In honor of Snowmageddon, what's your favorite thing to do when you're snowed in?
(For those who don't live in snowy areas, your favorite thing to do when you're in for some other reason, whether it's inclement weather or unbearable heat/dryness or allergies or a bad cold is fine, of course. And for anyone who doesn't go out at all for whatever reason, your favorite activity will do!)
Question of the Day
They Hate Us for Our Freedom or Whatever
Long ago, in a blogosphere far, far away, bloggers toiled away in their soiled pajamas in dusty basements, writing posts about things called national security letters and pointing out how breaches of the federal government into citizens' privacy were constantly dismissed as "accidents."
These bloggers were accused of a brain fever caused by a terrible disease identified as Bush Derangement Syndrome by graduates of the renowned Michelle Malkin Medical Institute.
But, in a SURPRISING TWIST, it turns out these bloggers were right to be concerned:
The FBI disclosed to a presidential board that it was involved in nearly 800 violations of laws, regulations or policies governing national security investigations from 2001 to 2008, but the government won't provide details or say whether anyone was disciplined, according to a report by a privacy watchdog group.Whooooooooooooooops!
The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain about 2,500 documents that the FBI submitted to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board.
...In 2007, the Justice Department's inspector general told Congress that the FBI may have violated the law or government policy as many as 3,000 times since 2003 in the course of secretly collecting telephone, bank and credit card records without warrants, instead using so-called national security letters. As many as 600 of the violations could be "cases of serious misconduct," Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said, based on his audits. Those figures were far higher than the FBI acknowledged or reported to the oversight board.
The violations were largely unintentional, Fine said, but were the result of "mistakes, carelessness, confusion, sloppiness, lack of training, lack of adequate guidance and lack of adequate oversight."
The records obtained by the foundation go beyond national security letters. About a third of the reports of violations involved rules governing internal oversight of intelligence investigations, and about a fifth involved potential violations of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or other laws governing criminal investigations or intelligence-gathering activities, the report says.
Well, good thing we've finally got a new administration, and all of that shady nonsense is well and truly behind us.
Though the report focuses on conduct during the George W. Bush administration, it faults the Obama administration for refusing to say whether anyone is currently serving on the intelligence board, a failure that "continues to call into question the legitimacy of current intelligence oversight efforts."Oh.
[Previously in Nobody's Paying Attention So Bush Totes Gets Away With It Again: Warrantless Wiretapping Program Ruled Illegal, No Charges in Destruction of Torture Tapes, Bush Admits Being a War Criminal, Bush Administration Broke Elections Law.]
Federal Judge Rules Key Provisions of Healthcare Unconstitutional
You can read Judge Roger Vinson entire opinion here, but the long and the short of it is that, because he found key provisions unconstitutional, he had ruled the entire law void.
Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications. At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."The central issue is requiring people to purchase insurance, which is the result of substituting a huge corporate giveaway to the insurance industry for state-sponsored universal healthcare.
That's not intended as a criticism of Obama/the Democrats (even if it functionally serves as one); it's just a factual statement about the context of this decision. Irrespective of discussions of whether universal healthcare is achievable in this nation, there is much less ground (i.e. none) on which to question the constitutionality of using taxpayer dollars to fund socialized healthcare, than there is on which to question requiring people to use their own money to purchase insurance from a private entity.
So that's where we are.
Swell
Incoming! The thing I definitely most wanted to hear today is how we're going to get two more feet of snow:
The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard watch for the Chicago area, warning that a storm swooping in from the South could dump more than 18 inches of snow and pack winds up to 40 mph.Sounds great. Can't wait.
The weather service said the storm, expected to arrive Tuesday afternoon over much of northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana, could be "dangerous, multifaceted and potentially life-threatening."
I'm most enthusiastic about the part where I live in the lake effect snow zone, thus guaranteeing the worst possible dumpage imaginable.
Conditions are expected to deteriorate from north to south across the region Tuesday afternoon with travel becoming "virtually impossible" at times Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, according to the weather service. Plows will be unable to keep up with the downfall."Hello, 911? Um, yeah, can you please come arrest this fucking snow in my driveway?"
In anticipation of the storm hitting northwest Indiana, Indiana State Police late this morning canceled all days off Tuesday and Wednesday and scheduled all troopers for 12-hour shifts.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to adopt a St. Bernard. Just in case.
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In all seriousness, if you live in this area and have cash to spare, this would be a very good time to donate to your local homeless shelter. They are about to be overwhelmed.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, whose headquarters are soon to be buried under 87,000 metric biebers of snow.
Recommended Reading:
Tami: Where is the Kenyan Crocodile Hunter?
Resistance: The Cost of Racism
Arturo: Chromatic Campaign: The Case for Rashida Jones to Play Lois Lane
Andy: Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to Sign Civil Union Bill This Afternoon
The Chemist: Tumult in Egypt
Andrea: We're being careful. But what's everyone else doing? [TW for discussion of sexual assault, victim-blaming]
Leave your links in comments...
Chip, chip, chip....
There are a couple other appalling bills to be aware of and write your congresspeople about, along with writing them about voting NO on 3.
First is a bill that got a small mention in a recent NYT opinion piece (decrying HR3):
A separate Republican bill would deny federal funds for family planning services to any organization that provides abortions. It is aimed primarily at Planned Parenthood’s hundreds of health centers, which also provide many other valuable services. No federal money is used for the abortions. This is a reckless effort to cripple an irreplaceable organization out of pure politics.That bill is: H.R.217 - Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act. It was introduced by Mike Pence (R-Epressive) and has 154 co-sponsors. The bill states:
Amends the Public Health Service Act to prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Service (HHS) from providing any federal family planning assistance to an entity unless the entity certifies that, during the period of such assistance, the entity will not perform, and will not provide any funds to any other entity that performs, an abortion. Excludes an abortion where:Of course with HR3, that first clause doesn't mean much now, does it?
(1) the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or an act of incest against a minor; or
(2) a physician certifies that the woman suffered from a physical disorder, injury, or illness that would place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy. Excludes hospitals from such requirement so long as the hospital does not provide funds to any non-hospital entity that performs an abortion. Requires the Secretary to annually provide Congress:
(1) information on grantees who performed abortions under the exceptions; and
(2) a list of entities to which grant funds are made available.
Health care centers like Planned Parenthood already DO NOT USE Title X money for abortions. And health care centers like Planned Parenthood are HEALTH CARE CENTERS. They serve women and men, most who are of lower income or simply do not have health insurance for whatever reason. Eliminating federal family planning funds from health care organizations like Planned Parenthood, who just happen to also offer the legal, health care service of abortion, is vile, immoral, and not a small amount of class warfare.
The other bill to watch is the: H.R.212 - Sanctity of Human Life Act". It was introduced by Paul Broun (R-Idiculous) and has 62 co-sponsors. This one says:
(1) the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human and is the person's paramount and most fundamental right;Life begins at fertilization, that zygote has all legal rights, so abortion is murrrrrrder! Which reminds me, I have some questions for you, supporters of this sort of bill.
(2) each human life begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, at which time every human has all legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood; and
(3) Congress, each state, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories have the authority to protect all human lives.
Garbage. All of it. Please write your congresspeople asking them to fight for the autonomy of women.
Taking a Brave Stance Against Survivors of Rape
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
Background: So the Two Brave Men who write the comic strip Penny Arcade did this comic that many survivors of sexual violence (and their allies) thought was inappropriate, contemptible, triggering, whatever. The Two Brave Men then responded to that criticism with mendacious pithiness. Lots of their supporters then proved my point that this shit doesn't happen in a void. The Two Brave Men then created a t-shirt about the strip to show they weren't going to cave to the Radical Survivor Agenda.
Time passed. Once there was no chance that anyone would accuse these brave men of being sensitive to survivors of sexual trauma, they stopped selling the t-shirt. You know, after people had bought it and they'd made money off of it. A lady said she wasn't interested in attending a conference where people who bought those shirts might be wearing them. One of the Two Brave Men, after noting he will "never remove the strip or even apologize for the joke," explained that they wouldn't be selling the shirt at the conference:
When I heard from a few people that the shirt would make them uncomfortable at PAX, that gave me pause. Now whether I think that's a fair or warranted reaction doesn't really matter. These were not rants on blogs but personal mails to me from people being very reasonable. It's how they feel and according to them at least, removing the shirt would make them feel better about attending the show. For me that's an easy fix to the problem. I really don't want to have this fight and if not having it is as simple as not selling a shirt then I'll do it. Contrary to what they might think I'm not a complete asshole.Sure, no one could think someone who dismisses triggered rape survivors as oversensitive hysterics and agrees not to make money off a t-shirt specifically designed to say "fuck you" to them only to avoid a fight is an asshole.
And, if we all agree—and I'm sure we do—that this Brave Man is not an asshole (because what reasonable person COULD read such an outrageous rant and respond in any other way than by linking jokes he's made about pedophilia and bestiality?), then I'm sure we can also agree that this is the epitome of his courageous stand against triggered survivors of sexual violence (aka the REAL assholes):
Bravo, sir. *slow clap*
[H/T to everyone in the multiverse. Previously: Rape Is Hilarious, Survivors Are So Sensitive, Quote of the Day, Troll Math and Teaspoons, T-Shirts and Teaspoons and Mythical Creatures.]
#dearjohn: No On 3
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, rape apologia, victim auditing.]
On Friday, I wrote about the GOP's latest effort to simultaneously chip away at Roe and, in the process, redefine what constitutes rape. The potential effects of this legislation, H.R.3, are far-reaching. One of the most devastating consequences would be effectively codifying the Hyde Amendment into law. Right now, Congress votes every year to renew the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, with exceptions for rape and incest, which means that getting rid of it is as simple as Congress not renewing it. Passing legislation to make it permanent and expanding it, as H.R.3 would do, would be much more difficult to unwind.
Speaker John Boehner has indicated he will make passing this legislation a top priority of the new Congressional session.
So, it's time for teaspoons.
Write your representative and voice your objection to H.R.3. Get involved in the Twitter campaign and make some noise: #DearJohn. Tweet Speaker Boehner directly: @johnboehner. Make noise on your blog, Tumblr, Facebook, etc.Let's get busy.
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Happy Birthday, SKM!!!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
You look like a purveyor of the radical feminazi agendaaaaaaa!
And you smell like one, too!
(Mmm, sage!)
Happy Birthday to one of the most brilliant and hilarious women I have ever had the pleasure and good fortune of knowing. And that ain't no jibber jabber!
I adore you, lady. I hope you have a wonderful day and a spectacular year.
[Previously in Manly Birthday Wishes for SKM: Tom Selleck; Chuck Norris.]
Open Thread
Hosted by the Love Boat game.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by retro TV merchandising.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
11 Things That are Wrong With Jezebel's "Defense of Gay White Men"
Here are 11 things that are wrong with Thursday's Jezebel post about why everyone in the gay community is mean to white, gay, cisgendered (obviously one gender), American, middle-class men:
1) The title, "In Defense of the Gay White Man." (Sorry, has someone in the progressive community denied your right to exist?)
2) This sentence: "Race, gender, and gender expression conspire to strip a person of their freedom just as much as any outside prejudice or hateful legislation." Is. Just. Wrong. The fact that black people want you to actually listen to their experience is equivalent to Jim Crow? The fact that you don't feel heard at conferences for gay minority women is the same as transgender folks wanting inclusion in the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell? No. False. Wrong.
3) As a white man (who is, incidentally, paraphrasing someone else's words---presumably in the least flattering way possible), you don't get to get mad when other people talk about their personal experiences being oppressed by white male privilege. Or you do---you just don't get to turn around and call yourself an ally.
4) The claim that people of color and other minorities are constantly trying to force him to "make frequent and loud apologies for the crimes of his ilk." No. No one has accused you, personally, of "crimes," or even asked you to make an apology. What they have asked is that you listen to their experiences without making it about you. Which brings us to...
5) Guess what? IT ISN'T ALL ABOUT YOU. Believe it or not, people with less privilege than me isn't about me, any more than a "very butch Latino [sic] lesbian" is about him. As a white American relatively middle-class cisgendered straight woman, I have a hell of a lot of privilege. That doesn't negate the lack of privilege I experience being a woman in a sexist society, but it's something I'm obligated to recognize if I want to consider myself an ally of people who don't enjoy my privilege.
6) This: "I don't think it's fair for another person to label me an oppressor without the barest knowledge of what I have done in my life or what kind of person I actually am." And this: "I end up having to do what no one of any identity should have to do: Apologize for what I am."
7) "In any community people should be proud of who they are." This reminds me of so-called "men's rights" advocates who claim they're just trying to reclaim their masculine identities from their evil female oppressors. Hey, they don't hate women---they just think "male pride" (and the ensuing crusade against women's equality) is something to embrace.
8) "If men are deemed too privileged to fit in with the lesbian community, how can there actually be a dialogue?" I think, here, what he means by "deemed too privileged" (love that passive voice. See also, two paragraphs down, his "fear of immediate chastisement." By whom, he doesn't say) is something more like "asked to listen instead of talking." If I don't understand someone's experience, the best way to get to understand it isn't a "dialogue," it's to listen before you speak. The writer seems to want people who've had experiences he never will to thoughtfully listen to how he thinks they should feel.
9) Back to the conference and the imaginary people asking to apologize for being white and male. "Do I fight back, respond with bile that white men have feelings too and that we don't like being denigrated in public?" No. Amazingly, perhaps, other people's systematic oppression (or, conversely, the massive advantages, material and otherwise, you enjoy for being a white male in America) isn't about your "feelings." That's like saying black Americans don't deserve an apology and reparations for slavery because some individual white people were and are really, really nice to their black friends.
10) The author acknowledges he's "privileged," but never says what rewards he thinks that privilege gets him. Given his self-centeredness in other matters ("why won't my black/trans/lesbian friends let me make their struggles about meeeeee?"), I'm guessing his gesture to "privilege" doesn't have much basis in self-reflection.
11) Finally, Mr. Gay White Guy wants to know why, oh why, his trans friends won't just spend the time to tell them all about their experience being trans. Instead, they suggest he do some research himself. He thinks this is unfair and "it makes me uncomfortable." Maybe they're telling him what they actually think he should do, instead of telling him what he wants to hear. Maybe being subjected to invasive questions about their identity makes them uncomfortable.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of Deeky W. Gashlycrumb's Guide to the Movies: Let Me Tell You How Much I Love Bruce Willis Movies.
Recommended Reading:
Quinnae: Raiders of the Lost Etiology [TW for transphobia, gender essentialism]
Michelle: Fat/Counterfat [TW for discussion of diet/exercise]
DeeLeigh: Paul Campos et al on Whether the "Obesity Crisis" Is a Public Health Crisis or a Moral Panic [TW for fat hatred and discussion of diet/exercise]
Ezra: Too Young Not to Work; Too Old to Get a Job [TW for ageism]
Andy: Fight Erupts at Ugandan LGBT Activist David Kato's Burial as Pastor Decries Homosexuality, Villagers Refuse to Bury Body [TW for homophobia, violence]
kirbybits: Here is a thought: Why I'm Not Speaking at PAX East 2011 [TW for rape culture]
Leave your links in comments...
How DARE You
Former President Mondo Fucko has said and done a lot of terrible things in his day, but perhaps none quite so terrible as this:
Former President George W. Bush is landing a stinging jab at his former longtime aide and press secretary, Scott McClellan, saying the man who served as the public face of his administration for three years was irrelevant.*gasp*
In an interview with CSPAN scheduled to air this weekend, Bush says he deliberately didn't include McClellan – who held the high profile post longer than anyone else during the administration – in his memoir, "Decision Points."
"He was not a part of a major decision. This is a book about decisions," Bush told CSPAN. "This isn't a book about, you know, personalities or gossip or settling scores."
"I didn't think he was relevant," added Bush.
I'm sure this new attitude of haughty indifference for the man who valiantly stonewalled the damnable questioneers with class and integrity for nearly three years has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he wrote a book calling Bush a liar and then said the same thing while testifying before Congress.
I still love you, Scottie.
An Open Letter to NPR
[Trigger warning for transphobia]
Dear NPR news,
Thank you for Richard Gonzales' coverage of the Berkeley city council's proposal to fund health care for transgender municipal employees during this Thursday's All Things Considered.
Because it's so routine and careless for media organizations to bungle coverage of issues pertaining to trans and gender non-conforming people, I tend to respond to inaccurate or transphobic reporting with some combination of silence and weary sarcasm. However, NPR News has a well-earned reputation as a responsible journalistic organization, so I actually trust that you'll take my remarks into consideration.
Transsexual is an adjective, not a noun (e.g., transsexual person, transsexual woman, transsexual man).
"Sex Change" is an inflammatory term. There are a jumble of terms referring to trans-related surgeries that would be more appropriate for your coverage, including sexual reassignment surgery, gender reassignment surgery, and sexual/gender confirmation/affirmation surgery. The easiest (and likely least controversial) thing to do would have been to listed the actual medical terms for some of the surgeries in question (mastectomies, vaginoplasties etc.,)
It is inappropriate to refer to a trans woman as having been "born a boy." This serves to undercut Lynn Riordin's point that "When [she] was 5, [she] realized [she] was a girl [and that she] never thought [she] was a boy."
Lastly, as I writer, I appreciate your effort to frame this story within a larger context. However, I wasn't impressed that you chose to portray the funding of health care as merely the pet project of leftist residents of a "liberal bastion."
Kindest Regards,
Kate
