Break The Terror

Genius Eleven: I cannot stop watching that Pink video from the Grammys edition

2010-02-04T18:52:00.003-05:00

Alternate title: This Genius mix will show you how little straight up pop I have in my collection. As I told somebody last night, I'm usually not into the "pop music" the kids listen to, but there are a few people I love, and when I'm in that mood, I'm in that mood. So we start with Pink's performance of "Glitter in the Air" from the Grammys, which may have made me straight (not really). But it is beautiful.

Genius eleven and more videos below the Pink...It's embedded below, but you'll want to click on "full screen."

1. Pink - "Glitter in the Air" (live at the Grammys)
2. Lady Gaga - "Brown Eyes"
3. Justin Timberlake - "(Another Song) All Over Again"
4. Sarah McLachlan - "Answer"
5. Tori Amos - "Silent All These Years" (see how quickly we've gone off the pop music rails...)
6. Melissa Etheridge & Joan Osborne - "Bring Me Some Water" (live)
7. The Killers - "Goodnight, Travel Well"
8. Annie Lennox - "Why"
9. Michael Jackson - "Earth Song"
10. Ingrid Michaelson - "Breakable" (live)
11. Sheryl Crow ft. Stevie Nicks - "Strong Enough" (live)

Justin:

Melissa Etheridge & Joan Osborne:

Annie:

Genius Eleven: Shut up, Susan Boyle edition

2010-01-20T01:09:00.004-05:00

I was just listening to this song, the definitive cover of the Rolling Stones' Wild Horses, from The Sundays.

Where did they go? Seriously.

Anyway, Susan Boyle's version really, really sucks, but this one doesn't.

Genius Eleven and more videos below The Sundays.

1. The Sundays - "Wild Horses"
2. Toad the Wet Sprocket - "Walk On The Ocean"
3. Tori Amos - "Silent All These Years"
4. 10,000 Maniacs - "These Are Days"
5. 'Til Tuesday - "Voices Carry"
6. R.E.M. - "Fall On Me"
7. Sarah McLachlan - "Answer"
8. The Sundays - "Here's Where The Story Ends"
9. Rachael Yamagata - "Reason Why"
10. Tori Amos - "a sorta fairytale"
11. New Order - "Bizarre Love Triangle"

Interesting there at the end.

This is still my favorite song of all time, so it's always nice when it comes up:

Rachael Yamagata. Interesting that this comes up, for my own reasons.

'Til Tuesday. Hell yeah. Not embarrassed about it at all.

Far too many songs on this list that I really, really adore...so I might just post like six videos if that's okay. Sarah McLachlan:

When wingnuts cry

2010-01-12T18:39:00.006-05:00

GayPatriot is spreading an unsubstantiated rumor about a "young Middle-Eastern man" pulling down his pants and just cold whacking off on a flight from DC to Charlotte. If it happened, that's weird. But it's revelatory of the GayPatriot's fucked up, pants-shitting, hiding-under-the-bed worldview that he refers to the alleged wanker as a "terrorist."

I mean, seriously, grow up, you drooling baby.

I like this part:

I reported the incident to a TSA supervisor at Charlotte-Douglas and he didn’t seem to care and told me to call the airline itself.

Yuh huh, and then he told everybody in the office about the wussy gay patriot baby that just called, and they laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed, and then they did some work, then they went to the water cooler and were like "hey remember this morning when that wingnut called us peeing down his leg about a supposed Muslim Masturbator on a flight he wasn't even on?"

Fun was had by all.

Dear Jesus: Have you seen my baseball?

2010-01-10T15:48:00.004-05:00

I'm sorry, but people like this

At a news conference following the prayer breakfast, [St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam] Wainwright said he prays before games that God will strengthen him "and let the other team look at me in fear."

are no different from ignorant people who believe that God sent Hurricane Katrina to punish gays. It may sound benign, but it's not. It's insipid, and it's illogical.

Fucking Comment Card Jesus or something. And what if the opposing team is ALSO talking to gods. Is there a spiritual battle in the heavens? Does The Lord have to play eeny-meeny-miney-mo (Arminian theology), or did he already plan which way that baseball was going to go, BEFORE THE VERY DAWN OF TIME (the even more retarded Calvinist theology)?

You would think that, in the West, at least, we'd have rid ourselves of the desire to sound like illiterate shepherds from 3000 years ago, but apparently not!

Genius Eleven: Music keeps me sane

2010-01-09T01:20:00.002-05:00

There's really no significance to my pick tonight, except that I ran across one of my favorite songs of all time after not hearing it for a couple of years.

So we're starting with James Taylor's "Millworker."

Genius Eleven and more videos below the James.

1. James Taylor - "Millworker" (live)
2. Carly Simon - "The Right Thing To Do"
3. Joni Mitchell - "Circle Game"
4. Carole King - "Way Over Yonder"
5. 10,000 Maniacs - "Stockton Gala Days"
6. Billy Joel - "And So It Goes"
7. Neil Young - "A Man Needs A Maid"
8. James Taylor - "Steamroller" (live)
9. Counting Crows - "Miller's Angels"
10. Annie Lennox - "Primitive"
11. Dar Williams - "When I Was A Boy"

What a strange mix...I get it at the beginning, but then it sort of goes haywire, hm?

"When I Was A Boy" also counts among my all time favorites.

Annie Lennox.

And damn you, Genius for exposing the Billy Joel in my collection, but there's not much of it, so fuck off, and this is a great song, so fuck off again.

Finer points of the law

2010-01-07T21:10:00.004-05:00

Charges were dropped in September against a former New Jersey policeman who was caught on camera getting all rapey with some cows, because they couldn't tell whether the cows liked it or not.

Technicalities!

(h/t the Bloggess)

Wait a minute

2010-01-07T18:37:00.001-05:00

Even the National Review people make merciless fun of Jonah Goldberg?

Awesome.

"The momentary masters of a fraction of a dot"

2010-01-07T09:47:00.003-05:00

The words of Carl Sagan, who, as PZ Myers points out, was a poet.

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot."

It kind of puts things in perspective, and, to my mind, validates the struggles of all oppressed peoples, including the LGBT community around the world, against forces as ultimately insignificant as those who wish to dictate the terms of life on this tiny speck of dust we call home. Those who would appoint themselves moral emperors have no clothes, indeed. Our lives are not theirs to live.

Words of wisdom.

Fight for your right to potty

2010-01-05T17:47:00.002-05:00

Shorter Dennis Prager, WingNutDaily:

Taking away our airborne dignity

I'll go potty when I want! I'll go potty right here, in my seat! Whatcha gonna do, lie-bruls? But it's okay if you look at my junk.

If Tiger Woods Had Been a Christian, None of This Would Have Happened

2010-01-03T14:40:00.003-05:00

Cross-posted at Truth Wins Out

Oh boy.

This doesn't have anything to do with gay rights or the ex-gay movement, but I think it's revelatory of a certain worldview we deal with on a regular basis. This happened on Fox News this morning:

Brit Hume had some advice for Tiger Woods during this week's "Fox News Sunday." Woods will recover as a golfer, Hume says, but it remains to be seen whether he will recover as a person.
"He's said to be a Buddhist," Hume said. "I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. ... Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery."

Jesus is magic, you see! Because people who convert to Christianity never ever EVER run around on their wives, no NEVER.

This is the same worldview that beatifies Lisa Miller because she's become a fundamentalist Christian. This is the same worldview that asserts that gay people can't be Christians. This is the same worldview that worships Our Sarah Of The Perpetual Word Salad,even though they don't really know what her positions are*, because she's One Of Them. This is the same worldview that would never stop to question whether groups like the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for 'Murka, as well as their assigned pundits, et al. might be lying to them through their teeth/playing their adherents for fools, because they know their followers will never factcheck them. Or if they DO factcheck them, they factcheck within the echo chamber: "Rush was a-talkin' about it, and then I saw it on Hannity too, and then OneNewsNow had a press release about it, so I'ma gwine-a say this is probably true!"

Hume's quote also references the obsession that many American Conservatives have with "the redemption story." I'm all for changing course and righting past wrongs, but with these people it goes much further. Ted Haggard says he's "redeemed" from Teh Gay? Well, praises be! Let's not look at any of the science/question whether his claim is even valid. Nope, it's a redemption story! Slurp, slurp, slurp. Convicted Watergate criminal Chuck Colson is one of the luminaries of the Religious Right. It's a redemption story! Slurp. And again, since it's a thread running through so many of our conversations these days: Lisa Miller. She can do no wrong because She Hath Been Redeem-eth!

SLURP.

Here's the video, if you want to suffer through it. It's kind of funny, because after Brit Hume says the weird thing about Tiger needing to find Jesus, Bill Kristol, who is usually the wingnuttiest of them all, sort of shoots this uncomfortable look because he's sort of, um, Jewish.

(h/t Rumproast and Balloon Juice)

*Yeah, that's totally a Sarah Palin Parking Lot link. Watch it if you need entertainment for Sunday Funday!

Genius Eleven: Religious Extremism Edition

2010-01-02T15:00:00.004-05:00

I'm having a 10,000 Maniacs kind of day, and I came across this song I had sort of forgotten about -- it's weird how that happens, right, even when you've had a record for fifteen years. So I'm listening to this song "Jubilee," which I think is very relevant. In the song, Natalie Merchant tells the story, in the way only a good songwriter can do, of a simple man who becomes a religious terrorist, the fires of his anger stoked by the sight of a black girl and a white boy "kissing shamelessly." In monitoring the anti-gay movement at Truth Wins Out, and in seeing the rhetoric against black people, against the poor, against the President, etc., coming out of Greater Teabagger-dom, it's evident that the easily-led right-wing fringe is teetering ever closer to outright extremism. Religious terrorism is on the rise (not just the Muslim kind, thank you), racist hatred is boiling...it's a precarious place to be as we enter a new decade (the "Onesies") in this secular, democratic nation.

Right now, an innocent child has been kidnapped by one of her mothers, because the kidnapping mother is now a radicalized fundamentalist Christian, and she refuses to obey court orders which would allow the child to be raised by both of her mothers. It's sick. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.

It's all the same story...substitute sexual orientation for race or nationality...it's like a Mad Lib for bigotry.

So we start with "Jubilee." Genius Eleven and more videos below.

1. 10,000 Maniacs - "Jubilee"

2. R.E.M. - "Romance"

3. Suzanne Vega - "Blood Sings"

4. Dar Williams - "What Do You Hear In These Sounds"

5. Tori Amos - "Mother"

6. Toad The Wet Sprocket - "Pray Your Gods"

7. Elvis Costello and the Attractions - "Watch Your Step"

8. R.E.M./KRS-One - "Radio Song"

9. Annie Lennox - "Keep Young And Beautiful"

10. Suzanne Vega - "In The Eye"

11. Aimee Mann - "Beautiful"

Toad the Wet Sprocket

Suzanne Vega - "Blood Sings"

Elvis Costello

Thought for the Day

2010-01-02T12:39:00.003-05:00

From a commenter at Sadly, No! (You should really read the whole post because it involves a hilarious queen-out from Bruce, THE Gay Wingnut, and those are always hilariously overwrought.):

Really, children, let’s not start that argument again. It doesn’t matter who is gayer than who, everyone is sufficiently gay in Jesus’ sight.

That's right. He's no respecter of gaynesses. As long as you are as gay as HE made you to be, you're doing FINE.

Jason Mraz Speaks Out For Marriage Equality (UPDATED)

2009-12-31T19:04:00.000-05:00

UPDATE BELOW

From his blog:

As a straight man I really have nothing to gain by standing up for equal rights for Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual, and/or my Transgender friends. Except for the fact that I have many friends who are still subjected to hurtful comments by a society that hasn’t yet embraced fully the nature of… nature.
Supporting a limiting system of rules for specific people to follow is prejudice. It’s the Antithesis of Christ Consciousness and (like smoking) it’s Soooo last century.
Allowing love to freely flourish will only enhance the life experience - For All.

Toward the end, he makes a salient point about how important it is for those who aren't directly affected by this issue of civil rights and justice to plug in and speak up:

I understand many people who stumble onto this blog are already dialed in and ready to transform the world. Much of my community is too. But there are some who still don’t care one way or the other about the ways of being in the world. Thereby, it’s up to us to share our positive outlook on our favorite issues.

That's the key, really. The more that we can encourage our friends and families to make like a Diane Savino and speak, the closer we'll be to a place where LGBT equality is a foregone conclusion and the voices of hatred are not silenced (because this is the United States, of course), but are so marginalized as to be rendered irrelevant.

Read the whole thing.

In other news, I had a love affair with this Jason Mraz song a few years ago, so I think I'll post it.

UPDATE: Egad, most of the comments over there are pro-equality and pro-humanity, but there are a few backwards fools in there. I'm trying to set them straight as long as I have patience, but any of you who want to go lay the smack down, be my guest.

Awwwww, kisses for Christmas

2009-12-30T15:30:00.003-05:00

There was recently a big gay kiss-in in Paris.

Here's a little montage to make you go "awwwww!"

And also, it might make you go "Oui, give me some of that, plz."

(AMERICAblog Gay)

My inaugural Genius Eleven

2009-12-27T22:49:00.006-05:00

I'm shamelessly taking this from Amanda Marcotte, but a couple of other bloggers do it too, so whatever. She does ten, so I'm doing eleven, just to be different.

So here's the deal, if you're not familiar. You pick a song, you hit "Genius" and post the songs your iTunes magically brings you, songs that supposedly fit with that flow in some way. (Srsly, I'm like the last person on Earth to get iTunes, I do hope I'm not covering new material.) Sometimes it makes sense, other times it doesn't. Last night it somehow put Bonnie Raitt and Van Hagar next to each other. That was unsettling.

I'm also doing this because, even though I don't yet own an iPod, I'm finally entering the digital age, and I'm about 20% done loading everything I own onto iTunes. So the mixes will get more varied/stranger/more interesting each time I do this.

Anyway, the song I'm choosing tonight is inspired by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a known moron, who used the truly frightening Christmas Nutsac Non-Bomber to try to make a ridiculous political point against the President:

"It's not surprising," U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Holland Republican, said of the alleged terrorist attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight in Detroit. ... "People have got to start connecting the dots here and maybe this is the thing that will connect the dots for the Obama administration," Hoekstra said.

Uh...whatever. Dude singes his teabag on a plane and we're all supposed to shit our pants. Steve Benen and Thers have commented quite enough on what a buffoon Hoekstra is, so no need to expand on it, except to say, once again, that Pete Hoekstra is a grade-A douchebag.

So anyway, Pete Hoekstra is from Holland, Michigan, and Sufjan Stevens happens to have written a beautiful song about Holland, Michigan, called, appropriately, "Holland."

Genius Eleven and more videos below the Sufjan.

1. Sufjan Stevens - "Holland"
2. Andrew Bird - "Plasticities"(live)

3. Beirut - "The Penalty"

4. Death Cab For Cutie - "Styrofoam Plates" (live)

5. Wilco - "At Least That's What You Said"

6. Bright Eyes - "Bowl of Oranges"

7. Thom Yorke - "The Eraser"

8. Grizzly Bear - "Little Brother" (live)

9. Sufjan Stevens - "That Was The Worst Christmas Ever" (how appropriate...)

10. Andrew Bird - "Anonanimal"

11. Neko Case - "Hold On, Hold On"

Beirut:

Neko Case:

Andrew Bird:

Enjoy! If you feel inspired to do your own, leave it in the comments.

QOTD, possibly of the year

2009-12-26T23:44:00.002-05:00

As they so often do, it comes from Thers:

We, the greatest nation on earth, are supposed to be Collectively Freaked Out because some sad little geek couldn’t make his fucking underpants explode properly?

No shit! I'm a bit amazed at the depths of Wingnuttia's collective hysteria over this one.

Also, read Maha.

RIP Vic Chesnutt

2009-12-25T21:30:00.002-05:00

What a loss.

Happy War, Xmas is over

2009-12-25T19:05:00.003-05:00

This is fucking awful.

I'm out, unless I decide to come back.

This is one of my favorite Christmas songs, because I'm a big gay pinko.

Ha ha, conservatives are up late on Twitter trying out this "humor" thing they keep hearing about

2009-12-24T22:21:00.004-05:00

If you go to Twitter right now and search #leftistholidaysongs, you will find the biggest cesspit of humor fail of the year.

They're all getting together, and they are trying SO HARD. It's like "We've seen this 'funny' thing before, read about it, and we know liberals are naturally good at it, let's give it a whirl!"

Oh, the results...

Naturally, Erick Erickson is the biggest failure of them all:

First No Hell. #leftistholidaysongs

Ho ho ho, you got us there, because some liberals don't believe in Space God, but you know who else doesn't? Um, lots of libertarians. Many of whom you teabag with, retard. Next:

Have Yourself A Merry Little Partial Birth Abortion.#leftistholidaysongs

THAT'S NOT EVEN A JOKE, dumbass! No attempt at a clever play on words, nothing! Just a pathetic moron in Georgia pulling Rush Limbaugh's dingleberries out of his rectum and posting them on the internet!

Go Tell It On MSNBC.#leftistholidaysongs

Erick, sweetheart. You don't understand the concept here... When you "do funny," you need to have two things at your disposal:

1. A quick wit. We read your posts and know that this is in short supply in your general area.
2. A grasp of reality. It helps. Humor only works when it's based, at least in part, on reality.*

Instead, Erick is just starting with a Christmas carol, and then taking a word away and inserting a word he finds "liberal." Perhaps this works with the 70-and-below IQ set (RedState's readership, granted, is probably leaving puddles under their computer chairs right now, from the peeing and laughing), but not with smart people.

Let me give you an example. If we were doing #wingnutholidaysongs, I might post "Wingnuts Roasting On An Open Fire." Because A., brings back memories, you know, of Roman Lions, so, you know, LOL. B. It's a good pun! And that would be FUNNY.

Oh, shit, he accidentally did land one though, sort of:

Mary Did You Know You Have the Right to Choose.#leftistholidaysongs

Of course, I would have gone with "Bring Your Coat Hangers, Jeanette, Isabella," but that's just me.

Anyway, back to the FAIL. Erick Erickson is an insecure Southern redneck with penis issues, so he can't resist the gay jokes, because those are still funny to people over the age of thirteen, really:

We Three Queens. #leftistholidaysongs

See, um, correct use of pun but, again, wayyyyy too obvious. If you're going to make a gay joke, it has to be a GOOD gay joke. Like maybe...

"Carol of the Balls"

No, wait, sorry, that's a teabagger joke.

Sorry, just trying to help!

*cf.

517 Miles, potentially, or is it 793?

2009-12-24T20:23:00.002-05:00

Merry whatever it is.

The Pretenders.

(h/t Roger Ailes)

If you forgot to get a Christmas tree, some moron lady in Kansas, named "Bunny," has one.

2009-12-24T16:05:00.005-05:00

You see, everybody, Bunny is really upset that Mean Old Harry Reid passed this healthcare legislation, which Bunny doesn't like, and so now Christmas is ruined, (Jesus saw his shadow and went back in). Bunny took down all the pagan symbols she had used to decorate the house for The Jesus, and thinks everybody else should too. Also, they should turn off the lights in the White House, though I'm not exactly clear on what her reasoning is there.

Anyway, stupid wingnuts are the Xmas gift that keeps giving, every day of the year, so here, listen to this dingus calling into the C-SPAN.

(Wonkette)

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

2009-12-24T12:28:00.003-05:00

Enjoy your The Holidays, however you celebrate/don't celebrate them.

Be sure to get drunk.

The quote that just won the internet (for today anyway)

2009-12-23T23:42:00.003-05:00

From Gil Mann at Rumproast:

I doubt I’ll ever waver in my belief that religion’s been a net negative for society, but I will say this: atheism has yet to provide mankind with a yearly opportunity to fuck drunken coworkers. Advantage: space ghost.

Giggle. Fine, space ghost it is, but only until Friday. Then it's back to sanity.

I will always love you, Matt Taibbi

2009-12-23T15:16:00.004-05:00

I may disagree with what you say sometimes, and that's okay. But because you start pieces with paragraphs like this,

I’m always afraid to write about David Brooks, because I worry that my attitude toward this guy is colored by certain strong feelings I have about his appearance — he just looks like a professional groveler/ass-kisser, and every time I see him in public I have to fight off visions of him home at night in his Versace jammies, feverishly jacking off with one hand while caressing in the other an official invitation to, say, a White House event, or a Harvard Club luncheon.

I want to be your BFF.

And it's a great piece, so read it.

LOL C-SPAN

2009-12-22T18:42:00.004-05:00

This has to be the funniest moment in C-SPAN history. Senator John Barrasso (Wingnut-WY) was being interviewed when a call came in from a man purporting to be a teabagger. The man stated that he had taken Tom Coburn's (Wingnut-OK) instructions and convened a group to pray for Robert Byrd's death, I mean for a member of the Senate to miss the crucial cloture vote early Monday morning. He was then alarmed to find out that Jim Inhofe (Wingnut-OK) had missed the vote, and started crying as he asked Barrasso if perhaps they had prayed incorrectly/not hard enough and the imprecatory prayers accidentally struck one of their own.

I highly doubt that this is real, because it's just too perfect, but who gives a damn? It's totally fucking hilarious.

(h/t John Cole)