"Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I'm on the camera?"- Tea Party Candidate and Colorado Republican Ken Buck, putting his foot in his mouth yet again. Last week, responding to a question as to why someone should vote for him, Buck responded "Because I do not wear high heels."
Buffy the Vampire Soda
Jones Soda has just launched a new line of Buffy the Vampire Slayer themed drinks, for your geeking pleasure. The fab flavours are: Buffy's Blue Bubblegum, Dawn's A Centaur Root Beer, Xander's Strawberry Lime Elixir, Twilight's Old Moon Orange & Cream, Willow’s Green Apple Witch's Brew, and Giles's Grape Potion (see above).
I am sure they taste awful. Because grape soda is awful. No amount of hip packaging can change that. You can order yours here. Just don't drink it. (It's less collectible that way.)
[Via Andy and cross-posted.]
Consent Conschment: Dudebros Need Entertainment!
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
In one of the most remarkable decisions I've ever heard, a St. Louis Circuit Court jury ruled last week that explicit consent isn't necessary for "Girls Gone Wild."
A jury on Thursday rejected a young woman's claim that the producers of a "Girls Gone Wild" video damaged her reputation by showing her tank top being pulled down by another person in a Laclede's Landing bar.There is no such thing as implicit consent. That line of defense should not even have been allowed in a courtroom. And it is, of course, precisely that victim-blaming bullshit on which the jury seized to rule against the woman (who only found out she was in the video six years after the fact "after a friend of her husband's reported that she was in one of the videos).
A St. Louis Circuit Court jury deliberated 90 minutes before ruling against the woman, 26, on the third day of the trial. Lawyers on both sides argued the key issue was consent, with her side saying she absolutely refused to give it and the defense claiming she silently approved by taking part in the party.
"I am stunned that this company can get away with this," [Jane Doe] said after the verdict. "Justice has not been served. I just don't understand. I gave no consent."This, despite the fact that Doe can reportedly be heard saying "no" in the video.
But Patrick O'Brien, the jury foreman, told a reporter later that an 11-member majority decided that Doe had in effect consented by being in the bar and dancing for the photographer. In a trial such as this one, agreement by nine of 12 jurors is enough for a verdict.
"Through her actions, she gave implied consent," O'Brien said. "She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing."
"Girls Gone Wild" is a despicable franchise that has been allowed to get away with having clearly intoxicated women, some of them underage, give onscreen verbal consent or sign consent forms—and this ruling takes the defense of their predation to a whole new level. According to this jury, they don't even need to bother with verbal or signed consent: Any woman out of her house, fashionably dressed, and having a good time, maybe drinking, maybe at a bar, maybe at a party, but somewhere where there's booze and dancing, is giving "implicit consent" to be sexually assaulted, filmed, and put into a video from which she'll receive none of the profits.
Welcome to the rape culture.
[H/Ts to Shakers Gabrielle, Monica, and InfamousQBert.]
Today in Not News: The Afghanistan War Blows
Today's Big News is that Wikileaks has published 92,000 military documents leaked from the front of the Afghanistan War, in what is one of the biggest leaks in US military history.
The Guardian—Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation: "A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency."
The New York Times—Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan, Reports Assert: "Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday."
Der Spiegel—Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It: "The documents' release comes at a time when calls for a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan are growing—even in America. Last week, representatives from more than 70 nations and organizations met in Kabul for the Afghanistan conference. They assured President Hamid Karzai that his country would be in a position by 2014 to guarantee security using its own soldiers and police. But such shows of optimism seem cynical in light of the descriptions of the situation in Afghanistan provided in the classified documents. Nearly nine years after the start of the war, they paint a gloomy picture."
Reuters—Documents allege Pakistan secretly backed Taliban: "Despite efforts by the White House to contain the political fallout, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, one of Obama's closest Democratic allies, said the leaked documents raised 'serious questions about the reality of America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan'."
Come on, Senator Kerry. Don't act all surprised. The biggest news about this leak should be that the horror the documents reveal isn't actually news. Not to anyone who's been paying attention to the war we're totally not supposed to be paying attention to.
As Drum notes, "the basic picture is basically the one we've known for a long time: a difficult, chaotic battlefield that's shown little progress since the very beginning of the war."
We're not remaking Afghanistan, and we never have been. That was Bush administration propaganda, which Obama & Co. were disappointingly happy to continue to promulgate as they escalated the war.
Perhaps the most important thing to come out of this document dump is that it could prove to be, as Dave Gilson suggests, "the watershed moment after which no one can honestly claim ignorance of what's really happening over there."
Let us hope. And let us hope some policy based in reality follows.
(I expect more, but I won't hold my breath.)
Part of This Complete Breakfast
Know what I was thinking about this morning? Cereal. More specifically, Urkel-Os brand cereal (the Urkelized part of your complete breakfast). Remember how yummy those were? No? You sure? Well, maybe this will help your memory:
La transcripción:
Generic maybe hip-hop plays. Steve Urkel enters someplace, perhaps a restaurant, framed photo in one hand, box of cereal in the other.Makes me wish I had something other than Cap'n Crunch at home!
Urkel: Oh Laura, my pet, I created something that'll make you love me. I got a great new cereal! Did I do that? So, hike up your pant for the Urkel-Os rant*.
Back-up Singers: Mmmm! We're Urkelized with Urkel-Os!
Urkel: Strawberry, banana, fruit flavors so fine! Just one little bite and I know she'll be mine!
Back-up Singers: Mmmm! She'll be Urkelized (Urkelized!) with Urkel-Os!
Urkel: Oh, Laura, when I find you you'll taste true love! The Urkelized part of this complete breakfast. Hehehe! Snort!
* I honestly don't know if that last word is correct. I first thought the lyric was "hike up your pants for the Urkel-Os ranch" but after listening to it five or six** times I decided it was "rant," which, honestly, doesn't make any more or less sense.
** After listening to this five or six times, I was ready to dunk my head in the toilet just to get clean.
[Cross-posted.]
Open Thread
Hosted by Sweet Honey in the Rock and Maud.
This week's open threads have been hosted by the favorite album covers of Shakesville's contributors. (To be continued!)
Doctor Who Open Thread: S5E13: The Big Bang
One last time, now we're in the post-season letdown, it's time for obsessive wankery about all kinds of minutiae!
That is to say, it's a Doctor Who Open Thread! W00t!
Please be aware that there may or will be or will have been or will have going to be or...well, something...as the lovely lady said, SPOILERS!
Spoilers may exist in this thread, in some relation to the timestream, for any and all Doctor Who media up to the end of the rebooted Season 5.
The only thing I'll say out here, in case anyone's not seen it yet, is OMM I THINK I JUST BECAME A RORY 'SHIPPER.
This is startling because I have never said that about myself in respect to any character in any show ever. But after that episode, I have to say, Rory, OMM, I love you.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
For SKM.
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
lolsob
Mad Men star Jon Hamm, asked in Time's "10 Questions for..." feature, "What qualities do you think men lack today that were present in those from the Mad Men era?":
There's a cordialness that men had when dealing with the opposite sex, even when they were being blatantly sexist. It's a weird conundrum. But that's been replaced with men treating women like absolute garbage and not even being polite about it, which is too bad.LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLsob.
God Hates Jedi
I am a firm believer in the philosophy of fighting batshittery with good-natured humor. And I am glad to see that not only am I not alone, but I have an entire movement behind me: Nerdom.
They've faced down humans time and time again, but Fred Phelps and his minions from the Westboro Baptist Church were not ready for the cosplay action that awaited them today at Comic-Con. After all, who can win against a counter protest that includes robots, magical anime girls, Trekkies, Jedi and...kittens?
Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist Church, the good folks of San Diego's Comic-Con were prepared for their arrival with their own special brand of superhuman counter protesting chanting "WHAT DO WE WANT" "GAY SEX" "WHEN DO WE WANT IT" "NOW!" while brandishing ironic (and some sincere) signs. Simply stated: The eclectic assembly of nerdom's finest stood and delivered.
[Transcript by Liss below.]
There are a lot more pictures here at Comics Alliance.
Text onscreen: Comics Alliance. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church were outside Comic-Con 2010 protesting the event. They were met by counter-protesting comic book fans.
Video of counter-protestors holding up hand-drawn signs and chanting (I think) "We love comics."
White dude standing with white lady: We're here with writer Gail Simone, who showed up to check out the protests.
Inaudible crosstalk.
Simone, gesturing at the counter-protestors: I think it's awesome, this side. The other side, not so awesome. They infuriate me greatly, to be that prejudiced, to be that vile, towards other human beings, while saying they're for, you know, human beings—it just makes me furious. This side awesome, that side horrific.
Video of Simone posing for pictures with some counter-protestors.
White dude standing with another white dude dressed as Jesus: We're here outside the Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church protest with Jesus [Jesus gives the thumbs-up]. Jesus, any thoughts on the protest going on?
Jesus: Fred's got issues. [White dude nods and grins.]
Video of marching counter-protestors.
White dude standing with Jesus: Who do you think would win in a fight between Fred Phelps and (I think) Batman?
Jesus: [Laughs] Well, unfortunately, Batman is not real; Fred is.
Video of counter-protestors.
Number of the Day
Zero. The number of shits I give that Tom "Totes Racist" Tancredo thinks President Barack Obama should be impeached because his immigration policy makes him "a more serious threat to America than al Qaeda."
Grow up, you stupid hyperbolic baby.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Background. Trigger warning for child sex abuse and homophobia.]
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.]
WHUT.
[Trigger warning for child sex abuse.]
I just don't have it in me to parse everything that's distressing about this story in the Boston Globe about the "several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material."
But I will point out three things:
1. Note the number of people busted who are identified as "contractors." Yay, privatization.
2. This is absolutely stunning:
A separate case involves a contractor working at the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that builds and operates the nation's spy satellites. The individual admitted in 2008 when he was being interviewed to renew his security clearance that he viewed child pornography at least twice a week on his home computer.So…a dude openly admits in an interview for security clearance that he regularly views child porn, and he's not only not immediately turned over to police and fired, but is just transferred to another office. (Is that because he didn't get the security clearance, or did he get it anyway? Who knows.) It appears the Pentagon has subcontracted the Catholic Church to run its human resources department.
As of December, the individual had been transferred to an agency field office in New Mexico and had not been charged. A National Reconnaissance Office spokesman, Rick Oborn, said he was aware of a few cases of agency employees accessing such images but could not immediately say whether the particular contractor was still working for the organization.
3. I love that the main issue of concern to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service seems to be that, because many of the offenders had security clearance affording them access to sensitive and/or secretive government material, national security agencies were put "at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations." I mean, I hate to get all "what about the children" and everything, but OMFG WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?! Yes, the possibility of government agents with top secret clearance opening themselves up to extortion plots is a grave concern, but my primary concern in cases of government agents looking at child porn is nonetheless still the children who were exploited to make it.
I'm funny that way.
Quote of the Day
"Because I don't take my clothes off, and I'm nobody's girlfriend. The writers are new to the whole tough girl thing, and they don't know what to do with [me]. We've got the dude who's strong, so what do we do with the chick who's strong? We kill her."—Michelle Rodriguez, on why the strong female characters she plays (Lost, Avatar), and others like them, always get killed.
Rodriguez added that increased inclusion of strong female writers and filmmakers would help, because "they're surrounded by those types of characters in real life, so they may know a little better than, uh, the 80% of the writers out there who don't have a clue."
80%. That's generous.
[H/T to Shaker Hel.]
Poor Dear
by Shaker BrianWS
Again, I'm torturing myself by continuing to read Michelle Malkin's dishonest shit, and I could totally offer the opening line of one of her latest posts (to which I'm not linking, but you can find it easily if you're so inclined) without comment, but you know I'm not going to.
Raise your hands: Who else is sick of the Shirley Sherrod circus?Sick of the Shirley Sherrod "circus?" The Shirley Sherrod "circus?!" "Circus?!?!"
I'm hoping my memory doesn't fail me from just a few days ago, Michelle Malkin, but if I recall, it was a writer at your site, along with Andrew Breitbart and that whole cabal of dishonest conservatives who turned this into a fucking "circus" to begin with by dishonestly painting her as a racist in a video where she actually tells the story of overcoming initial prejudices and becoming friends with a white farmer—the same one that you all tried to say she didn't help because he was white.
That's why there's a "circus" in the first place, so no, Michelle Malkin, you don't get to pretend to be sick and tired of hearing about it. You don't get to now pretend that it's just time to wrap things up and move on because it's becoming a sideshow act that you've simply had enough of.
You know who has the right to say she's had enough of this "circus?" Shirley Sherrod.
But considering that she's been labeled a racist, will forever be labeled a racist by a great number of people who don't understand context and believe that Andrew Breitbart has an honest bone in his body, and who lost her job because conservatives are so desperate to ignite some kind of "reverse-racism" war in this country and blame Obama for it, I'd imagine that she's unlikely to say that she's sick of it, considering that it's her fucking LIFE we're talking about—a life that's forever tainted in the public eye and forever linked with the word "racist." It's galling that for you, everything that's happened to her is just a "circus" that you've been forced to deal with. Our sincerest apologies for your inconvenience. Just think of all the time you could've spent lying about the administration, smearing low-level government employees and costing them their jobs, and explaining to us how hard white people have it now that Obama and his racist goons are in office if only you hadn't had the misfortune of being distracted by this "circus."
Being fortunate to have the privilege of not having to answer to an employer and not having to worry about losing your job if someone dishonestly attacks you, you've got a lot of fucking nerve to try to play this down.
No, you don't get to take the high road and say you're sick of this "circus" that you fucking helped to start, that your site supported, and is the kind of thing that you habitually traffic in to drive sleazy hits to your website.
No, you don't get to do that.
About this here lesbian revolution
As I mentioned yesterday, folks in the media have been doing cartwheels over each other in an attempt to say pleasant but non-committal things about that sperm donor movie.
Earlier this week, my sweetie was reading off the movie listings and it didn't really come up. Yesterday I was at the doctor's office reading the paper, and it wasn't one of the dozens of movies reviewed.
This morning, NPR was talking about movies, it got me to thinking...
Apparently the nearest place to see the sperm donor movie is a 4 hour drive from my house. I suppose I can catch it at the art house (er, Landmark) if I go to visit my parents in Minneapolis. So there's that.
So basically, urbanites who spend their afternoons eating sushi* and buying zomg shoes for the next Obama fundraiser are willing to tolerate a movie with two straight women playing lesbians who have kids, act straight, and show no interest in sex except for maybe with that one guy. Yeah, I give it a week before the entire U.S. goes gay.
--
*I'm an urbanite and I love sushi, independent film, and shoes. I'm just pointing out that it's a bit odd to portray a (shitty) representation of a lesbian couple in a limited distribution "indy" film as a giant leap forward when it comes to cultural representations of queer people.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, owner-operators of Big VagLots. Come for the vag, stay for the box wine!
Coturnix: A Farewell to Scienceblogs: the Changing Science Blogging Ecosystem
Historiann and Tenured Radical host a three-part discussion of Terry Castle's essay collection The Professor: Part I; Part II; Part III
BPS Research Digest blog: The unsung pioneers in the study of prejudice
In The only thing as annoying as colorism..., Samia asks, among other things, "can we stop perpetuating the fair = white-looking thing in modern journalism. That shit is so Brothers Grimm."
Bear Market News: Feds raid goat cheese maker, seize 12-year-old girl’s computer (a third time)
Andy: 'God Loves Gay Robin': Comic-Con Laughs Fred Phelps Out Of Town
Aaron Riccio reviews Snoo Wilson's play about Alan Turing, Lovesong of the Electric Bear (Note: I think framing Turing's court-ordered chemical castration as his being "medically unman[ned]" is a problem; it's an interesting review nonetheless, but be prepared for that language.)
Lakshmi: Somebody's feeling a little snippy
Via Tayari Jones, The She Writes Passion Project contest is open until August 1st.
Mike Lisieski: Neuromuscular Dynamics of Octopus Arm Movements
Leave us your links!
