Hosted by a duck pull toy.
UK Prime Minister Named
And sadly, I must report that the PM will be Cameron, the Tory, after the Lib Dems decided to throw in with them on a promise of a referendum on alternative voting. I don't know the details of the promise, but I can't help but feel the Tories wouldn't have offered it if they thought there were any chance of it actually happening, as the current system favours the two biggest parties disproportionately*.
Consider this basically an Open Thread on the UK election results, if you will.
* The current system, for instance, where Labour gained something like 23% (I think? can't be arsed to look it up, but the next part's true) of the vote, only a couple of per cent more than the Liberal Democrats, but were able to claim nearly five times as many seats in Parliament. This works because First Past the Post systems only reward victory in a binary/zero-sum fashion (one party wins the seat, all the others lose; you could come second in every riding in the land, take 49% of the popular vote, and still not win a single seat if each riding had someone from another party who was even 1% more popular). Lib Dems (and the Greens, and other small parties) would like very much to see a shift to some form of either mixed or proportional representation, where results are closer to those predicted by the popular vote.
Question of the Day
what is the best and/or worst birthday present you've ever gotten?
I can't think of any offhand that were really terrible. The best is easy. Eight years ago today, Iain and I were living in Edinburgh, and he surprised me by whisking me away to the charming little restaurant at which we'd had our very first date, and then to an absolutely splendid hotel, which had been arranged for by my sneaky and fabulous girlfriend Miller, who also saw that there were champagne and strawberries waiting for us, as well. They planned the whole thing without my ever cottoning on, which is no small feat.
And in our lovely room, he proposed to me (even though we had already gotten the fiancé visa, so it was truly a done deal).
It was a really wonderful evening, and what I remember most about it is how handsome Iain looked in his charcoal suit, and how nervous he was, even though I had already agreed to marry him in notarized paperwork submitted to the US government, lol.
Photo of the Day
A zookeeper holds two-day-old white lion cubs in Belgrade Zoo, Serbia, Friday, May 7, 2010. The two white lions cubs, an extremely rare subspecies of the African lion were recently born in Belgrade Zoo. White lions are unique to the Timbavati area of South Africa and are not albinos but a genetic rarity. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Someone Didn't Quite Think This Through
Shaker TG just emailed me this listing on Craigslist, advertising a "Man Sale."
[Click to embiggen.]
The text—which is superimposed over a background collage composed of images of, I guess, Things Men Own, like stereo equipment, guns, beer, and women—reads: "MAN SALE: Friday and Saturday, May 14th & 15th, 7am until whenever. 13311 W. Prospect Dr. New Berlin. BUY – SELL – TRADE. Whatcha have? Whatcha need? Whatcha want? [Image of a struck-through female symbol, followed by an image of Al Bundy.] NO MA'AM. Women welcome just not girlie items."
While my dear friend Butch Pornstache heartily approves of any and all linguistic masculinations (mandals, guyliner, bromance), I daresay that the host(s) of this spectacular event may not have thoroughly considered the implications of replacing the traditional "rummage" or "garage" or "yard" with "man." Mixed messaging, at best.
Or maybe not. In which case, I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of men are for sale at the "Dollar & Five Dollar Tables."
Daily Dose o' Cute
Top-Left: Matilda. Top-Right: Olivia.
Bottom-Left: Sophie. Bottom-Right: Dudley.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
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.]
Quote of the Day
"What would people most like to see in 3-D? Probably a naked lady."—Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, whose magazine features a 3-D centerfold in its June issue.
Y'know, 'cuz that's what "people" want.
What About the Menz Indeed
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
In what is one of the most deplorable examples of "What About the Menz" I've ever seen, Milwaukee County's chief mental health official, John Chianelli, decided to placate violent male psychiatric patients by housing female patients in the previously sex-segregated locked ward. When the integrated ward resulted in a surge of sexual assaults against the female patients, Chianelli then defended the decision as a "trade-off."
Three Milwaukee County supervisors turned up the heat Monday on the county's top mental health official, calling for the firing of John Chianelli over mishandling of patient assaults.A "trade-off." Sure. Spoken like a true believer in the idea that no one gives a fuck about female psychiatric patients, anyway—so might as well hand them over to the male patients who will be less inclined to be aggressive toward one another if they've got vulnerable, unprotected women to rape. Heaven knows we wouldn't want those men hurting themselves, or each other, or one of the facility staff. You know, people who matter.
Their remarks follow a report Sunday in the Journal Sentinel in which Chianelli defended housing female patients with dangerous male patients to quell male-on-male violence, according to written account by Supervisor Lynne De Bruin. Chianelli called it a trade-off that resulted in more sexual assaults of female patients, according to De Bruin and two other supervisors.
…Chianelli described the rationale for the county's mixed-gender wards as a "trade-off" that avoided more fights common to all-male wards but increased the chance of sexual attacks in mixed-sex wards, according to De Bruin's letter.
"Going to gender-based units trades violence for sexual assaults," based on his review of psychiatric literature, Chianelli told the panel, according to the letter.
The profundity of my contempt is bottomless.
[H/T to Shaker Julie.]
There are four and a half hours of Lost left.
JEARSBLUB!!!!11!eleventy!!1!
Because Why Should McCain Get All The Asshole Points?
White cis man Dan Fanelli, standing for Congress in Florida, wants in on the party.
(Warning: thoroughly racist bullshit, may induce a desire to make rude gestures at Mr. Fanelli)
Tip of the CaitieCap to Jen over at Disgrasian. Plus, y'know, it's a damned good blog, read it anyway.
DeeplyProblematic also has a post analysing this racist screed, here.
Transcript below the fold, provided by the good offices of Shaker museclio.
[Two men speaking in what appears to be Arabic. A young man is balancing what looks like a metal thermos but I think is supposed to be a bomb.]
Young Man: (captioned)How will I reach martyrdom if I’m captured?
Man two: (captioned) If you spill the blood of the infidels [obscured] allow yourself to be captured. We will use the infidel’s lawyers and Miranda rights to send a message. Then you will go to God.
[Men freeze. Dan Fanelli comes out.]
My name is Dan Fanelli. Send me to Washington and I’ll send our enemies where they belong. And that’s not to a court room.
[DF stands next to elderly white man] Does this look like a terrorist? [Man 2 appears] Or This? Time to stop this political correctness and invasion of our privacy.
[DF steps up an mugs for the camera] Let’s face it, if a good looking ripped guy without much hair was flying airplanes into the twin towers I’d have no problem being pulled out of line at the airpoirt.
[DF appears next to a small plane and points] This is an airplane. [DF reaches down and yanks up Man 2 with a white turban, duct tape over his mouth and what appears to be a bomb strapped to his chest] And this is a terrorist. Send me to Washington, and get rid of that bum Alan Grayson and I’llmake sure guys like this get nowhere near things like this.
[DF’s face over the American flag]I’m Dan Fanelli and I approved this message.
CNN Headline Nooz
An important list of "Men who stuck by the 'other woman'."
My favorite part is the first bullet point on CNN's regrettable "Story Highlight" article-summarizing feature: "Some times an affair can lead to marriage."
Classic.
Hey, Losties!
Episode Twenty-Three:
The Lostcast
In honour of Liss's birthday, and the impending finale of Lost, this week's show is a collection of songs featured throughout the series. Press the button, download, listen.
Songs: 15. Running time: 1:08.
Here is a link to the podcast blog where you can download the show.
And this is the list of all songs used in this week's ep.
You can also play the show in a pop-up.
The show is available via iTunes, on Feedburner, and on reel-to-reel in the Dharma rec room.
The RSS is here, if you need it.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
[Trigger warning for clergy abuse.]
"Persecution!"
Pope Benedict XVI says the Church's child abuse scandal shows that the greatest threat to Catholicism comes from "sin within" the Church.Okay, first of all, the Catholic Church is not being persecuted. Let's just get that out of the way right now. Political prisoners, women being raped as a weapon of war, trans men and women assaulted by bigots, gay teens bullied at school, children being abused by parents, ethnic minorities denied basic rights, people who don't conform to dominant religious faiths (including, perhaps, individual Catholics in some places), marginalized people all over the world—these are people who are persecuted. A vast international organization with its own country and immeasurable wealth and influence, whose members are shielded from the law, is not suffering from persecution. And the mere suggestion is almost incomprehensibly vulgar.
"Today we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies, but is born of sin within the Church," the pontiff told reporters on a plane bound for Portugal.
People and institutions persecute. "Sin" doesn't. The "sin" being committed by predator priests is making the Church look bad, not persecuting it—and the wall of silence (sans the occasional gay-scapegoating rape apologia) that the Church has constructed around that "sin" is doing its fair share to make the Church look bad, too.
The only thing of which the Church is a victim is its own crushing corruption, cloaked in an impenetrable, arrogant, self-pitying conceit that allows it to see itself as the primary sufferers at the hands of predator priests, and the actual children and adults they assaulted as nothing but inconvenient evidence of the "sin" that the Church is forced to publicly bear. Boo fucking hoo.
OMG LOL John McCain Is Such An Asshole
Check out his new campaign advert:
[John McCain, wearing a Navy baseball cap and casual clothes, walks along the border fence with another white male, wearing a uniform, who is identified as Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona. They both look Very Serious.]He approves this DANGED message!
McCain: Drug and human smuggling, home invasions, murder.
Babeu: We're out-manned. Of all the illegals in America, more than half come through Arizona.
McCain: Have we got the right plan?
Babeu: Plan's perfect. [Text onscreen: McCain/Kyl Border Security Action Plan: National Guard Now. CompleteTheDangedFence.com] You bring troops, [Text onscreen: 3,000 New Border Control Agents] state, county, and local law enforcement together. [Text onscreen: Complete the Fence]
McCain: And complete the danged fence!
Babeu: It'll work this time. [Text onscreen: Paul Babeu is appearing only in his personal capacity. McCain squints into the sun, all tough-guy like.] Senator, you're one of us.
[Freeze-frame on John McCain's face. Text: Arizona's John McCain.]
McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
Happy Birthday, 'Liss!
As everyone knows, we here at Shakesville do every single thing that Melissa wants us to (/snark), so the theme of this year's cake was not a question.
However, we had more than one cook in the kitchen this year, so I'm posting both the cakes that were made.
First, this lovely offering from SKM and The Lady Eve:
and my own humble video offering to the QCoFM, on this, the anniversary of her nativity (for those without sound, the soundtrack is the Beatles "Birthday"):
Big huge titty-wrap hugs and happiest of Happy Birthdays to you, Melissa -- on a LOST day, no less!
