, however, is that...well, people spend days wondering what's going on. The resultant level of expectation is so high that the chances of actually satisfying those expectations will likely dwindle to nil by...what was that release date again?

This is probably where I whack my newspaper a couple of times and yell at kids to get off my lawn. It could simply be that the viral game is best left to the young, to people with the energy and enthusiasm to spend on it. You get a little older and you're less intrigued than annoyed. May the participants find all their questions about Cloverfield answered to their satisfaction, as unlikely as that may be. Personally, I'll probably wait for the movie to show up on the old Netflix queue.

(Cross-posted.)

Trent Lott Resigning

"NBC News has learned that Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the minority whip is in the midst of informing close allies that he plans to resign his senate seat before the end of the year. It's possible a formal announcement of his plans could take place as early as today."

Wev. Good riddance.

UPDATE: USN&WR notes that Lott is purportedly resigning now "to avoid new ethics rules that double the amount of time a retired lawmaker must wait before lobbying former colleagues."

Of course.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

The Herculoids

That intro explains the concept better, although this is the intro I remember:

Amazing Race Open Thread

Here's the weekly thread for AR fans to discuss the show, which airs 8pm EST on CBS, in case you want to join in the fun! I'll be late to the party this evening, since the Bears [SPOILER WARNING for anyone nutzoid enough to TiVo the stinking Bears] decided to use the last 5 minutes of the game today to score two touchdowns and push it into overtime for a pretty spectacular victory. It was almost like watching a real professional football team and everything!

Anyway...back to The Amazing Race.

Last week's highlight: Lorena goes berserk trying to milk a camel and has a trés melodramatic meltdown.

"There's!!! No!!! MILLLLLLLLLLK!!!"

Jason: "She's very passionate."