First Draft

Weekend Question Thread

In light of Walter Cronkite's passing: Who is your hero?

A.

Saturday Blogwhoring Thread

Post away.

A.

"Tell and show the public what has happened.”

When people would ask sportswriter E.M. Swift if a particular sports moment that was unfolding could be the next Miracle on Ice, Swift was always quick to say, “Shut up. There’s never going to be another Miracle. You can’t get that many things to align again.” Sadly, the same can be said for the great Walter Cronkite, who died earlier today.

In an era of 24-hour news, fragmented audience and micro-consumption of news, you’ll never have another singular anchor like Cronkite. In a time in which facts have been replaced by commentary and thoughts replaced by innuendo, we’re probably less likely than at any point in time to bestow upon a media member the “most trusted” man or woman status we gladly handed to him.  There can’t be another one like him, and that’s our fault in a way.

We’ve grown accustomed to the O’Reillys of the world, who use partial facts and convenient distortion to score points with a narrow-minded and under-informed constituency. We’ve tolerated for far too long the people who replace good reporting and solid, metered delivery with the desire to be famous. When they’ve got nothing more going for them than their lame-brained opinion, they just scream it louder with the idea that eventually if they’re loud enough, we’ll buy it. We’ve allowed the continual festering and growth of people who seem to believe not in news values, but a set of values that they believe should drive the news. 

In today’s market, Cronkite would be as out of place as a “Shit Happens” bumper sticker on a Rolls Royce. His scathing commentary about the Vietnam War would have earned him the “why do you hate America?” questions from his “colleagues” in the media. His stands against corporate media would have had him riding an overnight shift doing radio news at 580 KDIO-AM in Boise. His distaste for “fluff” would have had him cringing at the almost-daily fare of weather stories and pieces on which type of rock salt is best for dissolving the ice in your driveway that masquerades as news these days.

In a time in which we are as uncertain about our own nation as we were during Cronkite’s hey day, we need another Uncle Walter. We need a calm, rational voice that tells us what is going on, why we should care and lets us move about our lives with at least a little inkling that we’re well informed on things that matter. Instead, we’ve had a laundry list of substitute teachers who have either plied us with candy or rattled a saber of fear at us to boost their own sense of self.

In his final days, Cronkite was not as fearful of the “new media” as were many younger journalists. He filed for HuffPo and was a frequent guest on cable shows until he became quite ill. However, he was afraid of what was happening to the message, in that newspapers, TV and the internet had become more sizzle than substance. To that end, his great hope was a return to the glory age of journalism, in which we learned facts and trusted the sources, regardless of platform

It is in that hope we may find improved value in our media.

But never again will we find another Cronkite.

Home is where $2 Lobster is not

The reason I’ve been quiet most of the day is because I just finished a week-long “home to Mom’s, Mom’s to cousin’s in another state, back up to Mom’s, up to the North Woods for another birthday party, back down to Mom’s, to the airport, four days in Vegas, back to Mom’s and finally back home” run of about eight days. Sufficient to say, the only thing I saw that involved our president involved him throwing out the first pitch at the All-Star Game and the only reason I was watching that was because I had $20 on the NL. Of course, they blew it.

However in coming back from a place where the highs were 112 and the lows were 86 (it’s like sucking off the tail pipe of a bus when you breathe), it’s nice to know that some things haven’t changed. Palin is still weird, Sotomayor is going to win this thing in a walk and it’s cold as shit in Wisconsin.

It’s nice to be home.  I’ll give you a late-night booster if I can get away for a few hours.

Doc

Time to Watch the Right Stuff Again

Far as I'm concerned we can send Buzz Aldrin back up anytime. Sally Ride, too. Let's go colonize Mars so we have someplace to go when President Palin drills too deep and makes a hole in the world. I have a total five-year-old's reaction to this stuff. I know it costs bazillions of dollars, but all I can think is ooooh shiny.

Also: NERDGASM.

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Nobody Ever Wants Less

Scout sends this over:

In London, the Saturday editions plop on your porch with the weight of a white paper on Afghanistan, except that they're full of color magazines and free offers.  You think: Did I drink too much Friday night and sleep all through Saturday?  They look like American Sunday papers, fat and overstuffed, even with news.  Then Sunday comes around, and it all happens again, more heft, more color magazines, more scary stories saved up for brunchtime.

The UK newspapers have maintained a quaint tradition of competition between the daily and Sunday editions of the same nameplates, under the same owners. 

Shearer goes on to say there's no UK version of HuffPo, but ... again, I don't think that's why people still read. I think people still read because newspapers provide information they want. I don't think it's harder than that. People will go anywhere and do anything for something they want. People didn't start looking for news on the Internet because it was free or even cheaper (erm, TV, radio, etc), they started looking for news on the Internet because there was news on the Internet they wanted.

You don't win more by doing less, giving less, and doing it publicly, bitching about how you used to be this colossus but because of your sucky readership not readin' no more you can't give them anything to read (oh, and your profit margin's better than WAL-MART, which you also tell everybody, because you lost the ability to listen to yourself years ago).

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Friday Ferretblogging

Sometimes Mr. A and I forget and leave stuff where the ferrets can get to it. Like on the table, the piano, the floor, in the closets, higher than we ever thought something the size of a football could jump, etc.

Today it was his briefcase. Nothing says "I have a serious presentation to make and you should listen to me because I speak with authority" like needing to lint-roll your laptop first.

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'We're gonna get so much ass in here, it's sick'

Seriously, what is going on in this house?

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It's Not Like a Problem or Anything

You know, Dennis Hastert for years was on TV pretty much every day as Speaker of the House, and that man looked like cartoon drawings of Humpty Dumpty dressed up like a Weeble. Strangely, I do not recall stories about how he was setting a bad example for America by wobbling but not falling down.

Dr. Regina Benjamin, on the other hand, apparently has some problems to overcome, one of them being she's not a tiny little stick insect person thing. But that's okay, because, well, take it away MSNBC:

Besides, weight aside, Benjamin does bring some rather impressive bona fides to the job. She was awarded the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, was the first person younger than 40 to be appointed to the board of the American Medical Association, is the immediate past chair of the Federation of State Medical Boards (meaning other doctors think highly of her) and won a “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 

Most remarkably, she chose to practice among the rural poor at the clinic she built herself in Bayou La Batre, Ala., charging her poorest patients nothing. 

I don’t know about you, but a doctor who chooses to care selflessly for the poor and who has the respect of her peers as a good clinician is a doctor whom I am willing to listen to — even if she wears a plus-size lab coat.

So generous! Thank God you're willing to look past her apparently outlandish size (I dunno, looking at that picture she looks like every third person who lives in my building, so whatever) and appreciate her accomplishments! Go you! What a virtuous person you must be! I know he means to defend Dr. Benjamin here, but it comes off so ... I don't know, like he's doing her favors she doesn't really need.

He starts by conceding she's big, and conflating "two assholes on a 'national news site' message board" with "the blogosphere:"

You would think the entire population of the blogosphere had suddenly reverted to the seventh grade.

“I refuse to let fat be socially acceptable …  The President should have known better and picked a doctor who could kick start the debate on fat not perpetuate it,” commented one reader on a national news site.

Yes. The comments section at the Beaver County Tidbit Online is exactly the same thing as all blogs ever. That's a totally fair comparison! After all, you can completely see both of those sites on your computer! They're on the same Internet!!!!11!

Also? I recall the liberal blogosphere's reaction to Benjamin's appointment being OMG SQUEE and the conservative blogosphere's reaction being SHE'S NOT A WHITE MAN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AGAIN or something, and the non-political blogosphere was all OH HEY A LOLCAT and then we all moved on to bitching about how much the Emmy nominations suck. Dr. Generosity up here had to hunt down anonymous freakazoids one step below the Freepi to prove his point, which isn't unusual in the annals of "oh shit, it's due tomorrow," but it is kind of weaksauce, nonetheless.

Speaking only for myself, I've had several skinny doctors and one I suppose Dr. Caplan here might classify as obese, and about half the skinny ones were assholes and the other half were awesome, and they could all hold a stethoscope and dispense antibiotics competently so who really gives a fuck? When a doctor gives me advice I don't ask to see his diploma, much less his blood pressure readings, I just take the advice if I want to and forget it if I don't. Cheetos are totally a breakfast food. Shut up.

I am not saying we give an inch on the war on blubber. Obesity is an epidemic in the U.S. and growing quickly around the globe.

But people need to relate to the surgeon general, and if she can battle her weight on the job, she will do more to curb obesity then all the salads added to the menus of burger joints everywhere.

See, she can USE it, so it's good! I'm sure that helps her sleep at night. Thank God Dr. Caplan is here to tell me it's okay.

Via ONTD.

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One Last Thing We've Both Still Got

I'd love to say I don't get the resentment.

I really would. I'd love to say I don't see where they're coming from, whiny Lindsey Graham and bitchy Jeff Sessions and condescending John Cornyn, with their pointy little questions about what makes Sonia Sotomayor so special anyhow. I'd love to say I don't understand it.

But I do. I hear this stuff all around me, in the bluest state there is, all the time: I've worked hard. I've done my best. And if only I'd been a gay Native American vegan raised by an interracial family on a Buddhist mission in Africa during a coup AND an earthquake, there would have been a scholarship for me, or a promotion, or something. Something to make me special. (As if ethnicity was a hobby you could take up in order to make your college applications seem more interesting.)

I get the resentment. I get the anger that rests entirely on the presumption that somebody somewhere got a little bit of help I didn't. And I get it because for the past 30 years we have basically, all of us, been told help isn't coming, and asking for it is welfare/socialism/pussitude, and if you do get help you should feel very, very bad about it and never mention it at parties when people are running down welfare queens. The problem isn't that somebody somewhere got help (or didn't; more often than not we have no idea who gets what assistance when we talk about this stuff), it's that by and large we as a country have been quicker to abandon our countrymen during times of need than we have been to hold out a hand.

So any example to the contrary -- a scholarship to a prestigious university, however well-deserved and hard-earned, for example -- is viewed with suspicion. You saw this during the earlier waves of right-wing outrage against Sotomayor, that she was "privileged" somehow, that she was unfairly ahead. How did THAT one slip past us? How did SHE get a leg up, I thought we weren't giving those out anymore since St. Ronnie told that story about the lady driving the Cadillac? How dare anyone live a life that proves false what we ourselves know from experience to be true, that people are nasty and small and bitter and mean and if you get screwed oh well, too bad? If we are all victims of our worst circumstances, how dare anyone rise above them?

It would be harder to ask the questions asked, to provide the nasty insinuations provided by Sessions and Graham and Cornyn, were we a different kind of people. If we rested secure in the knowlege that all of us were taken care of, that all of us COULD count on our own hard work being enough to get us there, then we wouldn't mind so much seeing someone who proved that true. It wouldn't be such a shock to the system, it wouldn't be questioned so rudely, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary.

I'm not letting the distinguished senators from 1864 off the hook, but I am saying, this kind of thing worked for a long time because we all felt beaten down and exhausted, we all wanted help, and for too many of us help didn't come, and we couldn't rise above what happened to us. Too many people feel like they have no access to advancement of any kind, and it's easier to teach those people to hate anyone who does advance than it is to help them advance themselves. I wish I didn't get the resentment. By which I mean, I wish we lived in the kind of world in which nobody had to resent, because nobody had to want something so badly, and know they had no hope of getting it.

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Can I Get a HELL YEAH?

This is one of the best, most sensible things I've read about the newspaper "crisis" in months. Way to be, Post-Tribune. Fight for what's yours.

In Gary, it's inspirational. "Can a newspaper work as an ESOP?" asks a FAQ on the new Web site buytheposttribune.com, then answers, "Yes it can," and points to the Blethen ESOP as evidence.

To get Post-Tribune employees behind an ESOP bid, the guild reminds them they have nothing to lose. "How much worse can it get?" Grimm asks. He tells me the working assumption is that sometime this fall "we'll have a new owner and the company [the Sun-Times Media Group] will cease to exist—that's what we're told. And that new owner will come in and things will change around here. Whatever we can do to have a say in who that owner is, or to have that owner be us, we're going to do it."

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Epic

From 2Millionth Web Log

You've got the Ghost of GOP Past and the Ghost of GOP Future...which I guess puts Jeff Sessions, Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn in the role of Ghost of GOP Present.

Sure, the Democratic Party is merely the lesser of evils for the most part, but that's some evil on the other side of the aisle.

Happy Democrat Photo: Jill Biden Edition

She's so awesome.

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Monetizing News

If only newspapers still made money. If only there was a business model that would work. Like printing the news on paper and bringing it to people's homes via some kind of delivery system.

Good thing they laid all those people off.

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Happy Kerry Photo: Deserved Payback Edition

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This was the story, way back before there was dirt, that convinced me that blogging could be completely AWESOME. Bankruptcy couldn't be happening to a nicer bunch of folks. Suck on karma's 14-inch strap-on, boys.

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Two sides to the fight

The Texas State Board of Education enjoyed its fair share of bad press lately, and rightly so. 

Strike 1: In Friday night's Worst Person in the World segment, Keith gave the finger to Goodhair for considering Cynthia Dunbar as a leading candidate to head up the SBOE. Not just any old run-of-the mill religious conservative, Dunbar is in the Obama-is-Hitler cult and also thinks (when she thinks at all) that public school is a “tool of perversion,” “unconstitutional,” and “tyrannical," choosing to homeschool her own offspring rather than subject them to actual education.  So naturally, our august governor thought she'd be a grand choice to chair the SBOE! 

Strike 2: Actually, Olbermann was a step behind since Perry had just chosen conservative Cynthia Lowe as chair of the board. Arguably, Lowe's a few degrees better than Dunbar, but not by much. 

In 2004 Ms. Lowe opposed requiring that publishers obey curriculum standards and put medically accurate information about responsible pregnancy and disease prevention in new high school health textbooks.

In 2008 Ms. Lowe voted to throw out nearly three years of work by teacher writing teams on new language arts standards. Over the strenuous objections of teachers and curriculum specialists, Lowe instead voted for a standards document that the board’s far-right bloc patched together overnight and slipped under hotel doors the morning of the final vote.

In 2003 and 2009 Ms. Lowe supported dumbing down the state’s public school science curriculum by voting to include unscientific, creationist criticisms of evolution in science textbooks and curriculum standards.

Strike 3: Conservative members of an "expert" curriculum advisory panel appointed by equally conservative members of the SBOE recommended that Texas social studies curriculum standards be altered so that certain historical figures — deemed by said conservatives to be poor examples for Texas schoolchildren — receive less focus. Among their targets: César Chavez, Thurgood Marshall, and Anne Hutchinson.  Ms. Lowe offers context: 

“Certainly those are historical figures that students should be aware of, and their goals and their place in history, but it needs to be in the context of what those people were known for. And so if the example is someone of good civic involvement, then there may be a different type of historical figure and leader that would be more appropriate.” 

Hear that Texas schoolkids?  "Good civic involvement" means conformity. Shut up, stay in line, pick those grapes and don't bitch about your living conditions, vote with the majority, don't think independently, and don't diss the preacher and run off to Rhode Island. That kind of thinking is just not appropriate. Also, when possible, be white. 

But rather than the  "So ... What Did my Asshat Dickhead Idealogue fill-in-the-blank? post that I am wont to do from time to time (and probably could do at least once a day) in response to the conservative and/or religious right trying to drag Texans back to the 19th century, I'm gonna change it up today.  I'm going to shine a bit of light on some good guys in this fight, the Texas Freedom Network.

TFN is one of the examples I offer when otherwise intelligent people dismiss Texas as a bleak cultural wasteland devoid of strong progressives.  TFN has one simple mission: "The Texas Freedom Network advances a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the religious right." They fight the godbags* on many fronts throughout the state but education is a major battleground. Their site, and the TFN Insider blog, are the first places I turn to when I want to know the latest on the antics of the SBOE. Of particular interest are the annual State of the Religious Right reports. Bookmark TFN, learn from them, send them donations if the spirit moves you. 

Lastly, those of you in the immediate area, make a difference and do something. The SBOE is formidable but it can be changed, from within. Next week, TFN offers a SBOE Candidate Training workshop for those interested in running as a candidate in the SBOE elections in 2010.

* "godbag" ™, courtesy of Twisty Faster

Other Shit That Should Be Obvious

Read this shit some time.

Read this, as well.

I tried arguing about Afghanistan with people back in 2001; naturally, no one listened. 

I understood that, after 9/11, we would be attacking somebody.  You don't outspend the rest of the world militarily and then not use that military when attacked.  However, I did not expect an invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.  I thought it was a stupid idea then, and I think it's a stupid idea now. 

One of the big justifications for the war was the removal of the Taliban, that group of fundamentalist assholes who imposed their own vision of utopian society in many parts of Afghanistan.  Don't get me wrong--they're a bunch of fucks.  Everyone's heard the stories about burqas and sex-segregation and women being fourth-class citizens (it was hilarious to watch Republicans trip over themselves to stress how awful and sexist these choad-gobblers were).

I was aware of the Taliban prior to September of 2001.  It didn't take a genius to know about this group of sack wranglers.  However, there's a reason why they were in control of parts of Afghanistan.  They provided order.  Order is preferable to chaos--it's why we have government in the first place, and why Libertarian fantasies will always be just that.  When, as happens some times, that order becomes unbearably oppressive, certain groups attempt to replace it.  But they never wish to eradicate order altogether.  There may be a chaotic interregnum, but no one ever abolishes order in favor of permanent chaos. 

Put otherwise:  When the people who lived in Afghanistan (and I'm not talking about "Afghanis;" there's really no such ethnicity) got tired of the Taliban, they would have done something about it.  You can provide aid to these groups, and you can encourage less-repressive elements in societies, but you can't go in and impose an order of your own.  It has to be, to use a Hobbesian term, a social contract entered into by the people whose own lives are directly affected--especially in a place like Afghanistan, where interlopers have been frustrated since the days of Alexander the Great. 

All that shit about "Freedom is God Almighty's gift" is just nonsense.  Even if it were true, it would be up to the Almighty to dispense it, not to us.  Isn't that fucking presumptuous, to think otherwise?

Not that Hobbes' view of humanity was perfect.  It was, of course, situated in his time--the anarchical years during the English Civil War.  However, when in such a state, order--even a harsh order--is something for which people yearn.  Corrupt, unpredictable, and abusive governments will always be less popular than repressive yet predictable ones. 

Thoughts?

MANIMAL!

You know, I'm no fan of grafting human ears onto mice because that shit just looks weird walking around, but you know what nobody worries about? Human-meerkat hybrids. I've seen that show once or twice, and those crafty little fuckers are already looking for ways to rise up and conquer human civilization. Give them thumbs and access to the Hair Club for Men and it's all over for us.

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Making History

The face we show to the world matters to the world:

People gathered in Ghana to watch for Obama as he toured the Cape Coast Slave Castle.

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Charles Grassley is an Asshat, and other things you already knew

From last night's All Things Considered, wherein Robert Siegel tried to kill me by interviewing Chuck Grassley on Sotomayor:

Grassley:  ...[U]nder our system of checks and balances system of government it's very important that judges judge, in other words interpret law, and that legislators make law.

Siegel:  But this is what Justice Samuel Alito said at his confirmation hearing, before the very committee--he said, and I quote, 'When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender, and I do take that into account.'  By your standard, that would be disqualifying.  He should have said instead, 'My background, my family counts for nothing.'

 

Grassley:  Uh, that's absolutely right, because I expect, a person who's a judge to look at the four corners of the law, and make decisions based upon what that law says.  Now, if it isn't clear, then of course they got a right to go beyond just the words of the law, to court debate and to other courts and to the history behind the bill.  But here's, I think we're--

 

Siegel:  But you didn't vote against Justice Alito's confirmation.

 

Grassley:  No, I didn't.  And uh, let's put it this way--she was very positive, in saying today that fidelity for the law is going to be her benchmark.  The extent to which she doesn't distract from that over the next three days is going to help her standing with members of the committee, particularly Republican members of the committee.

Later, in an exchange about Stevens:

Siegel:  Let me tell you something about Stevens.  I want to ask you a question about that justice in particular and about this notion of empathy.  His father, as you may know, was wrongly convicted of embezzlement when Stevens was a young man, and then he was vindicated.  Wouldn't an experience like that make a person who sits on the bench think differently about the fallibility of the criminal justice system than another judge might?  Don't our individual experiences in some way color the way we would answer a supposedly objective question?

 

Grassley:  If I were Justice Stevens, I wouldn't even have to use the example of my own father.  All I'd have to do is use an example of when justice has not been given to an individual that deserves justice.  And that happens in our society.  And when there's an injustice, that ought to be corrected. [snip] Justice Stevens could render that sort of justice regardless of whether his dad had a bad experience or not.

Okay, so Robert Siegel gets a cookie for at least posing a difficult pair of questions to Grassley.  Too bad he let him off the hook.  (I nearly drove off the road when I heard the "No, I didn't vote against Alito, and let me quickly change the subject" bit.  Grrrr.)

But what really prompted me to write this post is that the whole empathy/objectivity thing is making me crazy.  I do a introductory thing in all my classes about historians and how we study history.  The objectivity debate has been a contentious one in history circles for years.  I tell my students that I'm from the wussy middle in the debate.  While I believe that objectivity should be a goal, we need to recognize that it is, because of human nature, a completely unattainable goal.  You can't take the historian out of the equation when dealing with the interpretation of history--that's why we have 8 million books about Napoleon and Caesar and the Civil War and everything else.  If there were such a thing as truly objective history, there's just be one book about each subject.

The same is true in the judicial system, at least to a certain extent.  While I'd like to think judges would do their best to be objective, I know they can't--they're human (except for Scalia.  And Thomas.).  They're going to each bring their own personal interpretation of the letter and spirit of any given law to their bench.  So I find the whole empathy debate really stupid.  We are all, as Siegel pointed out, and Grassley missed, shaped by our experiences.  We can't avoid it.

Frankly, I find Sotomayor's comments about her background informing her decisionmaking on the bench refreshingly honest.  I'd much rather have a person on the Supreme Court who recognizes where her biases may come in to play (sometimes appropriately) and is up front about that than somebody who is either in denial or lying.

Again? This Stupid Country.

Sometimes, you just want to choke the assholes in the media who get the vapors whenever people use unauthorized language.  You know, the same dipshits who read the Starr Report and salivated over every salacious detail, but who think that it's The End Of Western Civilization if you use the word "blowjob" instead of "oral encounter."  Behold:

Oh, dear me.  Look, I can see the Huns approaching!

Bonus points for whoever gets the title reference.

UPDATE:  At the end of the video, Shuster apologizes, and refers to the broadcast as a "daytime, family-oriented" program.  Right.  'Cause you just know all the kids who are out of school for the summer are sitting indoors, watching cable news.  This is just like that time Mr. Rogers had that unfortunate attack of Tourette's.

Take Them at Their Word

Why is it that if you actually assume everything Bush-Cheney et al say is true, it makes things worse, not better?

It was asassinations of Al Qaeda operatives. Okay, awesome! Who doesn't want to hunt down and smoke out and hang high our nation's fearsome enemies? Tell Congress all about it! It's not like any of them have Osama on speed dial, no matter what Rush says, so for fuck's sake, what's the problem here? Right after 9/11 congressmen were falling all over themselves (and most of them still are) to cross the finish line of Most Hardcore first. You really think they'd have had an issue with it?

It was even more illegal spying than the illegal spying we already knew about. Well damn, hooker, shit. That clearly would have been tough for Congress to accept, considering that they totally gave retroactive immunity to everybody who went along with the illegal spying we knew about and have prosecuted exactly no one for any of the previous lawbreaking. A little more might have pushed them over the edge? Honestly? They might have used adjectives in their sternly worded letters? You might as well tell Congress basically as a DARE.

I realize that I am presently arguing that Congress is such a bunch of stupendous pussies that it really doesn't matter what sick and twisted shit Herr Cheney was up to in his secret bunker, that they would have agreed to it completely. Yet, no one who has been paying attention could argue this wasn't the case.

Sure, a couple of speeches might have been given, and Feingold might have told the entire U.S. Senate to suck him once your mom was done, but in the end anything and everything would have been authorized lest Bill O'Reilly make fun of Democrats or some imaginary voter living in Chris Matthews' head have concerns you might be the kind of pansy who drinks the wrong thing at the diner. They should have just owned up to it. Nobody would have stopped them.

Even with this major scary new revelatory whatever, no matter what it ends up being about, in about two weeks we're going to have a resolution declaring it's all okay, and nobody needs to go to jail or apologize or anything. I'd love to be proved wrong, by the way, but I don't think I will be.

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Fuck The Fuck Yeah--This Fucking Shit Is What The Fuck I'm Fucking Talking About. Fuck.

Fuck yeah, motherfuckers.

So, it turns out that swearing fucking kicks ass.  No, really, there's fucking SCIENCE and shit backing this the fuck up.  So take note, assorted cocksuckers, motherfuckers, bitches, bastards, and dickheads:  Swearing can make you feel better.

I must be the best-feeling motherfucker on this whole motherfucking bubble.

No wonder David Broder and Cokie Roberts walk around with permanent sticks up their priggish asses.  They think that saying the word "fuck" is a crime against humanity.  Chill the fuck out, assholes!

That's right.  This motherfucking post gets the motherfucking "science" tag.  Fucking believe that.

Religious Devotion

Now this is how you show your love for his Noodly Appendage.

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Screw the Poor

HTML Mencken runs down the latest wingnut poor-hating for you.

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Sessions' Statement on Sotomayor

Say that three times fast. Then punch yourself in the head and fall down onto a pile of tacks, because it will be more pleasant than reading this:

Indeed, our legal system is based on a firm belief in an ordered universe and objective truth. The trial is the process by which the impartial and wise judge guides us to the truth.

Down the other path lies a Brave New World where words have no true meaning and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see. In this world, a judge is free to push his or her own political and social agenda. I reject this view.

That high-pitched whine you just heard, followed by a screech? That was the irony meter burying the needle and then bursting into flames.

Judge Sotomayor has said that she accepts that her opinions, sympathies, and prejudices will affect her rulings. Could it be that her time as a leader of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund provides a clue as to her decision against the firefighters?

Could it be that your status as a complete and total bologna pony influenced your actions all those years you were giving Bush public tongue-baths in front of whatever microphone you could shove in your face?

While the nominee was Chair of the Fund’s Litigation Committee,[12] the organization aggressively pursued racial quotas in city hiring and, in numerous cases, fought to overturn the results of promotion exams.[13]

I managed to get the meter fixed but that popped it again. Damn it. Which is to say, will no one think of the white men? Where is whitey's motherfucking iced tea, anyway?

I hope the American people will follow these hearings closely.

Oh, me too, honey, if only because at some point you are going to slip and just say what's actually on your mind instead of cloaking it in this mealy-mouthed crap.

A.

Sotomayor Hearing Schedule

Here's what's happening today and the rest of the week:

Each Committee member will be permitted to deliver opening statements up to 10 minutes in length. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) will provide the introductions of Judge Sotomayor. Chairman Leahy will then administer the oath to Judge Sotomayor, and she will be invited to make an opening statement. Her statement is expected to begin around 1:30 p.m. The Judiciary Committee will recess for the day following Judge Sotomayor's statement.

Watch here.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession With The Freeperati - Potpurri edition

Good morning everyone! I'm still disposing of old drums of toxic Free Republic waste, so bear with me on the topicality thing - because it's always open season on stupid.

Before we get to the older stuff, though - Free Republic honcho Mike.....er Jim Robinson posted a thread about a Daily Kos thread about a Free Republic thread.

I sense an imminent collapse of web punditry into a singularity.

One more from the left: Free Republic Pulls Thread Bashing Malia Obama
DailyKOS ^ | Fri Jul 10, 2009 | by CatM
Posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 11:53:00 AM by Jim Robinson
Yesterday, theHalfrican posted a link to the Free Republic Website where several of its regular members were bashing Malia Obama for wearing a peace symbol t-shirt. The thread had several derogotary, racist, and sexual remarks about Malia. It also included a picture of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that was accompanied with a racist caption.
I wrote the media contact at Free Republic yesterday, kristinn@bellatlantic.net, questioning the nature of the posters and the site:
Hello. I am an independent writer developing a book about the grassroots conservative movement online, of which your site, Free Republic, is included as a primary online gathering place for conservatives.
Could you please tell me how the owner of the site feels about posts like this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/...
...in which conservatives who post regularly at the site make several racist statements about the 11-year-old daughter of President Obama for wearing a t-shirt adorned with a peace symbol? Remarks included the following:
"We’re being represented by a family of ghetto trash." "Looks like a bunch of ghetto thugs. A stain on America."
"Looks like a typical street whore."
"What we now are sending the ghetto over to represent us. and if so who the hell is that flea bag who looks to be dragged from the trash dumpster."
"you could go down any ghetto right now and see exactly the same."
"could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there"
"the world must be laughing like mad right now at that we have this kind of street trash in our white house."
"Wonder when she will have her first abortion."
"sad isn’t it that we now have ghetto street trash over there representing us in Europe."
"This disgusting display makes me more and more eager for the revolution.
"They make me sick.... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin’ mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin’, and especially ‘lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin’ my peeps."
In addition, the thread includes a picture of Michelle Obama speaking to her daughter with the caption, "To Entertain Her Daughter, Michelle Obama Likes to Make Monkey Sounds."
Before you dismiss this as only a minority of posters at the site, out of 100 posts on that thread I found only 1 that criticized such remarks. This is not the first time I have seen such an exhibition of blatant racism at Free Republic by members who regularly post there.
(snip)

To: Jim Robinson

That just proves this site doesn’t put up with crap comments like that if the post was pulled, while KOS not only keeps crap like that up, they encourage it.
It isn’t what was said, it is how the sites deal with it that shows the difference.

5 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 11:56:31 AM by mnehring

I do believe you're right.
The thread at Freeperville was restored after being pulled "for review".
Out of the mouths of babes.....

To: Jim Robinson

I didn’t see the original thread but I have been frequenting this site for years and have never seen that type of stuff posted. Is this for real?
I agree Jim. The kids didn’t pick their commie pinko pansy of a father. Nor did they choose to be put into the spotlight.
But Obama/Soetoro is fair game and so is his witch of a wife.

8 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 11:57:58 AM by NoobRep

Apparently, NoobRep has been frequenting FR for years, but with his monitor turned off.

And now we have about twenty-five versions of "He pushed me first", which I didn't even let my kids get away with when they were five:

To: Jim Robinson

Yeah I’m sure the Daily Kooks removed every nasty thing said about Willow, Piper, Bristol, Track, and Trig Palin right

3 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 11:55:37 AM by Sarah Barracuda

To: Jim Robinson

Indeed.. I’ve never seen such love and devotion as was lavished on Trig and his dear Mom.
What a fine example of humanity they are.

7 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 11:57:53 AM by xcamel (The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken)

Poor kids. I hope they’re not “punished with a baby”.
Hopefully they won’t deal cocaine like the Kenyan.

23 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 12:01:29 PM by evets (beer)

Then they get all paranoid:

To: Jim Robinson

I wonder if some of this was the work of Obama trolls intending to make FR look bad?

17 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 12:00:42 PM by astounded (The democrat party is a clear and present danger to America.)

Then they get nasty:

To: Jim Robinson

The truth is that conservatives do not know the meaning of Jesus' words despite how much they love to use them when it suits their inner hatred of all those who are different. Worse, they lack basic human decency, as they demonstrate time and again. Yeah pal- but I'm Jewish. I'd rather remember the words of my sages:
If someone wakes up in the morning to kill you, wake up earlier and kill him first"
You people drew first blood.

21 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 12:01:25 PM by Nachum

I'll just leave the irony of a Jew calling someone "you people" as an exercise for the reader...

And then - suddenly - one of them gets a clue, like awaking from a fever dream:

To: Jim Robinson

The recent uptick here in racist vitriol, aimed at Barrack, Michelle and their children has made me wonder if I belong. My objection to Obama has nothing to do with skin tone. Is the ugly stereotype of Conservative racism true?

44 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 12:05:28 PM by fullchroma (I want my country back.)

Is it? Good question.  Let's ask the other posters in this thread:

To: cripplecreek

Not for nothing, But these things are said constantly about Children of other politicans...Kids should be off limits! 100%. Watching the left and Media try to destroy Sarah Palin and her children..Including an infant with special needs....

I don’t feel much pitty(sic) for some bad comments on a blog you can CHOOSE to read or not to read. .
I’m sick and tired of the LEFT telling me WHAT I CAN’T SAY. Meanwhile they say the most dispicable(sic) things and claim FREE SPEACH(sic). QUID PRO QUO my commie friends......

37 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 12:04:06 PM by jakerobins ( NO)

That's a "Yes".

To: allmendream

“Is that any better? To call the First Lady “ghetto”?”

You can also direct that statement to the black property owners/renters on Martha’s Vineyard.

47 posted on Friday, July 10, 2009 12:06:52 PM by Rebelbase (Obama--POtuS.)

That's a "Hell, yes!".

To: norton

Ya know, I was born and raised in the city, as diverse as one can be or as diverse a neighborhood can be and I’m so sick of all this PC crap. Personally, I think it’s from people that have no clue what it’s like to live in a freakin’ ghetto, yeah a ghetto. Fortunately, the area in the city I grew up in wasn’t what it’s like today. It was getting there, which is the reason I got out 20 years ago. But it was a ghetto of sorts. And today it’s much worse. And many people got out which is why the city is what it is today. WTH chooses to live like that?

I don’t give a damn if I’m called a racist or anything else...some of us not only lived in the so called ghetto, we were able to WORK our way out of it. And I’m damn tired of paying for those who don’t get up off their asses and work. I don’t give a damn what color/race one is but I know the so called minorities in this Country get a free pass on some things.

509 posted on Saturday, July 11, 2009 1:06:19 AM by Twink

And that's a "Fuck yeah, and what's it to ya??".

More (and vintage) craziness after the jumparoonie...

The Wisdom At The Bottom Of The Keg

Like this, but not so furry.

It's amazing, the things you learn as you go through life.

It turns out that going-away parties are actually a sort of analgesic.  You hurt so badly from the hangover the next day that you don't realize how much you're actually going to miss the person/people in whose honor said hangover-inducing party was thrown.

Also:  OWWWW.

Pageview Bonuses

So what, seriously?

Paying for pageviews adds on obvious, if controversial, incentive for writers to create popular content, but in our IM conversation, Denton described the move as “a way to reward young and highly productive writers who might have come in at a low rate that doesn’t reflect their real value.” He said that even without paying bonuses, his bloggers have felt an incentive to perform because Gawker Media displays pageview statistics alongside every post and on a page that breaks down the stats by writer.

This is yet another case of print pretending it's pure and that the Internet is filthy. Newspapers adjust their coverage all the time based on where their readers are and how many readers there are. A frequent refrain at my last paper was "We don't have any readers there!" whenever somebody wanted to spend time covering a big story in a small town which was, more often than not, very poor. "Go out and get some readers there," was apparently not the response they were looking for, but really. These kinds of economic decisions get made all the time. All the Internet has done is made it a little more obvious.

A.