Bingo with Bayh

by Shaker koach

Apparently now that Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) is leaving the Senate, he can't stop yapping about the partisanship and gridlock gripping Washington and causing good centrists like him to search out employment elsewhere.

CNN has posted a short story recapping Senator Evan Bayh's appearance on State of the Union, and some of Bayh's remarks are priceless—meaning that I wouldn't pay a penny for them.

"Our politics in Congress has become tribal in some ways. We have the tribe of the Democrats and tribe of the Republicans," Bayh said.
This sort of "tribalism" argument angers me, wherever I stumble across it, as if societies organized into tribes are inherently combative and incapable of cooperation for the greater good. There's a further implication that only modern, civilized (white) folks know how to get along, how to work together, how to solve problems, how to be reasonable—even as it simultaneously ignores that modern, civilized (white) folks have tribes of their own, organized around ideas, religions, hobbies, heritage, particular kinds of wealth and access.

And Bayh doesn't stop there.
In discussing partisanship, [Republican and former House member Susan] Molinari said that "women have a tendency to band together a little bit more than the men."

Bayh interjected: "It's testosterone poisoning; it's not our fault."
This exchange is not only misogynistic—only women are capable of communicating and working together, suggesting that they are incapable of being tough and standing strong on their issues—but also insulting to men, as the flip side, of course, is that men are only capable of fighting and posturing, not getting along and solving problems.

But there's more in Bayh's statement: "It's not our fault." So now he's refusing responsibility, blaming the lack of problem-solving on testosterone. You know, it's amazing just how powerful testosterone must be. Of course, I don't really get it, with my poor lady-brain worrying about how to band together, but gosh, testosterone sure seems important and powerful. It's also amusing that Bayh claims poisoning, as if one could have too much testosterone.

A lot of Bayh's colleagues have too much of something—but I'm going to go with "privilege," rather than testosterone.

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This Health Care Porridge is Just Right

John Boehner, in October 2009, on why the proposed health care legislation sucks:

"All you need to know is there are 1,990 pages," Boehner said. "That should tell you everything."
John Boehner yesterday on why the proposed health care legislation sucks:
"The White House's 'plan' consists of an 11-page outline, which has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office or posted online as legislative text. So they want to reorganize one-sixth of the United States' economy with a document shorter than a comic book, and they're complaining that they can't find our plan on their own website? C'mon," said [Boehner's] spokesman, Michael Steel, in an email to reporters.
I'm sure that at some point, the GOP will unveil their new Goldilocks algorithm to determine the precise number of pages necessary for successful health care reform legislation.

So, the real question is: How many pages do we need for single payer?

[H/T to ThinkProgress.]

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Daily Kitteh



It's exhausting being this cute.

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The Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report – T230210

Time for another Teaspoon Report, brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the new and improved Shaxicon!

Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.

If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.

Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.

Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!

ô,ôP

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NQDTR Discussion Thread – T230210

Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!

This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner. Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.

You may notice I've moved this sentence:

If you're posting with just congrats or admiration, though, do take a moment and check the thread to see whether other people have said so a number of times already.

I don't say removed, because I'm not sure about that yet.

So far, we haven't really had a problem with having threads becoming unwieldy here, and I'm wondering whether people would be more okay with relaxing this thread (not the NQDTR itself!) to allow those congratulatory/admiring comments. Feel free to have this discussion in this post - maybe if you're posting in response to this question, indicate as such at the top of the comment (say, label it "Metadiscussion" or something), so we don't make the thread unusable for its actual purpose. :)

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Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime



Hugh Cornwell: "Another Kind of Love"

(Directed by Jan Švankmajer, just FYI.)

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Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"



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See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.

[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

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And Sometimes HR Has To Get Involved

The saga continues:


"DO NOT remove or alter any postings on this board! If it continues, the board will be removed. The person/s responsible, if caught, will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination."

See also: here and here.

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Shakesfilk! (sorta)

In response to a friend's difficulties with getting a certain coder to finish up some work he's much overdue on, I volunteered to take on the chastising:

A SCENE between ARTHUR, KING OF THE CODERS, and FRENCHY MCFROMAGE, a project manager

FM: I'm the Project Manager! Why do you think I have this outRAGEous PDA, you silly code-monkey?

AKC: But what are you doing in THIS office?

FM: Mind your own business!

AKC: If you will not give us more time to complete the CMS, we shall have to take that time by force!

FM: You don't frighten us, coding pigdogs! Go and boil your DLLs, son of an artsy person! I blow a DOS-attack at you, so called Arthur King and all your silly code-wrigghets!

FM sends multiple spammy e-mails to AKC, including at least six copies of the Nigerian scam, and a particularly impressive penis-enlargement offer with pictures.

CUT to excerpt from sirgalahad, in a comment to arthurkingcoder's post:

SG: What a strange person!

CUT back to conversation between AKC and FM:

AKC: Hey, come on now, let's not-

FM: I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed iMac cooling-fan CMS developer-person!

I E-MAIL MY FARTS TO INFO@YOURDOMAIN!

YOUR ALMA MATER WAS A HAMSTER, AND YOUR ALGORITHMS SMELL OF ELDERBERRIES!

NOW CODE, OR I SHALL TAUNT YOU A SECOND TIME!

(a brief time later)

FM: Fetchez la vache.

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I'm So Excited I Just Bipartisaned in My Pants!

In Passage of Jobs Measure, a Glimpse of Bipartisanship:

Five Republican senators broke ranks with their party on Monday to advance a $15 billion job-creation measure put forward by Democrats, a rare bipartisan breakthrough after months in which Republicans had held together to a remarkable degree in an effort to thwart President Obama's agenda.

..."Today, jobs triumphed over politics," said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California.

...Mr. Obama, who will be meeting with Republicans later this week on health care, praised the Senate action. ... "The American people want to see Washington put aside partisan differences and make progress on jobs, and today the Senate took one important step forward in doing that," he said.

..."I hope this is a beginning of a new day here in the Senate," [Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader] said after the vote.
Gag me with a teaspoon. Instead of genuflecting before the five stinking Republicans who voted for the bill for cloture to start debate on the bill, I'd rather see the Democrats, and especially the President, note how remarkable it is that more of the GOP didn't vote in favor, given that its centerpiece was tax cuts and credits for businesses, which is ostensibly a key conservative principle.
Besides [a $13 billion plan to give companies who hire unemployed Americans a payroll tax exemption on those employees through the end of this year, and a $1,000 tax credit to employers who keep new workers on the payroll for at least for 52 weeks], the bill would also extend a tax break, included in last year's stimulus package, to encourage business to make capital expenditures. The provision would allow businesses to write off up to $250,000 in capital investments in 2010 rather than depreciating the costs over time.
When Republicans won't vote for that shit en masse, it's not time to congratulate the few who will; it's time to call out the majority who won't as unprincipled obstructionists who don't stand for anything anymore, except pointless belligerence.

And maybe it's time to reconsider whether building legislation around desperate ploys to garner Republican support is really worth it for five fucking votes.

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Bread and Teaspoons Twenty-Three

Good morning (unless it isn't where you are, in which case I wish you Good $TIME_PERIOD), and welcome to this week's installment of Shakesville's networking post, Bread and Teaspoons*.

This is a (theoretically) weekly post, usually Tuesdays, providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some.

Also remember, if you’re running or part of a small business, you’re encouraged to drop links here for that. I’m happy to see Shakers makin’ their own way in whatever manner that is.


Here's how it works: There should be four sorts of comments here.

1) You comment here with any details of work you're seeking: where, what, that sort of thing. You give an e-mail address at which you can be reached - feel free to set up a special e-mail for it, if you don't want to post your regular one for the world to spam - and if another Shaker has a lead, they can contact you directly to pass it along.

A work-seeking comment should include:

  • - a short summary of the skillset you're seeking work with;

  • - a short summary of your experience

  • - where you're looking for work to happen

  • - your contact e-mail
Please do NOT include information such as your full name or telephone number, as this is and will remain a public post, and once posted, there's no taking it back (because it'll be spidered by a search engine, not because we don't want you to).

It is explicitly alright to comment to this each week with similar info.

For example, I might post a comment saying:

I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with nearly 17 years of experience. I'm looking for basically any translation job, academic, commercial, personal, genealogical, you name it, with one exception: I do not currently have certification, so if you need a certified translator (usually for legal docs: birth certificates, divorce decrees, wills), you need someone else.

I am also available as a writer or editor, for academic, journalistic, creative, marketing-oriented or any other type of written communication. Basically, if you'll pay me, I'll write or edit it. My company website is found here.

You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, cait@cogitantes.net.


2) The second type of comment would be task offering: if you've got a job you think might suit someone here, consider posting it as a comment. Use the same guidelines as above: give general information here, and specific information when you exchange e-mails. An offered task might look something like this:

I have a doctoral thesis which needs proofing and editing by Thursday, is anyone available? You can reach me at ABDShaker@shakesville.miskatonic.edu.

3) The third kind of comment I'd love to see is success stories! We’d love to know when this works out, and people actually find some employment through our efforts. If you feel like sharing, tell us how it worked out for you. :)

**NEW CATEGORY ADDED**

4) If you’re a progressive working for or running a small business and would like to include a pointer to your business, you may do so. If you’ve never otherwise posted before here (i.e., you’re a lurker), I may check in with you to be certain you’re a Shaker and not a spammer. If it turns into a spamfest, or we start getting businesses that are of dubious progressive credentials, we may need to revisit this one, but let’s give it a try.

So, that's what we'd like to see.

What we do NOT want to see:
  • - recommendations/references, even for other Shakers - leave those for the contact phase of your negotiation

  • - rates info - again, leave this for the contact phase of your negotiation; we don't want to encourage bidding wars between Shakers

  • - illegal employment - whatever we may think of a given law against a certain activity, we don't want to put Shakesville in any awkward spots legally

  • - links to job search, agency or other sites - this is meant to be Shaker-to-Shaker, here, not a spamming point for other sites; only link to sites which are yours
So there. Have at it, Shakers, for Bread and Teaspoons!

Important disclaimers: Shakesville makes no endorsement or claim as to the capabilities of anyone commenting to this post, and anyone considering hiring someone should be prepared to treat it like any other business situation: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. We're not doing any screening of this, so you'll want to make sure you check references, use safe-payment procedures (e.g., ask for a deposit), all the things you'd do when working with any stranger on the Internet. While this is intended for Shakers in general, remember that there is no real obstacle to being able to comment here, and do the things you need to do to keep yourself safe.

* As might be evident, this is an intentional reference to Bread and Roses, a longtime slogan of the left. In this case, though, my hope is that if we achieve steady bread, we will use it to power our teaspoon use.

The last several Bread and Teaspoons: Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-One. Twenty-Two.

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This is stomach-turning.

[Trigger warning.]

Delaware pediatrician accused of sexually abusing patients (good on CNN for not using a euphemism in that headline): Delaware pediatrician, Dr. Earl Bradley, 56, who has been practicing in Delaware for more than a decade, has been indicted on 471 felony counts in the alleged sexual abuse of his patients, 103 children, all but one of whom were girls. The charges include, but are not limited to, rape and sexual exploitation of a child, endangering child welfare, and assault. Bradley also has medical licenses in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida, where officials have been notified so investigations can begin there, too.

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden told CNN Radio the indictment is based on "video and digital evidence" seized from Bradley's home and medical practice in December. Authorities have not ruled out additional charges, he added.

"The reality is that as a prosecutor, the rules prohibit me from telling you exactly how I feel -- and I'm feeling a great deal today," Biden said.

...Bradley's attorney, Eugene Maurer Jr., said he would base his client's defense on mental health.

"Most of the evidence in this case comes from videotapes -- it's kind of hard to argue with videotapes," Maurer said, adding, "The issue in this case is going to come down to his mental health at the time."
Sexual predators of various stripes have tried mental impairment defenses before, but it's tough to argue that someone was under duress on somewhere between 103-471 separate occasions. Juries and jurists don't buy it, nor should they.

I nonetheless shudder every time I see such a defense being used, because I am terrified of the precedent that a "not guilty by reason of mental defect" verdict could potentially set in a case like this. Let us hope that the defense fails once again, on behalf of survivors everywhere, and particularly on behalf of Bradley's victims.

Because of the silence surrounding sexual assault in this culture, we don't have established words of condolence for its survivors. I always feel like saying, "I'm sorry for your loss." Loss of safety. Loss of security. Loss of whatever solid sense of self you had in your life before someone stole it from you.

I'm so sorry for what happened to you. No, what was done to you.

I don't know what to say, what to offer, to Bradley's victims, besides this: I wish you peace and justice.

[H/T to Shaker Catherine.]

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Open Thread


Hosted by Witchiepoo.

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Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker BlueJean: With a hat tip to Woody Allen, if you could bring one fictional character into reality, who would it be? And why?

I am sorely tempted to be a mordant asshole and make my answer "the President Obama created in the wildest fantasies of his most fervent supporters and in some of his less honest campaign rhetoric, so we could get some real progressive shit done," but instead I'll sail on to gentler waters and answer instead Poppy, because I think we'd make great friends.

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I Really Look Forward...

...to the Winter Olympics when this conversation is no longer relevant, because the misogysaurs of the International Ski Federation and the International Olympic Committee finally realize that women won't damage their delicate ladybits by fucking ski jumping.

[H/T to Shaker koach.]

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Daily Kitteh

Sophie + A Gift Bag + My Toes = WIN


This is Sophie's Most Favoritest Game in the World. If I were willing to rattle that bag with my foot for eighteen hours a day, she'd play Cat-in-a-Bag for eighteen hours a day.

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Texting! With Liss and Deeky!

Liss: Why the fuck do I have 8,000 channels but the best thing on is Goonies?

Deeks: You love Goonies.

Liss: I love One-Eyed Willie.

Deeks: LOL! Hey, you know what? There is a bar in town called the Backdoor Lounge that is somehow NOT a gay bar.

Liss: LOL!

Deeks: Also, I just finished reading "The Mystery of the Flying Skeleton" which featured exactly zero flying skeletons. What is this world coming to?

Liss: The mystery was obviously "Where the fuck was the flying skeleton?"

Deeks: The Mystery of the Missing Mystery.

Liss: The Mysterious Mystery of the Mysteriously Missing Mystery.

Deeks: LOL!

Liss: I just saw a Vaseline commercial. Do they really still need to advertise? "Vaseline: For all your dry feet and buttfucking needs."

Deeky: LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!! "But mostly for dry feet. Because choosy fags choose KY."

Liss: They should hire us.

Later…

Deeks: Now I'm watching Goonies. Is Corey wearing a Members Only jacket AND parachute pants?

Liss: Uh huh, lol. And btw his name is Mouth, okay? Sheesh!

Deeks: LOL. And now they just knocked the dick off the statue. LOL! I don't remember any of this. "Heroin"? "Torture devices"? This is a kids movie?

Liss: The 80s were totally the best time to be a kid. No one gave the slightest shit what we were looking at, lol.

Deeks: God bless the Reagan years.

Liss: Totes. Our parents were all, "Who gives a shit what they're watching. It won't matter when we all die in a nuclear holocaust."

Deeks: LOLOLOL!! Totes. Whatever happened to Martha Plimpton?

Liss: She's been a stage actress for about a decade.

Deeks: That's good. I always liked her.

Liss: Me too. I saw her in a play in Chicago a few years ago.

Deeks: Very cool.

Later…

Deeks: I can't believe I sat through all of The Goonies just now. Now Princess Bride is on. Wesley is wrestling a giant nutria.

Liss: LOL! We're watching that, too. Honest to Maude, nothing worth watching has been made since 1997, except Lost.

Deeks: Just you wait for Ghostbusters 3.

Liss: I ain't fraida no ghosts.

Deeks: Are too! Scared ass!

Liss: Wevs. I totes fucked Slimer like 6 times.

Deeks: LOL! Did you use Vaseline?

Liss: Are you stupid or something? He's like a blob of ectoplasmic lube.

Deeks: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!! "Are you stupid or something?"

Liss: LOL! "What are you—hard of thinking?"

Deeks: LOL! Off to bed. Nite nite!

Liss: Me too! We're so pyrotechnic. Nite!

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Today in Fail.

Courtesy of Webmd.

First the image that caught my attention:



I'll give you a clue as to how excellent the article is:

"Indeed, if we always ate only when we were really hungry and stopped when we were full, there would be no obesity epidemic."

My reaction, essentially, as I emailed to Liss: ORLYWTFSTFU. Way to go Webmd for essentially calling that model fat and thus reinforcing some utterly unrealistic bullshit beauty standard. Wooo. Not to mention all your "eat smaller portions on smaller plates and don't go the buffet! because that's why you're fat, buffet-eater" awesomeness. Awesomeness of Crapitude.

Also in our email conversation about it, Liss made a good point that "...she's essentially a headless fatty; way to go HEALTH SITE for dehumanizing fat people. Christ.".

Diagnosis: FAIL.


[Commenting Guidelines] Please reserve the critique to Webmd and not examining/picking apart the model herself.

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Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"



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Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.

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Quote of the Day

The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest. - Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R) speaking last Thursday at a press conference against state funding for Planned Parenthood.

HT to Think Progress.

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