The only real difference between Dick Cheney and Ted Bundy is that Bundy felt a twinge of remorse at the end.
Oh. And Bundy never shot a friend in the face while drunk. So score one for Ted.
From Colbert Nation: "Stephen wants CEOs to be stripped naked and locked together in a rusty steel cage in an arena packed with screaming taxpayers."
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word - Keeping Our Heads | ||||
| ||||
RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS
What? Hiatuses happen. Anyway, we're back and with a vengeance.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| The Notorious AIG - Congress Wants to Blame Someone | ||||
| ||||
RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS
They start with Sean Hannity being chased by angry Republicans.....so you know you're going to enjoy this Very Special New Year's collection.
Lyrics & credits after the jump:
The Large Hadron Rap
Twenty-seven kilometers of tunnel under ground
Designed with mind to send protons around
A circle that crosses through Switzerland and France
Sixty nations contribute to scientific advance
Two beams of protons swing round, through the ring they ride
‘Til in the hearts of the detectors, they’re made to collide
And all that energy packed in such a tiny bit of room
Becomes mass, particles created from the vacuum
And then…
LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone
ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions
CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind
They’re looking for whatever new particles they can find.
The LHC accelerates the protons and the lead
And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head.
We see asteroids and planets, stars galore
We know a black hole resides at each galaxy’s core
But even all that matter cannot explain
What holds all these stars together – something else remains
This dark matter interacts only through gravity
And how do you catch a particle there’s no way to see
Take it back to the conservation of energy
And the particles appear, clear as can be
You see particles flying, in jets they spray
But you notice there ain’t nothin’, goin’ the other way
You say, “My law has just been violated – it don’t make sense!
There’s gotta be another particle to make this balance.”
And it might be dark matter, and for first
Time we catch a glimpse of what must fill most of the known ‘Verse.
Because…
LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone
ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions
CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind
They’re looking for whatever new particles they can find.
Antimatter is sort of like matter’s evil twin
Because except for charge and handedness of spin
They’re the same for a particle and its anti-self
But you can’t store an antiparticle on any shelf
Cuz when it meets its normal twin, they both annihilate
Matter turns to energy and then it dissipates
When matter is created from energy
Which is exactly what they’ll do in the LHC
You get matter and antimatter in equal parts
And they try to take that back to when the universe starts
The Big Bang – back when the matter all exploded
But the amount of antimatter was somehow eroded
Because when we look around we see that matter abounds
But antimatter’s nowhere to be found.
That’s why…
LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone
ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions
CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind
They’re looking for whatever new particles they can find.
The LHC accelerates the protons and the lead
And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head.
The Higgs Boson – that’s the one that everybody talks about.
And it’s the one sure thing that this machine will sort out
If the Higgs exists, they ought to see it right away
And if it doesn’t, then the scientists will finally say
“There is no Higgs! We need new physics to account for why
Things have mass. Something in our Standard Model went awry.”
But the Higgs – I still haven’t said just what it does
They suppose that particles have mass because
There is this Higgs field that extends through all space
And some particles slow down while other particles race
Straight through like the photon – it has no mass
But something heavy like the top quark, it’s draggin’ its ***
And the Higgs is a boson that carries a force
And makes particles take orders from the field that is its source.
They’ll detect it….
LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone
ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions
CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind
They’re looking for whatever new particles they can find.
Now some of you may think that gravity is strong
Cuz when you fall off your bicycle it don’t take long
Until you hit the earth, and you say, “Dang, that hurt!”
But if you think that force is powerful, you’re wrong.
You see, gravity – it’s weaker than Weak
And the reason why is something many scientists seek
They think about dimensions – we just live in three
But maybe there are some others that are too small to see
It’s into these dimensions that gravity extends
Which makes it seem weaker, here on our end.
And these dimensions are “rolled up” – curled so tight
That they don’t affect you in your day to day life
But if you were as tiny as a graviton
You could enter these dimensions and go wandering on
And they'd find you...
When LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone
ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions
CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind
They’re looking for whatever new particles they can find.
The LHC accelerates the protons and the lead
And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head!
CREDITS
Go ahead and translate, rap it, and post it! Just give us a
shout-out, and it's probably a good idea to include the following
credits ;-)
Images came from:
particlephysics.ac.uk, space.com, the Institute of Physics, NASA, Symmetry, and Marvel
I forgot Einstein Online, and they called me out: http://www.einstein-online.info
And
I forgot Physics World (dunno what I was thinking when I put together
the extra dimensions bit). Steve Abel set me to rights (but made no
demands): http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/p...
The talented dancers doubled as camera people, with some work by Neil Dixon. Stock footage is CERN's.
Will Barras is responsible for the killa beats:
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~s9527813/
And thanks to MC Hawking, who first thought of using computer-voice to bring Stephen Hawking to the world of rap :-)
http://www.mchawking.com/
The rapper has a day job (we agree this is a good thing) as a science writer.
http://www.katemcalpine.com
They'll
have a lot of data to sort. 15 million GB per year, actually. Want to
get involved and donate your computer's downtime? Try LHC@home:
http://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/
Via HuffPost, where you can read Jason Linkins' write-up. ""Please do not allow the allegations against me to taint this good man," Blagojevich said, futilely...""
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Wonkette adds this alluring bit of information on Roland Burris:
He has already built a tombstone — actually, more of a monument — with all his accomplishments listed on it. Planning ahead, he has left extra space for additional accomplishments. Also, Roland Burris’s children? They’re named Roland II and Rolanda. No joke.” HMM… It appears that there is much to learn about this so-called “Roland Burris.”
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Did you know that Bush is still president? It's true. BUT NOT FOR VERY MUCH LONGER.
Bloggenfreude at Agitprop mourns W's passing. "We will never see his like again."
The photographic tributes are particularly choice. We recommend clicking.
Meanwhile, Bush is STILL PRESIDENT, so where is he now? Cactus at Angry Bear asks why Bush needs a vacation RIGHT NOW.
Princess Sparkle Pony discusses the surge---that is to say, the surge in demand across the Middle East for the shoe which the Iraqi journalist hurled at Bush. The owner of the factory has had to take on extra staff. Sadly, it is an exceptionally ugly shoe. But PSP has a whole gallery of Mideastern shoe-based art on display at his blog. For example. Also.
Speaking of shoes, you can play "Hit Bush with a Shoe" at Under the Lobsterscope.
Cheney doesn't know why people don't like him. TBogg does.
The only real difference between Dick Cheney and Ted Bundy is that Bundy felt a twinge of remorse at the end.
Oh. And Bundy never shot a friend in the face while drunk. So score one for Ted.
Apparently the latest spin from ex-Bush staffers is that Katrina brought down the Bush administration. Mustang Bobby:
Matthew at These Bastards agrees:
Flory at Whiskey Fire doesn't think there is any point in searching for a rational geopolitical motive behind the Iraq invasion.
So Flory proposes a list of nonrational and flat-out irrational reasons, including (but not limited to):
Mick Arran at Fact-esque comments on the Bush reality-deflecting bubble.
There simply is no possibility that any Bush, apparently, will ever voluntarily relinguish the saving graces of living in a bubble no matter how much reality intrudes or how often the bubble is assaulted by facts. Leave us take for a moment Laura Bush's response in an interview when she was asked about the infamous shoe-throwing incident.
[S]he said the incident reflects change in Iraq.
"As bad as the incident is, in my view, it is a sign that Iraqis feel a lot freer to express themselves," she said.
The Heretik just wants it to be over (great artwork here).
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Brzezinski sorts out "Morning Joe" Scarborough, former Florida Congressman. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
FYI, From Wikipedia:
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Roy Edroso posts his "top 10 stupid right-blogger tricks" for 2008 at The Village Voice. An excerpt:
Pop stars made a video for Obama and the American Spectator compared it to Triumph of the Will. National Review called Obama's national service plan the "Obama Youth." Obama spoke in Germany, and Melissa Clouthier compared his signage to that of the Third Reich.
Jonah Goldberg said liberals only liked Obama because they didn't know any real (that is, poor and dangerous) black people; Taranto said Democrats were intimidated into nominating him, as an old lady might be intimidated into surrendering her purse to a mugger.
..."I guess I also don't understand why we have to use Hillary Clinton's middle name, but we're not allowed to use Obama's," said Jules Crittenden. "Hussein. Hussein, Hussein, Hussein. There, I said it."
After the Reverend Wright episode, rightbloggers held out hope. "Obama is unlikely to become president unless he can explain Malcolm X," said Pajamas Media's Bill Bradley (which would have been tough, as Obama is Malcolm X's son).... Finally, in the 11th hour: proof positive that Obama had a girlfriend in the Virgin Islands! ("My source is someone in the blogosphere.") (More)
Bonus listings at Alicublog!
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
No, it's Flying Rodent's!
And as he says, and we agree, it was a very odd year. For example,
Here are a few specifics (he worked backwards starting with December 2008) from Part 1:
(There are lots more---these are just a few samples):
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Via. At least it appears we'll go out to Pink Floyd.
The HuffPost has Daniel Kurtzman's list with a whole string of videos. We posted quite a few of these here, but it's so nice to have them all lined up in one place.
Bonus: HuffPost's best You Tubes of 2008.
All during the campaign we kept hearing from Sarah Palin that Obama and his supporters didn't think about America the same way she and the morons who voted for her aspire to think of it or give it the same blind love and loyalty that the wingnuts claim to give it. In a way, this is true. We think it's the duty of the citizen of a democracy to place democratic ideals before blind loyalty and that "tough love" is required to keep the country on the right path.
Joel Stein, who---at least when writing in character--- is a conservative's idea of a liberal, may or may not understand this. Affecting to speak for all liberals, he said:
Conservatives had a field day with this, ingenuously taking him at his word and assuming that he is infallible on the subject of liberalism and is appointed by all liberals to speak for them. And so Clif at Sadly, No! thoughtfully compiled a list of all the things those America-lovin' wingnuts HATE HATE HATE!!!!! about their country.
[I]n less time than it takes for Joel to steal someone else’s idea, I can come up with a list of things that conservatives hate about America:
They also hate the Constitution, American liberals, anything Clinton, Al Gore, sufferers from Alzheimer's, American trees and wildlife, the economy, and all the troops they don't want to let come home (great big crocodile tears don't disguise this). And they'll do anything they have to destroy them all.
The intelligent commenters of Sadly, No! likewise weighed in.
Scott said:
Conservatives love their country in the same way that manhood-threatened wankstains love their families after they’ve butchered them in their sleep — it’s what you scream to the TV crews while the cops are leading you away and toting your wife and kids out in body bags.
Mooser said:
LEON TROTSKY, EXILE-IN-MEXICO, said:
Also, if you really love America, you break into her house when she’s not home after receiving a message from her in the television, kill her cat, erase the phone messages from her answering machine, and then shoot her, her boyfriend, and yourself when she gets back.
THAT’S REAL AMERICA. STALK IT OR LEAVE, LIBTARDS.
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
(Sir Baz says this story is "days old", but we liked it too much to delete it.)
British Culture Secretary (Hey, why don't we have one of those? We should get one of those ASAP!) Andy Burnham, worried about the effect of the internets on children---good; good; we like children too--- has a solution!
Ratings for websites!
Okay, scratch what we just said about getting one of those. According to the BBC,
Film-style age ratings could be applied to websites to protect children from harmful and offensive material, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said.
Mr Burnham said the government was looking at a number of possible new internet safeguards.
He said some content, such as clips of beheadings, was unacceptable and new standards of decency were needed.
He also plans to negotiate with the US on drawing up international rules for English language websites.
Mr Burnham, a father of three young children, believes internet service providers should offer child-friendly web access.
Gaaaah. "Culture Minister" and "rules for English language websites" should not appear in the same sentence or indeed even in the same universe. In fact, what this guy says. Erm, and this one.
Annnd....Turkey/Chicken Yoghurt has two words for Andy Burnham.
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
by Damozel | I read Sexual Personae Vol. 1 in---what was it? 1992? A LONG time ago, anyway---and I really enjoyed it. I love reading other people's literary hallucinations, even when I don't buy into them, and Paglia's hypnotic hyper-visual prose style is exceedingly well suited to the discussion of painting and literature.
Though I couldn't agree less with her fundamental premises, I enjoyed reading her strange and wondrous reframings of my favorite works of art and literature. It was like looking at them...um, through a glass, and darkly. Some of her eerier interpretations (on Sade, on Blake, on Baudelaire, on Coleridge on Swinburne) are forever seared upon my memory, not necessarily in a good way or in accordance with my wishes.
So I wish she hadn't ruined it all for me by trying to get herself positioned as some sort of cultural (including popular culture) arbiter. Not satisfied with being a critic and commentator, she wanted to be Ye Supreme Arbiter of American Popular Culture.
It seems never to have occurred to her that once she moved from her areas of specialization into areas on which we all feel equally qualified to have an opinion---e.g., the transcendance of Madonna; the guitar supremacy of Keith Richards---her opinions would weigh no more than anyone else's.
Furthermore, the long, wavery, metaphor-crammed sentences in which she frames her arguments would come across not as proof the she is erudite beyond the dreams of her fellow citizens but that she is merely a presumptuous loony, like poor Actaeon at the moment of looking on the lunar goddess Diana bathing naked with her nymphs. Paglia knows, even if you don't, that if you take that liberty, you end up getting torn to shreds by Diana's dogs.
So why does she persist? (And why does Salon give her a soapbox from which to terrorize casual passersby?)
Though she's pretty crap as an arbiter of current popular culture, she's still a million times better ranting about the eternal all-encompassing supremacy of Madonna and Keith Richards. I don't mind reading and ruminating over her proofs of the latent sadomasochism in the poetry of Emily Dickinson; she made her case. But I draw the line at being told how to value the cultural icons of my own generation. Best guitar player in all the history of rock 'n roll? I'll be the judge of that.
But if Paglia's on doubtful ground when pontificating about pop culture, she goes tragically astray when she is "pumping and pumping her narcissistic bellows like a steam engine" (a phrase which, most ironically, she herself applied to Hillary Clinton; projection much?) on the subject of politics. On politics, she's pathetic. Nobody---NOBODY, except maybe Ann Althouse---takes her seriously.
So anyway, Betty Cracker gave her a RIGHTEOUS SEEING OFF that I somehow failed to find, an omission that must be redressed.
See, we Palin critics are like those stuffy opera aficionados who failed to recognize the genius of Charlie Parker. And if that cultural reference is too musty for you, Paglia helpfully supplies a more recent one in her current Salon column -- Palin speaks like bloggers write:...“So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist.”
Really? Then perhaps she’d be kind enough to translate this passage for me:English has evolved, and the world has moved on. There is no necessary connection between bourgeois syntax and practical achievement. I have never had the slightest problem with understanding Sarah Palin's meaning at any time.
“Sitting here in these chairs that I’m going to be proposing but in working with these governors who again on the front lines are forced to and it’s our privileged obligation to find solutions to the challenges facing our own states every day being held accountable, not being just one of many just casting votes or voting present every once in a while, we don’t get away with that. We have to balance budgets and we’re dealing with multibillion dollar budgets and tens of thousands of employees in our organizations."
The Palin thing is mainly (a) Paglia being a "contrarian" because she hasn't yet clocked that the internet is full of them and that contrarianism for its own sake is no longer shocking; and (b) Paglia getting back at all the people who were offended by her vicious over-the-top attacks on Hillary Clinton.
If we really HAVE reached the point when "a powerful clarity of consciousness" in the eyes of someone burbling abject nonsense overrides the inanity and meaninglessly of the nonsense, that's something we need to change. The point about words IS their meaning.
If you stand up there and sing "be bop de bop; bop bop bop blee dee doodle, doodle dee dee", you're exhibiting your qualifications to be a scat singer, not Vice President of the United States. After all, there is "a powerful clarity of consciousness" in my cat's eyes when she mews for attention, but I wouldn't consider her a suitable candidate for high office....errrrr, though no doubt to the driveller, other drivel sound as if it might make as much sense as any other drivel were you to reconstruct it. So perhaps there is sincerity in the praise Paglia heaped on Palin.
If so, how sad.
As BC says, it must be difficult being Paglia, dogged by the belief that people are actually hanging on your every pronouncement so that they'll know what to think about life, the universe, and everything. It isn't true of course, but a delusion is the same as reality if you happen to hold it.
Some time ago, Gavin of Sadly, No! wrote:
You know, imagine it’s 1991, the year Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson came out in paperback. Subtract eighteen years, and it’s 1973. It’s 1991 right now, and we’ve been listening to this woman say the same things, over and over, since 1973.
No, think about it: We’re listening to, like, Jesus Jones doing ‘Right Here Right Now,’ and Paglia has been talking since the first Bachman-Turner Overdrive album came out. Would anybody have put up with that then? Wouldn’t somebody long since have remarked, “Hey, okay, that Bachman-Turner Overdrive — stop playing that old stuff already, man; that stuff is so old“? Because honestly, it’s really gotten quite a bit past fresh at this point, hasn’t it?
BTW re: Molly Ivins and that seminal takedown which BC mentions (no doubt a reference to the dread and dangerous dagger-wielding "phallic woman," as illustrated by the Marquesa---or whatever she was---in Balzac's The Girl with the Golden Eyes) here's a wee excerpt:
See also:
Yes, it was four days ago that we first tried to ignore this piece by Dennis Prager [When a Woman Isn't in the Mood: Part I] because we have our own sex lives to think of and we can't afford to have Prager get all mixed up in those thoughts, but at last we decided we had a duty to ourselves to round up the best of the snark generated from Prager's cornucopia.
It is, after all, a cornucopia filled with highly mockable phallacies (though we have our own thoughts about the "copia" part of the "cornu" in question).
Sadly, many of our favorite cruel bloggers didn't cover this because it came out on December 23. (We can't WAIT for When a Woman Isn't in the Mood: Part 2.) Everyone can play!
Even so, plenty of other delightful bloggers put their, er, oars in.
Maggie's Farm framed the issue:
Lindsay Beyerstein sums up the gist of Prager's response at Majikthise:
Prager's latest essay is the equivalent of the "blue balls" claim for old married guys....
[F]or long-term relationshps, Prager suggests a three-pronged rhetorical strategy: A wife must give her husband sex whenever he wants because i) God and nature say so, ii) He's already a hero for not cheating on her (and heroes are entitled to extort anything they want from anyone), iii) How else will he know she loves him?
Unlike some of those who commented, we didn't think Prager was advocating marital rape. We thought instead that he was advocating old-fashioned sexual blackmail, via a regular application of guilt intended to induce anxiety, so that the wingnut wife who for whatever reason isn't feeling quite up to it will know in her heart that her failure to reciprocate lust with---what's that word? oh yeah: submission----may end up driving her self-pitying, phallocentric husbands into the arms of other, more compliant women and she will have nobody to blame but herself.
Jesse at Pandagon said:
Well, perhaps it’s a part of this newfangled sexual revomalution that we’re all on the front lines of, but most husbands I know understand their wives’ love for them through other means than the percentage of their penises in their wives’ bodies. I sincerely hope that if I am married one day, and my wife is in bed with the flu, that I don’t consider it grounds for divorce because she’s too busy trying to stop the chills to do reverse cowgirl - the obvious position for illness, because who wants to look at her clammy, pallid face when she’s sick?....
Here’s an idea: talk. Your wife isn’t denying your sexual nature - she’s denying you sex. I’m pretty sure that your wife isn’t living in some Puritanical bubble where she recites Psalms while you visit your male nature upon her, shocked back to reality after you roll off of her and fall asleep and she realizes she has yet to start the stock for tomorrow’s stew. In general, if your wife is constantly denying you sex, she either has a personal issue which it probably behooves you to stop being horny long enough to think about, or she has a personal issue with you that it really behooves you to stop being horny long enough to think about....
Dennis Prager is divorced. I hope that revelation just ROCKED YOUR FUCKING WORLD. Is it rocked? Because I hope I rocked it. I’ve been working on my rockage of worlds.
Next, Megan at Jezebel, wonderly wroth!
Blue Texan can be so harsh:
Unlike Dennis, I've only been married to one woman and never divorced, so my insights on women and marriage are obviously inferior to his. But with my limited perspective, I've carefully come to the conclusion that he's a sexist neanderthal asshole who deserves to die alone.
Vermontdave at Newshounds marvelled:
Pamela Troy at ThoughtCrimes said:
MGK at Mightygodking said:
I want to mock this, but I am simply too amazed to know where to start.
Actually, no, wait. I do know where to start. Here is a picture of Dennis Prager....
It is clear...Dennis Prager knows all too well the trauma of being turned down....Oh, the humanity!
Mark Kleiman said:
Jeff Fecke concurs:
IOZ had the best one-liner: " Yo Denny, women like to fuck if it's good."
RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITIC POSTINGS
This is a whole ship full of awesome, and we found it via The Red Tory 3.0.
The Red Tory said, and it was a true word:
As he says, "the giant motorized pigeons feasting on acrobats [and]...[t]he giant Buddha sweeping teams of competitors off his tongue into the Olympic pool" are alone worth the time. But there so much more.
It is a veritable televisusal feast.
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Hey! Go easy on them, dude; they're not used to it. Fact-esque: Squealing Like Stuck Pigs: Bushies Respond to a Modicum of Truth
We knew there had to be a reason.... Bats Left, Throws Right: Oh, So That's Why The Times Hired Kristol
The war on the War on Christmas..... Brilliant at Breakfast: Ah, yer all a buncha pagans... :. Heh. Indeed. Hehindeed. Heh indeedie deedie do....
Right-wing male theocrats: indistinguishable the world over, especially as regards their views on women and teh gays......Betty Cracker: Mullah Warren; Alas, a Blog;Rick Warren Blatantly Lies; Katha Pollitt on Warren’s Misogyny; Chicken, er um Turkey Yoghurt: Benedict XVI: making a list, checking it twice
Sean Mullen ain't surprised. GOP: They Don't Get It. They Never Will. We ain't surprised either.
Er, Coulter? Ann Coulter? Oh. Yeah. We remember Ann Coulter.
WoC reviews World Net Daily's Review of Guilty:
In her most controversial and fiercely argued book yet,
Ann does argue fiercely in this one, giving body slams and kidney punches to the facts, and actually pulling a knife on some non-cooperative statistics. But I don’t think WND is fooling anyone when they claim that one of Ann’s books is capable of causing a controversy at this point, let alone anything more than a pained sigh or a bored shrug....
Coulter’s books electrify those millions of Americans who still believe in liberty and common sense, while driving everyone else nuts.
Yeah, the people who read Ann’s books do drive everyone else nuts, since having to deal with the annoyingly delusional can become very trying. Maybe electricity (or rather, electro-shock therapy) for them IS the answer.
And that’s just how Ann likes it.
She likes her readers to serve as malignant irritants to the rest of society, much as Willard liked having an army of rats that he could use to get back at the society which had ignored him.....
“Who are the victims here?” she [rails]. “To hear liberals tell it, you’d think they do nothing but suffer at the hands of ruthless entities like the ‘Republican Attack Machine’ and Fox News.”
When, the truth is that Republicans and viewers of Fox News are the real victims, often suffering from shrunken brains as a direct result of their political and/or television choices....
* The offenders are offended!: “Republican senator George Allen’s career was destroyed when he made a joking remark to a privileged Indian American harassing him at campaign stops.
Yes, Allen “jokingly” twice called the dark-skinned young man who was “harassing” him by filming his appearances a “macaca,” which means “monkey” and is commonly understood as a racial slur in french-speaking countries. So, obviously Allen is the real victim here, in that he got in trouble for something he did.
When did rich kids become a new protected category that must be shielded from words that are insulting in other languages?
Yeah, when did it become unacceptable to use racial slurs against brown people who it turns out are not poor? And shouldn’t it be okay to insult people in a language that they presumably don’t speak, because being dark, they should be from the underclass?
How did Sidarth become a specially anointed victim?
And how come Ann thinks that Allen is a victim for showing his true (short-tempered, intemperate, possibly racist) self, and getting called on it?
What did we ever do to India?
See, unless we enslaved them or something, it should be okay to mock them for their skin color.
And why didn’t we ever hear about the far more offensive anti-Semitic flyers of Allen’s opponent Jim Webb?”
Um, perhaps because the charges that the flyers were anti-Semitic were quickly debunked (see “James Webb Accused of Anti-Semitism in Democratic Primary“)? But hey, let’s not let the truth get in the way of Ann’s claim that conservatives are the real victims here, in that they lost the elections.
More here, at World O' Crap.
Highly recommended WoC bonus snark: K-Lo The Brown-Nosed Reindeer
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Dave Neiwart at C&L reminded us of the first episode evah:
(Not for the sensitive or pious).
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
HuffPost has a whole slideshow of presidents OTHER than President-elect Obama whose pecs became public domain. (Reagan frightened us, and we were sad to see that when he isn't leveling his razor-like stare at the camera, Putin is kind of a....well, a hottie.)
Even more shirtless presidents (American) here at Gawker. And if that ain't enough, go here.
Via Video Cafe, this gift of seasonal awesomeness:
RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
by Teh Nutroots | WHICH WINGNUT NOMINEE SHOULD WIN EACH OF THESE COVETED AWARDS FROM THE POOR MAN'S INSTITUTE?
The Fluffy ("most disgusting, worshipful defense of powerful wingnut"):
OMG is that DAVID ADDINGTON?!?!?! The way he subverts the Constitution is SO DREAMY!!!!!! OMG HE’S LOOKING RIGHT ME OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE**************
The Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearl Cluster (" for enduring the cruelest butthurt")
Scourged by the whips of political correctness; cruelly mocked at fancy cocktail parties by apocryphal liberals who spit chardonnay in their faces and fix them with a thorny Crown of Not Agreeing With Me; and, finally, led away from their just reward to be nailed to a rugged cross of Very Mean Blog Posts with rude nails of Naughty Words - such a Passion would break lesser mortals. But, as the bold Chickenhawk is invincible in battle, the wounded wingnut is unbroken in defeat. Stoically putting down his parasol and hand fan, manfully gathering up his petticoats and bustle, he runs sobbing - and with a quiet dignity - from the shade of the magnolia tree to the drawing room to pen an editorial about how nasty and horrible everybody is and how his small and shell-like ears have never heard such uncouthness and wah wah wah all the fucking way home.(The Poor Man)
The Creamy Baileys Nobel Peace Prize for Science
The Soggy Biscuit ("biggest group wank")
Still to come:
Wank of the Year - biggest single act of wanking of 2008
The Palme D’Haire - biggest wanker of 2008
Bonus poll: Sadly, No! will direct you to a poll where you can vote for your favorite wingnut "Blogress"---selected without irony by the conservative pollster--- of the year. Vote for your favorite ogress among the many, many loathly hags cited therein!
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Though it was nominated for a Grammy, we just don't think there's been nearly enough screaming about Harry Shearer's musical send-up of the Bush administration's main players. If you've had all the peace and good will you can handle, you might enjoy a bit of black comedy, in diverse musical stylings.
If you're looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for a progressive friend, we don't see how you could do better than this album (available at I-Tunes):
First, Shearer rocks the R &B in "935 Lies" and "Addicted to Oil".
"935 Lies"
Shearer as W in "Addicted to Oil."
Shearer's wife Judith Owen channels the great Shirley Bassey in the Bond-themed "Connect the Dots" while Harry sings back up as both Dick Cheney AND Bush.
"(Let's Go)"Waterboardin' USA"
Finally, because it is BEYOND awesome, Judith Owen as Sarah Palin in "Bridge to Nowhere" (great footage of Alaska in this), "in a tone of latter day exotica." Don't tell me you can resist that...
Other Shearer videos at Shearer's site at MyDamnChannel, including "Turd Blossom Special" (Rove) and "Gym Buds" (Condi).
Other IDLYE POSTINGS
Cheney is a douchebag wrapped in an enigma and dipped in a mystery, but Bill Kristol is still just a douchebag. Amazingly, Fox News viewers and others still listen to him, proving that what we suspected about them all along is TRUE.
From Think Progress, this delightful wingnuttery on the half-shell:
We're all caught up in holiday activities at the moment, but who could resist all these cherishable Cheney moments? Certainly not us. It's just the right time for the Anti-Claus!
As Jon Stewart has so rightly said, we don't know Dick. Yes, he's still douchebag wrapped in an enigma and dipped in a mystery! And---in the immortal words of the Turtles, c. 1960-something---the more we see, the more we see there is to see!
So it seems Dick Cheney, Man of Mystery, had quite the little gabfest on Fox News:
WALLACE: Did you tell Senator Leahy, “bleep yourself”?
CHENEY: I did.
WALLACE: Any qualms, second thoughts, or embarrassment?
CHENEY: No, I thought he merited it at the time.... (Think Progress)
The joy of this interview---which can be viewed here---would admittedly be somewhat marred by Cheney's mentioning that they've "patched it over" since then if we believed for a minute that Leahy considers it all patched over.
Steve Benen muses:
Let's remember, then, that if Joe Biden approaches, say, Arlen Specter or Orrin Hatch on the Senate floor, he tells them to go "f*ck themselves," and then brags about how appropriate his conduct was, as far as some on the right are concerned, this is completely appropriate behavior for the vice president to engage in.
George W. Bush admitted the other day that he's disappointed he wasn't able to "change the tone" in Washington. If he's curious where his White House went wrong, he may want to reflect a bit on his VP's conduct.
Let us hope that Joe Biden takes the hint. It badly needs saying.
Speaking of Joey B., Cheney also took some potshots at the incoming VP on the subject of the constitution and the CHENEY BRANCH that has evolved during the Bush administration. Good times! As Ana Marie Cox said, we could all sleep better "knowing that Dick Cheney ANSWERS TO NO ONE."
Cheney's interpretation of the Vice President's powers was of course a novel one, but he's right---why SHOULDN'T Biden assume the same powers as Cheney and Obama the same powers as Bush?
Unitary executive Obama! We don't approve of this IN THEORY of course, but in practice it would make us laugh out loud. Fox News really should be careful how it taunts Obama and Joe Biden on their refusal to follow Bush's lead in expanding the executive branch beyond even Nixon's fondest dreams.
Anyway, Joe B. "fired back," saying "Cheney “has been not healthy for our foreign policy, not healthy for our national security, and it has not been consistent with our Constitution, in my view.... His notion of a unitary executive, meaning that, in time of war, essentially all power, you know, goes to the executive, I think is dead wrong. I think it was mistaken.""
Too bad Obama didn't choose Rahmbo to be his VP. Rahm would know how to work the Cheney branch. We could have called Obama's presidency the Orahmbo administration.
Anyway, John Amato is NOT amused, causing us to be somewhat abashed that we are not focusing on the real core problem here.
Dick Cheney goes on his favorite network, FOX, to close out his career. There's nothing to be gained going on Meet the Press since there aren't any talking points needed to be pushed on the American people, like starting an illegal war and all so Wallace gets the interview. And as always his hubris is shocking. Cheney and his Band of Neocons lied this country into a war with Iraq as they created Bush's Doctrine. (Preemptive war.).(Politico)
Though Amato had a good idea for a Cheney-based comedy sketch.
And he sits there with the rest of BushCO., trying to create a new narrative to cover their tracks about the war. It's the fault of "The Intelligence". I can see Stewart now talking to a big floppy-eared College Football mascot named Intelligence and asking him why he f*&ked up Cheney. Dick created the intelligence that was used to bring us to war..(Politico)
He can still make a chill run up and down our spine. How about yours?
In an interview with ABC News last week, Cheney suggested that the administration would have gone to war with Iraq even without erroneous intelligence showing that Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction. Cheney also said in that interview that he approved of the administration's use of coercive interrogation tactics, including a type of simulated drowning known as waterboarding....
Cheney expressed few regrets in yesterday's interview and said he was untroubled by opinion polls showing that he and Bush are among the most unpopular White House occupants in modern times....
Brrrrrrrrr!
The only real difference between Dick Cheney and Ted Bundy is that Bundy felt a twinge of remorse at the end.
Oh. And Bundy never shot a friend in the face while drunk. So score one for Ted.
If you're in a reminiscent mood....RIDE THE WAYBACK PONY---favorite Cheney moments!
Apparently, in Prager's universe white Christians, especially white Christian males, are always apologizing. Who knew?
Prager thinks it's about time for minorities to "express shame." Prager himself, as you can see, has none.
Clif at Sadly, No! sees this one off in Town Hall of Shame.
Surely there are laws that the blacks and the gays passed that discriminated against straight white people that deserve an apology. Like the time that the blacks of Mississippi passed the law requiring white people to take dancing ability tests before voting. And then those gays in New York city passed a law imposing a higher tax on drinks served without little umbrellas and tropical fruit garnishes.
And some of the commenters weigh in.
As a white man, I would like to apologize for Dennis Prager.
Our bad. Sorry.
It’s also about time that women apologized to men for all that raping. Hussies.
And later Loneoak asked:
When will black people apologize for not being white?
When, indeed....
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
The zoo separated them because they kept stealing other penguins' eggs---"they were caught placing stones at the feet of parents before waddling away with their eggs." (MailOnline) This is the sweet part:
But angry visitors to Polar Land in Harbin, northern China, complained it wasn't fair to stop the couple from becoming surrogate fathers and urged zoo bosses to give them a chance.
So....the zoo gave them some eggs from a couple whose hatching/parenting skills were in doubt.
'It's very encouraging and if this works out well we will try to arrange for them to become real parents themselves with artificial insemination.' (MailOnline)
The zoo said they were separated not because they were gay, but because they were disturbing the other penguins.
Bless them.
TMV's Elyas Bahktiari comments here.
Towleroad comments here.
IDLYE POSTINGS
Because it's important to remember that there are still some nice things happening (via Huffington Post).
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Like Ackerman said, he's so gangster. Via HuffPost.
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Colbert fights in the war against the war against Christmas. "Christmas really burns atheists up, which they can think of as a preview of their afterlife.".
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
Any time you need a token liberal....
Via expert hair deconstructor Princess Sparkle Pony---which gets a special mention---this CNN video comments on the probable role of Blagojevich's hair in the current scandal.
From WWD:
. America's top hairdressers can't stand it.
“[T]here’s no name for that,” said Calvin Klein’s hairstylist Roberto Novo. “Ugh” — to gasp in horror.
“Jack Lord from ‘Hawaii 5-0’ called. He wants his look back,” said Chris McMillan, the man behind Jennifer Aniston’s famed shag. “It’s very dated,” concurred Sally Hershberger, whose clients have included Meg Ryan, Courtney Love and Hillary Clinton. “And it looks like a wig.” […] Marc Zowine of Chelsea, N.Y., pointed out that a rug is not exactly an act of honesty: “It’s a cover up. It says a lot about a person.”
The piece's author, Amy O'Dell says:
And for the record, hair experts, his do looks the way Donald Trump's would if he fell down a coal mine.
More on his hairdo here: Blago Found Guilty by Association with His Own Hair
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS
While the high-stakes gambit places them squarely within the mainstream of anti-bailout public sentiment, at the same time it exposes the party to potentially devastating criticism that its failure to compromise doomed the Big Three automakers and deepened the economic recession....
That was the message Vice President Dick Cheney brought to a
closed-door Senate GOP lunch Wednesday, reportedly warning that it'll
be "Herbert Hoover" time if aid to the industry was rejected, according
to a senator familiar with the remarks. A Cheney spokeswoman would
neither confirm nor deny the vice president's remarks. (Politico)
This is Dick Cheney. And so we'll take that as a "He totally said that."
For serious commentary on this extremely serious matter, see Robert L. Borosage and Hale Bonddad Stewart, who says: "The Republicans want a depression."
IDLYE POSTINGS
In an interview with Fareed Zakaria, Powell slams Palin and Limbaugh and says the military should rethink its "don't ask--don't tell" policies. HuffPost has relevant portions of the conversation here.
RECENT IDLYE POSTINGS