Oh if only wank were a fossil fuel

The ultimate in Asshat Thunderdome

is David Frum, Bay Buchanan and Ann Coulter bickering over Sarah Palin. It's compelling like the shower of maggots scene in whatever horror movie I've mostly blocked from my brain that was.

i'm just posting this because I already had the tag ready to go, really

Lawsuits from the Moon!!

Long as I was lookin' at the PUMAs, I had to check in on the Birfers as well. You remember the Birthers, right? People who still think they can get rid of Obama on the grounds that he was born in Kenya or Canada or both, or Hawaii isn't really a state or they didn't consent to this reality and it's in the Constitution that they don't have to, possibly all of the above. also something about Bigfoot or twelve foot grey aliens or something. They make the PUMAs look downright sober.

So, the details are kind of boring, but the summary, as far as I can make out, is that there's been an implosion in the ranks, and one Head Birfer Dime Store Lawyer is now suing the other one. Good times already, right? Guess how much they're asking for?

"Total payday they're trying to get from the defendants? $5,044,000,000. That's five BILLION, 44 million dollars."

Yah'Rly.

I don't know why I never thought of that. I'm gonna go sue someone right NOW. I figure even if they only give me 1% that's still a cool 50 million right there; and how could they possibly not grant me 1 measly percent? Right? 50 M ought to get me through the rest of Obama's deadly reign, at -least.-

Maybe I'll do my next door neighbor, I'm sick of the loud music on weeknights.

THE POWER OF POSITIVE CLEAR-EYED LESBIAN GAZING! or, UNLEASH THE RADICAL FEMINIST WITHIN

Dammit, Ren, you had to make me look.

Speaking of trainwrecks in progress...the whole tl:dr thing, no doubt, chock full o' erm erraticness, but I was particularly drawn by the touching advice of dear Satsuma in these troubled times.

(oh, follow the link from there)

...I’m from the tough love school for women. It is not popular to say that we are 100% in charge of our own destiny, because this makes women who have fallen through the cracks feel bad. Feeling bad won’t get you anywhere in life.

Women on this blog get mad at success or any woman who thinks this is exciting and challenging. What I have to say, is that my life is a testiment that if you APPLY the wisdom of radical lesbian feminism, and you don’t fall into the trap of ever living with men as an adult, and you throw your mind as far as it will go, you’ll actually have a much better life than all the women who think they need men to prosper. I’m saying you will be healthier and wealthier if you DON’T marry men, live with them or have children.

I’m saying brilliance and cleverness and excitement and accomplishment are what await a true radical feminist.

What pains me here is that women don’t believe this. I think there are a lot of women in the world who are truly afraid of being different. They struggle to fit in everywhere, instead of choosing to live by an inner guidance system or even an inner true light.

Women think other women should fail and suffer. I’m not from that school of thought. I know that education and study advance you, and I know you need no handouts, welfare bureaus or social service agencies to do this. When you leave behind the production machine of patriarchy — which is not factory work, but childbearing, you really are free from personally contaminating patriarchy.

It’s what I find so frustrating here at times, this head in the sand, I don’t give a damn attitude. It’s this worship of poverty and downward mobility, or the belief that a radical lesbian life will not cause you to be better off in the end.

There is nothing worse than reading about women who can’t afford dentists here. Somehow that gets to me the most. I meet women everyday who are already setting themselves up for this. If they have the good fortune of working with me, they’ll do a lot better...

Every time a woman marries a man and has children and quits work in the state of California, puts her at a greater risk than buying a financial stock right now. The risk is that she is throwing about 10 years away from retirement planning, and stands to get divorced at a 50-60% rate. That means she will probably be the sole support of children and her standard of living will drop immediately. This happens every day of the year...

...I found poverty actually dull, and thought that I could do a whole lot better than a lot of straight women out there and have a better life. I think heterosexual women often feel they are superior to lesbians, and think our ideas are utopian.

But I believed in the male free life, and I believed that lesbian feminism led to incredible personal, political and spiritual insights.

It’s what causes me to greatly admire ambitious women. It’s what makes me love gritty women like Sarah Palin, when feminists out there think she is the devil....

...I love smart ambitious women. And there is nothing smarter and more ambitious than women who win high office in politics, and nothing more threatening to women who haven’t risen this far. The irony is the old guard feminists get mad at the Sarah Palins, just because they have personal beliefs that don’t tow a party line. I don’t tow a party line that says be poor, don’t achieve, don’t make a lot of money, don’t have the best in life… that doesn’t go over well. But feminism frees all women, and it comes out looking rather odd. Sarah Palin is a feminist in my book, and she is a fundamentalist christian. How shocking! Maybe a lot of women here simply don’t know how caring and loving fundamentalist christians actually are. Perhaps they haven’t met fundamentalist christians who are lesbian accepting.

You can’t be both right? Well in my opinion, how can you be a free woman if you are living with men and having sex with them. Yuck!! But I am sure feminists here who do this would still think of themselves as feminists, right?

Men don’t trash Palin the way so many women feminists do.

So this contradictory belief may seem mysterious; a love of both Palin and Clinton. Something about their personal struggles I deeply identify with. Something about seeing a woman on stage accepting a VP nomination while her husband holds the baby is so amazing to me...

...I am not a leftist or even a rightist, I am a woman who really goes for it, and never contaminate themselves with men kind of feminist. I’m not the hippie sex drugs and rock and roll type person. I hated all that nonsense, just wasn’t me. Perhaps a lot of that leftie stuff just annoyed me and still does. Weirdly enough, give me a proper fundamentalist christian any day over a vulgar swearing sexualized lesbian.

-clap clap-

Sorry to get carried away with the C&P--tl:dr, that's still only like a third of her latest saga, never mind the surrounding shitstorm--but I'm sort of riveted. If it's performance art, it's frigging AWESOME. It's like the bastard child of Tony Robbins, Sheila Jeffreys, and Dawn Eden.

oh, and almost forgot this bit:

No I don’t want failure and poverty, and no I am not swayed by everyone else going nuts over a stock market that is quite predictable. The fortunes are made quickly after events like this, while everyone else is still in panic.

ETA: also, too, also, I need to say this, once and for all:

Toe the line. Toe the line. Not -tow-. TOE. There's a line in the sand. You're not supposed to step over it; you're supposed to -toe-. You can't -tow- the line, unless you mean you're physically moving the drawn line someplace else altogether.

Reaping the whirlwind

John McCain is booed by his own rabidly anti-Obama crowds for telling them that maybe they ought to put down the pitchforks and torches after all.

The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is acting to tamp it down. McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Barack Obama's character, he described the Democrat as a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar," and even "off with his head" have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.

...When a visibly angry McCain supporter in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday told the candidate "I'm really mad" because of "socialists taking over the country," McCain stoked the sentiment. "I think I got the message," he said. "The gentleman is right." He went on to talk about Democrats in control of Congress.

On Friday, McCain rejected the bait....

Um, yay? Still three and a half weeks to go, though, and that Ayers ad...and there's still your charming assistant running around doing her best Anita-Bryant-at-Nuremberg impression...

Well. And now for your moment of WTF?

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

Arab: decent family man. Arab: decent family man.

"He ain't Arab, he's my colleague..."

'k then.

But no, there's no -racism- here or anything, so -stop saying that.- I mean, we totally almost don't even mind that he's -black.- What more do you want, for heaven's sake...?

Et tu, Scottie?

Damn, that's gotta smart. McClellan: Bush must blame himself for mistrust

If the nation doesn't trust the Bush White House, it's the president's and Dick Cheney's own fault, Bush's former spokesman told Congress Friday.

From life-and-death matters on down — the rationale for war, the leaking of classified information, Cheney's accidental shooting of a friend — the government's top two leaders undermined their credibility by "packaging" their version of the truth, former press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He described the loss of trust as self-inflicted, telling the House Judiciary Committee that Bush and his administration failed to open up about White House mistakes.

The focus of the panel's hearing was the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, and McClellan said that was a good example of the administration damaging itself by backtracking on a pledge be upfront.

"This White House promised or assured the American people that at some point when this was behind us they would talk publicly about it. And they have refused to," McClellan said. "And that's why I think more than any other reason we are here today and the suspicion still remains."

The White House dismissed Friday's hearing as unenlightening and McClellan, the president's former top spokesman, as uninformed. Republicans on the committee accused him of writing about sensitive matters to make money, a reference to his recent book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception..."

I'm sure there's a name for this phenomenon more formal and precise than "rats deserting a sinking ship," but I can't think of one at the moment. Will Ari be next, one wonders?

I Blame The Assholes, part eleventy-bazillionth

this episode: the Rachel Moss business. yeesh. wtf is some peoples' trauma, anyway?

some more thoughts here, here, and here.

-waves rusty gardening shears at Chris Matthews menacingly-, o what a giveaway

So, just to get this out of the way up front: this sort of thing does -not-, of itself, make me more inclined to vote for Hillary, or for anyone else, for that matter. I remain just as enthusiastic about this whole process as I was before.

What it -does- make me think/feel is

1) y'know, if the point is the pervasiveness of good ol' fashioned sexism in the media and specifically that of Chris "Tweety" Matthews, no arguments from me here; and, yes, they ("they" being Media Matters, who sent the following in one of the six squillion mass emails I get from various sources) have a point there, kids

2) thank -fuck- I got rid of cable, my sadness over missing the debut of Torchwood S2 notwithstanding; it's worth it to have had my eyeballs be more or less blissfully free from Big Noxious Giant Talking Head-induced pencil stabs

3) sweet Jesus, I hate Chris Matthews.

Oh, yeah, the email:

Dear Friend,

By now, you may be familiar with this recent exchange between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews:

Sen. Clinton: "I don't know what to do with men who are obsessed with me. I honestly have never understood it."

[...]

Matthews: "It's not obsession."

If you have ever watched an episode of Hardball, you may find Matthews' above statement a bit suspect. After all, as Media Matters for America has previously documented, after The New York Times published an article on Hillary and Bill Clinton's marriage in May of 2006, Matthews asked at least 90 questions on the subject over the course of seven broadcasts on his two programs (Hardball and The Chris Matthews Show). One of his guests during these broadcasts, Washington Post reporter Lois Romano, called Matthews out after he repeatedly inquired about how many days the Clintons slept under the same roof. "[W]hat is your obsession with logistics here?" she asked.

To get an idea of the type of language Matthews regularly uses when covering Clinton, take a look at this sampling:

"I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for."
"She Devil"
"Nurse Ratched"
"Madame Defarge"
"Witchy"
"Anti-male"
"[U]ppity"
"She's going to tell us what to do."
"Her scolding manner in terms of her public speaking"
"[L]et's talk about the troops ...Will they take the orders?"
"[D]oesn't she know she looks like a fraud?"
"Look at those eyes. Look at the cold eyes that she's giving him. Look at that cold look."
"[L]ike a strip-teaser saying she's flattered by the all the attention"
On Sen. Clinton's endorsers: "castratos in the eunuch chorus"
"Let me tell you how short Hillary's leash is."
"Is she a convincing mom?"
On Sen. Clinton's laugh: "What do you make of the cackle?"
"[S]he's clapping, like she's Chinese. I know the Chinese clap at each other, but what is she clapping at? I mean, it's like one of these wind-up things."
"[S]he was giving a campaign barn-burner speech, which is harder to give for a woman; it can grate on some men when they listen to it -- fingernails on a blackboard, perhaps."
"Is there, out there in the country or out in the Atlantic Ocean, some gigantic monster -- big, green, horny-headed, all kinds of horns coming out, big, aggressive monster of anti-Hillaryism that hasn't shown itself: it's based upon gender ..."
"[B]eing surrounded by women, does that make a case for commander in chief -- or does it make a case against it?"
"Is she hemmed in by the fact that she's a woman and can't admit a mistake, or else the Republicans will say, 'Oh, that's a woman's prerogative to change her mind,' or 'another fickle woman'? Is her gender a problem in her ability to change her mind?"
"[T]he reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around."
"She may have gotten The Des Moines Register's endorsement the other day, thanks to her husband's lobbying with its female editors and publisher ..."

She may take the brunt of his vitriol and sexist commentary, but Clinton is far from the only woman targeted by Matthews. Here are some other notable examples:

On House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

Described her as "scary"
Suggested she would "castrate" House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Wondered how she could disagree with President Bush "without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?"

On Michelle Obama during the first Democratic presidential debate:

"I thought Michelle, whatever you say about Obama, his wife looked perfect -- perfect for the occasion ... I'm sorry, those things are important. You guys are ignoring it. Some people are, by the way, just watching tonight. They stopped listening a half-hour in, and they noticed how pretty she is -- Michelle -- and they said, 'I like the fact he's got this pretty wife. He's happily married. I like that.' " After Matthews' take on Michelle Obama's appearance, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell was compelled to remind Matthews that Mrs. Obama is a Harvard-educated lawyer.

On potential future female presidential candidates:

"[T]here's not even another on the horizon. Where are the governors? Where are the big-state women governors? Where are they? Name one. They don't exist." (Note: Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius all run states with populations comparable to male governors who have recently run for president, including Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Bill Richardson.)

On women who live in the suburbs who "may not work outside the home":

"They're talking around election time -- the husband and the wife -- you know, she says, 'I sort of like this Hillary, the first woman president. She's pro-choice.' And the husband says, 'You know, dear, you know, this is going to kill our tax bracket. You know that tuition thing we pay every couple of years for the kids, every year, we can't do that if we get a higher tax bracket. We have to pay more money.' "

...

yadda yadda etc. etc., world without end, ad frakkin' nauseum.

So, let's see, what else is news. Oo--primary season! whee. also, I really need to go to the dentist, it's been a while.

Yeah; it's kind of like that right now.

Roughly this is where I'm at, wrt electionblagh:

First of all, per who I'm supporting in the primaries: I'd vote for the exhumed bones of Wellstone + a Ouija board channeling if someone undertook the project. Gore I think we can rule out at this point. Beyond that...well, I keep saying Reply Hazy, Ask Again Later, but Later's pretty much now-ish, and you know, somehow, I still can't be arsed. I'll vote for whoever gets the nom, and I might even put some back into it, depending on...depending. No more money, though. Sorry. Been there, done that, got bills to pay and other shit, thanks.

Never would've thought I'd be this singularly unthrilled at the prospect of finally seeing the back of Dubya, I must say.

Which is not to say that I don't -care-, at all.

But I'm looking at the way this is playing out, -has- been playing out, and thinking: okay, so, assuming the least worst happens. Then what?

This is my analysis, for what it's worth (you might be able to get an espresso at Starfucks if you also rummage around inside the sofa for a while):

There's a...theme that I've been keeping an eye on for quite a while: that it's not smart to put too much faith in the whole, the populist -left- is gonna be the alternative to the Bush administration, even putting aside the whole "oh, yeah, actually the Democratic Establishment isn't really what you'd call populist, is
it. or Left, for that matter." The backlash to the whole Iraq adventure--well, we're seeing it play out already, with the nativism and the anti-immigrant ugliness, which of course all of the Repub hopefuls have been all over like flies on shit; still, it's understood that some of them -really mean it- more than others. Much more so the whole theocratic riff.

There are roughly two ways the whole "rawwwwh America, we're the best, Live Free Or Die" etc. thing plays out, I think, within the R/right. One is what we've been seeing, the neocons, neo-imperialism, combined with a superficially secular/modern/"moderate" appeal to status quo; the real radicalism plays out a little below the surface, Over There, same as it has been for most of these administrations, more or less. They tend or tended to include a lot of spooked former wealthy liberals/libertines of the Christopher Hitchens/Dennis Miller/Gerard Van der Leun sort.

The other is more radically right there in your face: it was partly embodied by the Ashcroft side of the Bush admin (there's a reason why he left, I would say). They might go to war, but it has a somewhat different flavor at least in the initial appeal. First of all they're turned inward and At Home, for better or for worse, depending on who you are. Secular comfortable queers like o say Andrew Sullivan or y'know a -lot- of us are probably going to -personally- be in a lot more trouble with this bunch. They tend to be much more nativist and hardcore reactionary; they also tend to appeal more toward the underclasses, the rural, the blue-collar workers, and, of course, the hard-core Religious Right. Essentially, I would say, we're talking about Tories versus Roundheads.

Now, the Bush administration--hell, the entire last twenty-five/thirty years or so, at least, has seen a sort of unholy/uneasy alliance between these factions: we're going to war in Iraq to protect Western-style secular democracy; we're going to war because it is our Holy Duty as Crusaders for the Lord. They co-existed particularly nicely when the added glue was "by the way, if we don't attack them over here there'll be more attacks over here, AHH AHH WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE." And fuck knows what happens if/when the next major attack on U.S. soil happens.

Meanwhile, what we're beginning to see now, I would say, among other things, is the beginnings of a major rift between the Tories and the Roundheads. Some Dems and liberals and so on are rather gleeful about the whole thing--there's a term, "Huckenfreude," even. The trouble is of course is that, well, the fundamental problem hasn't changed. Genuine populism on the left is, if not actually moribund, still deeply fragmented; and shifting back to Whigs is only going to be a temporary stopgap at best. There are far deeper rifts going on here than simply Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Democrats, and that's echoing across the world, not just here; call it the class struggle reasserting itself if you like, call it Jihad versus McWorld if you like; they both still work.

The real problem is, if we want neither of those options, we've got our work cut out
for us and then some; and the hour groweth late.

Do what, now?

Gee, I guess he isn't dead. (Again? Still? Perhaps?) Color me shocked. Now if we could only remember who this fellow was exactly...

HOTT!! CREEPY BLOVIATING ANGRY STRAIGHT WHITE DUDE TALKSHOW HOST ON CREEPY BLOVIATING STRAIGHT WHITE DUDE TALKSHOW HOST!! FREE VID!! DON'T MISS!!1!

B'll'O'Rly and Howard Stern, take it to the CORN, w00t.



oh, wait, actually: ick.

cliff notes:

BOR: so, here's that prevert degenerate Howard Stern, who for some reason has a problem with (Me, George Bush, Me, nuclear proliferation, Me, people with higher ratings than he has, Me Me Me, baby-raping shit-eaters, and oh yeah, ME), but, strangely, has NO problem with...lezzzzbiannnssss. Isn't that so, Howard?

HS: Why, yes, that's true, Bill! I LOVE lesbians! (By which I totally mean I enjoy analyzing the writings of Audre Lorde and Monique Wittig over a nice hot cup of Earl Gray). YAY! for the SEX-AY, WRITHING, FULLY-TONGUE-EXTENDED, LONG-NAILED LESBIANS! (pant, pant) hotcha hotcha, AOOGA, Hubba Hubba, hot and cold running LEZZ-BEEE-ANNNNSSSSSS!! p.s. you're so tacky.

BOR: I am NOT TACKY. those mugs with my mug on it, *mumble* percentage of the proceeds go to CHARITY. Ever hear of CHARITY, Mr. Selfish? Huh? Huh? No, I didn't think so. You and your LESBIANS. Whyntcha go build HOUSES for poor lesbians, if you like LESBIANS so much, huh?

HS: oooo. now THAT is HOT. too bad YOU are NOT, Mr. Ego.

BOR: Me? Ego? Me? Ego? Me? Ego? You, YOU. ME? EGO???

HS: Wanna step outside?

...sadly, it ended before they, you know, took It outside.

maybe not corn. maybe they could wrestle in a tub of, like, Rogaine.

in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of an eerie grey plain, at midnight, with no electricity. and for the luvvaGod don't TELL anyone.

p.s. BillO, please do not attempt to utter Yiddish again. just...don't.