[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
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!
Number of the Day
24: The number of lies, or uh "myths," that Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Paul Ryan told in 40 minutes of speaking during the debate last night.
At least 24.
What a cool candidate from a super political party.
In The News
[Content note: homophobia, racism, misogyny, violence]
Friday, News, Hole:
Other debate hews: Joe "Sam the Wurzelbacher" Plumber failed to show up for a scheduled debate Wednesday. Great campaign you've got there! Good luck!
Racist douchebag pastor Terry Jones was denied entry into Canada yesterday. Good on you, Canada.
Three women got sick after working in the filthy garage of the suburban Houston house, which was later quarantined, for an upcoming episode of the TLC series Hoarding: Buried Alive. Seems like that was bound to happen sooner or later. Get well, cast and crew of Hoarding: Buried Alive!
A gay Charlotte couple was attacked on the street in Asheville, North Carolina. The couple are concerned police aren't taking the crime seriously. North Carolina's hate crimes law does not cover sexual orientation.
A gay club in Moscow was attacked by twenty masked thugs, just days after Orthodox Christian activists called for a ban on LGBT nightspots.
Organizers of the Anoka, Minnesota, Halloween Parade have denied a request from a gay youth group to participate, telling the group that the parade was already full. It turns out that may have been a lie.
Radical Islamist fuckheads are compiling a list of unmarried mothers in northern Mali, raising fears of cruel punishments such as stoning, amputations and executions.
Scott Walker (not that Scott Walker) has a new album coming out. Here is a trailer for the upcoming Bish Bosch, scheduled for release this December.
Starting January 27, the price of a U.S. first-class stamp will increase one cent to 46 cents. Postcard postage will rise to 33 cents. How will this effect garbage treasure deliveries? No one knows!
PBS (enjoy it while you can!) Fans: Downtown Abbey star Joanne Froggatt got married over the weekend.
TruFact™: Herman's Head was Liss' favourite TV show in 1995.
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley
"You can't catch me!" (He can totally catch her.)
Zelda
Top Five
Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Scents. Go!
Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by hats.
Recommended Reading:
Andy: Obama Watched VP Debate from Air Force One, 'Could Not Be Prouder' of Biden
Imara: Paul Ryan Sticks to His Guns—and Points Them at the Social Safety Net
MM Research: Fox News Hosts on Biden Debate Performance: Maybe He Was Drinking
Atrios: Whose Advantage
crunkista: Please Feel Free to Keep Your Bullshit Apology [Content Note: Homophobia.]
Avital: Getting Out the Vote
Melissa: Another Day, Another Sexist Controversy [Content Note: Misogyny; harassment.]
Lady T: Why I've Fallen in Love with 'New Girl'
Voting is open for the 2012 Women's' Media Center Social Media Award! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
The Post-Debate Thread
That gif, care of Amadi, pretty much sums up the debate. Rep. Paul Ryan would say something dishonest or stupid; Vice President Joe Biden would react with incredulity, exasperation, and fury. It was pretty awesome.
Of course, Democratic Vice-President Joe Biden being aggressive (and honest) was deemed to be a Terrible Thing by the media who anointed Republican nominee Mitt Romney the winner for being aggressive (and dishonest) last week. Predictable. I tweeted this halfway through the debate last night:
Biden may be called "rude" in the aftermath, but he's not being rude; he's contemptuous--and rightfully so. Ryan's ideas are contemptible.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 12, 2012
Irrespective of the spin, Biden won the debate in a landslide. And even many of the people trying to spin Biden as a bully have to begrudgingly admit he won. He utterly destroyed everything Ryan was saying, and called him out, point-blank, on his "malarkey."
Anyhoo, here are some useful links if you missed it...
My liveblogging is here and here.
The always-great Richard Adams' liveblogging is here.
NPR has video and transcript of the debate here.
Memeorandum has plenty of debate analysis here.
Discuss!
Question of the Day
If you were able to ask one question of both US veep candidates tonight, what would you ask?
Photo of the Day
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 11 October 2012: The Milky Way's galactic center appears above a sea of clouds in this photograph by Roberto Bertero, who trekked to a remote mountain top to capture the image. He stayed overnight at the summit of Mount Rocciamelone, watching in awe as the sky changed above the Italian Alps. [Roberto Bertero/Solent News]
Pre-Debate Thread
There will be an Open Thread for the vice-presidential debate tonight, but in advance of tonight's HOT DEBATE ACTION, I want to share some resources and thoughts...
You will be able to access livestreaming debate coverage at barackobama.com/debate once the debate begins.
Team Obama will once again be livetweeting and factchecking on Twitter: @TruthTeam2012. Also see @Obama2012 for analysis.
As always, I'll be on Twitter, too: @shakestweetz.
Please feel welcome and encouraged to recommend your own or other Twitter feeds, and additional resources, that will be covering, discussing, or providing analysis of the debate.
* * *
Tonight is the only vice-presidential debate, and the major media meme is that Biden has to hit a home run (or equivalently yawnful sports metaphor) after Obama did poorly in the first presidential debate. It would be great if Biden hits a home run, but ultimately this debate is probably not going to have a huge influence on the election, unless either Biden or Ryan says something extraordinary.
Which is a possibility. Biden has a deserved reputation as a gaffe machine, but, on the other hand, he's also very quick-witted and, unlike Mitt Romney, actually knows what a zinger looks like.
Biden is historically a pretty great debater, but as Iain observed during the Obama-Romney debate: "It's hard to debate someone who lies." Ryan will almost certainly use the same strategy of comprehensive dishonesty that Romney did (although it doesn't sit as well on Ryan; he's a much more obvious liar), which will make Biden's biggest challenge trying to navigate a debate that has no basis in reality.
The good news is that Biden is more naturally disposed toward pugnacity than President Obama. He doesn't shy away from confrontation, and he'll be more willing to call out Ryan's mendacity. Also: He has the benefit of being prepared for it.
I will say again that Vice-President Biden need to take every opportunity he's given (or make opportunities, if needs be) to remind US voters that he drafted the Violence Against Women Act, the reauthorization of which his opponents' party is currently holding up in Congress after turning women's basic rights into a political football.
He should also remind US voters that the man standing beside him on the stage is not only hostile to women's agency, but has tried to change the very definition of rape on the federal level.
There is a STARK difference between these two men of the issue of consent and agency. Joe Biden needs to make that clear. Failing to talk about it only helps Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.
ANYWAY! Discuss. I'll close this thread once the Open Thread is posted later tonight.
Top Five
Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Books with a Female Protagonist. Go!
Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.
Quote of the Day
"We don't have a setting across this country where if you don't have insurance, we just say to you, 'Tough luck, you're going to die when you have your heart attack.' No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it's paid for—either by charity, the government, or by the hospital. We don't have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don't have insurance."—Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who doesn't know shit about shit.
Romney said something extremely similar on 60 Minutes last month, but the above comment is from an interview he did this week with The Columbus Dispatch. Apparently, in the interceding month, no one has mentioned to the Professor of Healthcare at Fantasy University that, in fact, people do die in their apartments (why does he always imagine uninsured people living in apartments?!) because they lack health insurance.
Partly because lots of people who lack health insurance don't go to the emergency room even when they need it, for fear of crushing medical bills.
In fact, lots of people with shitty insurance—hell, lots of people with GOOD insurance!—make the same decision, because insurance doesn't cover everything. There are deductibles and "patients' portions," that can be 20% (or more) of extraordinarily expensive medical treatment.
I suppose that's something that doesn't matter to a dude worth $250 million, who's probably never even looked at his own medical bills and has no idea that his personal assistant pays whatever his patient portion is along with the rest of his piddling expenses.
But to average USians, taking on the cost of medical care, even with insurance, is something to consider, even in emergencies.
This guy doesn't understand—and evidently doesn't care to understand—a most basic reality of average people's experiences in this country. He is comprehensively unfit to lead a nation with whose residents' lives he hasn't even a cursory familiarity.
For the record: "Emergency rooms serve as a place of last resort, but 45,000 Americans still die every year because they lack health insurance, or one every 12 minutes."
Fuck off, Romney, you cloistered plutocrat.
In The News
[Content note: homophobia, rape, violence]
News, Fits, Spurts, Etc:
A Google Image search for the phrase "completely wrong" now returns a page nearly full of images of Mitt Romney. Whoops!
Are Yetis migrating North? Good god, are they?! ARE THEY?!
Mo Yan, the Chinese writer best known for his 1987 novel Red Sorghum, has won the 2012 Nobel Prize in literature.
The greatest opening to any film review ever? "For those lucky enough to have read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged ... " LOLOLOLOLOL!!! And that's as far as I got reading.
A bunch of monkeys riding a capybara. A bunch of monkeys riding a capybara!
Want to see a 1982 stop-motion short film written, designed and directed by Tim Burton and Rick Heinrichs? You do? Well, you're in luck: Vincent!
Are you 60 or older and identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual (or meet your primary intimacy needs with same sex relationships)? If so, then you are invited to participate in a study of sexual minority identity in individuals who are 60 and older.
Kirk Cameron told Liberty University students last week that he was drug out to the public square and stoned and crucified for his bigoted views. Hey, Kirk, you know who was, quite literally, stoned and crucified? Matthew Shepard.
Republican Roger Rivard has proven himself a creepy little dipshit by saying "some girls rape easy".
Note: Veep candidate Paul Ryan held a fundraiser for Rivard recently. Of course.
The city council of North Miami Beach has voted unanimously to grandfather in nude dancing for Swinging Richard's in exchange for the gay club dropping its lawsuit against the city.
Because when I think sexy, I think James Patterson.
Daily Dose of Cute
If you ever stumble across Dudley lying on a couch making this precise expression (which you definitely will; it's only a matter of time), the proper response, just so you know, is to say: "WHO'S SUCH A BOO BOOS?! LORD DUDLINGTON, YOU ARE THE BIGGEST BOO BOO HEAD IN ALL THE LAND!" in a very dramatic deep baby voice, until he rolls onto his back with his legs in the air and makes a very silly face at you with his tongue lolling out.
Then, just to be safe, you should probably give him ALL THE TREATS followed by ALL THE SNUGGLES. All of them!
Shaker Help Request
Shaker JMegan emails, which I am posting with her permission: "I'm wondering if there are any good tv shows for preschoolers, (4-6 years old or so), that regularly pass the Bechdel test. The only one I can think of is the Backyardigans, which I love, but there has to be more out there. I hope there is, anyway..."
So, Shakers: What do you recommend?
