Playing Catch-up With Firefox, Hillary, Obama, ACLU Real Live Porn, and Movies

As I mentioned earlier this week, I downloaded a Firefox extension called "Read it Later" and it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, I'm able to keep track of interesting bits I'd like to blog about, but on the other hand, I quickly garner 20+ links I want to blog about. And you can't delete the bookmarks from the Read it Later interface, but have to go into Bookmarks to do it. S'okay, it's in Beta, and is more good than bad.

This post is about catching up.

Anti-Hillary Film and SCOTUS

I flagged this one at the first mention from the AP about the film Hillary: The Movie (those Repubs are so clever in their titling):

The early reviews are in, and three federal judges appeared in agreement Thursday that a movie lambasting Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed an awful lot like a 90-minute campaign advertisement.

This is problematic from the perspective of, ironically, a campaign finance law partially named after the man they're now left to elect: McCain-Feingold. The federal judges shut David Bossie down and he's now going to SCOTUS to appeal. The sticking point is still that campaign finance law, like a drunken juggalo blocking the keg:

But one provision of McCain-Feingold makes it illegal to use corporate or union money for "any broadcast, cable or satellite communication" if it "refers to a clearly identified candidate for federal office" within 30 days of a primary election or a convention or within 60 days of a general election.

If they feel like listening, this will be a huge ruling, and define legal pre-election free-for-all as financing a DVD slamming your opponent. Damned juggalos.

FDA Says Cloned Meat OK

FDA says it's okay? Honestly, I understand the science, but I'll be fucked if I think there's still not something hinky about pulling some DNA from a hot London Broil and making another cow.

Problem? You betcha. FDA said it's okay. Expect unlabeled samples in your Kroger/Giant Eagle/Piggly Wiggly soon.

Advice? Shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. At least for your meat.

ACLU: Larry Craig is Right!

The ACLU stood up for failed human being Larry Craig, stating that a bathroom stall is a private place and there is an expectation of privacy in such a place, even if you're soaping the balls of a stranger through a glory hole.

ACLU: I love you, but no. This is just way the fuck off base. If Seabass accidentally meets me at 3am in the wrong stall and decides to violate me, is that, too, a private place?

"Find a happy place, find a happy place."

Killing an ... Obama?

After Senator Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama and insinuated that he was the next JFK, Harry Smith, on the CBS Early Show pushed the button five steps beyond what everyone was thinking: So, um, do you think Obama will be assassinated just like your brother? Okay, he put it more mildly:



Let Your Movies Define You

And if you didn't have enough social networking sites yet, check out Cinescopes. They'll take your Top Ten movies of all time and translate them into insights about yourself, match you to friends, and all those other good things they can do on this newfangled Internets 2.0.

Take your time, but you can always change it up later. I'm still sticking with my original 10, in alphabetical order, but will probably need some revisions in the future:

12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
Playing By Heart
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Pi
Mirrormask
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Lost in Translation
Shaun of the Dead
True Romance

cough! nerd! cough!



And that's about it for the update. Now I can delete all those bookmarks. Cheers!

The Bastard's Bastion: Out of Context!

Larry Craig played footsie under an airport bathroom stall in the hopes of fellating some man meat, or having his meat fellated. Then, when it turned out that his courting overtures were directed towards a man of the law, in order to cover it up, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. At least that's what the devil liberal media says. Obviously, his actions were totally taken out of context (and that's okay because the GOP has decided that under the rug and back in the closet is good enough for them - despite a conviction - good enough for America, and good enough for earmarks).

Rush Limbaugh made an outward, generalized claim that any member of the U.S. Military - past or present - who was or is against the war in Iraq is a "phony soldier" (complete transcript and audio). But this is even more of an outrage: the liberal media is not only taking it out of context but is just plain lying.

On Wednesday morning, Fox and Friends Brian Kilmeade blamed the sexualization of children on I Dream of Jeanie: "Barbara Eden lowered the bar by wearing that sexy outfit, traumatized me as a child and then every kid wore the Barbara Eden outfit, and that's when times were good." Jon Stewart poked at Brian Wednesday evening. Thursday morning, the FnF trio chuckled about how the Liberal Media has an agenda to take FOX out of context. Brian, after admitting to getting Jon Steward's "traumatizing myself" joke only after hearing it for a second time remained sheepishly silent about the previous day's comment, as those taken "out of context" are generally prone to do.

Also on Wednesday, it was revealed that when Arnold Schwarzenegger said that marijuana was not a drug, you guessed it, it was taken out of context.

Thursday, Dog the Bounty Hunter was heard (or beeped, at least) repeatedly dropping the N-bomb in a message telling his son to break up with his black girlfriend, Monique Shinnery, ironically because he doesn't want her "drunk" ass hearing him say "nigger" and going to the press (it's an ugly word and I do not hide behind euphemism). Preliminary reports emerged that the phone message was taken out of context.

None of the previous instances of heinous misinterpretation were, in fact, misinterpreted. But the right wing is slowly dissolving the idea of context as a whole. Out of context is the new black, and unless we try to counter-act this trend, context will eventually be another casualty of a dying system of accountability.

Gay Vatican Official "Not Gay"

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, for the love of Larry Craig! From the Yahoo:

A Vatican official suspended after being caught on hidden camera making advances to a young man says he is not gay and was only pretending to be gay as part of his work.

In an interview published Sunday, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico told La Repubblica daily he frequented online gay chat rooms and met with gay men as part of his work as a psychoanalyst. He said that he pretended to be gay in order to gather information about "those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity."

AP Image

For fuck's sake, look at the man! You don't even need to see video of him for a Level 5 Gaydar alarm (Beep! Beep! Dive! Dive! Going down!) - I can feel his eyes on my shoulders and my ass through the internets, his Italian sibilance echoes like a boy's choir in my ears longing to dash me on the rocks like the Siren daughters of Achelous, the cut of his jib longing for hot, steaming man meat.

But he was just pretending.

[Note: Homosexuality is not pedophelia and vice versa; please do not confuse the two. The Catholic Church demands celibacy, and for a high-ranking Vatican official to be trolling the internets for gay sex and using his office to caress a man's thigh is abuse of his station and his power. Denying it sticks him in the same closet as Larry Craig.]

He, above all, should know: If you're in the Vatican and going to "pretend" to be gay in some sort of top-secret save-the-world mission, you should probably document that somewhere, maybe with a superior, perhaps with the signature or mushroom stamp of the Pope. If not, you're just begging for it. And boy, was he begging for it.

You know what they say: If it looks like a duck and acts like a duck, it's probably a gay priest.

Larry Craig and Apologies

Some days I just don't feel like blogging.

Most of those days I spend reflecting on news I've already dedicated myself to (have you ever felt the struggle between the sickness of ending a sentence with a preposition and that sickness not quite overriding the proper desire for the awkward structure that would make it "proper" English? Kind of like that).

Let's talk about apologies.

An apology is, in a sense, asking for forgiveness for some sort of trespass ("as we forgive those who trespass against us"...totally not raised Catholic). Unfortunately, most of our public officials and just about everyone who apologizes on the television has been a horrific example of what an apology should be.

When watching Saturday's "apology" resignation of Larry Craig, I was looking for a weeping James Orsen Bakker. Instead I got the standard "apology:"

• I did something
• It was not wrong
• I'm sorry if decisions and opinions hurt people

This is what an apology should be:

• I did something wrong
• What I did hurt people
• I apologize for my actions and for hurting those people

In America, we've gotten used to the "I'm sorry if something hurt people."

This is not an apology. We need to recognize that.

This is the equivalent to the linguistic passive voice, object deleted: "A meeting was held and it was decided that all Americans are terrorists unless explicitly stated by an unaccountable government body."

Larry Craig did not apologize; he barely resigned; he did not cry.

Where does our accountability live, if not in America, if no longer in our language?

Why aren't we sorry anymore?

Larry Craig Resignation Betting Pool!

It's almost 4pm EST right now, and I have a very distinct feeling that the pressure kettle that is Larry Craig's conundrum (about resigning, not about coming out to his wife that he likes to suck dick through a glory hole, sometimes sans hole) will pop in the next 2 hours.

It's a simple equation: as time approaches the Friday evening story buryin' time, the likelihood of Craig resigning approaches infinity.

UPDATE: This just in! From the office of Larry Craig, a graph has been leaked - presumably from Sen. Craig himself - confirming my previous statement.



The media is gathered at Larry Craig's place. It's only a matter of time.

UPDATE 2: A slight miscalculation on my part, Larry Craig did not bite at the upswell of forgettable weekend news, but has taken Labor Day Weekend, and burrowed into the bosom of forgetfulness, the apex of the wave post-Snow-resignation, pre-game Ohio State Buckeyes opener, hiding himself amongst Miller Lite Waterfalls and the Great Grill Wall where he will slowly, sulkily, tiptoe away through scattered Tuesday morning hangovers under the cover of Tropical Storm Felix. He's having a "Saturday Morning" press conference "early this afternoon" (although earlier this morning it was "this morning") - During the Ohio State game! - Where he'll supposedly announce his resignation effective September 30th. Hell, the graphic is still accurate.

Honestly, I don't care when he does it; I just want to see him cry.

Sen. Larry Craig: "I am not gay."

At the end of yesterday's sordid tale (Again With the Gay Republican Bathroom Sex), we left a picture of Bob Allen with a dildo in his hand (NSW) and Larry Craig stuttering out "I am not gay; I never have been gay."

The Police Report
The Police Report of Sgt. Dave Karsnia goes way beyond misconstrued signals. Not only was there toe tapping, but Larry rubbed his foot - from in his stall - against the police officer's, as well as swiping his hand under the stall in a playful/signaling gesture. Something seriously hinky was afoot, and if Sgt. Karsina says it was bathroom stall foreplay, I'm going to trust him on that.

The Past Allegations
The Idaho Statesman's complete coverage has it all: other toe-tapping behavior arrests, Larry Craig's past behaviors, a source who claims to have had sex with Craig in a bathroom in the past, Craig's resigning from several Senate seats, and the calling from other conservatives for him to resign. One word: snowball. No, not like that, gutter mind.

The Handling of the Airport Bathroom Sex Incident
If I were in a bathroom, tapping my foot, and a police officer came at me with allegations of lewd behavior, and I was truly not doing anything wrong, I would be fighting tooth and nail to get my name cleared. Larry Craig did not do that; he quietly accepted the charges and several weeks later went back to plead guilty to lesser charges in a sad move to push it to the side. He apparently did not consult with lawyers and appallingly did not consult with his wife. People only hide something that carefully when they have something to hide.

I saw the press conference, and as the bumbling reading came across over the coaxial I said to Mrs. Shambles: "This will not end well." We watched with disbelief as he denied everything, and for all the words coming out of his mouth, his demeanor, and body language, he might as well have been performing fellatio as he spoke. It would have been more eloquent - and elegant.

There is no broom; there is no rug; everyone saw through it.

I can see this ending tomorrow in another press conference, but I'll give it a week on the outside. Sen. Larry Craig needs to resign lest he further aid in the continuing collapse of the Republican party.

Again With the Gay Republican Bathroom Sex!

mwm iso nsa m4m airport bathroom sex


The Senator's Website: NOT Brokeback Mountain, ID

In a recent post entitled More Gay Republican Blowjobs, I said "Will the joy of Republicans, gay sex, and bigotry ever end? My Magic 8 Ball definitively proclaims 'No.'" Less than three weeks have passed and I am pleased to proclaim the fidelity of my Magic 8 Ball. From, amongst others, WaPo:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), a three-term senator, "pleaded guilty earlier this month to misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges stemming from his June arrest by an undercover police officer in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport."

Sen. Craig was apparently aware of the highly-complicated mating ritual of the homosexual bathroom deviant to tap their right foot under the stall, alerting other like-minded toilet trawlers that it is, in fact, "go time." Then he pleaded guilty - although he says he did nothing wrong - to handle it "quickly and expeditiously." Durr. Ooh, and did I mention he's outspoken about being part of the "gay people are dirty cause Jesus says so" gang?

Our American leadership has gone into absurdity overdrive.

You may also recall in my last post on this topic I captioned Bob Allen (R-FL)'s impressive ham-fisted ham radio pic with "no, I'm not Photoshopping a dildo into his hand." This second appalling incident has inspired me to reconsider that position.

(Not Safe for Work)
Bob Allen Photoshop

Enjoy!

UPDATE: 4:30pm EST Sen. Larry Craig Press Conference. Will he cry? Beg forgiveness? Pull a R. Budd Dwyer? Come out of the closet? Resign? Elect not to run again?

I can't wait!

UPDATE: Sen. Larry Craig has unsuccessfully dodged the issue, admitting to nothing, calling his choice to plead guilty "regrettable" and claiming "I am not gay; I never have been gay." He may as well have continued, "Glory holes are a hobby, not a lifestyle." The only truth in his press conference was that this issue is certainly not over. With the police report, anonymous sources, and the logic behind his line of reasoning, this'll get another post later today, and I'm adding a tag for him.