LOL.
RNC 2012 Discussion Thread
Pointing! Pointing! Pointing!
[CN at links: racism, misogyny, ageism]
RNC FTW, y'all! Did you watch it? Did you? OMG. I didn't. I was watching Project Runway, then I accidentally switched over to the RNC and caught two seconds of Mitt Romney talking. Next thing I knew, it was morning. I dreamed I was sewing elephant buttons on dark blue suits all night.
Anyway! Stuff happened! Like Clint Eastwood! It wouldn't be the RNC without a humongous WTF?
Mitt Romney something something som... zzzzzzz.... huhwhut? BUTTONS!!
Your Thursday night fact check.
Just when you thought that tent couldn't get any bigger...
Remember, no one has had it harder than your Republican betters. (Video at link.)
Corporations are people, my friend. And Countries are now Companies. How workmanlike.
In good news, the Republican plan to block as many people as possible from voting might not go as smoothly as they hoped.
Four more years! Four more years! Until the next one of these things! In the meantime, ladies, why don't you relax and do a little shoe shopping?
In The News
[Content note for: Racism, homophobia, war]
The Republican National Convention is still kind of a nightmare.
Isaac is still making a mess of things (to put it nicely) in Louisiana and Mississippi. The storm is now heading into the Midwest.
Want to know where the U.S. military is engaging in drone strikes? There's an app for that! But Apple refuses to sell it, calling it objectionable and crude. I find drone strikes objectionable and crude, just FYI.
GLAAD's sixth annual Network Responsibility Index found that diversity is lacking among LGBT representations on TV. Which is to say most gay characters on TV are white men.
Arizona Congressional candidate Gabriela Saucedo Mercer says she doesn't want Mexican-looking Middle Easterners in the U.S. "legally or illegally." Note: Mercer is a Hispanic immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 1991. Also note: She's a Republican.
Take a peek (do not take a peek!) at Barneys New York's new promotion with Disney. Includes an updated Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck.
Bane protests in front of Bain Capital. He's creepy looking, that's all I can say.
The world is just a snake eating its own tail. With a spoon. And some crackers. Campbell's Soup is offering a limited edition Andy Warhol soup can.
Here are some helpful tips on how to do some anti-Halloween proselytizing.
FX orders 90 more episodes of Anger Management, proving that no matter how terrible you are, Hollywood will still give you a paycheck.
So... That's some stuff you can talk about over dinner tonight.
Headline of the Day
[Content note: Racism]
(The screencap of the headline reads: As Republican Convention emphasizes diversity, racial incidents intrude)
...they have delivered those speeches to a convention hall filled overwhelmingly with white faces, an awkward contrast that has been made more uncomfortable this week by a series of racial headaches that have intruded on the party’s efforts to project a new level of inclusiveness.
[...]
And on Wednesday, Yahoo News fired Washington bureau chief David Chalian after a live microphone caught him telling a colleague, before an online event, that Romney and his wife, Ann, were “happy to have a party with black people drowning,” a reference to the RNC’s decision to go ahead with the convention while Hurricane Isaac lashed New Orleans. Chalian later apologized.
Hold on to your peanuts, folks. It's going to be a bumpy convention.
(Thanks to Liss for the image.)
Daily Dose of Cute
Blog Note
Hi, everyone. Just checking in to say I'm still alive. Without going into a lot of detail, one of the major symptoms of the health issue I'm having is exhaustion. Like, can't stay awake for more than about an hour at a time kind of exhaustion. Which has made writing impossible. I mean, you know I'm feeling garbage when the Republican convention is going on and I can't even cover it. So many boos. All the boos.
Anyway, I'm still facing a lot of tests to get to the bottom of this, but I'm seeing my GP this afternoon, and will hopefully find some solution to this exhaustion so I can get at least get back to life/work in the meantime.
Zelda asked me to tell you that she's taking good care of me.
Dudley asked me to tell you that he is still very silly.
RNC 2012 Discussion Thread
Boy, Republicans sure do point a lot, don't they?
Anyhoo! Did you watch it? Didja? I didn't. The neighbors get tired of hearing me scream incoherently. One thing we do know is that Paul Ryan is a big liar. A big big liar. How big of a liar? Even FOX News is calling his speech a ton of bullshit. Literally. (Even after they swoon and call him "dazzling.")
On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.
The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth.Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.
It's cool though, because the Romney campaign won't be dictated by fact checkers! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Here's your next-day fact check roundup.
That's a big tent.
Your guide to who will be tumbling out of the clown car tonight.
(Thanks to Shaker Howard_Bannister for the FOX link.)
Question of the Day
President Obama made a surprise appearance online today, participating in a live chat on Reddit.com. (I don't even know what that is.)
"Hi, I'm Barack Obama, President of the United States," Obama wrote in a message on the site. "Ask me anything. I'll be taking your questions for half an hour starting at about 4:30 ET."
And so he did. He answered eight questions out of the 10,000 asked. Did you miss out? I missed out. Oh, well, maybe next time. Anyway...
What would you like to ask the President?
Daily Dose of Cute
Mistress Elinor Gwyn surveys her realm and finds naught in need of barking at, save perhaps for that squirrel hosting the Open Thread.
In The News
[Content note: homophobia]
Hurricane Isaac is wreaking havoc on the Gulf Coast. Downtown Mobile is underwater. More flooding is expected and in Plaquemines Parish, LA, water is already spilling over levees.
The Republican National Convention opened last night. I didn't watch, but instead followed along on Twitter, which was mostly hilarious.
Speaking of conventions, noted homophobe Cardinal Dolan will be leading the closing prayer at the Democratic National Convention next week. Thanks, Dems!
More homophobe news: Family First New Zealand, an anti-quality group, let their domain name lapse. Some clever soul snatched up the URL and redirected it to Marriage Equality in New Zealand's site. Well done!
Maryland could become the first state to affirm marriage equality in a popular vote. Neat! On the other side of the globe: A German father dons a dress in solidarity with his son. Neat!
The UN says it has no plans to invade Texas. What a relief! p.s. Here is a trailer for the Red Dawn reboot. In theaters this fall!
Also coming to a big screen near you (possibly): Atlas Shrugged Part II! Check here for locations (sort of).
And while we're on the subject of "taking this country back," there is an official beer for that! American Patriot beer! I don't know about you, but I like my beer brewed with xenophobia and jingoism (tastes like hops.)
Here is a vintage Pup 'n' Taco commercial. Because reasons.
The Black Eyed Peas are all set to debut their new song on Mars, thereby guaranteeing an alien invasion. Thanks, will.i.am! (Hey, remember when Blur sent a song to Mars on the Beagle 2?)
So, that's some news that happened recently. Feel free to discuss, if that's your thing. (And thanks to everyone who sent in links, even if I wasn't able to use them.)
Random Nerd Nostalgia: Totally Not E.T.
[Image Description: A small blue-skinned, big-eared alien who is TOTALLY NOT E.T. but is clad in a fur kilt (or maybe it's body hair?) holds a bag of Reece's Pieces and shakes some candy into one hand. At the top, a quote says "Etagramulfabetz," with a "translation" below: "(THE TASTE THAT'S OUT OF THIS WORLD)" At the bottom: " 'Reece's Pieces" are the only words he knows in our language, but he's working on 'great peanut butter taste.'"]
Scanned from All-Star Squadron #45, May 1985.
RNC 2012 Discussion Thread
[Content note at links: misogyny, racism, homophobia, heterocentrism]
Did you watch the nearly inescapable RNC footage last night? If you did, you're made of stronger stuff than me! I got through maybe two minutes of Rick Santorum before my brain took me by the shoulders and told me to turn off the television and get something hot to drink. So here's a thread to discuss the mind boggling bag of horrible that was last night's convention.
For your reading pleasure: ThinkProgress fact-checks last night's speeches.
And thanks to Ann Romney, we now know what a "real marriage" is.
That's a big tent.
A preview of tonight's RNC speakers. Hey, where's Joe the Plumber?
Drop links, comments, or general frustrations here.
