"You must charge something for the lemonade. That's the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs—how much the lemonade costs, and the cups—and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money."—Chicago Sun-Times columnist and pitiable person Terry Savage, who was "really set off" by "three little girls sitting at a homemade lemonade stand," who were giving away the lemonade for free. After railing about these wee commies for fifteen paragraphs, she notes, "No wonder America is getting it all wrong when it comes to government, and taxes, and policy."
It's Quite Amazing...
...that this entire story could be written into existence with nary a single use of the word "privilege" in its entirety.
Did I say amazing? I meant typical.
Fireworks and Shit
Happy Belated Independence Day, you collection of tree-hugging limousine liberals, pinko Commies, dope fiends, queerbaits, ladyboys, fat chicks, feminazi castrators, and assorted freaks. I know I'm three days late and fifty cents short as usual, but I blew off the tip of my index finger again and it took like nine years to find it and get it sewn back on and shit.
Anyways, I love the 4th of July. It's the greatest thing this country ever invented. Besides fireworks. I'll light the fuck out of a roman candle any day of the year, but on the Fourth I don't have to worry that one of the Boys in Blue dropping by for weed or ammo will get all officious on me and shit. One week before the damn Fourth, and I had to give away all my Pamela Gorman bullets to that goddamn pig Lance Butz so's he wouldn't write me up. Just because I was shooting bottle rockets at the Cooter twins across the road at the Gas n' Sip. Whatever.
When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of cherry bombs and would blow shit up with them all the time. Once I put one in the refrigerator in the garage and totally destroyed all of the old man's Coors. He was pissed. Ha! Good times.
Nowadays I can't even look at a cherry bomb on account of the way they remind me of my ex, Cherry. I dated her between me and my ex-wife/fiancée Tammy's second and third engagement between our first and second marriage. You know those crazy bitches that real funny stand-up comedians always talk about…? Like, "Women try to trap men by getting pregnant and buy lots of shoes and nag your ass about stupid shit?" Or whatever. I'm not a joke-writer. Anyways, that was totally Cherry. Which is why I bought this for the holiday:
[Image of box of fireworks called "Psycho Girlfriend" featuring giant red-haired woman.]
Check that shit out! It was pretty awesome, except for how the box is misleading. Buyer beware: A giant woman doesn't shoot out of it and stomp the fuck out of everything, but whatever. It was still pretty cool.
I also picked up this one too:
[Image of box of fireworks called "Dream Machine" featuring blond woman on motorcycle.]
I had to give my bike to some reprobate last year because of some shit-ass deal that went bad. Fucking hippies. This lady kind of reminded me of Cherry, too, which was a bonus. I almost didn't light it off, the picture was so sweet. It would have looked so good on the headboard of my waterbed, but you only live once. Plus, I had all this extra beer for the festivities and it didn't seem right drinking it without the fireworks. Not on the Fourth.
I got one other thing:
[Image of box of fireworks called "Evil Empire" advertising "shoots flaming balls."]
I fucking hate Saddam bin Laden. I wish they'd catch his ass and bring our troops home from Somalia already. So this Evil Empire set was awesome. Colors weren't very patriotic, though. Green? Green fireworks suck. What is this—France? HIGH FIVES!
I was really excited about the "flaming balls," though.
Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot. My ex-wife/fiancée Tammy's niece was over for the weekend and if you got kids I recommend this shit:
[Image of pink backpack stuffed with fireworks, labeled "Girl's Backpack."]
It's perfect for girls because it's pink and shit. And all the fireworks were called "friendship flowers" and "hello pussies" and junk like that, which girls are into.
For boys, just get 'em the regular fireworks. Otherwise, they might go gay.
[Previously by Butch Pornstache: Happy Taxes and Teabags Day, I'm a Proud Teabagger and Real American, Men and Trucks and Shit, Cats and Shit, Books and Cupcakes and Shit, Ron Swanson Kicks Butt, Dale Peterson is a Great American, I'm a Man and I Enjoy Mancations. Pamela Gorman is a Great American.]
Discussion Thread: Superhero MMOs
With regard to the earlier thread on Blizzard's latest WoW Fail, I asked Shaker Norbizness, who mentioned in comments he was "trying out different superhero mmos" and finding "the levels of freedom and customization are much higher," if he would be interested in providing a brief review by way of introduction to a Discussion Thread. Norbiz replied (which I am publishing with his permission):
My superhero mmos are basically City of Heroes/City of Villains and its successor, Champions online. From any sort of feminist/disability/heteronormative perspective, it suffers superficially from the same tropes that plague pen-and-paper comics. The thing that partially redeems it is the unbelievable level of customization for your characters; literally trillions of combinations with all body types, species, colors, and even robotic. As a result, Cryptic Studios (I have no affiliation with them apart from not wanting the game to die because of the WoW monopoly) has made it that you can create characters that transcend whatever norm there is. I'm fairly certain that it's a minor game compared to the number of subscribers Warhammer, Star Trek Online, and especially WoW have.I know there are a lot of Shakers who play superhero mmos (including Spudsy, who loves playing a supervillain), so please feel free to make your recommendations and add your reviews in comments.
DC Universe Unlimited is coming out in November, and I've seen the screenshots. If you didn't like Power Girl's and Wonder Woman's outfits before, the game is certainly no different on the surface from your typical DC comic. I will probably try it out in beta in the next couple of months and can tell you whether it offers the same opportunities for customization and individual experience that are lacking in many of the fantasy games.
For those interested, DC is rolling out their product here, and Champions online is here.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Liss' Big Fat T-Shirts.
Recommended Reading:
Resistance has an excellent follow-up to the Joel Stein trainwreck in Time we discussed last week.
Matthew on The Today Show's Opposite-Sex Couples Only Marriage Contest: Here and Here.
Sady: And Now, a Word from The Daily Show
Mo Pie: Fat Hygiene
Renee: Happy Birthday Frida, I See Your Pain
Chris: I don't see how this could possibly end badly.
Macon: Quote of the Week, from Paul Mooney
Leave your links in comments...
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Background.]
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Just Like Jesus Wanted
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed a bill that will allow people to bring guns into houses of worship.
[The "gun-in-church" bill] authorizes persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.Um. Okay.
To defend against whom, I can't imagine. Especially since the last bit of gun violence inside a church in the US that I recall was the murder of Dr. George Tiller, and, before that, the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, both of which were about conservatives seeking out progressives whose political views/actions they didn't like. And it ain't progressives who were lobbying for this law.
Jindal also signed some stupid shit—like a law outlawing "synthetic marijuana-like incense products"—and chipped away at Roe by signing into law a bill "requiring women to get an obstetric ultrasound before an abortion," which makes the implicit invocation of Dr. Tiller by the other law somehow that much more painful.
[Via.]
Guess Who Hates You
[Trigger warning.]
If you said this guy, give yourself a cigar slice of watermelon:
Gallagher? Whut? Huh? The guy who used to smash produce with a sledgehammer back in the Eighties? Yes, him. Now he smashes other things. More symbolic things. At a recent show in Washington:
Gallagher gets a tin pie plate. He opens a giant can of fruit cocktail and pours it in. He opens a can of some Asian vegetable — water chestnuts, maybe — and pours that in, too. "This is the China people and queers!!!" he screams and takes his sledgehammer to the thing with a fury that is no fun at all.What the fuck? China people and queers? Okay. So, who else is on Gallagher's shit list? The President, for one. "You ain't black. I don't care what you say — you're a latte. You're half whole-milk. It could be goat milk — you could be a terrorist!" He continues, "If Obama was really black, he'd act like a black guy and get a white wife!" Wow.
And if you have a tattoo, Gallagher doesn't like that either: "That ink goes through to your soul — if you read your Bible, your body is a sacred temple, you dipshit." I'm not sure what the Bible says about calling people dipshits.
Gallagher also doesn't like lesbians (I think): "There's two types — the ugly ones and the pretty ones."
And he really doesn't like trans folk. Especially fat trans folk. "People like Cher's daughter — figure that out. She wants a penis, but she has a big belly. If you can't see your dick, you don't get one."
Gallagher on foreigners: "Look around — see any Mexicans? Nope. They'll be here later for the cleanup." And: "[The French] ruin our language with their faggy words." Yes, Gallagher really hates fags.
He leans into it with the borderline-nonsensical, icked-out, ignorant glee of a boy — or the protest-too-much vigor of a GOP senator. Gallagher delivers your Bible verse for the day: "Without God, we are nothing but dust. What is butt dust? Is that what you get if your homosexual isn't properly lubricated?" He relates a story about spilling mouthwash onto his crotch during a show: "Lucky for me, there was no homosexuals in the area — 'cause my balls was minty fresh."Christ.
Back in the Eighties, Gallagher was pretty-much harmless (assuming you weren't a watermelon), but he's now moved into very dangerous territory. (The author describes a moment when the show "veers creepily close to white-power rhetoric: 'We're descended from an Anglo-Saxon Viking tradition!') There is no joke in smashing a plate full of veggies and saying "this is China people and queers." That's just hatred. Rage and hatred: visceral, primal. And dangerous.
[Cross-posted.]
Today in Fat Hatred
[Trigger warning for fat hatred and discussion of disordered eating.]
Apple is offering a great new app for the iPhone charmingly called FatBooth. The app allows users to turn headshots of thin people into fat people! Because fat people are hilarious, amiright?!
Naturally, the app doesn't say it only turns thin people into fatties, because the description assumes it's speaking only to thin people—or, as we monstrous non-human fatties are meant to think of them, just "people."
Tired of diets?! Get fat instantly with FatBooth (by the creators of AgingBooth, #1 Top Paid App in more than 25 countries). What would you look like with a "few" extra pounds? And what about your friends? Find out with FatBooth, a fun way to instantly supersize faces on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Use FatBooth on family, friends or colleagues photos and share them via email, MMS, FaceBook, Twitter.Won't it just be hilarious to harass your family and friends (and colleagues?!) by showing pictures of them all fat and shit?! That's comedy gold, baby.
Apart from the evident fat hatred implicit in treating fat people as objects of ridicule, inherently laughable simply by virtue of their appearance, the exhortation to "fatten" other people and publicly post pictures of them is wildly irresponsible. There are millions of people in the US alone with eating disorders, most of which aren't self-evident and many of which could be triggered by the unexpected receipt of a "fattened" picture of oneself. What uproarious fun to trigger a slim person who battles every day against binge eating; what a riotous jest to trigger a slim person who battles every day against a body dysmorphic disorder that causes hir to see hirself as fat when zie isn't.
The app description also includes the "Warning" that "FatBooth is a funny application made for entertainment purposes only and does not guarantee resemblance to the real fattening process." Leaving aside the idea that the mockery of fat people is "entertainment," I'd like to note that there's actually no such thing as "the real fattening process," or no one process.
Naturally, the makers of FatBooth only intend to make fun of those fatties whose "fattening process" happened via stuffing their fat faces full of fatty foods all fat day—never mind that making fun of fat people who got fat by stuffing their fat faces full of fatty foods all fat day is an indefensible position anyway, if one has even a rudimentary belief in free will, autonomy, and individual agency—and that they don't intend to make fun of those fatties whose "fattening process" was a result of disease, or disability, or treatment of one of the above.
But such distinctions cannot be made. Some of us are fat because we are lazy overeaters. Some of us are fat because we are disabled and cannot get enough exercise. Some of us are fat because we are ill. Some of us are fat because we ruined our metabolisms yo-yo dieting at a much lesser weight. Some of us are fat because we are on medication that causes weight gain. Some of us are fat because we self-medicate with food. Some of us are fat because we are trauma survivors who subconsciously (or consciously) use fat as a self-defense mechanism. Some of us are fat because we like the way it looks. Some of us are fat because of genetics. Some of us are fat because we just had a baby. Some of us are fat because we are poor. Some of us are fat for reasons we haven't even identified ourselves.
And FatBooth makes fun of all of us.
And further to the dehumanization and derision of fat people, it treats us all as one giant blobby monolith, who all get fat in the same way. FatBooth happens to "fatten" people in a way that looks like me, but not every fat person gets a double-chin and widened nose. Of the many things wrong with FatBooth, its failure to "fatten" well may seem a minor complaint—but it's indicative of how the makers of the app regard fatties not like individual people, but as a collection of silly attributes worthy of scorn and contempt.
Shaker Dr. Jan Itor emailed me about the app, noting: "I actually discovered it through Facebook, where one of my friends uploaded an album. … The 'friend' on Facebook included comments on each picture she uploaded about the person 'letting hirself go' and it being the result of 'eating too much cake!' Hardy har har."
I'm sure her fat friends find that just hilarious.
For the pleasure of "fattening" your family, friends, and colleagues, and turning fat people into a punchline yet again, FatBooth will cost you ninety-nine cents.
What she said: Women are not broken edition
Two weeks ago, Camille Paglia made a bunch of stuff up about why I'm apparently not having enough sex, and for some reason, The New York Times printed it. Yawn. I figured the whole mess was none of your damn business. Besides, Echidne wrote a brilliant rebuttal:
There is no evidence whatsoever that there is some new sexual malaise that 'appears to have sunk over the country,' and Paglia gives us exactly zero evidence on such a giant change happening over time or in the recent past. Neither is there any evidence that the 'overachieving white upper middle class' is somehow behind the demands for female viagra.Anyhow, I bring this up not so much because I care what Camille Paglia thinks, or because I think you should read Echidne (although, yes, I think you should). I bring it up because I just read a bunch of letters to the Times' editors, and now have a headache.
AFAICT, six of the seven authors seem to take it for granted that yes, female sexuality ain't what it used to be. After all, Paglia says so! In the Times! I shudder to think what these same letter writers think of David Brooks, who also says things. In the Times!
I had the pleasure of marching in the [video, audio may be NSFW] I Can't Believe It's Not A Dyke March! in Toronto this past weekend. I didn't have the chance pose the question "whatever happened to female sexuality" to the woman with the clown nose, duct tape covered nipples, and amazing (and huge!) "PERV" flag.* The same goes for the lady with the bikini made out of police tape. Or really, any of the fabulous women in attendance. It's just as well; I'm guessing since we're dykes, we don't really count.
Back to the matter at hand: humorless feminists. Hormones! OMFG hormones!!! Misplaced priorities. Death fat! Neglecting the role of fertility and reproduction in love making! (Again: Dyke March). Poooooooooorn!
In short, women, (and to a certain extent, *you* people) are DOIN IT RONG, just not necessarily for the reasons Paglia throws out there. Great. Just great.
Forget feminism 101, let's try some feminism 099. It's not credit-bearing, but the texts are cheap.
Women are people. People are individuals. Individuals vary. For example: not all women experience sexuality the same way. Not all the middle class white ones, not even all Latina and Black women. (Really, Camille Paglia, you thought you'd slip that in without 1 out of 7 letter writers calling you on it? Okay, that one letter is probably precisely why you slipped it in.)
Feminism? It's not the problem. Nor is having the wrong approach to sex. Indeed, last I checked, many feminists and womanists (the ones I agree with) posited that there's not a single correct approach to sex and sexuality. And our bodies? They're fucking fabulous. Fat or re/un/mis-hormoned, or whatever the fuck you're talking about. It could, indeed be, that some women are stressed and tired, and therefore experiencing some sort of sexual malaise, but gah! Please. Stop. Projecting.
Let me give a special shout out to the Times for making this all possible, because really, I only see three worthwhile responses to a column so willfully absurd. You could ignore the situation, you could quote Molly Ivins and refer to the column as compost, or you could write the Times to remind them that print is dead and column space is precious. None of these tactics is likely to get a letter printed in the gray lady. Thus, we're left with what appears to be serious debate on why women are broken. Again, thanks.
Remind me to save this post for the next time some pundit says something bizarre about what's wrong with women, and the public uses it as an excuse to discuss all of the other things that are really wrong with women. It should be happening in three, two, one...
--
*I am so going to get a little plastic version of this to put on the SUV that I'm going to buy just so I can drive around with my little flag on top.
Way To Go, Spidey
[Image of sign reading "No Feet On The Walls Please".]
Had to ruin it for everyone, didn't you?
(See also.)
Question of the Day
Nicked from the Wall Street Journal: Would you buy an electric car if you had ample access to charging stations?
Sure. Yes. Absolutely.
Titanic 3D Coming in April 2012:
Last we heard, James Cameron and Fox were targeting the "spring of 2012" to re-release Titanic in 3D. Thanks to Ministry of Gossip [via /Film], we now know that the spring month in question is April. The news was mentioned in a tribute to Gloria Stuart, who played "Old Rose" in the film and celebrated her 100th birthday on July 4th. April 2012 marks a centennial anniversary of its own, as the Rms Titanic attempted to traverse the Atlantic from April 12-14, 1912. In addition to the historical timing, the intended month of release (nearly two years away) gives Cameron and Co. plenty of time to perfect the finer details of the 3D conversion.Definitely. This. Lots of money for this.
New Suede Gigs Announced
After reforming earlier this year for a benefit show, the Founding Fathers of Britpop return with more shows this fall:
Smukfest, Skanderborg, Denmark, 7 August 2010See ya there!
Parkenfestivalen, Bodo, Norway, 21 August 2010
Elysee Montmartre, Paris, France, 28 November 2010
Cirque Royal, Brussels, Belgium, 29 November 2010
Cirkus, Stockholm, Sweden, 1 December 2010
Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2 December 2010
Huxleys, Berlin, Germany, 3 December 2010
The O2 Arena, London, England, 7 December 2010
[Cross-posted.]
WoW Fail
by Shaker everstar
[Trigger warning for stalking/violation of privacy.]
One of my favorite pastimes is about to do something incredibly, incredibly stupid and dangerous.
Okay. I play World of Warcraft, and I enjoy it ridiculous amounts, and recently they implemented an in-game system where you can give out the address associated with your Warcraft account to other people and they can see your real name. Which not everyone is crazy about, but it's optional, so it's not an involuntary invasion of privacy. Also there are some benefits: You can talk to people when they're playing their opposing side characters, and also when they're on a different realm than you are. So there's a trade-off.
But today, Blizzard, the company that owns WoW, announced that they would implement this system, the RealID system, in their public forums. That means every post you make will have the name linked with your account published. On a public forum. Where everyone can see it. If you want to ask a question in their Customer Service forum, if you want to post a Bug Report, if you want to talk to other people in your realm, the name associated with your account will be displayed. And it's supposed to be your real name.
You can't turn it off. You can't opt out. You can't opt to have only your first name displayed, or a nickname. It's your real name.
There are people who've moved servers to get away from people who were stalking them on other servers. There are a lot of women players who hide behind male avatars to avoid being harassed. Where are they going to go?
They're even going to force this on their Game Masters, who are required to live in one of two cities to do their jobs. So now the Game Master on the forum who told you that thing you didn't like…? Google hir name around Irvine, CA or Austin, TX, and you just might find hir.
I hasten to clarify that this hasn't happened yet. It's supposed to happen around the time they roll out the new expansion, which rumor says will happen around October or so. So we've got time to get it through their heads that they should absolutely not do this. Shakers, let us work our teaspoons to spoon some sense into Blizzard.
Contact Blizzard Entertainment here.
Or contact via snail mail at:
Blizzard Entertainment
Attn: Mr. Mike Morhaine, CEO
P.O. Box 18979
Irvine, CA 92623
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
