Rumsfeld Departs: Stunning DoD Shake-up
Ore : 4:15 PM
When asked at a recent press conference, in Rumsfeld's presence, the reason for this change, President Bush informed the press that the Secretary wished to spend more time with his family. "Being Secretary of Defense is hard work," he said. "It takes it's toll. It's time he got on with his life." Turning to Rumsfeld and patting him on the back, he added "You've done a heckuva job, Rummy." He scoffed at opponents' accusations that the move was made in an attempt to shore up falling poll numbers.
Congressional Democrats are skeptical. "Frankly, I don't see how this changes matters," remarked Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who will be on the congressional panel responsible for confirming Lo Pan, often referred to as the "Bodhisattva of the underworld." "Unless he can prove otherwise during our hearings, I'm inclined to think this is yet another case of 'meet the new boss, same as the old'." She declined to answer when asked how she intends to vote.
When pressed to comment on his surprise nomination, the cursed 2000-year-old magician floated through the podium to address reporters face to face. "I have been wandering, trapped between this world and the next for millennia, for the sake of finding my destiny, my Miao Yin -- not to be some ridiculous bureaucratic factotum!" he exclaimed, scraping his trademark long, yellowed talons against his brocade robe. "This pisses me off to no end!" He then abruptly concluded the press conference by disappearing in a pillar of fire and sulphurous smoke.
Shorter Douglas MacKinnon
Ore : 10:22 AM
The liberal media is trying to undermine Bush by lying about Iraq and failing to acknowledge that he's only doing what Clinton said we should. Never mind examples, of course -- what do you think this is, some kind of high school English course?
Sekshural HEEE-LEEENG (Yee-Haw)
Ore : 9:02 PM
David T. Harris: Veteran. Citizen. Leader. Hot damn.
(And so what if he married? Shoot, girl...)
On Leaving Your Dead And Wounded Behind
Ore : 8:28 AM
In light of their historically rightward tilt (they used to employ John "Albino Rat" Gibson for crying out loud), I'm not especially shocked or outraged. Just amused, and wondering how long they can keep this sort of stuff up when conservative politicians begin dropping in record numbers thanks to their own corruption.
It's True!
Ore : 8:28 PM
You are Woodstock!
Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Je suis chasse pour les bĂȘtes noires
Ore : 10:46 AM
In other words, it's a rainy day and I'm bored.
Right}{Left
Tom Tomorrow}{Cox & Forkum
regulation}{unfettered industry
no more 2nd Amendment}{no more Constitution
equal rights for everyone}{special rights for rich, white, heterosexual males
sex}{violence
government run like a government}{government run like a corporation
health care for people}{health care for profit
CostCo}{Wal-Mart
Desmond Tutu}{William J. Bennett
Boondocks}{The Leftersons
Arianna Huffington}{Glenn Reynolds
San Francisco}{Sugar Land
liberal Marines}{Bush-licking mercs
Riverbend}{Iraqthemodel (for now, anyway)
Nancy Pelosi}{Tom DeLay
privacy}{PATRIOT Act, pro-life politicos, McCarthyesque lists
pommes frites}{Freedom Fries
Al Franken}{Bill O'Rielly
Star Spangled Banner}{God Bless America
Ha'aretz op-ed pages}{Likudnik columnists
It Takes A Village}{It Takes A Family
Murrow}{McCarthy
people over property}{property over people
Castro}{Batista
Wesley Clark}{Ollie North
The Nation}{The National Review
David Neiwert}{Michelle Malkin
habeas corpus}{indefinite and unconvicted incarceration
afflicting the comfortable}{afflicting the afflicted
Vermont}{Kansas
Willie Nelson}{Toby Keith
The New Deal}{The Reagan Revolution
wars to stop genocide and/or right-wing dictators}{wars to line pockets
SEC}{Enron
up-to-date textbooks}{Of Pandas And People
forced re-education by the left}{extermination by the right
one-world government}{eternal war
Conservative Coal In Her Stocking
Ore : 8:42 AM
(Hat tip to T.)
I Live In Wingnut Heaven
Ore : 10:40 PM
"You know where I can find a wireless connection?"
"No. It's a small town, and we have the fastest connection here."
"Yeah, normally what I do is, I drive around and tap into someone else's wireless connection. Don't know if that's legal or not." Heh. Heh.
I laugh, a guarded and jovially reproving accessory, "I wouldn't know anything about that..."
After a few moments of tapping, "Hey, do you guys have...You know...Um, filtering software on here?" He sounds mildly embarassed.
"Yeah. Are you getting the St. Bernard screen?"
"Yeah. I just wanted to check my personals. Nothing, you know..."
I'm quick to soothe his squirming. "It's okay. We had an issue a while back with a junior high schooler accessing porn. The parents were furious, so we implemented the software. I'd be happy to take it off if you'd like."
"It's not like I'm looking at pornography or anything..."
Mister, you can click on every free thumbnail offered by Barnyard Squirtin' for all I care. "It's okay. We're adults here."
I invade his bleary-eyed fog of beer and cannabis, mere inches from a rotund torso packed into his extravagant hunting camo like sausage into a casing. I log off, log on as an administrator, remove the filters, log back on, and let him pound away. I return to my desk.
He knows that I know he's not a local, and he seems to itch for some non-pheasant-hunting-buddy contact. I take the implied bait. "So where're you in town from?"
"Aw, you'd hate me if I told you..."
I know what's coming even though I don't want to. "Why would you say that?"
After an interminable silence, he replies, with more than a little defensiveness, "Hell, I may as well say I'm from Richmond." His tone softens. "Actually, I'm from Oakland."
The horror! Imagine it: every day, 9 to 5, surrounded on all sides by muds...Having to put up with your high-yeller neighbor's "African" art, to be polite to the snooty chink bitch at the bank. The master bedroom with the curtains drawn in the dead of night is the only place you can beat your wife, the locked garage the only place you can hang your framed black and white of Joe Fucking McCarthy.
And they come here in droves. I've met his type countless times, their trucks headed towards Mendocino County, with W magnets, not decals; I've seen them parked around the lake in high summer, little Confederate flags whipping at the top of their aerials.
That's because the grass is greener here. This is a refuge for the oppressed Debra Saunders and Michael Savages of the San Francisco Bay Area (one imagines their pick-ups barely escaping the liberal mobs itching to throw them to the lions in Oakland Coliseum), a place to let their guts, wretching from the SO's latest experiments with tofu, hang out. Now you're in the kuntry, son -- go ahead, pop that .45 right off into the night air. Pee on the side of the road. Hell, [leans in, whispers] I bet you could even say 'nigger' way out here! That's how the real, simple, salt-o'-the-earth, barefoot folks up in these here hills do it.
I step out of myself for a moment, to see me as he sees me: a young country goober. But one bookish enough to work in a library. Something he wishes he could be, not a corrupted product of some horrific Gotham possessed of (gasp!) more than one post office and an actual sewer system. I'm a projection screen for his vicarious filmreel of a brainy rustic, hands all outdoor callouses and papercuts, as often turning dog-eared pages of The Fountainhead as stringing barbed wire.
I mention that I grew up in Richmond. Just to watch him sink, a victim of his own expectations. To watch him watch his platonic (yet mildly homoerotic) ideal of a red-county, redneck, rough-and-tumble conservative (what else? I don't look like the Zin & brie type) intellectual melt and run down the gutter.
But I soon regain stature in his blood-shot eyes. Surely I'm here because my family, sometime in the 1980s, participated in some noble White Flight, heroic refugees fleeing the East Bay's sodomizing, spearchucking hordes...
He's been on an inchoate roll the whole time he scans his skeevy singles hook-up site. "...And those far-left liberals in Oakland...they just squish them under their thumbs, just to keep a constituency...[blah, blah] gun control...[blah, blah] gay marriage...[blah, blah] stupid unions..."
It does not occur to me to ask him why, when the military's broken, the economy's in the shitter -- when the entire country is essentially falling down around our ears -- why he is worried about cornholery? No. It occurs to me only to shelve Big Bird's "And What Did You Bring Today?"
"How dare they? I mean, how dare they!!!"
He says it the way I have when looking at photos from Abu Ghraib, or listening to Ann Coulter agitate for genocide, or reading of George W. Bush's plans to bomb al Jazeera's Qatar headquarters, or watching the Right's latest stealth attack on the poor.
I pause, to make sure he wasn't asking me a question. He wasn't; this guy has all the answers. He just wants a smart, pretty white wall onto which he might regurgitate all the fabulous thoughts he's gleaned from Hannity and the NRO.
And I'm content with not being asked what I think. Professionally speaking, I don't have an opinion. But as a librarian, I can tell you where to find them.
A Heckuva Job, Brownie
Ore : 8:35 PM
Craptacular!
(Pass the TP to AG at RoD; I hear she's out.)
What I Am Grateful For
Ore : 11:26 AM
* My family and friends.
* All my goofy interweb homies.
* Panda-brand black licorice.
* Dan Simmons.
* The Star-Spangled Banner (oodles better than God Bless America, IMHO).
* Massive, uncircumsized penises.
* Henry Weinhardt's Black Cherry Creme Soda.
* Julianne Moore.
* Cold venison.
* Chris Walla.
* Hello Panda.
* That Pinochet's meeting sweet, sweet justice.
* Most of all, I am grateful that this, too, shall pass.
Some Dichotomies Are Not False
Ore : 10:53 PM
This makes perfect sense to me. Given the way things have been going for the past few decades, the only real options have become working for peace, or engaging in genocide. Glad he's decided to throw his lot in with the former.
Pee-Ess: Wouldn't it be nifty if the Likud's apparent political fate were the bellwether for Dobsonite/Friedmanite radical conservatives here, and for other, ultimately untenable extreme right-wing movements abroad? Dare we dream???
If You Can't Beat 'Em...
Ore : 11:45 PM
Click on the severely damaged terminator to go to the action page:
Doo eet! DOO EET NAU!!!
Monday Nov. 21, Secretary of State's Office, 1500 11th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 (Downtown Sacramento - 11th and "O" Streets)
9:00 a.m. There will be a rally on the sidewalk in front of the southside of the Capitol
9:30 Press Conference in front of the Secretary of State's office--the address listed above
9:50 Enter auditorium of Secty of State's office to fill out a card to speak for up to two minutes.
10:00 Hearing before the official, stenographer and recorder will commence. (No more VSP, natch. Can't have any oversight with teeth, you know...)
This Is Not The Law
Ore : 5:02 PM
And the way I describe is not the Way. And the law I espouse is not the Law; it is merely a text description of the finger a monk points at the moon.
I've lied, cheated, stolen. I drink and smoke and swear. I've ingested a veritable pharmacopeia in the course of my piddling, rather unproductive life. I've been in plenty of fights and had plenty of unsafe sex. Of the approximately six-and-a-half billion people currently occupying our globe, I'm the 5,981,701,667th most qualified person to attempt writing this.
I am 28, and as such, deeply unwise in virtually everything. I grope about in the dark, and can only hope that in my groping I touch something, anything, and that that which I touch will not immediately kill me. At this age, the only way I can begin to talk about the Law is in the most dangerous way possible: by first naming what and where I am sure it is not.
It cannot be in the dusty, sticky, quotidian end result of human approximations of the Law -- not in interrogations "gone wrong," not in jackboots that claim to stomp in the name of freedom; it's not with machete-wielding weasels in the refugee henhouse, or with sick and hostile checkpoint guards. I severely doubt it's in William Bennett's folded poker hand. And I dare not mistake it for the purported letter of the Law, as it is batted about like a shuttlecock over tipsy-making cocktails at the Bohemian Grove and among the grim, self-righteous faces that fill the Heritage Foundation's warroom, or hinted at in the condescending promise of "I'll pray for you" to some perceived lost soul, or expressed in the camera-ready faces of socialites serving dinner at an AIDS hospice.
Then I must ask, what is it? And barring an answer to that, where may I begin to find it?
It could be in your choice of fate for the feral, distemper-afflicted kitten you hold in your gloved hands, steadying him for the needle even as he begs you for life with his not-quite human eyes. It's possible it is lending a more-than-just-ostensibly anonymous ear in the confessional. It might even be the 5-dollar bill that's flown away from the overburdened arms of a perfect stranger on Market Street -- a stranger who for all you know could be as rich as Croesus or half a pathetic paycheck from homelessness, and with whom it would cost you nothing to catch up, in order to return the cash. Then again, these are probably just the predictable gropings of a brainless 28-year old.
Perhaps the gloating Calvinists and their kissing cousins in other protestant sects are right, and all of humanity is fallen, and only through blind faith may we be saved. But I refuse to believe that that is all we are. We also create (usually unknowingly) such beautiful, terrible, blinding, soul-searing moments wherein it becomes possible to see, however briefly, how humanity at its nadir comports itself. This is what we may be, what we were born to be, if we allow it.
My inadequate life has at least given me the experience that these moments are most likely to happen in our meetings with Death. Sitting in his parlor, drinking his water, a nanosecond of clarity can occur, an epiphany we have never before known, and, after it's gone, may only dimly remember, if at all. That is most likely when we may truly shine.
I know I risk repetition (twice in the same month! Dang!), but the story of Ahmed Ismail Khatib and his parents has stuck with me for longer than I expected, and I am compelled to get this off my chest. When I first read it, I had no words. Not that this is an improvement.
And it is not to say that I believe this to be in fact the Law's essence, its ineffable and adamantine spirit. But it is one of those moments where we actually can come near it. I'm sure of it.
These are longhand directions to God's house, the product of a dim, shoddy memory, written shakily, while on the road, with only a ballpoint pen and a spot of toilet paper. But they're a start.
Ya Gotta Be Smarter Than The Door, George
Ore : 11:03 AM
What Was That Famous Republican Quote...
Ore : 4:17 PM
Happy Thanksgiving, folks...
UPDATE: From the comments, David Neiwert schools me on the real origins of the quote, which was later appropriated by voodoo economics witch doctors. My bad.
The Dignified World of Sports
Ore : 8:56 AM
And that was one of the safer pics...
Just like to share twin hypotheses: either the fields on which these guys are playing all happen to be bitterly cold, or guys really do get into sports in part to overcompensate...
Potluck Tomorrow
Ore : 10:06 PM
Kootchie-kootchie-GAAAH! (Not pictured: sassy gee-tarr.)
(Should I continue my series in tragic tranny blogging? Do you people even knows what pops up in a Google image search when you just use the word tranny??? Christ, I was expecting Heckles, Peaches, Porsche...or Reginald or Pippi, maybe...or hell, even Timmy Frickin' Spence -- anything but this!)
Several Bushels, More Like...
Ore : 7:25 AM
I miss having the CBC. Fortunately, some of their best stuff goes online for people to download.
John Yoo, you, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, and oh so many others have a special ring reserved for your sick asses in hell.
Yeah, you guessed it. Lynndie England and the fucking Devil himself will be there waiting for you with collars and leashes and dogs. And the collars and leashes aren't for the dogs, stupid bitches.
An alarming examination of just where we're going wrong as a country, one which our corporate media can't seem to get of their lazy, compromised, collective asses to make...
And just in case you forgot, Fifth Estate are the ones who did that nightmarish exposé of the drippingly evil Cheney (not recommended for crotchlings or people with weak constitutions.)
(Hat tip to chuckvw at DKos, in part for reminding me that Haj Ali's out there, too; he's the source of the non-Abu Ghraib photos.)
I Said God*dayum*
Ore : 2:35 PM
Oh, if only Alex, if *frickin'* only...
To Everything There Is A Season...
Ore : 11:53 PM
And this, too, shall pass.
Or so I frickin' well hope, anyway.
(Pee-Ess: just wanted to be explicit: There's a reason the Dutchman is on my blogroll...)
The "Missing The Point" Award Goes To...
Ore : 9:29 AM
OK, I lied: I'm back briefly just to say...
"The whole world knows that this didn't begin on the Venezuelan side," Venezuelan Ambassador Vladimir Villegas said...
Um, yeah, but whose side will Bush's Uhmurka take?
It Is A Mystery!
Ore : 8:11 AM
What kind of librarian am I?
'K, toodles for now...
Hey, Guess What Guys
Ore : 2:38 PM
I've decided I'm going conservative. Why? Because it turns out, all that stuff about murders of detainees and white phosphorous and even Iraqi civilian casualties was completely fabricated. How do I know all this? Because Jim Massey, the entire mind, heart and soul of the anti-war movement -- indeed, of the Left itself! -- has been soundly debunked, that's why!
From now on, I'm all for privitization of every single thing in the world and unlimited powers for any Republican or conservative-aligned official, and, by the way, Cheney should be able to do whatever the hell he wants, 'cos it's not like the U.S. government would torture anyone anyway. I mean, when Michelle's right, she's right!
Nuh-Uhhh! Are Not!
Ore : 10:20 AM
(Thanks, Corey -- you are one powerful piece of man!)
Shocking True Confessions II!!!
Ore : 9:41 PM
* Much comedy gold may be mined by adding captions to the horrible pictures of horrible looking realtors in realty catalogs. But I still feel bad after the inevitable "That's not even a transsexual -- that's just a man in lipstick and a bad wig!"
* I used to get goosebumps upon hearing Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA." I was 7, I think.
* I would do Mitch Pileggi.
* When I was a little kid watching Tranzor-Z, I used to fantasize about being robot Aphrodite, shooting pink missiles from my titties.
* During the 5th grade, I plagiarized part of a story that had appeared in Omni Magazine.
* I once spent the night with a guy who was obsessed (and I mean obsessed) with Cyndi Lauper. And who had a slightly off-putting gut-punching fetish.
* When a recent conversation with a relative stranger veered down a particularly nasty alley of Guyville, I allowed said stranger to continue thinking I was straight in order to avoid compounding awkwardness...
* I owe approximately $350 in back taxes.
* I'm currently smoking a King Edward the Seventh Ice Menthol cigar.
* I cry every time I watch The Color Purple.
On Retiring Outdated Protocols
Ore : 10:54 PM
But here I am. And her attitude is at once exasperated and triumphant, daring her audience to assert itself.
You wouldn't know it from her faded, painfully stuffed Wal-Mart jeans and decades-old cashmere sweater, but she's one of the wealthiest among the town's residents. And she doesn't like the answers she's getting so far.
"D had a file," she repeats, daring a toe into the waters of terse condescension. "I know she did."
"She may have, but it's not here now." I don't mention that such a file is probably one of the reasons D is no longer working with us. Or that D didn't leave me much besides a gargantuan mess.
"Well I donated those materials and I ought to be able to see who's checking them out."
"No," I say slowly, "you oughtn't to."
"Well, you know, I donated those books, so maybe I should just get them back."
"Gosh, I would be delighted to try and help you out with that, but as your good friend D did not leave any sort of donor files, nor did she appropriately label acquisitions -- needless to say making essentially no acknowledgement of your generosity -- I have no way of knowing just what among the library's collection you did indeed donate."
"Look, I should either get my books back or you should get on your little computer there and tell me who currently has them checked out. I know you can do it, so do it."
I smile a smile I know she'll hate. "Oh, that's so not going to happen." I lower my voice to remind her she's been tipping her hand to me since before she walked in the door -- at least since I was in high school: "This is a public library, not some little kid's clubhouse where you get to decide who goes and who stays."
"Just who do you think you are?"
"The guy in whose name the paychecks come -- the guy with his name on the door."
"Well, we'll just see how long that lasts."
"By all means," I say sweetly, and hand her a slip, a homemade bookmark, "here's the number for S, my direct supervisor. And next time you're down at the county offices, I suggest you stop by [Judge] P's office, maybe just to mention how you're trying to get the son of one of his best friends fired because you were refused access to other patrons' records. I wish you the best of luck with that."
She bustles out the door with the appearance of purpose, into the acrid red sunset of a day spent burning rice stalks.
Rats From A Sinking Ship?
Ore : 9:24 AM
Maybe we're wrong; maybe there isn't some behind-the-scenes effort to get McCain and "McCain types" (i.e., slightly more left of Dobson and DeLay than the Stupidchabra of Crawford) more attention. But maybe I'm right.
At any rate, Pepper asks: "McCain: More Overexposed Than Nicole Richie's Bellybutton?"
To which I answered:
I know exactly why he's being so overexposed [even tho' I'm speculating wildly -- hee hee! In your face, blogger ethics panel!], aside from the usual new book promotion: the reactionary, ĂŒber-corporatist, super-duper right-wing, "Adam-and-Eve-rode-dinosaurs-to-church," Bushista wing of the Republican party is diminishing -- its star is falling. And the rightists among the media elite and Washington punditocracy are tripping over themselves to find a new zeitgeist, a new man to get behind: In a word, McCain. So five years from now, when Bush and everyone connected with him is utterly disgraced, dipshits like Tucker Carlson can still dare to show their mugs on CNN and go, "well, I was tossing McCain's salad before McCain was even cool..."
Just thought I'd see what others thought...Okay, off to work.
Who Loves Ya, Baby?
Ore : 10:25 PM
Russell Wong, that's who!
Sigh.
Pee-Ess: be sure to check out the recent addition of "Russell's travels in China" to his gallery. If that's his own photography, I'm extra impressed!
Okay. G'night, minions.
/search=en&q= Jim+Thome%27s+cock +Lady+Elaine+Fairchild +Snowballing
Ore : 2:58 PM
* Why is November 11 Poppy Day? I'm in California, you anal fistulas, my poppies bloom IN THE SUMMER.
* Ah, so that's just what the fuck Feist meant...
* Pop has found my new love. I would have done the same for him, but da gubmint sez I ought not to:
* Anyway, Brian K. has our movie tickets:
Damn right, muthafuckah!
King Friday: The Cockblockery Files
Ore : 10:09 AM
Spoon: Your worst nightmare. You're at a slouchy, dimly lit, too-cool-to-dance flatparty somewhere way out in the foggy, quiet-as-a-crypt Richmond. You've been watching your kitchen-mixed Cape Cods, ensuring that your pimped-out Honda CRX will be the ideal safe ride in which to take home that bangin' alterna-chica -- you know, the one in the quilted jacket, francophilic spectacles, and pointy shoes. You're sidling up to her right now, drink in hand, ready with your best lamely cute act, when he arrives: Early-30s, prematurely gray, obnoxiously gaunt and well-dressed, superciliously cool. And suddenly it's as clear and cold as the dawn over Twin Peaks that you do not stand a chance. In your mind, you plead, you scream, You have nothing in common with him! He's an utter asshole! He's just going to bone you and dump you! But she wouldn't listen, and besides, you'd look like a dipshit if you spoke up. He may not even have a ride, but he's got more than enough cab fare, a veritable library of hilarious roadie anecdotes in his pointy, arrogant head, and all the hook-ups for every little vice you can imagine. Goodnight, Casanova -- you've been outclassed.
Ryan Adams: Oh please, has that act even worked since 1993? Shuffling, navel-gazing, cracking a wry grin at just the right moment -- acting the wallflower while totally trying to undermine the competition. And he's got a paunch and a guitar. God, how gauche.
Oh wait, it still does work...
My Morning Jacket: A big, stinky, hairy, horny stoner who looks like he could clobber you six ways from Sunday? Consider yourself cockblocked, foolio. Move along.
Scissor Sisters: You read those witty/fruity self-help articles in FHM or Maxim or Details, or wherever: "get on the cute gay friend's good side," they said; "try a little cross-orientation flirting," they said. And you believed them, you twat. You deserve what you get. Which is nothing.
Tegan & Sara: Lesbians! And they're SISTERS!!! But that's the point of being a muff-muncher, isn't it? They do it for each other. Not for you. G'night! *SLAM*
Willy Pete
Ore : 9:19 AM
Old News, I Know
Ore : 7:06 AM
That's right, toke hard asshole -- you're gonna need it.
The governator is toast. I know I had urged "Yes" votes on 79 and 80, but I'm perfectly content that my inestimably brilliant fellow Californians just told him to kiss off on the whole she-bang. Now if someone would just explain to me why they voted for him in the first place...
Now I've got to get to work. Light posting until tomorrow. And P.S. to Jess: two of your generous contributions will be catalogued and on the shelves by next week, you awesome stud you.
(A pop of the champagne cork to California's teachers, nurses, police officers, and sexy, sexy firefighters for making Tuesday a day worth remembering.)
I don't know about you, but I still see three boobs.
"What If..."
Ore : 10:18 PM
Since George has constantly been in the news asserting "We do not torture..." even as Dick begs Congress to "Please, please, let us torture....", the "T" word has been ever present in the ADD-afflicted scope of the media. And the right's best defense of the practice, to date, has been The Hypothetical: "What if..." What if, right now, a backpack nuke was hurtling along AmTrak's ever-so-reliable rails towards Philly, and, with only 24 hours on the clock, the bomber's second cousin's sister-in-law, currently in custody at Super Duper Freedom With A Side Of Enlightenment Camp, was the only one who could provide the phone number with which Blackwater mercenaries could call her relative and ask him to "please, please, hop the train, and, as soon as you can, please disarm that jury-rigged ordnance, m'kay"? And what if she just didn't give it up? Not even with the FBI's and the Mossad's bestest, brightest Rasputins on the case, threatening with every breath to spread their menstrual syrup all across her face. Wouldn't you then, finally, accede that torture is really the only option? And, I mean, like, what if it worked? Like just in that Mel Gibson movie, or that Kiefer Sutherland show? Wouldn't you then be willing to shove an electrode up her defiant twat?
What? You wouldn't?!?!? Why do you hate America!
It's an awfully compelling construct, isn't it?
It strikes the same emotional keys as "What if I chip this flint rock just so?" or "What if one could create a stable Einstein-Rosen Bridge?" or "What if Negroes were given the same educational and social opportunites as Whites?" Oh, the endless possibilities! The untameable horizons!
Well, if I may be so bold, allow me to submit a hypothetical [apology to my random British readers for not supplying an "an."], if I may: WHAT FUCKING IF: The American Left were no longer there? No longer there to keep your beast and fowl and fish safe to eat? No longer there to keep the lead out of your chillun's drinkin' water? No longer there to ensure that your boss could not fire you for not "volunteering" to work a 20-hour day? No longer there to teach your children how to read even though you've lost your job? No longer there to change your grandmother's diapers now that she's got a problem with toilet ettiquiette? No longer there to argue your case in court when you've been wrongly accused? No longer there, for fucking example, to grab your stupid ass by the waistline when you've stupidly walked almost over the edge in order to pull you back from the brink of fiery self-destruction?
Well?
If 13-year old girls in Cali-FUCKING-fornia are compelled by law to get their jaws broken just for asking Daddy if they can get an abortion because, well, you know, it just isn't a spectacularly good time to be a mommy; if the federal government chooses to obey the letter rather than the spirit of the PATRIOT Act when seizing your oh-so-hard-won assets because you just happened to have answered the wrong fucking e-mail; if this administration does not get thrown en masse into the clink for all their manifold crimes against each and every one of us, you can assume the Left is out of it. Kaput. Gone.
You guys win. No more public transit, no more pesky "Clean Air" standards, no more 9th Amendment.
Happy now?
Stupid bitches.
ATTN CALIFORNIA: THE POLLS, MAH BITCHES!!!
Ore : 8:24 AM
* No on 73
* No on 74
* No, no, no on 75, 76, and 77
* No on 78, YES ON 79
* YES ON 80
Now get your asses out and vote, dammit!
Meanwhile, I've got to get to work: poor old John Fowles has passed on, and I'm setting up a nifty little display. With my luck, every other branch is going to be sending in requests for my only copy of The Collector...
And I'm going to finish Sterling Seagrave's The Soong Dynasty. Nifty stuff!
I'm guessing this wouldn't have happened had the T-100 been made in America, and stamped "Union-Yes!"
Nov. 8, Pt. IV: Neuter 'Em
Ore : 3:05 PM
Energy companies are like dogs. And the bigger the dog, the bigger and nastier the potential mess. You really have to keep an eye on them.
But goddamn, Prop. 80 was a headache to get through. I was leery of going by only the information printed in my sample ballot, which made 80 sound really nifty. Naturally, I was suspicious -- it sounded too good to be true.
So first thing, I took a look at the opposition. Right away, one thing popped out -- the tip-off being in reading between the lines in the NoProp80 spiel...
Proposition 80 is an anti-consumer, anti-environmental, high-risk approach to California's energy policy.
Yes, I hear you, but what have you to support this assertion? Oh, nothing, really. A closer look at their supporters (listed in a hard to read and to reproduce .jpeg format, waaaay at the bottom of their site, natch) clearly indicated to me that these were the kind of people who regularly define as small businesses multi-billion dollar corporations.
Yeah, those kind of people.
One reason their pitch almost caught me was because it was so weak and phoned-in. And then I remembered why: after that socking-it-to-grandmas call was made public, the corporatist right's agenda for privatizing everything under the fucking sun was severely hobbled. Nowadays, they know they can't work the arguments that in other parts of the country real wingnuts (all the way up to the White House) are entirely brazen enough to forward: That big business can be trusted to regulate itself. The free market will save us all. The private sector serves the public better than the public can serve itself via the agency of government. They are cognizant of the fact that California's electorate knows better.
No, on Nov. 8 (tomorrow!!!), they are relying, as with their other propositions, not so much on savvy marketing and promotion as on low voter turn-out and muddying the waters.
The fact is, you should vote yes on 80. We need to stop the deregulation juggernaut that started with Reagan and is threatening to throw us back to a Sinclairian -- if not a Dickensian -- standard of living.
That is, of course, unless you enjoy living at the mercy of feral canines...
Morality: An Object Lesson
Ore : 9:22 AM
Category 7, Bitches: The Ultimate Prime-Time Shitstorm!
Ore : 10:22 PM
It goes without saying that this is an improvement over Brownie...
All it needs is Powers Boothe as a South American pimp-cum-clown college instructor.
(All this only because Gregor and PupH asked for it.)
Tell Skiffy, Sci-Fi Is Dead: A Throwdown
Ore : 11:01 AM
Surface - Earnest, hatchet-faced, crunchy-granola marine biologist whom no one believes? Check. Stars-&-bars-flogging, lost-cause goober whose brother was (possibly) eaten by the mysterious creatures in question, and who sidekicks with the aforementioned scientist? Check. Adorable teenage scamps who, in a subplot lifted whole from Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, adopt a baby creature, with all sorts of chuckle-worthy hijinks ensuing? Check. Remote control? Check.
The groovy special effects are not enough to save this dismal barrel of week-old chum.
Invasion - Water may feel different, but this fucking show doesn't. A wannabe The O.C. on the bayou with all the deeply unappealing principals laboring mostly ignorant under a viral threat that I'm pretty sure will either kill them or turn them into pod people. Here's cheering for the former.
Night Stalker - "If you want a job done right, you just have to foul it up yourself." Propers to whoever cast Gabrielle Union, an actress unique in her talent for looking always as though she's on the verge of kicking everyone's ass. Otherwise, this one vies for the title of Most Unnecessary and Ill-Informed Remake Ever. Darren McGavin, why hast thou forsaken us?
Threshold - Details, details. This is the infuriating one, because it clearly had potential when the idea was first pitched -- because I can see myriad tiny flaws which, had they been fixed, could have salvaged this (admittedly spooky) mess. Let's start with the casting: the totally competent Carla Gugino (best known for playing a sexy naked lesbian parole officer in Russ Meyer's* Sin City, bless her little heart) is fine in the role of Dr. Molly Caffrey, brain-trust behind the Threshold protocols, but wouldn't it have been great had the part instead gone to Carrie Ann Moss? And nothing would have been lost (yet oh so much gained) by replacing the generic, squintyeyedtightvoicedlanternjawedwhiteguy muscle with, say, the crookedly grinning hotness of Russell Wong. The powers that be could furthermore have completely dumped the nebbishy nerd character, who feels like a watery, warmed-over version of David Krumholtz's from Numb3rs; give us a breezy, smart-ass Latina wunderkind scientist, or a saucy gay-boy prodigy with a wicked right hook -- I'm easily entertained, but for the love of God, people, make an effort. Otherwise, I'm content; it's nice to see Brent Spiner working again. And I totally heart Peter Dinklage, but would it have killed the director to put him with a good coach and speech pathologist so he'd at least sound convincing when he speaks snippets of Cantonese to the extras? Anyway, Threshold, unlike the other shows listed, is home to characters you actually don't want to see die, primarily because they've started out with a mission of saving our world despite its obvious crapulence; Dr. Caffrey's admission in one episode, clunky writing notwithstanding, that a world in which redemption is impossible is not worth saving is one I found surprisingly touching. Such psychological rawness is rare among most modern TV characters, who are too interested in honing their assholism for the sake of seeming cool (see above).
In summation, a finer and more imaginative hand with the dialogue, a little more money thrown at production values (especially in regards to special effects and camera work), more effort in casting -- hell, even a slightly more sophisticated title sequence -- could have made Threshold the X-files of the 21st Century (or, in point of fact, better even than that). Certainly, it could have rivaled anything on HBO or Showtime. Too bad it got off to such a groaning start.
Then again, I'm probably just wasting my time. TV sucks.
*Frank Miller's
November 8, Pt. III: Muddying The Waters
Ore : 10:29 PM
But for the rest of us -- the great majority of Californians who enjoy a life free of and unburdened by the exigencies of insurance and regular health care -- the distinctions could not be more stark. I could not put it any more succinctly than the League of Women Voters has, other than to reiterate that 78 is essentially (like so many other corporate-fist-wrapped-in-a-theocratic-glove, compassionate conservative offerings) a smokescreen, paid for by big pharma to draw as many votes away from 79 as possible. If there you've ever had difficulty procuring the medicine you need, if you've ever had to make painful choices among heating, food, and prescriptions, if there's even the remotest chance that the thread by which you're hanging could break, you need to pay attention to the details and VOTE NO ON 78, YES ON 79.
My father's friend, who's barely getting by, who is on Medicare, and who is easily confused when big players muddy issues, has already sent in his absentee ballot. Tragically, he was taken in and voted yes on the wrong one, no on the right one. Please don't make the same mistake.
Hey, Res, Pop, and (occasionally) Gregor:
Ore : 5:14 PM
Stamp That Passport, Bitch
Ore : 3:17 PM
Of course, if you're a gay.com chatwhore (or worse yet, a cruisingforsex.com troglodyte), there may be a bit of a hold-up in customs...
Sirius Crap Shoot
Ore : 11:34 AM
Exquisite Corpse, Hedwig Schmidt und zie Angry Inch (movie track): The scariest and coolest song the Kinks never wrote. "Tornado body/with a handgrenade head," indeed. 8.5/10
Ain't No Easy Way, BRMC: Okay, I really hate myself for liking their new stuff. Why? Because I know exactly who these guys are: a few stale-trendwhore mooks who, when they weren't working at their obnoxious New Media jobs South of Market and chasing bleach-blonde, Marina-Hoochie-Mama tail at the Elbo Room or Dalva or the 500 Club, were tooling around their hideously expensive studio space somewhere near Kansas St., trying to craft the perfect generic guitar crap for their fellow mooks at the Covered Wagon, until they realized they could actually make money by grabbing the rootsiest, funkiest, garage-iest, fastest-moving coattails they could find. That said, this is a listenable little throw-down. 7/10 (I really, really hate myself for that score.)
Do You Like Me, Fugazi: No.
Okay, just kidding ;P. 8/10
Nancy, Troubled Hubble: There are no words to describe how barely beneath adequate this is. Screamingly mediocre. Shockingly blah. Just...I'm just so disappointed. 4/10
Atomic, Blondie: A glamorous, breathy, tuneful classic. Long live Debbie Harry!!! 9/10
The Calendar Hung Itself, Bright Eyes: I love creepy/scary lovesongs. And I adore Mr. Oberst. 'Nuff said. 8/10
Wordless Chorus, My Morning Jacket: DOOBAGE, MANG! 8.5/10
Man. U, The Giraffes: I would totally hop in a sling, grease myself up, and bottom out for the whole band. But not because of this entry. 7/10.
Leave The Biker, FoW: Welcome to Weezer-ville, dorks. This is just embarrassing. And not tripping-on-the-sidewalk embarrassing. We're talking owning-Halle-Berry's-Catwoman-on-DVD embarrassing. Or worse, if there is such a thing. 3/10
The Splendiferous Jess
Ore : 10:32 PM
Splenda In The Grass, otherwise your one-stop-shopping center for lovely, sweaty-feelings-causing rugby pics, is also the home of a wonderful (and I suspect, sexy) new friend of the library.
This is how a real man does it!!!
[P.S. I know there were a couple of other benefactors, but since I can't possibly know who you are, the best I can offer is this anonymous shout-out, and acknowledge that you guys are in the same league as our big-splenda mentioned above.]
I'm Goin' Down...
Ore : 11:12 AM
Newsflash, Gregor
Ore : 10:15 PM
"Indeed, Samsa is the Marla Anders to teh l4m3's Wilma Deering."
Bow down, you vegemite-scarfing scum!!!
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