I Can Has Digg Hits?

I'm still reeling. No, that does not mean spinning uncontrollably in a wild dervish with a condom-sheathed plunger handle protruding from my ass. Nor does it mean I'm fishing. Or Irish dancing. This is the figurative kind of reeling.

Tuesday, my post on marijuana, the media, and psychology got picked up by Crooks and Liars in Mike's Blog Roundup. Cool. I usually get about 20 people daily feeding their brains at this mental food cart I call a blog, and the last time they linked me, I saw almost 1000 hits.

Wednesday, I noticed I had over 30 comments on the post (most ever: 12). I checked the numbers:



Ho. Lee. Shit.

Over 10,000 hits Wednesday. Over 6,000 hits yesterday. Wha happon?



I been Dugg. Here's the Digg post linking my blog to, well, lots of people. It's called BREAKING: Marijuana/Schizophrenia Study Debunked, Nobody Surprised.

Shit again. Wait. I didn't debunk anything.

Sorry, Mr. Shambles, the Internets say you do, and what the internets says, is.

Well, it did finally get me registered on Digg. And it spurned a good deal of discussion. 46 comments on my post as of now, 164 on the Digg post. Most popular topics/points:

• Legalize pot!
• OMG this guy my friend knew smelled pot at a party and now he's totally schizo.
• Marijuana has kept me sane.
• OMGLOLZ Digg <3 Liberals, hates Microsoft
• Natural medicine can cure [enter disease here] but drug companies won't make money
• I've been stoned every day for [??] years and I'm fine / have Ph.D. / own business.

A nice, broad spectrum. Criticism came from readers who were obviously expecting some official debunking with research and resources to back me up. And while I am working on a journalistic piece about lead paint, paint companies, and shady lawyers, this - as most of the blog - is social and political commentary with some occasional fun images.



Best comment from Digg (cheezit9109): Wait, this is a BLOG? You fucking idiots.

The macros are mine. Was reading Live Grenades's Trek Macro post which lead me to I Can Has Cheeseburger? I was inspired.

So enjoy, and I'll see you later today with some Hannity Shennanigans.

You Can't Veto the Truth

Today Americans United for Change released this ad in response to President Bush's veto of historic legislation to wind down the war in Iraq.



Make a difference. Call: 202-456-1111

I did. It's kind of fun.

Marijuana Duck, Duck, Goose - Same Old Story

(2nd International Cannabis and Mental Health Conference Programme [PDF] Logo)

Today, 13 states currently have active medical marijuana programs. Illinois, Texas, and Connecticut are chompin' at the bit (Connecticut just did the civil union thing - watch out). Grandma in the Bronx (colorectal cancer) isn't getting tagged for smokin' the rope. Hell, even Sanjaya's fam is in the growing business. Good reports? You got it: Marijuana has shown to cut lung tumor growth in mice and a marijuana-like compound may slow Alzheimer's.

So what has to come out? Marijuana makes makes you crazy and damages the brain. Sorry, that's FOX News. How about a more credible reporting source like Reuters through Scientific American?

Quick Psych 101: Psychology is only useful for broad, sweeping statements and we don't have a true understanding of all aspects of the brain or how they work, let alone how drugs interact with it (note: Not talking out of my ass; I have a Psych degree and recently had a great conversation with a neuroscientist on this exact topic).

From the article: the two main active components of marijuana are cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). CBD produces a calming effect. THC is associated with the paranoia, euphoria.

There are upwards of 300 active compounds in marijuana. This study took the two most abundant (THC and CBD), and looked to see where the brain was affected. Because of anti-drug taboos, these studies are almost always conducted with synthesized THC. And an MRI will give you an image of activity or inactivity, but - as already mentioned - we don't know all the details of activity in certain areas of the brain.

To sum up: Doctors treated patients with a synthesis of a compound known to cause mild paranoia. They then put their patients in this machine:

and reported that the brain scan showed affected areas related to paranoia. No shit.

I am not trying to slam the study. The media and its fervor, however, can go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut on this one. Reuters has this article titled "Brain scans pinpoint cannabis health risk." But they didn't. The brain scans show activity or inactivity of the brain, and and the implications affect mental health outlook, while "health" implies physical health or brain damage. First sentence: "Brain scans showing how cannabis affects brain function...." Hold it right there. Function is not measured but by behavior. See previous explanation of what is being measured.

"It's no longer a contentious issue. The expert community, by and large, accepts that cannabis contributes to the onset of psychotic symptoms in general and the severe form of psychosis, schizophrenia," [Professor Robin Murray, conference organizer] said.

Wrong. That sounds like the "Weed makes you crazy" defense. Dr. Zerrin Atakan, author of the study, was found to be an astute, reasonable human being completely void of the sensationalism that would follow a story like this. He was quoted in the Telegraph in 2004 as saying:

Cannabis psychosis is a very vague term. If we ever use the phrase, it is only to describe very short-term effects immediately following smoking, and it certainly doesn't refer to users having a psychotic disorder. People may feel frightened or paranoid, but these feelings pass in a matter of hours or, more rarely, days, and practically never require treatment.

He even laid out some very lucid guidelines in a message to the 2005 Cannabis Education March & Rally, telling everyone to make up their own mind about marijuana, but hitting on some basic facts about smoking before your brain is done growing, smoking if you have mental illness, or smoking every day. Very understanding and well-understood.

So why the hullabaloo? Two words:


(note: The Movie is public domain and the Musical is phenomenal.)

The media loves a good weed story; Marijuana's been tried by 1/4 to 1/3 of the US population, probably twice that have been affected by proximity. Sensationalism sells. So if you can blow a study into a headline, go for it, especially if it concerns marijuana and something bad. The federal government is in love with that. It wants to marry it and kiss it on the privates.

As for Robin Murray and his "weed causes schizophrenia" sensationalism, you might want to ask him to tone it down a bit. Of course, he may have to conference in the pharma behind his conference: Janssen-Cilag and Sanofi-Aventis. But I'm sure that their involvement and their production of schizophrenia treatment drugs are all just a coincidence.

I'll dismount the soapbox now and spare you, fair reader, a venture into legalization, the justice system, hypocrisies, and alternative energy, and leave you with this:

"Casual drug users should be taken out and shot"
Darryl Gates
Head of Los Angeles Police Department
United States Senate Judiciary Committee (1990)

For real information about marijuana, please visit NORML.

(Bonus: 420 Origin Story)

Christ on a Bun! Christ on the Battlefield!

Over at the fabulous Princess Sparklepony's Photo Blog, I saw this lovely with the comment that it hadn't been commented on (h/t, BFF?). A semi-orderly analysis follows.

For shame:



Let's get all analytical on the Lord, crown to boot.

The Lord of...?
Who uses this representation to imagine or dwell on Christ? Granted, the entire site, wearefishermen.com, is absurd (really, go there, see all the Jesi, then cry), but Jesus armed like some bad Kirk Cameron remake of the Matrix?

JESUS: I'm the Lord.
GUARD: Lord of what?
JESUS: Lord of y'all.
[His robes fall open to reveal a rifle. JESUS drops the dove, raises the gun, pops COMMIES (1-7) in the head, guts OSAMA BIN LADEN, and dives, sliding on the tile floor of one of Saddam's palaces, just in time to catch the dove.]
JESUS: Yippie Kai-yay, God-haters. I am peace.

This isn't what Jesus was about.

Antithesis
Some quotes from Jesus:

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
...
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
- Matthew 5:7,9

If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.
- John 8:7

Love your neighbor as yourself.
- Mark 12:31

This is what Jesus was about.

The look, the feel, of Jesus, the Fabric of our lives.

• What was the sculptor thinking? This guy looks like Tommy Chong after a weekend and a QP! "Peace, man. Though I'm holding a dove, I'm not happy about it because Jenny ganked my last two pinners and I totally thought I had a bag of Cheetos but Billy must've mowed it. Wanna get high? I gotta crown. We could use it to buy a bag. Um, dude, I think the dove just shit in my hand."
  (Tommy looks way more with it than the Lord.)


• Hinted in the last point, this Jesus looks sad, like he's riddled with clinical depression or PTSD or both or on medication for one or the other. Why is Jesus sad? This may be the only bit of truth in this sorry exhibition; This is where the sculptor was "touched" by God, and made Jesus sad. Sad because of the truth of the situation: he wasn't a violent fighter, a soldier. And maybe Jesus didn't want anyone to think otherwise.


• He has a gun. Appropriate quote (Full Metal Jacket): "Yea, though I walk in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for I am the baddest motherfucker in the valley."


• Plastic crown of thorns, rubber dove, and bathrobe: Wal Mart, $23. Wasting Muslims lookin' like JC? Priceless.


• Hey, shoot that Arab! He stole a US Uniform!


• Combat Jesus makes Baby Jesus cry. But when Combat Jesus moves to comfort baby Jesus - BLAMMO! Damn. Those insurgents'll IED anything.

The Lord of...
Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Ted "Dick'n'Meth" Haggard, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and George W. Bush. This is the kind of Lord they can look up to, this is the kind of Lord they seek approval from. A large chunk of our country believes in this Arm for Peace mentality with the mental backup that Christ is there to allow us to kill the millions of people who don't believe in Him.

The Message
The underlying message of this figurine is not "Gilded thorn crown will get you free dove if you are visibly armed. Lucky Numbers: 2, 15, 16, 25, 33, 39." It is "We can have peace and Jesus, as soon as we kill every single non-believer out there. Only then, only then..."

This makes me sadder than Combat Jesus.

Photoshop Love: Blue Gal Contest, Round 2!

Okay, Round 2 of Blue Gal's Contestation with the McCain picture.

Check out the last post, if you haven't seen it, for the original photo, concept.

I was feeling a little Dickens, or Dick Cheney I should say. Whole lotta Bah Humbug goin' on!


Click for bigger. All the cool kids are.

But McCain as a professional actor? Well, that's just...



*groan*

Okay, okay, so to bring this train to its proverbial yet inevitable wreck:



This is where I get off...

Photoshop Love: A Contest! A Contest!

I was perusing the world of Blue Gal today and found the McCain Photoshop/Caption Contest. Yummy.

We start with this image:



So...many...thoughts...

And I finally settled on one.

Meet Emo John:




Emo John is sad. The world hurts so much. He hurts so much. Sometimes he cuts himself just to feel. It's hard - so hard - running for president when there's so much pain in the world.

And I saw that it was good.

But why so surprised, Emo John? Why the look of awe and wonder? What makes someone who dwells in the deepest depths of suffering say "Wow!"

And while Blue Gal doesn't have an animated portion of the contest, I felt Emo John needed some impetus behind that gawking maw:



And that's my story.

I may make an update or two depending on my available Photoshop time before the deadline.

UPDATE: Round Two is Here.

No Cable, No Popcorn, No Patience

Fuck Time Warner in the ass with a white-hot, rusty, steel-splintered crowbar. Yes, the rounded side is wider and turns into a hook out the out-stroke! Yay pain!

This morning, I noticed the cable wasn't working. The internets is alive and breathing somehow through the same cable line, but none of the bright-flashy-stare-thingy TV. So tonight I miss Jericho. Tonight I miss Bill Moyers. Tonight (snizzleshit!) I miss Lost.

And this whole process would be much more serene with one less agitation: Our phone number is one digit from the cable company's phone number. As I'm sitting here, stewing in not being connected to a couple of my TV shows, I get to tally up almost 20 phone calls "Um, is this Time Warner?" "Yes. You and all the other thousands of idiots ringing the cable company will get busy signals until, one time, they answer. And they will say 'hello.' No, retard. Wrong number." No, I never actually said that. But I could. I only need wait another ten minutes.

Funny level 2 (in the past) is when they ring the house, no one's home, and they hear "Hey, you've got Ricky, [Mrs. Shambles], and [Rickina]. Please leave a message." And I hit the button when I get home and hear "Yeah, my cable's been out for about four hours. When you gonna get the trucks out here? Call me back!" High larious. Almost makes me forget about crowbars and asscheeks.

So in lieu of actual content, I guess I can give a local commercial since I've been bulking up the Bad Business blog next door.

I give you Frank Myers Auto Maxx.



Weep for our children.

Crap, I gotsta go. Phone's ringing.

Bill Moyers: Buying the War

It's popcorn time! Tonight at 9pm EST, Bill Moyers Journal showcases how the media was complacent in selling the war to us, how, exactly, we bought into it, and how we're still getting sucked in.



Watch!

Save the Radio on the Internets!

The RIAA's at it again, trying to squeeze blood from a stone, not quite realizing that by raising royalty rates so damn high that no one can pay them, no one will pay them and stream on the sly or just stop. That means less - not more - money. Douchebags.

I recently put this little piece of love into the left column:



It's my first ad, and they're not even selling anything!

Why do I care? Besides the fact that they're a bunch of douchebags, I maintain what hold I have on sanity while at work through Pandora.

And it really will die. The fee structure is scheduled to go into effect on May 15th, 2007. It will be retroactive from January 2006. I can't even imagine the fees. I can imagine the RIAA rubbing their sweaty little carny hands together, drooling over the prospect.

I'm not selling anything either. Check out the info at SaveNetRadio.org. Contact congress. Get a banner. Get the RIAA out of internet radio so they can go back to suing 12-year-old girls.

This is important.

Christ on a Bun! American Family Association: WTF?

It's a two-fer; CoaB and WTF!

I haven't officially done the WTF Award thing lately, but the American Family Association gets that today. Pulled from Think Progress today, these "idealists" (Common causes: Put the Jesus in school, God hates fags) are blaming all school shootings on the fact that we don't have the Ten Commandments as required viewing, that "satanic" music is popular.

And they made a movie.

Watch this. Know what the opposition to a free-thinking society actually thinks. Get motivated.

I think it started when Madalyn Murray O'Hair complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools. And we said "Okay."

...or, as it may be better known, "In 1960, Madalyn Murray O'Hair said required readings of the Bible in public schools was wrong. We fought her tooth and nail. The Supreme Court of the United States said we were retards." (Good job on the AFA stealing the Wikipedia pic.)

The AFA ends this video with the idea of reaping what you sow.

They are sowing ignorance, bigotry, idolatry (worship the "top 10" stones, not the god), and overall separation from reality.

Get your Armor-of-God Faith Shields at the ready.



That's a hail of intolerant bullets waiting to happen.

God Bless America.

Christ on a Bun! It's Mufasa Time!

Sometimes, the interwebs can perplex and bore us with its drivel and triteness. And then sometimes the great Sarlacc erupts to reveal its mucous-coated insides out of which drops a sacred beozar:



Ha ha ha ha! This golden gem of our lord emerged from a surprisingly short amount of MySpace friend hopping.

So Mufasa's in the clouds (duh!), and Jesus on the cross is a symbol for Simba. What the hell is the lamb?

(Dinner.)

VT: Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down...

Blue Gal's got a soulful post on the shooting, far more impressive than my dumbfounded verbal pratfall. And she also has a link to light a candle in memory of the tragedy. It's quite nice. Very peaceful.

And because I'm a web guy and, no, we can't have anything nice, you can also light a candle for something far less serious.

Straight to hell, I tell ya.

Do you think Kucinich Could Take Cheney?

Dennis Kucinich is not the most attractive or least awkward man running for president. But he's from my home state of Ohio and I've got a happy little place in my heart for him.

How can you go wrong with Dennis? You can't; look at the issues. He has an outlined plan for withdrawal from Iraq, he's a green guy who says "no thanks" to the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, and NAFTA. He says "Yay!" to Right to Choose, Civil Rights, and Universal Health Care.

Ideas abound, but Mr. Kucinich will probably not win the 2008 election. He's just too dang cute. He won't take the presidency in '08, but could he take down this one? That's what he's proposing. From the Plain Dealer's blog:

Cleveland congressman Dennis Kucinich sent his Democratic colleagues a two-sentence email this morning announcing imminent plans to introduce "Articles of Impeachment with respect to the conduct of Vice President Cheney."

"Please have your staff contact my office," the missive continued,"if you would like to receive a confidential copy of the document prior to its introduction in the House."

Kucinich press secretary Natalie Laber refused to comment on Kucinich's email or to provide any more information about his efforts to push for Cheney's impeachment. The Plain Dealer obtained the email from a different Democratic congressional office.

Go Kucinich, go Kucinich, go Kucinich go!

Now, in a fight where Kucinich and Cheney's right hands were bound and a single knife were thrown in the dirt at their feet, Kucinich would probably lose because as he lunged for the knife, Cheney would begin devouring his face like a meth-addled zombie.

But that's all speculation. Legislatively, I think DK might just have a shot. If only politicians didn't take such pleasure in posturing and the media meted out attention judiciously. If only.

Support him, cheer for him, send him an email to say "thanks." Go Dennis Kucinich!

Shootings at Virginia Tech

After wondering about whether or not to write on this through yesterday, I found myself particularly, surprisingly affected by some of the stories told by students on NPR this morning. Especially Tina Harrison's (Click the Listen Icon - much more in-depth than the copy). I'm still affected. My thoughts, my prayers, my tears are with them.

And to think Michelle Malkin and FOX are focusing on gun control. That makes me want to cry for a whole other list of reasons.

Not Another Reason for Freedom Fries...

Reuters (through MSNBC) is reporting that the French knew about September 11th. Headline Report: France knew of al-Qaida hijack plot.

Oh, Jesus. We already have plenty of douchebags that hate France because they were actually smart to keep the hell out of our Iraq debacle. And they will inevitably read that headline while choking down their Freedom Fries, hack potato chunks onto their monitor and let lose a fury of ignorant cussin' suitable for someone who lives in a county with one high school and fifteen churches. And they won't read the article.

They won't read how (remember?) hijacking didn't mean "blow up the Twin Towers" in 2000, that reports of possible plans to divert a plane for ransom were ubiquitous. They won't see that France turned over the report to the CIA - and it somehow never made it into any 9/11 commission reports. And they won't link it to any of the other disastrous, awful decisions by the United States that piled upon each other, allowing the window of opportunity and confluence of actions to result in the tragedy it did.

Hot dog, victory cabbage, freedom fries. These are the people that thrive on headlines.

Don't be that guy. Don't be that girl.

Calling Bullshit on Imus Firing; Am I Alone?

Where's your fucking ACLU now? Casually commenting about the corpse.

I'm calling bullshit on his firing. And apparently I'm alone.

Yesterday I had the "joy" of catching pieces of Hannity, Savage, and Beck. And to my surprise, they were all right. Every damn one of their rants over Imus was right. They were all ringing the red bell, warning us of the coming invasion. They're doing it because it's wrong, but they're also doing it because they're scared out of their fucking pants. I would be too.

It's days like this that I cringe at the label "liberal," and I cry for our country. We done bad. The gun went off, Rover's brains are splattered in the dirt, and I've got a shovel and a roll of paper towels. That's how sad I feel.

File this piece of history under "sanctimonious bullshit."

Now, a little more to the damn point. Imus was wrong to say what he said, both in the past and about the Rutgers U girls. He humiliated himself by declaring "you people" on the "I'm Sorry About What I Said About Black People XXXII" episode of the Rev. Sharpton Show. He's a curmudgeon, an old, dirty, "Stop chewin' my shorts and let's go to the rave music fest" kinda guy.

And if you don't agree with what he says, change the fucking station. I've been saying that for years about religious attacks on television and radio. Change the fucking station. Turn the damn thing off.

And books. You don't like what it says? Don't read it, asshole!

Because in America, we have the right of free speech. It's that buggery first amendment thing. And, although some of us don't like it, it swings both ways. It keeps the President from arresting us for protesting or being Muslim (perhaps marginally), and it also protects the retards in the KKK when they march.

Sanctimonious bullshit. Don't like Imus? Continue to not listen to him. If you do listen, stop. Radio's a privilege that can be revoked - in the American Capitalist way we like to revoke privileges. What happened overnight would've happened over a couple weeks: ads pull out, listeners drop, the man is fired.

But shout and whine and complain and before you know it shows are being pulled for "insensitivity." Then shows are pulled for not saying the right thing. And then there are no shows. And then everyone's afraid of America.

Even Americans.

Liberals (and yes, that's me too): Stop the Lame.

Hannity Shenanigans: Let Freedom Ring!

One road trip, and right wing radio does the rest. White House is "losing" emails (who didn't see that coming?), Kurt Vonnegut died (*sigh*), and India can nuke Beijing (so if they don't take gold in the 1k relay, they have recourse). How about some shenanigans instead?

Everyone knows that Sean Hannity is America. And if you aren't convinced, he has a couple of gimmicky reminders, such as the music that opens the hour: Martina McBride's "Independence Day."

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing let the whole world know that
Today is a day of reckoning let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong, roll
The stone away, let the guilty pay, it’s independence day

Hell yeah! Sean Hannity's taking up the fight for us Americans and those haters of freedom and liberty be damned!

But like much of Sean's information, the song is horribly incomplete, portraying a small piece of the truth. Only the chorus is played. But if you're familiar with the song or would care to read the lyrics, you would discover that "Independence Day" is a song about a mother and daughter from the daughter's perspective. They are abused by the woman's alcoholic husband and one 4th of July, the woman burns down the house, killing the husband. The child ends up in foster care.

So that's how we take back America: with fire! Thanks, Mr. Hannity!

Secondary analysis note: when the day of liberation comes, the "right" is "wrong." I think my colostomy bag just burst, I'm laughing so hard.

Class dismissed.

American Flag Burned, Glenn Beck Whines at Yale

Mr. Beck! No!

I was listening to Glenn Beck on Monday (right wing radio keeps the blood pumpin' on those long car rides). Mr. Beck was angry. He was angry at non-citizens; he was angry at Yale; he was angry at Yalies. And he was yelling.

Here's the setup:

Two of the Yale students who were arrested early Tuesday for burning an American flag hanging from a Chapel Street home remained incarcerated this morning, but the third student has paid bond and was released yesterday.

According to court records, Hyder Akbar '07, Nikolaos Angelopoulos '10 and Farhad Anklesaria '10 were charged with multiple counts of second degree arson, first degree reckless endangerment, third degree criminal mischief and second degree breach of peace. Angelopoulos was released on $25,000 bail Tuesday according to officials at the Connecticut Correctional Center.

Awww, shit. It's 3am and a couple of kids get into some mischief. No, not just mischief; if the cops hadn't seen the flag on fire, somebody might have gotten hurt. They did something inexcusably stupid and put people's lives in danger. Not only that, but it was an American Flag that they set on fire, their names are hard to pronounce, and two of them aren't even citizens of our country. Xenophobic rage? You're up.

Immigrants, aliens, America-hating infidels! Deport them all! Well, I didn't go to Yale and Yale sucks; they'll have rallies supporting their right to burn a flag by the end of the week! Elitist liberals!(I'm paraphrasing here.)

Why is Glenn Beck spitting so much verbal diarrhea at the Yale Daily News? He let it out himself: Yale had a panel about Mormon businessmen. Beck was included. The paper, while covering the event, questioned Beck's participation.

Glenn Beck said they "got all the facts wrong." But if you look at the Yale Daily News article, the question raised is Why is it appropriate for an off-the-hook, right-wing-nut radio talk show host to be moderator on a panel entitled "The Mormon Way of Doing Business?" To listen to Glenn, you'd think the YDN did a front page piece on why he's such a tremendous douchebag. But most of the article was about the actual panel, and Beck was barely mentioned.

"I was surprised to see him invited here to serve in a moderating position when 'moderate' is about the last thing Glenn Beck is," Frick said. "I assume there are hundreds more positive influences in the Mormon community than a man who questions whether lesbians are really women and said Barack Obama may as well be white."

These are the only "facts" that might be in question. But, as you can imagine, the two links above lead to verification that those statements about what Glenn Beck said are totally valid.

He's a whiny little bitch. With a radio and TV show. Lucky.

And where is the insane, irrational liberal outcry over this case? It doesn't exist. Anyone of a rational mind can see that setting someone else's property on fire is probably a bad idea, American flag or not. In fact, Gregory DuBoff, in his article Claims of xenophobia have been overstated, takes it directly to the point:

Ultimately, this case is not a political issue unless the students are treated differently because of their foreign nationalities. It is harmful to public discourse and politically dishonest to use this event as an opportunity to spew one’s own ideological beliefs.

...which is exactly what Beck did.

Sometimes they're so good at self-sabotage, I wonder why I need to write.

Photoshopless: Cheney's Hot for Teacher

So Bush almost blew himself up on Saturday plugging into the wrong hole (Iraq, Laura, I'm seeing a pattern here). This image is making its rounds.



But wait...


Cheney's got the laser eyes of a robot, and they're trained directly on the President's posterior. Back dat ass up!

Smackdown on Iran: No Dice

I wrote on Thursday about the possibility of Iran being bombed by us on Good Friday, as it was reported by the Israelis as it was "discovered" by the Russians. Just wanted to fess up and say: "My bad."

"Russian intelligence" is obviously as blatant an oxymoron as I first suspected. They're rocking out at the assassination aspect of the former USSR, but have yet to get their spying up to snuff.

And the Israelis propagated the myth because, well, they'd really like to see us bomb the crap out of Iran. Mahmoud makes them uneasy.

I'll keep my ear to the ground. Yes, I know. Horses, not zebras.

Blog Against Theocracy: The Crazy Capital Lawn Fiasco

I was thinking today about theocracy in America and all the ills that it provides. I was thinking about creationism in national parks, Sean Hannity, and our rights as believers - or non-believers - in America. I concomitantly came back to the same recent idea about Church and State: for the love of all things human, make it stop.

Recap: 40 members of congress held a press conference to pray on the Capital Lawn. These are the members. Although they maintained they'd taken their leave on "lunch," our elected officials lead a prayer revival at the Capital. Click the link. The embedded mp3 will make you shiver.

But the overwhelming question is: Are our elected officials, on lunch or not, allowed to congregate and preach Chronicles 7:14, which is the biblical scripture associated with the group:

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

How do we, as freedom-loving Americans, possibly devoid of Bible or scripture or religion but possible belief in all, deal with this theocracy?

Is it right for our elected officials to use the Capital lawn as a spawning ground for Jesus Hallelujah?

No, it is not.

Free speech is protected, and on that angle, whatever they feel they need to talk about is fine. But using our time and our airwaves and our lawn to spawn a religious revival is not right.

What our government officials are doing is nothing less than giving firm credence to a religious belief (they are all Christian). They are quoting the Bible and using our time at the center of the United States to say "Jesus is Lord!"

This is a problem. And we should use any and all resources we have to fight against it. Email those members of congress. Call them. Tell them that a theocracy is wrong. Tell them that, regardless of their focus or intuition or faith, that this is wrong.

As the First Amendment states,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the exercise thereof...

This is the first step. Make Congress take pause. Make a difference.

Amen.

Drudgery: Homo-tagging San Fran's Mayor

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Coming Smackdown on Iran: Good Friday?

The crazy train's shuttling down the track, spitting whispers of border buildups and planned attacks. Who's in on it? Who are we to believe? I'll report. You decide.

Iran Ascared

Iran is afraid of being attacked by the US and Israel, which it calls "warmongers." I'm not saying they're wrong.

Actually, there's a date and time floating out there. Not that we're living in the tangible world of completely plausible reality, but Israeli news sources (J-Po) are reporting that Russian intelligence says that not only is there a buildup of activity on Iran's borders, but that from 4am to 4pm (Tehran time, I'm guessing) on Good Friday, there's going to be some tactical-grade ass-whoopin' goin' down.

British Gift

Did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give this "gift" to Britan as a bribe not to get bombed? Everyone's looking sunshine and roses as he releases the British troops. But will it matter?

Isolated Iran?

Here's something else from Global Research: Iran is isolated

Iran is politically isolated. Unilateralism prevails within the corridors of the UN as well as within the Middle East war theater.

The US sponsored resolution in the United Nations Security Council received unanimous support. Proposed amendments to the draft resolution were discarded, following US pressures. The text of the resolution was adopted unanimously.

Neither Russia nor China, which have extensive military cooperation agreements with Iran, exercised their veto, nor did they abstain.

All that shows is that China and Russia are either wusses or they're guarding their cards.

Imagine, if you will, a bully. Let's call him Sam. And that bully is threatening, well, pretty much everyone except the lanky British kid (Nigel) in the corner. You and your friend tell the bully you won't help the little Iranian kid, Ahmed - even though you told him you guys were BFF - even if Sam starts beating him up.

Sam's feeling pretty damn good. So he goes over and smacks Ahmed. Once. Twice. You wait. Then Ahmed winds up to give some back and - oh shit, he just elbowed Abrham in the eye. They both go after Ahmed, you and Vlad jump in, and everyone, seeing Sam finally on the ground, in the sand, either pretends they aren't looking or goes in for the attack.

I'm not saying that's how it's going to go down. But it might.

Bush's Plan?

Perhaps Bush is planning a push-ahead with a military action so he can turn the argument into "Yeah, well you Congress guys better get your stuff together now because you're gonna hurt our troops big time if you keep delaying money now that we're in Iran. Big time, I say."

Whatever the strategies or tactics or whateverthehell, if these reports are correct, at 8:30pm ET, the missiles will launch.

And that was okay with one of Sean Hannity's callers yesterday, Donna from New Jersey:

DONNA: Hello Sean, I'm happy that the sailors will be returned to Britain but I think when they are safely home we should still lob a few bombs into Iran and let Iran know it's a new day and we're the boss, we're gonna set the rules, and we're gonna take action. And if anything like this should happen again, we shouldn't even negotiate. We just strike.

SEAN: Well, the problem is - and they know this - that we value life, and that at all cost, we don't want to do things that would result in the death of innocent people, in this case, these 15 British sailors and marines.

Did he just say we avoid civilian casualties at all costs? No, really. Oh, man.
**tear**

Remember: Pop your popcorn. Fireworks at 8:30 (or not and you can turn Survivor back on).

Christ on a Bun! - Blog Against Theocracy

All Christ on a Bun kidding aside, as I've talked about some in my last post and over at All Things Democrat in detail, we need to maintain our freedom of religion, our right to worship, or not.

If you're reading this and you're a blogger, please take part in the Blog Against Theocracy Blogswarm April 6 - 8.

What's a blogswarm? You blog against theocracy in your own personal fashion. You tell someone (Blue Gal in this case). Your post is compiled along with others around the world. For more information, check the Blog Against Theocracy official page.

Also check out First Freedom First's site. The following spot comes from them. Warning: tears may flow for love of country. (Thanks to Blue Gal for the enlightenment.)

Christ on a Bun! - Religion 'n' Violence, Political Jesus, Jesus: The Book

A little old, a little new, a little secondary introduction to Christ on a Bun!

Religion and Violence?

According to a brilliant new line of research, it seems that religion, or "God is on our side," can actually lead to violence and justification for that violence. The lead researcher recently uncovered a book entitled "World History," and was blown away by its contents.

Honestly. WTF? How does anyone even call this research? Religion has played some role in violence justification since there was violence. Or since there was religion. Chicken and egg kind of thing.

Separation of...what? What was that?

Last week, a group of 40 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle came together to promote prayer. Publicly.

However, Mr. Forbes says the group put politics aside and agreed on three unifying principles: "The historical importance of prayer, the power of prayer and a recognition that it's time the nation needs to come together and pray."

Holy shitcakes!

And after it happened, the reports became even more bleak. A protester and a package stalled the meeting, and

Twice delayed, the prayer event relocated to the lawn, and some members of Congress joked that it was God's way of moving the event to nature rather than buildings made by men.

Ha ha, those... wait, that's not - how's that funny? Most of these people don't even believe the planet (a.k.a., nature) is in danger.

Their aim is to "build a spiritual prayer wall" around the country. Whether this is in lieu of a border fence or just a stand-in until the proper immigration reform can go through was not clarified.

Our political leaders holding a revival, sans tent, on the lawn of our nations capital, with "Hallelujah, Bless the Lord" being shouted does not sit well with me. Nor should it sit well with any American who doesn't believe in a governmental endorsement of religion or, worst case scenario, a theocracy.


Jesus. Again? Hell!

Pope Benedict XVI is to release his own book on Jesus this coming April 16th, exactly eight days after April 8th, Easter, the day of Jesus' death. Some theologians and the religious in general are wondering if it isn't too soon. "Hell, we still can't make jokes about stingrays and the Croc Hunter," said one concerned churchgoer. "How does this look?" Others are concerned that the book is meant to glorify the Pope more than Jesus, being released on his 80th birthday. Benedict's birthday, not Jesus. Duh.

Literary types are wondering, at this point, how this is unlike another tenth-grade, 3-page paper on The Scarlet Letter.

You'll remember last time we heard from Benedict, he was touting the reality of the burning-fire-brimstone-heat-pain-eternity hell. Eternal fire. Maybe we should talk to Satan about an alternative energy plan.

Limbo's bullshit; purgatory was not addressed.

He also said "the Christian faith is not imposed on anyone, it is a gift, an offer to mankind." ...and if they don't accept it? Please refer to eternal burning of flesh comments. And for Christ's sake, buy the book!

Jesus Built My Hot Rod but Muhammad Pumps the Gas

"There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."


- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, 3/27/03

Oh, Paul, has it really been four years? 'Cause there have been some problems with that line of thinking.

In honor of this anniversary, I thought I'd pair up my general paranoia and curiosity about Chavez and Ahmadinejad and Putin and dig into exactly how much of our petrol product we import, and from whom do we import it? While pretty, the USA Today graphics aren't exactly concise, and vaguely referenced numbers proliferate the news media as a whole. I wanted it from the horse's mouth, and I wanted to make sure the right numbers were being added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided.

The CIA's Factbook was horribly outdated, estimating consumption and production at 2004 and 2005 estimated respectively.

The horse's mouth:Official Energy Information Administration of the United States US Petroleum Imports

I gathered the numbers in the EIA Report (This is the December 2006 report, released February), and made calculations based on the total petroleum product import from each country.

And what is Mr. Ed saying?

Iraq is still providing us with 3.29% of our petroleum imports. Somehow. Of course, we're paying out the ass for it.

The Persian Gulf countries are supplying 16.36% of our oil imports.

What if OPEC cut us off? 41.16% of our imports are gone.

This one's fun: If we add Amanadinajad to Putin to Chavez and throw in Kim Jong Il and push some regional influence, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Russia, and Vietnam provide 37.45% of our Petroleum products. Throw in Mexico, just to twist the knife, and we could conceivably lose 47.92% of our oil imports.

How could we even wage war against that? We couldn't fuel our machines of destruction. We couldn't lube the gears of Shiva.

I'm not saying this is a likely scenario. But it's nice to have the numbers at a time when war with Iran is looking imminent, King Abdullah just canceled dinner with the president (and called our occupation of Iraq illegal), our list of enemies is growing and their cry is becoming louder. How long before the Lilliputians number so many that they look at each other and say "We could take this fucker." I don't think we're waiting on numbers, just realization.

Our country is talking about alternative energy in the form of ethanol, wind power, and biomass, but it's still in the starts and giggles phase. It's exactly like Darfur: much decrying the situation, but no action to back up the supposed convictions. And without the convictions and without the change, we're the dog tethered to the tanker. It goes down? We drown.

Based on the EIA's numbers, we're a superpower pushing buttons against a world that could shut us down. We might want to pay attention to that.

Hannity Shenanigans/Christ on a Bun Crossover: TMNT

I haven't actually started the Christ on a Bun segment, but what better way to introduce it?

This is from Tuesday, March 28th's show. Curtis Sliwa was in for Sean Hannity (who apparently had diarrhea of some sort). Curtis started the show by raging against California for a bill that would allow men to change their name as easily as women after marriage. He said the men had balls like cocktail onions. He was perfectly consistent with "Barack Hussein Obama" and knocked out some real 5th grade zingers like "Kim Jong Mentally Il" and "beyond the rice curtain." Brilliant!

But sometimes the caller can trump the awe one can have for the idiocy of the host:

CURTIS: Let's go to Tim who's calling from Arizona. Welcome to the Sean Hannity show, Tim.

TIM: Hey. Um, I just wanna say I'm, I kinda, somewhat agree with your wife on the Ninja Turtles thing, but just for the record, it's not for the violence. It's with some of my personal spiritual beliefs that Ninja Turtles is wrong.

CURTIS: No no no, wait a second, hold your horses here guy. Wait a sec. You mean to tell me Raphael, who's now apparently become a metal-plated street vigilante dubbed the Night Watcher, and the party dude Michaelangelo - raise the roof let's party hardy, let's go to the rave music fest - that this violates your spiritual well being? You gotta be pullin' my chain and chewin' my shorts.

TIM: No, it's the fact that they mutated into turtles. I'm not allowed to watch the X-Men either. Bu- it's not because of the violence, it's because of the mutant factor. My mom thinks that's demonic and I happen to agree with that.

CURTIS: Woah, woah, wait a sec. What about the brainy Donatello? It encourages kids to read, to apply themself.

TIM: It also encourages kids to become Ninja Turtles and fight demonic warlords, but that's not what I'm here to talk about. When I was five or six, I used to watch Barney a lot, and I've always been very - my mom, parents have always been very open to make sure that I get to have the experience other kids do, as long as they're not, you know, demonic or anti-law, Christian beliefs. But, the, uh [CURTIS: Tim, Tim, Tim.] I remember crying, I remember crying one episode because Barney made BJ dress up like a girl to make Baby Bop, so that he'd be more sensitive to Baby Bop.

CURTIS: ...First of all, I hate Barney. If I had a gun, I'd shoot Barney. That's right.... So your reaction to Barney had to do because you think it's feminizing young males?

TIM: Yes.

CURTIS: And yet you have a problem with Leonardo because he went into that self-imposed exile after being sent off by Yoda, what was that, Splinter, the sensei? You have a problem with that because it affects your spiritual beliefs.

TIM: No, I have a problem with the fact that they're mutants. I mean, the fact that they're like turtle boys and stuff.

CURTIS:Excuse me, excuse me. Greg, here at the board, flip the script on this guy. I'm losin' it. I mean being opposed to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is like being opposed to Mom, apple pie, and the flag. This is what we want our kids to know: how to defend themselves, to know good values, to be out there to defend, the women, the children, the elderly, the infirm, those who can least defend themselves. This guy was freaky-deaky. Are you sure he wasn't on some kind of psychotropic drugs? He wasn't eating shrooms out there in the desert? Or eating some peyote, claiming it part of a Native American experience?

I don't even know where to start. Let's hit three main points.

• Curtis somehow managed to name each of the four Ninja Turtles and their sensei Splinter exactly once. Spooky.
• "Stop chewin' my shorts and let's go to the rave music fest" will now replace "Damn kids, get off my lawn!"
• Home-schooled, socially retarded kids like Tim should be locked up in a special jail with his parents and sterilized to live long lives of Kodiak chawin' and Mickey's widemouths.

And that's probably enough.

Should We Stay or Should We Go Now?

If I go there will be trouble
An if I stay it will be double

- The Clash

Last week, the house voted that we should get out of Iraq by March 2008.

Yesterday, the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called our presence in Iraq "illegal." And then he canceled on dinner. Seriously. Whatever X-BFF.

Now I'm not saying it was all my doing, but I pushed a little Yoda at the Senate on Tuesday and, well, they narrowly preserved the deadline of March 2008.

All of congress, the American people, and the Saudi King, don't think we should be fighting a protracted war, are saying "enough." Poland and Denmark are leaving. England's heavily reducing its presence.

When will it click for George Bush? But all the president can do is smile, dark, gooey veto dripping from his hands and face.

Faulty Faculty on All Things Democrat

Been working on a post for All Things Democrat about Time's issuance of an edict for Bible worship.
Enjoy.

Hannity Shenanigans - Bash Gore Express, Terrorist Environmentalism

Yesterday, Media Matters talked about a couple media outlets (cough, cough, FOX) that mischaracterized Gore's responses to the nutjob Inhofe. They should've held on for just a little longer. Thursday's Sean Hannity radio show pooped out the following excerpt:

SEAN: I wanna give a, a little bit of a follow up to this. Uh, James Inhofe questioning Al Gore about taking a vow of responsibility not to consume any more energy than the average American. Here's how this went down.

INHOFE: You're asking and you've asked people all over America 'Are you ready to change your way of life? Are you ready to, ready to change the way you live?" I would have to ask you that same question because we started my term on would you take a pledge to do that? I think the answer to that is "no," but in terms of changing the way you live, I think it's very difficult for you to ask other people to do it unless you're willing to do it. Are you willing to do it?

GORE: We live a carbon neutral life, Senator.

SEAN: That's not the answer!

Hannity was right: That's not the answer. As the Media Matters article points out, there was much more said by Mr. Gore. About wind energy. About solar panels. But Sean skipped all that, followed it by bringing up the unsubstantiated claims from Tennessee Center for Policy Research about his energy bills. Then to "Al Gore is a global warming hysterical alarmist and a hypocrite" and on to Senator Boxer being a blind supporter. "It's like having Bill Clinton lecture us on marital fidelity."

And then, this:

SEAN: Bruce is in Jackson, Mississippi. What's happening Bruce?

BRUCE: Hey Sean, how you doin'?

SEAN: Good sir, how you doin'?

BRUCE: Look, I was listening to your show yesterday and you were talking about Al Gore and this announcement came - Al Gore is, I know this sounds strong, is no different than Osama bin Laden in this fact: Osama wants the poor, uneducated followers of his cause to give everything - their life - for his cause but he's much too important for that. He's off hiding somewhere probably in luxury. Al Gore wants us to live in a 400 square foot house, cut off the lights, cut off the air conditioning and the heat, and ride a bicycle....

What the Christ!? Since when does a religious nut like bin Laden who wants to rule the world with a Muslim extremist fist (and is currently, successfully evading us) have anything to do with a man who wants people to recognize a scientific pattern and do more to make our relationship with the planet a little more copacetic?

And Sean did not correct Bruce or even question the analogy. Jesus, man. Now, by extrapolation, there are a handful of people out there that are going to equate buying an energy-saving light bulb to strapping yourself with explosives and walking into WalMart, relating "eco-friendly" to "terrorist."

Somebody turn off this man's mic.
 
 

Photoshop Love: Gonzales. Bush. 3000.

Bush: "...partisan fishing expedition..."
Sean Hannity: "...the president at his best"

Sean is wrong. It was "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll...lemmie get my inhaler a minute."

Or perhaps "Mom, mom! But I didn't do it. It was the Democrats! All I did was fire some people and other people fire people and now they're yelling at me and - stupid Democrats - I'm bein' nice and they're just mean. Come on Alberto, we're goin' home. If they even look at me, we're just not playin'."

Who would've thought that mindless, meaningless, whiny bullshit would've been the result of the Gonzalestorm that buried the real story of the day: The American Freedom Agenda

And here's the love:

They Faced Amazing Odds. And Then 3000 Documents Emerged.

Click for bigger. You know you want to.

American Freedom Agenda: The Press Conference

The press conference on C-SPAN2 just aired. And it blew my mind.

This was not the Bush/Rove/Cheney administration monster, hungry for power, devouring our civil liberties. These were good men with the real thoughts of the founding fathers at the tips of their tongues (not theocracy). They want to restore our civil liberties. And they are conservative.

It just ended, they were talking to the audience about transpartisanship and not blindly following the president.

Here are some notes. Unquoted items are paraphrased.

Bruce Fein
"And those checks and balances and protections have eroded over the past few years."

AFA's 10 Stopping Principles:

• Military Commissions (Judge, jury, executioner)


• Habeas Corpus suspended


• Unlawful Enemy Combatants


• Warrantless Electronic Survaillence


• State Secrets Privlidge (shield admin from accountability)


• Presidential Signing Statements


• Executive privlidge (Katrina, from blame)


• Espianage Act (against the news media)


• Extraordanary renditions, secret prisons


• Inquisisational Identification of Terrorists, no due process

They would like to see every member of congress and all the candidates sign it.

Bruce Fein
"[Administration's policy] Has not been used to increase the safety of the American people at all."

We agree we are not yet a police state, but out founding fathers had much higher expectations for us than just avoiding a police state.

"We are protesting and launching this campaign"

Richard Viguerie
"Restore our constitutional government of checks and balances."

Bruce Fein
"The chief end of the state is to make men and women free...not to aggrandize the state"

David Keene
"We ratchet down our freedoms, and at the end of the conflict, we don't get them all back."
"All of the branches of government have been complicit...at the expense of a system that for over 200 years" has worked to preserve our freedom.

Bob Barr
"We cannot sit by and wait 30 years for court decisions," cannot wait until the end of a four year term to resstore the Bill of Rights.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) (Signed it right then and there)
Look what we could avoid if we didn't go to war without a declaration of war, look at what a mess we're in now.

Look at the threat from terrorists and "add the threat from the federal government."

"It's up to the people, it's up to congress, to rein in the executive branch."

American Freedom Agenda official website.

The American Freedom Agenda’s (AFA) mission is twofold: the enactment of a cluster of statutes that would restore the Constitution’s checks and balances as enshrined by the Founding Fathers; and, making the subject a staple of political campaigns and of foremost concern to Members of Congress and to voters and educators. Especially since 9/11, the executive branch has chronically usurped legislative or judicial power, and has repeatedly claimed that the President is the law. The constitutional grievances against the White House are chilling, reminiscent of the kingly abuses that provoked the Declaration of Independence.

Um, I can't argue with that. Actually, I'd argue for it.

The press release came out last Friday. And I can't find many opinions. And that pisses me off. I and many other bloggers piss and moan about our civil liberties. We sign petitions, make phone calls for change, and still watch them dissolve, sifting through our fingers like so much sand. And we criticize the conservatives that show up in guises of extreme evangelical or extreme bigotry, we criticize the blind followers of our president, the fool. And now I see conservatives doing what we say they should be doing, doing the job of the liberals in fact, and no one wants to speak up.

Good for them. Bad for us. But at least we're moving in the right direction.

Here's C-SPAN's site. I'll put up a link to the video when (if) they archive it.

UPDATE: C-SPAN has a link on this page but none of the links on that page are working. WTF?

Conservatives for Checks and Balances, Rolling Back Executive Power!

Because of Gonzo and the paper storm, nobody is talking about this. I've grabbed the whole press release from Citizens Party:

NEWS ADVISORY
March 16, 2007
Contact: Alison McQuade (413) 531 – 8894
Conservatives Unite In Coalition to Defend Civil Liberties, Roll Back Excessive Presidential Power: Leaders in the Conservative Movement to Announce Campaign to Restore Governmental Checks and Balances, Individual Freedoms

WASHINGTON – An alliance of prominent national conservatives will hold a news conference on Tuesday, March 20, to announce the formation of the American Freedom Agenda (AFA), a coalition established to restore checks and balances and civil liberties protections under assault by the Executive Branch. The restoration would bind the current and all future occupants of the White House, irrespective of party affiliation. The group will present a legislative package to restore congressional oversight and habeas corpus, end torture and extraordinary rendition, narrow the President’s authority to designate “enemy combatants,” prevent unconstitutional wiretaps and mail openings, protect journalists from prosecution under the Espionage Act, and more.

They will present a “Freedom Pledge” to all Presidential candidates of both parties to sign, and call for a bipartisan grassroots campaign to protect the vision of the Founding Fathers — that no single branch of government should have excessive power.

Participants at Tuesday’s news conference will include:

• Bruce Fein, a constitutional scholar, conservative writer and columnist, and former Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan;
• David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots conservative lobbying organization;
• Richard Viguerie, a conservative writer who is considered one of the main architects of the conservative grassroots movement over the past quarter century;
• Bob Barr, a former Member of Congress who served as an impeachment manager of President Clinton and holds the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union.

When: Tuesday, March 20, 2007, 1 p.m.
Where: The National Press Club Zenger Room 529 14th Street, NW 13th Floor,Washington, D.C. 20045

That's right, An alliance of prominent national conservatives ... to restore checks and balances and civil liberties protections under assault by the Executive Branch.

There's nothing wrong with celebrating conservative hypocrisies and absurdities, but to be a little more fair and balanced, this is proactive and needs celebration and recognition. This is fracking brilliant!

And get your popcorn; today at 1pm, it's airing live on C-SPAN2. Snag it on cable or stream it free on the tubes!

UPDATE: Notes and quotes and links from the press conference.
 
 

Hannity Shenanigans - Racism Pileup

See if you can pick out the generalized accusation:

SEAN: I hope you saw on Hannity's America last night, we went through our top ten examples of liberal hate speech. Did you see Roger Clinton using the N word? How many of you saw that during the Clinton years even though the tape was available. How many of you questioned Why is Robert Byrd using that word, you know, still in the senate, especially with his klan past. Or Nina Totenberg, or Julianne Malveaux, or Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden, a lot of the cuts we've played here - or Bellefonte, who, that was before his latest one.

This if from Monday, March 12, top of the third hour. Hannity whips out the reference to the N word as referenced by Roger Clinton. Then he pushes it through Robert Byrd "using that word," knocking immediately through Totenberg, Malveaux, Clinton, and Biden. My first reaction was "Wait, those people didn't use the N word." And they didn't. But Hannity's rush through the "facts," and name-dropping generalizes and implies that every one of those people mentioned as a racist.

Sometimes it's not the half-hour caller or inflammatory guest, but a sentence or two that is the culprit of his liberal smears. And his listeners are eating it up.

Help us all.

Muslim Mad-ness II: Not with a bang but a whimper

Local story. Worldly implications.

I've been following this story from the first moments of coverage. Now it looks like it is coming to an end.

Quick recap for those who don't like clicking:
Early on January 20th, 2007, three Palestinian students were beaten by Guilford College athletes (football players) as the athletes used anti-Muslim slurs. Two of the students went to Guilford College; the other one was visiting from NCSU.

Since then, the coverage has waned and the story itself has fizzled into the world of "um, okay, whatever." As the stories of what happened started to clash, divided camps emerged. The FBI was looking into possible hate crimes. Those who saw the issue as an overall culture of violence became active and NCSU hosted a Stop the Hate public forum to openly discuss the issue. Students walked out of class in protest. A Guilford College professor spouted off in the local paper. And the right wing took some suspicious characters on campus asking about the football players as Muslim Hit Squads.

Finally, the Greensboro Police finish their probe, saying they haven't found any further information. Six students faced charges of assault and ethnic intimidation. But the DA was waiting on Guilford College to conclude their investigation. And waiting. Greensboro police drop the charges on two of the students because - according to the assaulted students - they did not participate in the beating. Guilford College finally has something to say about the "Bryan Hall Incident." As of last week, the Palestinian students have offered to drop the charges if the athletes would apologize. Three of the four football players have done so. One is left.

What happens to a story, to a case that starts with football players beating on minorities, using racial slurs, FBI, college, and police investigations that turns it into the jello-kneed "um, sorry" that it has become? Why am I disappointed that everyone took some time off, reflected on the situation, and cooler heads prevailed?

Because I smelled blood. Because I was picked on by football players in my younger years. Because I burst into a shrapnel-spitting anger-ball when ignorant bigotry rears its ugly head.

Because I don't know that this is the best result. It is clearly the best result for those involved: Palestinian kids look good, football players verbally repent, and it's over. But is it the best result for the viewers, the attendees in the bleachers trying to glean a lesson from this?

I guess so. Why? Because any ignorant person who needed to learn a lesson (whether that humility or jail time result from ignorance) dismissed the story with a "Fuckin' Ay-rabs" and flipped back over to WWE the day it broke. The people still watching already know the lesson, but the stands are almost bare. Everyone's long gone, hot dog parchment paper blows past three Palestinian kids in the middle of the muddy field, and --



Holy shit! No more Comedy Central on YouTube? What the hell, dude?

Hannity Shenanigans - Attacking Joy Behar

The genesis of this post was catching a caller, a "university professor" bitch slap global warming on the show. Got me some access, some mp3's, transcribed them. Why not get some mileage out of this? Why not go weekly?

Welcome to Hannity Shenanigans. I'm betting I can come up with one thing per week that pisses me off about Sean Hannity's radio show. And, of course, I'll share it with you.

This discussion tirade about Joy Behar came from Thursday, March 8th in the third hour. And it's probably going to piss you off. Let's take a look:

SEAN: I have yet to play the Joy Behar wishing - you know - having delight over Dick Cheney having health problems. This, this is just the latest in a series of her attacks. Next.
...
Let me play, for example, Joy Behar. This is how bad this show is and this is how sorry I feel for Elizabeth Hasselbeck.

JOY (rec): I know that Dick Cheney is in trouble now, which is a, a delight for me. And I think it's not a coincidence that he has a blood clot this week, which is Spanish for, ah, you know, I'm going to go down next so I think I'll retire. I think he probably, you know, psychosomatically might have a blood clot. Who wouldn't have a blood clot after the lying that he did? Talk about a backup.

SEAN: Che- Go back to the beginning of this, just the first line. 'Cheney is in trouble now which is a delight for me.' Talking about the fact that he has a serious blood clot in his leg. Listen to this.

JOY (rec): I know that Dick Cheney is in trouble now, which is a, a delight for me.

SEAN: Dick Cheney's in trouble in his health. Do you know how serious these blood clots are? As a matter of fact, what was the name of the, the NBC reporter who died from - David Bloom. That's the exact same thing, when he was - remember, he was cramped up in that tank for such a long period of time, blood clot ended up killing him. And she's well, Cheney's in trouble, that's, that's great for me. Now this is the same woman that says the Bush administration are murderers, listen to this:

JOY (rec): I don't want to add fuel to the fire, but I don't know what it's going to take for people to really wake up and understand that they are liars and they are murderers -

SEAN: They're liars and then murderers, talking about the Bush administration. Then Joy Behar actually speculated that someone gave Senator Tim Johnson - remember after he had his, his medical problems and stroke, that it was man-made.

JOY (rec): Is there such a thing as a man-made stroke? In other words, did someone do this to him?

SEAN: And she once compared Donald Rumsfeld to Adolf Hitler.

JOY (rec): ...you have to put, you have to put like a Hitler type, like you put Donald Rumsfeld there or something.

SEAN: You know, I'm going to tell you, if conservatives - and this goes into what we're planning for Sunday night on, on Hannity's America here...the ten worst things liberals have said and gotten away with.

What is actually happening here
Joy Behar's comment, specifically about Cheney being in "trouble," is directed at the speculation, after the Libby verdict, that Cheney is next up on trial. She is pleased because she - as many other Americans - believe that the vice president belongs in prison. Her comment about the blood clot referred to her own speculation that Dick can see the writing on the wall and is feigning illness in preparation to flee to Mexico before he gets popped, much like you cough through the second half of the day if you're planning to call off work tomorrow. And her final comment is a suggestion (based on ?) that the stress caused by his lying could have manifested as a blood clot in his leg, which is called psychosomatic.

This is all very straightforward. Joy Behar was wallowing in some Schadenfreude, but the misfortune Joy was finding, um, joy in, was the legal implications of the Libby case, not laughing about a blood clot that we are all aware can become deadly. Not one of these realities about her comment was referenced.

What Did Hannity Do?
Hannity played the audio once. Then he told his zombie audience what she said and what to think about it. He said she was taking pleasure in Cheney's ailments. He questioned what kind of human being would ever do such a thing, that blood clots are dangerous and kill people. Then he played other quotes from Joy without any context.

Joy's Quotes
Joy called the administration murderers. Maybe a little extreme, but not completely off the mark. Then again, I don't know what she said other than those few words or even what the conversation was dealing with. Joy suggested someone may have done something to cause someone else to have a stroke. Two sentences? I can't even understand how this is relevant and have no background to make it even remotely negative. Joy made a reference to Rumsfeld as Hitler-esque. Shooting from the hip, but not enough to condemn the woman.

The Hannity Playbook
This is what Hannity does. He played a quote. He mis-interpreted it in such a way as to confuse the issue and paint the speaker evil. He calls her a horrible person. He plays other quotes, some without context or relevance. After each one, he reinforces "she is a bad person," if not in language, then in tone. And he pins the tail on the donkey not by concisely wrapping his point in iron-clad logic or rhetoric, but by generalizing it to how bad all liberals are and dove-tailing into a promo for Sunday's show, where he'll show you exactly how bad all liberals are.

This is basic control-the-masses psychology. Say something that's not directly apparent or clear, hook into a pre-conditioned response or emotion (hate 'em them damned liberals), reinforce, rinse, repeat. It's Sean Hannity's Mental Masturbation, and it goes a little something like this (CYA note: speculative fiction, no basis in reality):

SEAN: Joy Behar wants baby Jesus to cry and Mexicans to take our jobs. Here's a quote.

JOY: I like puppies.

SEAN: Jeez, I can't even believe liberals can be like this. I don't know how they can act with the confluence of the mass media without digging into their liberal incredulity and flash bang the politics of war when we're standing at the front lines supporting the troops and trying to keep America the place of freedom it may happen to be for all eternity.

LISTENER: Whut did 'e just say? Freedom?

SEAN: Liberals are the devil. And it astounds me that anyone could be that heartless. Join us Sunday, and I'll prove it more.

LISTENER: I get it. That Joy Behar is a fuckin' tramp. Fuck liberals. Woohoo, Sunday night!

There is spin and there is a blatant lie. This is the latter.

Woohoo! Sunday night! Get your disinformation scramblers out and take a gander. I've already got the popcorn in the microwave.

UPDATE: Fantastic Horror! As usual, Crooks and Liars got'cho back, and with video to boot. Delicious.

Photoshop Love: Putin's Pedestrian Poisoning?

He's baaaack!


Two Americans were recently treated for poisoning in Moscow by a toxic metal: thallium. At first I just thought that it was another Alexander Litvinenko mob hit issue, a return to the organized crime roots for Putin and Russians in general. Then something clicked. This was a test. And I blame the media.

Now, I don't know if Putin himself is a fan of CBS's Tuesday night lineup, but a couple weeks ago, the aired episode of NCIS dealt with nuclear inspectors. One of the inspectors was poisoned. With thallium.

Here's how I see it unfolding: Putin is sitting around on a Tuesday night, watching the satellite, NCIS to be exact, and an aide comes in.

AIDE: Vlad, we need some signatures on these assassination orders.

VLAD: Shhh. Leave them. I'll get to them later.

AIDE: NCIS. Sweet. Why's that guy sick?

VLAD: He was poisoned by thallium.

AIDE: Hmm. Hair falling out and everything. That shit actually work?

VLAD: I don't know. But I'm going to need you to find out.

AIDE: I just ran into some emigrated Russians downstairs. They came back, on vacation, heh. They're staying down the street.

VLAD: I guess you have your action item.

AIDE: Hehe.

VLAD: Muwahaha! Now go. You're lucky I'm DVRing this. Make me a mojito.

Sorry. That was ridiculous. They'd be speaking Russian, of course.

And even after this story broke, a Russian reporter was whacked for investigating Russian arms sales to Iran and Syria. Official reports say he jumped out of a window.

Jumped out of a window? That's not even Matlock mysterious. No one has purposefully jumped out of a window to end their life since the 80's, and even that was suspect. There are much more efficient ways to end your life, like buying a rifle at Wal-Mart and blowing your head off by pulling the trigger with your toe. Jaw-droppingly simple.

So Putin's plans progress. Assassinations digress to Cold War mob absurdity. But antics aside, as we discussed in Where in the World is Vladimir Putin? he's a man with a plan. China recently visited for a strategic meeting. China's Military Might is strong and growing. And they have something else in common with Russia: nukes.

Ancient Chinese Secret is starting to look a little more dangerous. And Vladimir Putin and Russia are looking a couple shades redder.

All Things Democrat: Bleeding the Coulter Beast

Over at All Things Democrat I've got something angry to keep the masses happy. Bleeding the Coulter Beast.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. To wit, pimping myself as a writer on a different blog from my own blog is not something I'm comfortable with. I want to keep my fans informed without the egregious faux pas of the double post.

Enough. If I offend, comment. If not, read the damned post. You'll enjoy it.