Shakesville

A Bush Aide? Really?

Surprisingly, and against all conventional wisdom, someone in the Bush administration was tossed out on his arse for plagiarizing:

Early Friday morning, blogger Nancy Nall published her post "Copycat." By Friday evening, [Special Assistant to the President Timothy] Goeglein had resigned. And The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, announced that their internal investigation of Goeglein's columns had revealed that of the 38 columns Goeglein had published over the last eight years, plagiarized passages were discovered in 20.

You would think that in this age of teh internet tubez, a would-be plagiarizer would think twice about doing something that is so easily uncovered through a search engine.

Of course, Mr. Goeglein's role model was an administration that doesn't even think once about anything.

Teenz Korner: A Teen in Vagland

Hey Shakers! It's Kenny Blogginz again! You know, I've been hearing a lot of people talking about different monolithic groups lately and how presidential candidates are always pandering to The Hispanics, The African-Americans, and even The Gays, but there's one minority in America who's very difficult to pander to—Ladies. I decided it was high time for me to solve the mystery of the Vagina Vote, so I scampered over to Pussydoodles Bar & Grille to interview some Vaginated Americans.

KenBlog: Is there anyone with a vag in this place?

The tension was palpable. I could see immediately that I'd made some sort of mistake. How was I supposed to know?

MadgeVag: My name's Madge "The Vag" McGillicutty, and I got more vag than you can handle.

As she cornered me, I began to quickly stammer an explanation for my presence.

KenBlog: I'm Kenny Blogginz, and I write for an electronic newspaper called The Shakesvag Intelligencer. I'm just trying to write an article about the Vagina Vote. I only wanted to interview a few ladies about who they were planning on voting for!

MadgeVag: I have to admit, I was suspicious of you at first. But now that I see you up close, I can tell that you've got the Fire of the Hero in your eyes. I'm gonna holster my vag for a while and participate in this here cyberversation.

KenBlog: Thank you very much. Why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself?

MadgeVag: Well, Kenny, as you may have noticed, I ain't ashamed of my vag. That's why I'm wearing these here crotchless pants without any underwear. I'm a 37-year-old truck driver and part-time bounty hunter. I once shot a man dead with a crossbow.

KenBlog: That's very impressive. Which candidate do you support for the upcoming presidential election?

MadgeVag: I plan on votin' for Hillary Clinton. I think it's high time America had a woman president. I like her universal healthcare, her stance on the Iraq war, and her proposed amendments to the Constitution to make men do all the chores and wear dresses and shit.

KenBlog: Ah yes, those were some controversial ideas. How do you think your status as an American woman has influenced your opinions?

MadgeVag: Well, as a woman, I tend to vote with my emotions, rather than with my intellect. You might have read that NY Times article the other day about how women are just stupidz. Well, its true, and sometimes we just have to go wherever our vages take us. Mine's pointing at Hills right now. If you'll excuse me, it's 5:00, I have to go home, get up on my high horse, and castrate my husband—an average hard-working American man.

KenBlog: Okay then. Thanks for the interview.

MadgeVag: Vag U Later!

Madge was gone, but I wasn't even close to being too drunk to interview. Next I met up with another of Pussydoodles' regular matrons, Andrea Fartenstein.

KenBlog: Andrea! It's been far too long!

AndFart: Do I know you?

KenBlog: Yeah, we met at that speed dating-slash-parole board hearing thing last year...I'm Kenny Blogginz! But more importantly, I'm writing all about the elusive VagVote—the phenomenon where women vote for a woman just because they're women. Who in the ever-loving fuck are you going to vote for?

AndFart: I'm actually going to vote for Barack Obama.

KenBlog: [sprays virgin colada out of mouth] But he doesn't have a vagina!

AndFart: Uh, DUH!

KenBlog: You are a lady right?

AndFart: Yes.

KenBlog: Well, then why in the poop are you supporting that cock of a penis?

AndFart: Well, it all started at one of his famous speeches. He came to speak at my high school, and I immediately fell in love. When he talked about Change^TM, I swooned and then fainted.

KenBlog: What the—?

AndFart: Wait, there's more. Apparently Barack had seen me faint, because when I came to, he was kneeling above me, blowing cool, minty air onto my face and whispering 'Everything's going to be okay.' From that moment on, I knew that this man was the perfect choice for President of the United States. Because he made my pussy wet.

KenBlog: I interviewed Madge the Vag earlier, and she had a lot to say about voting with your vag. She, however, supported Hillary Clinton; how could two vages be so different?

AndFart: Oh, Madge. She's just too stubborn and grisly for her own good. Confidentially, some of us think she might be a lesbian. That would certainly explain her choice.

KenBlog: Of course! Thank you so much for your time. I've got a lot to go and contemplate, if you'll excuse me.

AndFart: Vag U Later!

KenBlog: Vag U 2, Vagstronaut!

Well Shakers, there you have it. Women only vote for Clinton because they're lesbians and want to have sex with her, or they vote for Obama because they're straight and want to have sex with him. Let's all pray that the Lord will work through their vages and elect the rightful King of America, John McCain. Because he's the only dick who can fuck everyone into oblivion.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Iron Man ('60s)

Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker Beppie: If you could name a new planet, what would you call it?

Since Planet Limpwrist is the best planet name of all time, so bequeathed by Paul the Spud, I don't know what I'd name a new planet. I'm not sure I'm ready to graduate to a whole planet, anyway; maybe I should just stick with Fuck Mountain.

Watch Out, World!

Me, up on my Feminist High Horse, refusing to do housework, wielding my man-slaughtering lightsaber, and waving my magic wand, with which I create laws that make it nearly impossible for trolls to email the women they know in Mexico!

This is all true.

Random YouTubery: Del Boy with the Smooth Moves

From Only Fools and Horses, perhaps the best British sitcom that hasn't ever really permeated the American consciousness. It's quintessentially British, but eminently relatable, so I'm not sure why it's never made as successful a journey across the pond as some other British series.

Mr. Shakes once mentioned how he loved this show as a kid, so I've been getting him one series (season) on DVD on his birthday or other special occasions, and I've absolutely fallen in love with it. There were 65 episodes starting in 1981 and ending (?) in 2003, with one episode which aired in 1996 holding the record for the biggest audience in British history. So popular was the show that it's been credited with popularizing the Britishisms plonker, dipstick, twonk, and wally, all favorites of Del Boy for insulting his long-suffering "little" brother, Rodney.

Sir David Jason, who plays Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter, is an absolute genius and a British institution; Shakers who are fans of Eddie Izzard will see the influence in Izzard's humor and mannerisms, and fans of The Office (UK) and Extras will no doubt see traces of Jason in Ricky Gervais' characters, too. If you've never seen it, get it on your Netflix queue tout de suite!

(A full episode is below. Please note: If you've seen the entire show from start to finish, please don't ruin any surprises in later series for newcomers to the show!)

What you need to know: Derek (or Del Boy) runs an "independent trading company," which means he's an unlicensed market trader who sells and buys dodgy goods, but is generally on the right side of the law. Rodney (or Rodders) is his younger brother, who is the "minority partner" in Trotter Independent Traders, meaning he's basically Del Boy's lackey. Granddad is their granddad, and all three live together in a coucil tower in a bad bit of London. Trigger is their trusted but daft mate, who is inexplicably convinced that Rodney's name is Dave.

Fucking Maher

Like Echidne, I, too, have known for a long time how very much Bill Maher loves women, preferably barbecued, but if you still need convincing, go see the goddess.

Caption This Photo

An important part of being a graciously submissive wife is allowing your idiot husband to hogtie you for yuks while on the campaign trail.

[Thanks to Petulant for the image.]

"No matter what the consequences were, we were going to do what was right."

Remember the bartender and waitress, Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley and Karri Cormican, who saved a woman from her date after the crime-fighting duo spotted him putting something in her drink?

Well, another waiter, with the help of his manager, has saved another woman under almost exactly the same circumstances.

[Colt Haugen], 22, a student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, was in his third week as a waiter at a local Ruby Tuesday restaurant last month when, he says, he spotted a customer slipping a pill into the drink of the woman he was with.

…"I was helping another server deliver food to a different table," Haugen continued. "And she got up from the table, and I noticed it was the only time she got up from the table. She walked away. And as soon as she turned her back, he pulled a pill out of his pocket and put it in her drink and stirred it in and mashed it in with a straw.

"I almost dropped the food I was holding. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, you know. I'm watching this, all the signs of this are there. I'm blown away.

"I talked with the manager. I told her, I said, 'I saw this plain as day. And if we don't do something about this, something's going to happen to this woman.' So, we both just agreed that, no matter what the consequences were, we were going to do what was right."

They then notified police, despite concern about the possibility of being accused by [Robert Psaty, 56] of making false accusations.

Haugen replaced the drink and turned over the contaminated one to police upon their arrival. Subsequent tests showed the drink contained Valium.

Psaty was arrested "on suspicion of inducing someone to consume a controlled substance" and is now free on bail.

Meanwhile, Nancy McGrath, who was saved by Haugen's quick-thinking and decency, considers the waiter "an angel" who possibly saved her life.

Warning: Possible blubbing ahead.

[H/T to Ginmar.]

Actual Headline

On Signature Issues, McCain Has Shown Some Inconsistencies in the Senate. No way! You're totally shitting me!

Senator John McCain likes to present himself as the candidate of the "Straight Talk Express" who does not pander to voters or change his positions with the political breeze. But the fine print of his record in the Senate indicates that he has been a lot less consistent on some of his signature issues than he has presented himself to be so far in his presidential campaign.

Thanks for finally catching up, New York Times!

Perhaps next time, you'll see fit to include McCain's enormous flip-flop on campaign finance reform and lobbying, which is his real signature issue, in addition to his "turnarounds" on Bush's tax cuts, immigration, torture, abortion, and Rumsfeld's efficacy.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Electra Woman & Dyna Girl

Dramatic Pictures

I received over 300 photos of the Manhattan Repertory Theatre's production of Can't Live Without You in January and February. I've posted a selection of them over at Bobby Cramer.

Will Poston as Bobby Cramer
Photo by Tamas Szalczer.

Still Not Hanging Ten

Obama would like to appoint Republicans Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar to key cabinet positions, like Secretaries of Defense and State, if elected.

Obama believes he will be able to neutralise McCain by drawing on the expertise of independent Republicans such as Hagel and Lugar, who is regarded by Obama as a potential secretary of state.

Well, yeah. I guess "neutralize" is one way to describe "rendering him irrelevant by doing exactly the same shit he would."

This is even worse than when Hillary said she'd put Colin Powell to use as a globe-trotting statesman. (And it's not the first time he's said this, of course.)

My sincere concerns about Obama's lack of progressivism are not assuaged.

Also: Obama has made a Very Big Deal about how Hillary's pro-AUMF vote renders her unfit to be president, so I'm wondering on what basis Hagel's and Lugar's pro-AUMF votes make them somehow qualified to be some of the president's closest advisors.

How Dumb?

[Jeff and I are on the same wavelength this morning.]

If this column by Charlotte Allen in the Washington Post isn't a brilliant piece of satire, it is one of the most depressing pieces of cultural and gender stereotyping that I've read since some dimwit advertising copywriter came up with "My wife; I think I'll keep her."

Here's Agence France-Presse reporting on a rally for Sen. Barack Obama at the University of Maryland on Feb. 11: "He did not flinch when women screamed as he was in mid-sentence, and even broke off once to answer a female's cry of 'I love you, Obama!' with a reassuring 'I love you back.' " Women screamed? What was this, the Beatles tour of 1964? And when they weren't screaming, the fair-sex Obama fans who dominated the rally of 16,000 were saying things like: "Every time I hear him speak, I become more hopeful." Huh?

"Women 'Falling for Obama,' " the story's headline read. Elsewhere around the country, women were falling for the presidential candidate literally. Connecticut radio talk show host Jim Vicevich has counted five separate instances in which women fainted at Obama rallies since last September. And I thought such fainting was supposed to be a relic of the sexist past, when patriarchs forced their wives and daughters to lace themselves into corsets that cut off their oxygen.

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

I'm not the only woman who's dumbfounded (as it were) by our sex, or rather, as we prefer to put it, by other members of our sex besides us. It's a frequent topic of lunch, phone and water-cooler conversations; even some feminists can't believe that there's this thing called "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or that Celine Dion actually sells CDs. A female friend of mine plans to write a horror novel titled "Office of Women," in which nothing ever gets done and everyone spends the day talking about Botox.

We exaggerate, of course. And obviously men do dumb things, too, although my husband has perfectly good explanations for why he eats standing up at the stove (when I'm not around) or pulls down all the blinds so the house looks like a cave (also when I'm not around): It has to do with the aggressive male nature and an instinctive fear of danger from other aggressive men. When men do dumb things, though, they tend to be catastrophically dumb, such as blowing the paycheck on booze or much, much worse (think "postal"). Women's foolishness is usually harmless. But it can be so... embarrassing.

No, what's really embarrassing is that this kind of mindset passes for considered opinion -- if you can call it that -- in a major American newspaper. Unless this is supposed to be funny... which it's not very.

(Cross-posted.)

He's Good for Ya

Just a reminder that George Carlin, Patron Saint of the Seven Dirty Words, has a new live show tonight on HBO at 10EST, It's Bad For Ya. Wheeeeeeee!

The Virtual Pub Is Open

Let's raise a glass to Darryl, Shakers.

Stop, passenger! my story's brief,
And truth I shall relate, man;
I tell nae common tale o' grief,
For Matthew was a great man.
…

But now, his radiant course is run,
For Matthews was a bright one!
His soul was like the glorious sun,
A matchless, Heavenly light, man.

[From Rabbie Burns' The Epitaph, which can be read in full here.]

Quote of the Day

"I left the house today for some fresh air and to buy Season One of the Smurfs."—Petulant, via IM, who's on holiday this week and doing fuck-all. Except the aforementioned, natch.

Random YouTubery: Lion Love

At the suggestion of Kathy A in comments, Liss and I decided to check out the video of two London zookeepers reuniting with the cub they raised. Of course, now we're just blubbing and awwwwing over the scene like two idiot monkeys.

There is absolutely nothing like that exact second when the lion's brain registers who these guys are and he just books right to them!

Drudge: Poor Form, Dude

by Shaker Sunburned Counsel

Prince Harry has spent the last 10 weeks serving in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, and the media was asked to maintain a blackout to protect both the prince and the other soldiers serving around him. Yet his deployment appeared Wednesday on the Drudge Report, and the international media subsequently reported it. It appears the info first appeared in the Australian women's magazine New Idea in January, but somehow broke onto the international stage with Drudge.

The BBC coverage is here and AP is here.

Drudge put many, many people in danger for no particular reason. No wrong was righted. No eternal truth was found. It feels like he violated some sort of pirates' code, and it is hard to see that he did it for anything other then his own increased internet hits.

I think there is something to this story about the way blogging as a medium can really change the media landscape, since the whole traditional media agreed to the black-out. Even the frickin' British tabloids. But one post from Drudge, and Prince Harry has to come back to Britain.

I normally see alternative media as a very powerfully positive force, but the egalitarianism here seems sad and hubristic, on a dangerous scale. Is it just that I have a soft spot for the Princes? That I think someone safely in front of their computer should maybe not endanger those who are in war zones? That I kind of just don't like Drudge? That I'm hypocritical and only support freedom of the press when it's critiquing the people I do not like? Is there a power differential at play here? Military and former military Shakers, any thoughts? Or is my initial response sufficient?—Drudge: poor form.

Larry's Got the Moves

Don't think this brief little foray into jocular undeaddom means that Larry King no longer hates your stinking guts. Because he does.

He only wants to learn the sweet moves to dance on your skull, kiddo.