Woot! Sometime earlier today, the ol' Site Meter hit four million visitors—which, of course, means a toast is in order!
Slainte Mhath, Shakers!
4,000,000
Slainte Mhath, Shakers!
Jay Leno is Such an Asshole
Last night, Ryan Phillippe was on The Tonight Show, which gave Jay Leno the opportunity to do one of his favorite things: Laugh at gay men!
Now, Phillippe isn't gay, but he played Billy Douglas on One Life to Live, which was the first out gay teen character on American daytime television—and Phillippe was once naked in a jeans commercial, so that's good enough for Jay. Says Andy (who's got the video): "[T]he first topic Leno brought up was Phillippe's first acting role as a gay teen on One Life to Live. No matter that the role was a serious one in which a gay son came out to his father. Leno had to squeeze as much of a joke out of the fact that his first acting role was a gay part, even asking Phillippe to look into the camera and give his 'gayest look'."
Aside from the obvious problems in the clip, Leno's contempt for soap operas, especially during a conversation about a landmark gay character, is really aggravating, given their important, if oft-ignored, role in social progress. Soap operas have been ahead of the curve on introducing feminist ideas, divorces, single mothers, interracial romances, and gay and trans characters, just for a start. Characters representing the cutting edge of social movements have been beaming into the living rooms of (mostly) stay-at-home moms, using their empathy for characters in whom they are emotionally invested to challenge biases and open minds, for decades. It's all just a big joke to Jay Leno, which is a particular vexation given that it is by virtue of his straight male whiteness that he could ascend to host of The Tonight Show, one of the most coveted (but square) gigs in comedy, despite being only marginally funny, at best.
Bad Friday
So, I get up this morning and follow my usual weekday routine. When all is ready, I head to work. The building I work in has several offices, some of which belong to the payroll department of the nearby hospital, which means that the parking lot is generally full all the time. Upon arrival, I notice that there is only a handful of cars. Odd.
OK... Maybe everyone is sick!!
No matter. I go to my desk and do my thing. As a few hours pass, I notice that it's pretty quiet. Wev. It's not until a little after 1:00 EDT that I get an email from someone thanking everyone for working on a company holiday.
For what on a damn huh?!
So, I call my boss on her cell phone and ask if today's a company holiday. She starts laughing hysterically, to which I respond, "What the fuck am I doing here?!"
"I don't know! Go home!"
Alrighty then! That's what I get for being Heeb One and not knowing Good Friday from Palm Sunday. While telling Mrs. Cowboy of the state of affairs on my way home, she insisted that I try to get another day off. I told her that another day off is probably not realistic, however I might very well ask for an award plaque that says something along the lines of "Dumbass Heeb Laureate."
D'oh!
Lost Open Thread
(More Losty fun in photos and video [SPOILER WARNING!] below...)
Michael is BACK! And in honor of his long-awaited return, let's roll the highlight reel: "Walt! My son! My boy! Waaaaaaalt!"
Awesome. Can we also talk about getting, at long last, our first confirmed gay?! Yay! Go Mr. Friendly with your hot young mainland beau!
The look on Michael's face was priceless.
The look on mine was slighly different:
Lostgays! Wheeeeeeeee!
After the episode ended on the West Coast, Tart emailed me.
Tart: Go Lindeloff and Cuse with giving us some gay! There was an imbalance there.
Liss: I totally knew Mr. Friendly was teh gay when he gave Kate that sundress and she gave him the "I'm not dressing in front of you" look and he scoffed and told her she wasn't his type. I believe my exact words were: "THERE'S MY GAY AT LONG LAST!"
Tart: Ooh, I forgot about that dress moment! What are you, like, some sort of Lost memory machine?
Yes, yes I am. But in my pathetically nerdy defense, Shaker Micheyd remembered it, too—so I'm not the only "Walkin' Loostpedia," as Mr. Shakes calls me, on this island!
By the way...
As Jeff already surmised, Hillary Clinton's passport files were breached as well last year:
CNN also reports, "Hillary Clinton's passport file was breached in 2007, Secretary of State Rice told Clinton, according to the senator’s office." No details on that breach have been released, as of yet.DUH.
In a statement from her Senate office, Clinton said she had been contacted by Rice. The State Department plans to brief Clinton's staff Friday about the unauthorized breach.
The development came just hours after the State Department fired two contract employees and disciplined a third for inappropriately examining the passport file of Clinton's Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama. The episode raised questions as to whether the actions of the three contractors, two of whom have been fired, were politically motivated.
There's your party of morals, ladies and gentlemen.
UPDATE: McCain's passport files got the cozy inspection treatment as well. Henry Waxman has already sent a letter to Condi asking her what the flying fuck is going on in the State Department, and that she better make with the names of these idiots, if she knows what's good for her.
What in FSM's name is it with this administration and the damn bozos that they hire? Is there a single person in DC who wants to do his/her best to improve this country or is the whole lot of them a huge collective turd??!
Exceeding the Quota
From CNN:
British writer and self-styled dandy Sebastian Horsley was denied entry to the United States after arriving to promote his memoir of sex, drugs and flamboyant fashion.
Horsley said he was questioned for eight hours Tuesday by border officials at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey before being denied entry on grounds of "moral turpitude."
The 45-year-old author was traveling to New York for the U.S. launch of "Dandy in the Underworld," his account of a life dedicated to sex, drugs and finely tailored clothes.
"I was dressed flamboyantly -- top hat, long velvet coat, gloves," Horsley said. "My one concession to American sensibilities was to remove my nail polish. I thought that would get me through."
According to Lucille Cirillo, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Horsley was traveling under the CBP's visa waiver program, which entitles citizens of some countries -- mostly in the European Union -- to enter the United States for business or leisure without applying for a visa. Travelers can be refused entry if they admit on a customs form to being convicted of a crime or to being addicted to narcotics, Cirillo said.By having Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Ted Haggard here already, we've met the quota on folks who flunk the "moral turpitude" test, huh?
She declined to specify what responses Horsley listed on the form.
"We interviewed the individual extensively and the CBP officers decided he was not admissible under the visa waiver program," she said.
Horsley can still apply for a visa to return to the United States, Cirillo said.
"They knew more about me than I did," Horsley said Thursday in an interview from his London home. "They said, 'We know you're a heroin addict, we know you're a crack addict, we know you're involved in prostitution.' "
Horsley's book -- billed as an "unauthorized autobiography" -- vividly recounts years of heavy drug use and frequent visits to prostitutes. He says he has been drug-free for three years.
Having the Bush administration dictate terms of morality is like being scolded for your
Richardson Endorses Obama
Former presidential candidate and governor of New Mexico (and current superdelegate) Bill Richardson has endorsed Barack Obama, saying Obama "is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime leader that can bring our nation together and restore America's moral leadership in the world" and "will be a historic and great president, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad."
The only things that now stand in the way of Obama's uniting the country are a hostile media, an opposition party resolved to make his life hell, and millions of conservatives who wouldn't unite with liberals if they were paid phat cash in solid gold Ronpaulbuxxx.
Oh, and Diebold.
It's a sure thing, bitchez!
How to Beat Barack Obama
The Republican game plan to defeat Barack Obama boils down to two strategies: instill fear and loathing in the electorate, and send other people out to do their dirty work.
Republicans say they'll try, first and foremost, to paint Obama as dangerously inexperienced -- a characterization of him that Clinton's own polling has found to resonate with many voters, and an attack that Clinton has already been using. Republicans say they'll also portray Obama as unacceptably liberal, using his record as a state and U.S. senator.Neither tactic is a surprise. The Republicans, saddled with a candidate not even the hard core of their base can barely tolerate and who is plastered cheek by jowl to the most unpopular president in living memory, can't run on anything positive or offer any new insight on how four more years of Bush administration policies on the economy, education, and health care will be an improvement over the last eight years of incompetence, ineptitude, antipathy, and just basic fucking up. So all they can do is attack, blame, and put together racist and fear-mongering videos for YouTube. The Democrats might as well be running against a junior high school street gang.
But there can be little doubt party operatives will also pick up on -- and let the Republican noise machine make controversies out of -- things like Wright's comments, which can raise uncomfortable questions about race or patriotism in voters' minds. Judging by past campaigns, the party will look for ways to benefit from the dirty work of unaffiliated operators while keeping its hands officially clean of it.
Let's take the "inexperienced" line.
The GOP will hammer away at Obama for his short tenure in the Senate, reminding voters that only four years ago he was in the Illinois Legislature while McCain was in his 21st year in Congress.And yet with those 25 years of experience, John McCain still managed to fall for the Bush administration's falsehoods about the war, even to the point that he echoed Dick Cheney's line about Americans being greeted with flowers and candy, and even with all those years of inside knowledge, he doesn't even know who the major players are in the Global War on Terrorism. It makes you wonder what all that "experience" has taught him other than to call into question his judgment about war and our place in the world, as well as his plans for the future. Senator Obama rightly points out that it isn't just experience that matters; it's what you do with it, and so far John McCain has made pretty much the same choices as the man he wants to replace.
The GOP will also use the fear factor; fear of the unknown. Who really is Barack Obama and what does he stand for? He's an unknown quantity.
Republican strategists think voters don't yet have a clear image in their minds of who Obama is -- and they're eager to help draw the picture for them. Only 19 percent of voters the RNC polled in January said they were "very familiar" with Obama's positions on issues.This should be the place where liberals finally grow a pair and take a stand. It is time to defend liberal views and policies and remove the stigma that the Republicans have so successfully attached to it. Just as the gay community has proudly taken back the word "queer" and worn it as a badge of honor, it is time for liberals to echo John F. Kennedy or even the fictional Matthew Santos from The West Wing:
"He does very well in an auditorium with 15,000 screaming liberal sycophants," Wadhams declared, "but whenever he's interviewed on a tough subject or following a defeat by Senator Clinton in some primary or caucus, I don't think he does very well."
Those "liberal sycophants" are another key part of the Republican plan.
For example, the American public will hear a lot about how National Journal ranked Obama the most liberal member of the Senate in its annual survey published this year, an assessment of voting records that is hard to refute without sounding wonky. Obama's Illinois Senate record might draw even more fire. The Barack Obama depicted in the Republican playbook voted for tax hike after tax hike, was staunchly pro-choice on abortion (even on votes that seem to have been engineered by the opposition to be politically damaging), didn't take a position on votes to toughen drug penalties and pushed to require undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses.
That Barack Obama barely registers in the public consciousness now -- Clinton can't use those issues against him in the primaries because many Democrats might not object to them. But GOP strategists can't wait to tell all the independents and Republicans who have been voting for Obama this year how he is, well, basically another John Kerry. Or maybe Michael Dukakis. Take your pick.
Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things; every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, "Liberal," as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator. Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.Do we really have to point out all the things conservatives have achieved just in the last eight years, and do we have to really work to show what all their screaming about lowering taxes and limiting the scope and intrusion of government has brought us? Towering deficits, a housing market in the crapper thanks to unregulated and corrupt lending practices, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still recovering from Katrina, warrantless wiretapping and domestic surveillance, the shredding of the Constitution over due process of law, the replacement of science with medieval mythology and superstition, the demonization and marginalization of the gay and lesbian community by continuing to deny them the basic right of legal protection under the same laws as straight people, systematic misogyny by continuing to oppose reproductive choice and access to it, political cronyism in the Department of Justice, and the continued assault on the environment by relaxing the Clean Water Act and calling global warming a paranoid conspiracy. This is the record of conservatism, and yet John McCain is proud to call himself a conservative and do everything he can to prove his bona fides to a skeptical lunatic fringe. So be it; let him wear that as his badge of honor. Let him bear the responsibility that goes with it as well and not blame someone else when all that he and the conservatives claim they stand for comes crashing down around them.
Last, but certainly not least, the Republicans will make sure that the American electorate knows that Barack Obama is black. Of course they won't come right out and say it lest they be accused of blatant racism. So what they will do is use all the code words and dog whistles that they have short of climbing to the top of the bell tower (vide Blazing Saddles: "The sheriff's a ni-[CLANG]"); they will leave it to their "independent" surrogates to put on the white hoods, speak fearfully about "urban culture," and run the tapes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright over and over again.
Republicans' best chance to counter Obama's appeal to voters may come when gifts like Wright's incendiary rhetoric surface. Following a report on "Good Morning America" about Wright's past sermons, the reverend's comments became a fixture on Rush Limbaugh's show and on "Hannity & Colmes." Polling already shows Wright's most inflammatory remarks offend a lot of voters. Just imagine if Wright showed up again in an ad on television in October. "Those film clips are pretty devastating," Wadhams said with some relish. And Limbaugh, naturally, has already gone ballistic. "No country wants a president who is a member of a church with this kind of radicalism as its mainstream," he fumed on Monday.No political party ever lost an election by underestimating the fear and loathing of the electorate, and the Republicans have proven themselves more than capable of that ability even when they have a woefully inadequate candidate running on their ticket. That doesn't matter; they know that it is much easier to get people to vote against someone else than it is to gin up half-hearted support for their own man.
Obama acknowledged, again, in his speech on race on Tuesday how close the two men have been for two decades; there's no question that Wright has been influential enough in Obama's life to merit some scrutiny. And talking about Wright means Republicans don't have to talk about race directly. Instead, they can just remind voters -- over and over again -- that Obama's minister sometimes strays onto radical rhetorical ground. If doing that makes people less comfortable with electing the first black president, so be it.
"Instead of distancing himself and moving past this moment, he sort of owns it now," Republican strategist Kevin Madden argued after Obama's speech. (Madden worked for Mitt Romney's campaign, which went through equally thorny contortions over religion.) "Barack Obama, before all this, was at a point where his appeal transcended race. He was somebody that voters -- white and black both -- looked at as a candidate not viewed through the prism of white or black. [Now] he has become that."
Now that Barack Obama has spoken and appealed to the better angels of our human nature to get Americans to understand where he comes from and what forms him, it is time for him to welcome the attackers and turn them back on themselves and make them accountable: "Okay, you've brought out all the garbage and we've heard it all before. Now what are you going to do to clean up the mess you've made?" If he can't do that, then that is how the Republicans will beat him.
(Cross-posted.)
Question of the Day
Now that spring is inching its way into 2008, the anticipation for the warmer weather approaches as well. Living in the northeast, I particularly like this time of year since it means that I will not have to continue to dress in layers. Those concert t-shirts will be at the ready! What's funny, though, is that, in my avid anticipation for warmer temperatures, I decide at some arbitrary point that I will wear a short-sleeved shirt, just to spite the weather. Usually it's when we hit the low-to-mid 50's Fahrenheit that I flip the bird at winter and state that from this point forward, it's springtime for me.
And so, today's question is: What is the lowest temperature, prior to the actual start of spring, that you would be willing to defiantly wear fewer layers, just to tell winter to take a hike?
McCain Staffer Suspended for Circulating Video Questioning Obama's Patriotism
I never would have expected this sort of nastiness from the campaign of such a pleasant fellow:
An aide to John McCain was suspended from the campaign today for blasting out an inflammatory video that raises questions about Barack Obama's patriotism.I'm sure McCain is just beside himself! Maude knows, the man who called George Wallace, Jr.—a four-time speaker before the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group created from the mailing list of the erstwhile white supremacist White Citizens Councils and classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center—"an enlightened progressive leader," wouldn't want anyone thinking he condoned racism.
…Informed that [Soren Dayton, who works in McCain's political department] was circulating the video, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said he had been suspended and "reprimanded by campaign leadership."
"We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy," she said.
She declined to say for how long he was suspended.
Except for the racists whose votes he wants, naturally.
I Guess It's Too Much to Ask…
…that white people who take offense to Barack Obama's "typical white person" comment stop to question whether they have themselves been intimidated by black men who pass them in the street and if they've ever personally used any racial or ethnic stereotypes that would make a person of color cringe—and that, if they haven't, they take a "if the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it" approach.
Like I've said a nonillion times or so, without rigorous self-examination, we're all racists (and sexists and homophobes…) by default, by virtue of our socialization in a culture steeped with negative stereotypes. One of my closest college mates is a black man who used as an example of internalized racism his own stiffening spine when he saw another black man coming toward him on an otherwise deserted street—even as he knew how deeply irrational and unfair it was. I've never been a nervous street-meeter—I tend walk with my head up and smile and say hi to everyone—but it's not like I didn't and don't have other internalized shit. The question is not whether we have biases; we all do. The question is whether we leave them unexamined.
So, yeah. To suggest that a typical white person has some sort of racist biases doesn't strike me as particularly controversial.
That said, such sweeping generalizations are dangerous because most people don't like to think that they have unexamined biases or—Maude forbid!—unexamined privilege. I have to be really careful when I'm talking about institutionalized sexism not to say "men" (or even "the typical man") but "lots of men" or "men who haven't thought about this issue" or something that makes abundantly clear my acknowledgement that I am not tarring an entire group with the same brush.
So Obama's got to be careful about broad generalities when he talks about race, even if what he's saying is true. "Typical white person" isn't a phrase that's in any way suggestive of racial harmony to a casual white listener. Especially because if the phrase "typical black person" has ever passed their lips or danced across their thoughts, it probably wasn't because they were feeling generous.
They're not words associated with kinship and unity. Not typically.
LA Times: Hey, Wait a Second! We're Sucky Journalists, Too!
And the race to the bottom continues…as the LA Times weighs in with its solid conclusions about Hillary Clinton's time as First Lady, based on 11,000 pages made public less than 36 hours ago. Diminishing the veracity of her touted experience, the writers note:
As for overseas travel, the papers show that Clinton did spend some time conferring with foreign leaders on strategic issues. But the records suggest she spent a lot more time fulfilling the traditional role of the first lady: meeting the leaders' wives and focusing on women's and children's issues.And no one who's serious about being the American president would do something so frivolous as to focus on women's and children's issues! That's not real politics. Why, she might as well have been playing with dollies!
The contempt for "women's and children's issues" could not be more palpable.
Why is that, do you think? I'm not sure—although I do know it would be very, very intemperate, over-reactionary, illogical, and possibly hysterical of me to suggest that it might be attributable to a contempt for women and children, or at least an indifference to their suffering. (Perhaps this is also why the media doesn't regard egregious abuses against women and children being perpetrated or ignored, and children's needs being repeatedly vetoed, as the unconscionable failings that they are.) And I know quite certainly that it would be positively indefensible of me to suggest that a general contempt for women might be playing some role in the coverage of The Particular Woman whose focus on women's and children's issues is used to dismiss her experience, rather than bolster it.
[H/T to Shaker KR.]
Assvertising
I'm not exactly sure what message, precisely, Nila Sliced Mushrooms meant to convey with this advert, although if it was "We read that sex sells, so we included an image from 1997's Bulgarian Babes stock photo series in our latest ad," then mission accomplished!
Via AdRants, care of Petulant.
[Assvertising Series: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One.]
Scooter Disbarred
Disgraced fuckhead and former Cheney chief-of-staff Scooter Libby has been disbarred:
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was disbarred from practicing law in the nation's capital on Thursday. The former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was convicted last year of lying to a grand jury and federal agents probing the leak of the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson.Fancy that.
"When a member of the Bar is convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude, disbarment is mandatory," the District of Columbia Court of Appeals wrote in its opinion, which is posted on its Web site.
My only question is why the hell is he only being disbarred now?
Our MSM: Useless and Worthless
While raging asshats like ABC's Brian Ross cover the "really important stuff," consider this a reminder that the BBC is covering an item that just might deserve a little more focus: Tent cities in the USA filled with people who used to own their homes.
As Jamie at C&L points out, we're left to getting our domestic news from foreign news agencies to learn about things that are in need of immediate attention - things that Brian Fucktard Ross couldn't be arsed to investigate.
And Where Else Was Clinton?
Nowhere near Vince Foster when he died!
Thank GOD the truth has finally been revealed! Way to go with the breaking news, WSJ! This is almost as big a bombshell as the whole Michael Stipe is gay thing!
Seriously, I don't even have words. This is unbefuckingLIEVable, y'all. It is 2008, nearly a whole decade into the 21st century, and the media is abuzz with "news" of VINCE FOSTER AND MONICA LEWINSKY.
That "news" being, of course: HEY, REMEMBER VINCE FOSTER AND MONICA LEWINSKY? Just checking.
I haven't read all the coverage of these "stories," seeing as how there is SO FREAKIN' MUCH OF IT, but I think my favorite line comes from Calvin Woodward at the HuffPo:It's unlikely she would be surprised at this late date to learn that the president was cheating on her while she was home in the White House. But the release of the documents reminds voters anew about Bill Clinton's affair and the impeachment proceedings that brought Washington to a halt for a year.
Gee, ya think it's unlikely she'd be surprised at this late date? It's unlikely my senile 16-year-old dog would be surprised. But thanks ever so for explaining what makes this newsworthy: the documents "remind voters anew" about all that unsavory business that went on during Bill Clinton's presidency! It's the documents! The documents that prove, shockingly... Hillary Clinton was First Lady for a while.
I really do appreciate that clarification, Calvin Woodward. 'Cause here I was thinking it was a bunch of fucking sleazebag journalists turning this stuff into headlines again on the fifth anniversary of the war. Good to know the media's not actually that repugnant. It's not them reminding us -- it's Hillary's datebook! Journalists don't make the news, man! They just respond to stunning developments like this!
On the plus side, there is one thing keeping me from upchucking my breakfast right now. (Well, two, if you count the fact that I haven't had breakfast.) And that's the thought that this is the best they've fucking got. It's 2008, Hillary Clinton is running a serious race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and this is the best they've fucking got to attack her with: Vince Foster and Monica Lewinsky.
Anybody remember this post Liss wrote back in January? Where she said this:I've noted a few times previously that one of Clinton's biggest positives as a candidate is that she's been vetted from here to Planet Unicorn and back again; there aint' nuttin' new under the sun that the rightwing and/or the national media can dig up on her at this point. It's just going to be the same old shit over and over ad infinitum, and, frankly, I'm not sure how much more mileage they're going to get out of ancient conspiracy theories about having Vince Foster killed. "Hillary's a girl and probably has cooties" is about the best they've got—and, as we've now seen, that only stands to help her.
Yeah. Meanwhile, we're just starting to find out what fresh hells they have prepared for Obama. And meanwhile, he's probably getting the nomination.
But hey, we all know that if Obama gets eaten alive in the general, it'll be because Clinton destroyed the party by refusing to bow out when she still had a perfectly legal shot at the nomination and, you know, a 16-point lead going into the next primary. It sure won't be because we chose a candidate about whom little was known, instead of one who has, as Liss memorably put it, "been given a sustained colonoscopy by the press corps for 15 years." Vetted, schmetted. Just think of all the other documents out there just waiting to remind people of things!
Come to think of it, it's a good thing I haven't eaten breakfast yet.
