The Tattered Mosaic

Doot do doo

2009-05-20T14:32:00.001-07:00

I Love This New Computer

2009-03-27T23:04:00.001-07:00

I apologise for blogging nonsense after my prolonged silences. I just got a new computer.

I Downloaded a New Thing

2009-03-06T19:51:00.001-08:00

Hooray Blogger widget! Remote blog posting! I love convenience.

Sarah Palin; Conservative of the Year

2008-12-22T21:09:00.001-08:00

Say what you will of ridiculous awards and dubious honors, Sarah Palin deserves her award for, as Ann Coulter puts it, "her genius at annoying all the right people." But it's not really Sarah Palin I want to talk about... it's Ann Coulter talking about Sarah Palin. I had some thoughts reading her article, the first of which is that it's clear she thinks too much about herself and suffers from a very tragic case of the victim mentality. But there's more. There's always more.

Click through to keep reading...

The entire presidential election year was kind of a downer for conservatives. Once the “maverick” John McCain won the nomination, the rest of the year was like watching a slow motion car crash. Except at least a slow-motion car crash is occasionally entertaining. So it was going to be a long year.

Until Palin.

True enough! I suppose if you weren't paying attention or if you don't give a shit about starving children and protecting the ability of people just like yourself to access higher education and a living wage so that they can make something of themselves without a trust fund, you must have been very depressed watching Obama's meteoric rise to the forefront of the national consciousness. It must have been sad sitting up in her office watching the celebration and sense of brotherhood breaking out like hives on the streets, all the while seething like the kid no one wants on their baseball team.

When McCain chose our beauteous Sarah as his running mate, the maverick was finally acting like a real maverick -- as opposed to the media’s definition of a “maverick” which is: “agreeing with the editorial positions of the New York Times.”

I wasn't aware that he did, although I don't know what her problem with the NYT editorial board is. I mean, they endorsed Hillary Clinton, someone Coulter herself preferred over John McCain for the white house.

Pre-Palin it had been one race -- boring old “You kids get off my lawn!” John McCain versus the exciting, new politician Barack Obama, who threw caution to the wind and bravely ran as the Pro-Hope candidate. And then our heroic Sarah bounded out of the Alaska tundra and it became a completely different race. This left the press completely discombobulated and upset. They didn't know whether to attack Sarah for not having an abortion or go after her husband for not being a sissy.

I don't know whether Coulter is crazy, deluded, or lying, but it doesn't really matter. The media had a heart attack over Sarah Palin because she was good fucking material. They were mean, many of them, but the issue of whether she should have aborted her son was like a preemptive strike by conservatives and talking heads, always attributed to "some people" and "feminists" who never existed. Frankly, all the feminist blogs I read (you can see them clearly over there in my blogroll) were aghast at the idea that anyone would pass judgment on Palin's choice. After all, being pro-choice means respecting whatever that choice happens to be. Feminists were just as angry at these "people" who were criticising her for having a baby with Down's syndrome. Also, Coulter is the only one who gives a shit about the relative machismo of dudes in the public eye, and only in her fevered imagination does she think the rest of us give a shit if a man has someone with a degree in cosmetology cut his hair.

I assume Palin was chosen because McCain had heard that she was a real conservative and he had always wanted to meet one -- no, actually because he needed a conservative on the ticket, but that he had no idea that picking her would send the left into a tailspin of wanton despair.

I know plenty of conservatives who would be ashamed if they had to consider Sarah Palin a "real conservative."

And it wasn't despair we felt, it was glee. We knew she would drag him down, and she did.

True, Palin made some embarrassing gaffes.

She complained that we didn’t have enough “Arabic translators” in Afghanistan -- not realizing the natives don’t speak Arabic in Afghanistan, but rather a variety of regional dialects, the most common of which is Pashtun.

Speaking to military veterans one time, Palin said, “Our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today.”

She bragged about passing a law regulating the nuclear industry that it turned out never became a law at all.

Some days Palin said Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez should suffer "regional isolation" -- but then on others she’d say she supported the president’s meeting with Chavez.

She told one audience about recent tornados in Kansas that had killed 10,000 people. In fact, a dozen people were killed in the tornados.

She referred to the “57 states” that make up the U.S.

Speaking of her eldest daughter’s pregnancy, she said Bristol was being “punished” with a baby.

As you probably know -- or guessed by now -- none of these gaffes were uttered by Palin. They are all Obama gaffes. Luckily, he made them to a star-struck press that managed not to ask him a difficult question for two years.

I'm surprised Coulter knows what they speak in Afghanistan, since I'm sure she thinks they should all be speaking English anyway. While many of these gaffes are embarrassing, like the second, fifth, and sixth, they mostly represent honest mistakes. McCain and Palin have made similar gaffes I'm sure they'd rather forget and aren't worth dwelling on. They don't represent policy. It's the last one that really bothers me because Obama never said a child was punishment for anything; he said that he wouldn't want his daughters "punished with a baby" if they had premarital sex, which is another way of saying that a baby should not be punishment, which it would be if you were forced to have one against your will. Put another way, he's saying babies should always be wanted. This is blatant misrepresentation. Again, crazy, deluded, or lying? Does it matter?

I don’t remember, for example, zealous inquiries into the supposedly peculiar religious practices of any candidates in past elections. No one in the press touched on Sen. Joe Lieberman’s religious beliefs when he was Kerry’s running mate. (Nor, while we’re on the subject, was the media particularly interested in the beliefs of the religion that inspired the 9/11 attacks on America.)

Oh, don't be coy. You think Islam is evil. Refer back to my assertion that she probably doesn't actually care what language Afghanis speak. This is as reasonable as saying that all Jews are imperfect and women shouldn't be trusted to vote.

But the press snapped right back into their anti-religious hysteria for a candidate who was a Pentecostal! The same media that couldn’t be bothered to investigate Obama’s ties to former Weathermen or Syrian Nationalist Tony Rezko was soon hot on the trail of a rumor that Palin’s church had a speaker 30 years ago who spoke in tongues!

Let me think now: Were there ever any unusual or otherwise noteworthy speeches or sermons given in churches where Obama worshipped? Hmmm … it's on the tip of my tongue.

The media investigated and talked about Obama's association with Bill Ayers; the reason it didn't prevent his election was because there was nothing there. Palin's minister speaking in tongues was hardly anything anyone held against her (and if they did, that's a personal problem). We here on the left, and a few in the media, were all scared of the prospect of having someone in the white house who sought the counsel of a man who believed in witches. Obama's minister, on the other hand, demanded better of the American people. The way conservatives complain about things, it really makes you wonder why they react to criticism of the country like it's treason. They don't think we can be a better country? Better people?

"The media" reports things and, yeah, what they choose to say can do a lot to frame an issue, but there is no big liberal conspiracy to brainwash people into embracing love, peace, hope, and baby killing. It's fair to criticise reporting that is actively misleading, untrue or devoid of context, but it's people, ultimately, that are left to make up their minds. Coulter apparently thinks that only she and a select few others are in command of their senses and a google search engine.

Liberals also suddenly decided that a woman with children could not handle the stress of higher office. Until Palin reared her beautiful head, this is precisely the sort of thinking liberals would have denounced as the Neanderthal, backwards, good old boy network attitude that had created a “glass ceiling.”

Let’s consider the facts: Palin’s oldest son was about to be under the tender care of Gen. David Petraeus after being shipped off to Iraq. Her next oldest child was about to be married and probably would prefer that her parents butt out. That left three children under the age of 15, which was almost the same as Obama had.

So Palin had one more child -- and a lot more executive experience -- than the guy at the top of the Democrats’ ticket. (I suspect what liberals were really mad about was that if Palin became Vice President, she probably would have hired a nanny who was a U.S. citizen.)

"Liberals" didn't decide that. This is just more misdirection. Coulter is erecting straw-liberals just to blow them down. It's absolutely fair to denounce the suggestion that Palin's children would in any way interfere with her duties, but who actually thought that? Was it really the Rachel Maddows and Alan Colmeses? A few bloggers? That Coulter provides no specifics is telling. She takes for granted that we'll simply accept these implications as fact. She knows her audience won't question what she considers common knowledge.

Like most Democrats, both Obama and Biden boasted of their humble beginnings, while having fully adopted the attitudes, pomposity and style of the elites.

Meanwhile, Palin is the sort of genuine American that brings out the worst, most egregious pomposity of liberals. For weeks, Carl Bernstein was showing up on TV to announce: “We still don’t have the date of first issuance of her passport.” Members of the establishment would be astonished to learn that more Americans have guns than passports.

I'll be brief: the difference between the humble beginnings of Obama and Palin was that Obama was able to get into Harvard without having any relatives who went there or a trust fund to pay his way. He got into the most prestigious university in this country, one of the most difficult law programs, one of the most prestigious positions (the law review), all on hard work and merit. Palin went to several unremarkable schools, got a degree in journalism, and never even tried to go to grad school. The relative popularity of guns and passports is beside the point. Palin suggested she had more experience than Barack Obama because she had a modicum of experience governing a small, homogenous population, lying through her teeth when she implied all Barack had to his credit was his time as a community organiser. She never had to work as hard as he did. Never. We weren't electing Joe-sixpack-in-chief, we were electing the fucking leader of the free world.

Palin blows a kiss to fans during a rally in Kissimmee, Fla., on October 26. (Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT) Liberals were angry at Palin because they thought she should look and act like Kay Bailey Hutchinson: Upper crust, prissy and stiff.

Palin had a husband in the Steelworkers Union, a sister and brother-in-law who owned a gas station, and five attractive children -- one headed for Iraq, one a Down’s syndrome baby and one the cutest little girl anyone had ever seen.

In a nutshell, Palin was everything Democrats are always pretending to be, but never are.

If the sheer demographic makeup of this nation is any proof, Coulter is full of shit. The liberals she's talking about exist primarily in her mind, like the vast liberal media conspiracy and Sarah Palin's experience.

Despite their phony championing of “women’s issues” (i.e. abortion) there was not one Democrat woman who could win a head-to-head contest with Palin. Especially not if we got to see their faces. Democrats may have a fleet of women politicians, but they don’t have a deep bench of attractive ones. You don’t even think of most Democratic woman as women: Rosa Delauro, Nita Lowey, Patty Murray, Janet Napolitano -- and the list goes on. Oh, sure, there are the odd female Democrat sex kittens -- your Janet Renos, your Donna Shalalas -- but they're the exception to the rule.

This is just a blatantly idiotic ad hominem. It's evidence of nothing and fails to make a point. Being pretty has shit all to do with governing. However, I'll remember these words when Coulter stops being a "sex kitten." I'm sure she'll do her part for her party by going quietly into that good night.

Mind you, I won't care that men are no longer drooling over her legs (and frankly, I wish we lived in a world where that didn't matter), but I won't be sad to see her go.

Indeed, the first words out of every Palin critic's mouth were: "Good speech, but she didn't write it." So I guess all liberals were reading the same talking points written for them by the Obama campaign. At least Palin pays her speechwriters. Neil Kinnock is still waiting for his check.

I wasn't aware of this controversy (and I sincerely apologise for not researching it more), but that's probably because it would be fair to say criticising a politician for using a speech writer is ludicrous. Yeah, they all do. Obama's speech writer, for instance, has been in the public eye lately. I really just wanted to take this opportunity to point out that Coulter think we all get our talking points from some central source, which is funny, because I was pretty sure she and hers all stuck to the same talking points laid out by their party leaders. I guess not. I guess every word that leaves her fingertips is wholly original. 100% Ann Coulter. She'd never lower herself to subscribing to a political ideology. She's much better than that.

Trendy dinner party opinion soon demanded that all liberals take up the cry that Palin must let the press have a whack at her. Almost immediately after she was introduced to the nation, the cry went up: “When are we going to be allowed to ask Palin questions?”

Palin’s refusal to meet with the press for one week after being chosen as McCain’s running mate was evidently more maddening than Obama's refusal to appear on Fox News for almost the entirety of his campaign.

We wanted Palin to talk to the media because we had no idea who she was and she wanted to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. I'm going to dispense with the snark and just tell you that, honestly, that's really the least anyone could have asked of Palin.

And Obama did appear on Fox News twice during the campaign, including an interview granted to Bill O'Reilly, much to the dismay of democrats for reasons that could easily fill a blog just as long.

Everyone acted as if Obama’s feat of running for President for two years constituted a complete and thorough vetting.

He wrote two books about himself, we've known of him since his speech at the DNC in 2004, and he granted interviews left and right. We were saturated with Obama for two years before we met Palin a scant two and a half months before we were supposed to decide whether we trusted her to lead the country and she was being sequestered. Spare me pity party.

It might have been, except that the entire media had apparently agreed: “OK, none of us will ask Obama about Tony Rezko, William Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright.”

No, they looked into the first two and found nothing compelling, and the third actually did dominate the airwaves for quite a long time. Have you forgotten?

Who cares if Palin was qualified to be President? She was running with John McCain! There was no chance that ticket was going to place her anywhere near the presidency. In fact, I can’t think of a better place to put someone you wanted to keep away from the White House than on a ticket with McCain.

Fortunately true.

Perhaps Palin’s year is 2012, but I would recommend that she take a little more time to become older and wiser. She ought to spend the next decade being a good governor, tending to her children so none of them turn out like Ron Reagan Jr., and reading everything Phyllis Schlafly, Thomas Sowell, Ronald Reagan and “Publius” have ever written. (She also might keep in mind that HUMAN EVENTS was Ronald Reagan’s favorite newspaper!)

And for God's sake, keep her miles away from the New Testament! That's full of liberal propaganda.

In time, HUMAN EVENTS’ 2008 Conservative of the Year will be ready to be our President and someday can sweep into office and dismantle all the heinous government programs Obama and the Democrats are about to foist on the nation. Who knows? She might even be able to run as the candidate of "hope" and "change."

Yes. While I hope she would take away your right to even vote for her first, a right you don't think you should have, I also hope that we'll be around to stop her, because tired as I am of your self righteous, disingenous, whining, my feminism is for you. It's for Palin. It's for all women. So are my progressive values, whether you want them or not. I use my voice to protect yours.

Is this all you can do with it?

Discriminating Against the Unqualified

2008-11-21T12:54:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness for Hillary Clinton. For the record, I think it's perfectly appropriate to discriminate against people applying for jobs they won't perform.

Just bask for a moment in the hypocrisy of conservatives. They don't want people legally protected from racial or sexual discrimination, but they're all fine and fucking dandy for forcing organisations to hire people who will turn away patients or lie to them and put their lives at risk. It's like requiring burger joins to hire a fry cook who will tell people at the counter that their restaurant doesn't make fries and that, furthermore, you should be ashamed of yourself for wanting any.

I suppose it's not really hypocrisy. We are dealing with people who believe reality is perfectly relative.

.

Science is Awesome

2008-11-17T18:39:00.000-08:00

One of the things I've never understood is why anyone needs myths to make life interesting. Gnomes and fairies are cool, but I don't need to believe that they're waiting to be found just beyond the next patch of grass to think the world we live in is amazing and wonderful. Why do the pyramids need to be inspired by extra terrestrials? Why is it not amazing that people built them?

Believing in the world as it is and evaluating everything with an open, skeptical mind (not mutually exclusive) often yields more wonder than believing in spirits or complicated myths.

Gobekli Tepe

I first heard about this site in Art History. Gobekli Tepe was originally overlooked, mistaken for a graveyard. What it is is far more fascinating and it subverts everything we know about early modern humans. In every archeology and anthropology class I've had, I've learned that the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculturally based communities was indicated by the development of permanent architecture, particularly areas of designated worship. This makes sense, of course, because once you settle down and start producing more food than you or your family needs, some of you can start specialising in things like art and architecture and your community will need a gathering place to make decisions, talk, and worship. Hunter gatherers naturally need to keep their lifestyle portable, because they move around within their territory. Gobekli Tepe, however, was a temple built by hunter gatherers. When you think about it, if hunter gatherers only move around in a given territory, why not get together and build a temple that you can return to seasonally? There's nothing unrealistic about it, but it is a huge discovery.

Homo Floresiensis

Another thing that I've always learned was that our last living human cousins were Homo sapiens neanderthalensis who died out more than 30,000 years ago. The discovery of H. Floresiensis, the little people of Flores, is nothing new, but their designation as a unique species of hominid means that fully modern man was not yet alone in the world until a mere 13,000 years ago, only until about two thousand years after the first humans crossed the bering land bridge and discovered the New World. Floresiensis most likely evolved from Homo erectus on the islands of Indonesia, but also shares many traits with fully modern humans.

These are both fascinating finds that simultaneously change and flesh out our understanding of our history on this earth. That we still know so little is no cause for fear. The world is endlessly wonderful, and endlessly surprising.

.

Prop 8 Protest

2008-11-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to my photos from the downtown Portland protest.

This one is probably my favourite.

I took a bunch of photos of cute dogs, but you know animals. They always turn out blurry on film.

UPDATE

My camera ran out of batteries before I saw these guys so all I have are crappy cell phone pictures, but here are some nice ones from other Portland Flickr users.

More good ones.

Some background on gnome discrimination.

.

Hugging the Panda

2008-11-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

Maybe I shouldn't make so much out of it, but I'm instituting this feature into my writing: any time a conservative delivers obvious misinformation, they will be heretofore described as "hugging the panda."

Duly noted.

.

I've Always Been a Geek

2008-11-14T00:28:00.000-08:00

Although I usually characterise my early obsessions as cartoons and, later, anime specifically, I started out arguing scientific trivia with the nearest self proclaimed nerd. I used to argue about sharks and snakes at Daycare with a skinny blonde kid with glasses who seemed baffled by my insistence. I guess girls weren't supposed to know anything about sharks and snakes or care. I never really went into the sciences, but it has more to do with poor grades in chemistry and math than anything. No matter how hard I worked at those, I never got the hang of them.

But I still love science (and I'm an SF snob) and as a geek, I identify with pretty much all other geeks. Whatever our obsessions, cats, anime, a specific science, or comics or games, we're all united by having an inordinate knowledge and passion for esoteric subjects that make more normal people uncomfortable.

It's what makes us awesome.

.

There's One in Every Party

2008-11-13T14:40:00.000-08:00

Oh, Joe Lieberman, you silly scumbag! When I was a kid, my parents didn't want to hear my apologies when I got in trouble. They knew it didn't mean anything. If I could regret it so quickly, I wouldn't have done it in the first place. I was only sorry I got caught. If he apologizes, I think we can be reasonably sure that he's only sorry he backed the wrong horse. Although I've no reason doubt he sincerely believed in John McCain, that would only make an apology at this point sound all the less sincere.

I don't think we should ask him to apologize. I think he should lose his position. It's sweet that Bayh and the democrats are so willing to forgive him, but all I've got to say to good ol' Joe is fuck you, our fair-weather friend!

.

Election Hiatus

2008-10-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

I'm really fucking burned out on politics. I really am. I'm tired of the insinuations coming directly out of McCain's dirty mouth and other popularly elected assholes. I didn't think it could get this bad in this country... well, okay, I did, but I didn't know it would be in my lifetime. I breathe the same air as these psychopaths.

I'll be back in November.

No Pity for Palin

2008-10-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

I'm very inclined to agree with this Salon article cataloguing and discussing the expressions of pity for Palin's pathetic flailing under the spotlight. Traister forcefully illustrates both why we should not have pity for Palin's poor performance, nor for her as a public figure.

Sarah Palin is no wilting flower. She is a politician who took the national stage and sneered at the work of community activists. She boldly tries to pass off incuriosity and lassitude as regular-people qualities, thereby doing a disservice to all those Americans who also work two jobs and do not come from families that hand out passports and backpacking trips, yet still manage to pick up a paper and read about their government and seek out experience and knowledge.

When you stage a train wreck of this magnitude -- trying to pass one underqualified chick off as another highly qualified chick with the lame hope that no one will notice -- well, then, I don't feel bad for you.

When you treat women as your toys, as gullible and insensate pawns in your Big Fat Presidential Bid -- or in Palin's case, in your Big Fat Chance to Be the First Woman Vice President Thanks to All the Cracks Hillary Put in the Ceiling -- I don't feel bad for you.

When you don't take your own career and reputation seriously enough to pause before striding onto a national stage and lying about your record of opposing a Bridge to Nowhere or using your special-needs child to garner the support of Americans in need of healthcare reform you don't support, I don't feel bad for you.

When you don't have enough regard for your country or its politics to cram effectively for the test -- a test that helps determine whether or not you get to run that country and participate in its politics -- I don't feel bad for you.

When your project is reliant on gaining the support of women whose reproductive rights you would limit, whose access to birth control and sex education you would curtail, whose healthcare options you would decrease, whose civil liberties you would take away and whose children and husbands and brothers (and sisters and daughters and friends) you would send to war in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and wherever else you saw fit without actually understanding international relations, I don't feel bad for you.

Palin is a big girl. Whether she took everything into consideration before she accepted McCain's offer, she was not so stupid that she could not have realised that her qualifications fell short. This was her choice, and she gets to own it. Even if we can't help but pity her personally, that should not deter us from treating her as we would anyone in her position. It demeans women in politics to say that we should handle her with kid gloves just because we might like her. She is campaigning to sit a breath away from the highest seat in the nation.

You shouldn't get to be president just because people like you. This isn't prom.

Racism and the Craven Media

2008-09-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

Racism is a dirty word. As anyone who has had that uncomfortable conversation with a friend or loved one who has just said something horribly insensitive knows, calling someone out on any kind of -ism tends to provoke a kneejerk defensive response. ''I'm NOT a RACIST!" So it can be very hard to talk about these issues without encountering exculpatory declarations that can shut down meaningful conversation.

But the most pernicious examples of racism are those which exist in the mainstream culture, and it is no more easy to identify, talk about, and correct than in a conversation between friends. That said, when our news media takes it upon itself to write a story because of accusations of racism, one expects a meaningful conversation, not the craven justifications and reassurances of a friend too scared to speak his mind.

This article by the New York Times Business section misses the mark by about a mile, let's the fashion world off the hook, and let's poor Indians down. As anyone who has had fun explaining why those wooden statues of a non-tribe-specific Indian chief at tobacco shops represent a racist legacy past and ongoing oppression to someone who thinks they're charming knows, using representations of nondescript poor non-whites who suffer because of past or current Western Imperialism is disgusting.

If you click the link, you'll see that Burrberry, Fendi, and Hermès Birkin, á la Vogue, thought it would be just charming to hang their products on impoverished East Indians.

Vogue India’s August issue presented a 16-page vision of supple handbags, bejeweled clutches and status-symbol umbrellas, modeled not by runway stars or the wealthiest fraction of Indian society who can actually afford these accessories, but by average Indian people.

Poor non-whites are not things. They are not dolls, they are not backdrops, they are not mannequins, they are not "models" (especially if you don't fucking pay or credit them), they humans. They are people struggling through life, and as the article points out, often failing.

There’s nothing “fun or funny” about putting a poor person in a mud hut in clothing designed by Alexander McQueen, she said in a telephone interview. “There are farmer suicides here, for God’s sake” she said, referring to thousands of Indian farmers who have killed themselves in the last decade because of debt.

Unfortunately, this is as close as the article gets to sanity. The rest is dedicated to hollow justifications.

Vogue India editor Priya Tanna’s message to critics of the August shoot: “Lighten up,” she said in a telephone interview. Vogue is about realizing the “power of fashion” she said, and the shoot was saying that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful,” she said.

“You have to remember with fashion, you can’t take it that seriously,” Ms. Tanna said. “We weren’t trying to make a political statement or save the world,” she said.

...

The juxtaposition between poverty and growing wealth presents an unsavory dilemma for luxury goods makers jumping into India: How does one sell something like a $1,000 handbag in a country where most people will never amass that sum of money in their lives, and many are starving? The answer is not clear cut, though Vogue’s approach may not be the way to go.

Marketers need to “create brand awareness” in India, said Claudia D’Arpizio, a partner with the consulting firm Bain & Company, who is based in Milan. She recommended the approach that some consumer brand companies took in China, opening big flagship stores and trying new forms of advertising like television.

Create brand awareness?! I'm only dimly aware that these companies even exist because they are so far out of my tax bracket, and they want us to believe that they're seriously advertising to poor Indian farmers? Pardon my incredulity. The article points out, yes, these people will probably never afford these things, but it fails to ask why. Why won't they? Instead, it's an article where a couple shrill activists blew their tops and overreacted and the Fashion industry was like, "chill out," and the author of the article documented it with a few colourful numbers from wikipedia and called it good.

This is simply a blatant, unapologetic example Western privilege, and Heather Timmons should be ashamed of herself for failing to have the kind of meaningful discussion that could have actually helped.

--

Several bloggers have done a better job than I cataloguing the white people on safari phenom. in "High Fashion." Check them out.

.

Mayors and the Whitehouse

2008-09-05T16:55:00.001-07:00

Alternative title: Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president.

And to head off the trolls at the pass, she is running for a position that places her a hare's breath (or a hair's breadth) from the presidency. That she is running for VP warrants no less scrutiny than if she were running for the presidency itself.

This isn't a comprehensive list of disqualifications, but rather a brief look at one of the precious few things her supporters in GOP cling to in their defense of her: her mayorship of Wasilla Alaska. Talking heads have snorted dismissively and chortled that being a mayor of this tiny nowhere town makes her more qualified that Barack Obama for the whitehouse. Her brief tenure as governer, non-existent grasp of the duties of the office to which she aspires, and proclivity for abusing those "responsibilities" that she has maintained set her apart from Obama, apparently set her far and above community organisers, senators, and constitutional law professors from ivy-league schools.

Republicans seem to think that being a mayor makes you qualified for president; just ask Rudy Guiliani! But what is the difference between governing a city like New York, and a a tiny nowhere town? To illustrate the difference between New York City and Wasilla, I've created a several graphs.

For starters, there's the sheer difference in the number of people who are affected by your policies.

Then there's the demographics.*

**

And, hey, there's also the architecture.

"...but Cola," you say, "We want someone in the VP slot that we can relate to! I want to feel that anyone can be president." Well, can you sing the whole Nations of the World song from the Animaniacs? Have you read the Constitution of the U.S.? I had to look up the mayor of my town. How many of you know yours off the top of your head? Anyone should be able to be president, yes, but only with requisite education, effort, and experience.

However, the point that I am trying to make is that you and I are not qualified for this job because we have things we are more qualified to do... to do. We have elections to pick public figures that not only represent our interests and values, but, hopefully, those best qualified to render the services of their office.

We aren't electing Miss Congeniality (no sexist pun on Palin intended), we're electing an official to the second highest office. That means that they have to be able not only to understand foreign relations, but have experience governing a huge, sprawling, heterogeneous population. I think we should choose carefully, and choose someone not so prone to letting her personal considerations trump the law. This office requires someone exceptional.

Just because we can pick anyone doesn't mean we should.

--
*Most recent census data.
**Hispanic (all races) populations for NYC: 27.6 and Wasilla, AK: 3.7

.

Playing Cards

2008-08-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

We were promised a bullshit promise. A clean fight, no underhanded tactics or gross disrespect. Both candidates said, "No negative ads." Then McCain launched a series of ads painting Obama as a rich liberal dilettante. Obama fired back. His supporters said, "Hey, that's kind of racist," and McCain foamed at the mouth. "Obama's playing the race card!"

But McCain knows all about playing cards. He beat his first opponent over the head with his. What's McCain's card? Is he white, old, and filthy fucking rich? (Yeah, poor McCain.) No, actually, he was a POW for five years.

I'll be the first person to say, wow, yeah, that is really fucked up. The man was tortured, he signed denunciations of his country, and he was so badly treated that he can't lift his arms over his head. The man deserves respect for his experiences and sacrifices. There is no conversation on this matter. It should be given. BUT!

Being a victim does not entitle you to the presidency. It does not mean that you can't be criticised for changing your opinions on political issues every time there's a shift in the winds. It does not mean that you can use that experience to get out of every argument. It does not mean that you are not responsible for the shit that comes out of your mouth.

At the canned Rick Warren ~~interrogation~~ "debate," McCain defined "rich" as making over $5 million. In addition to offering workers in Arizona, who feel that migrant workers are stealing their jobs, $50 an hour to pick lettuce for a season and patronisingly suggesting that good hardworking white folks wouldn't do it (people in the crowd were offended), this only serves to show how McCain, in spite of what he experienced in Vietnam, does not understand working class Americans. He has never had to support a family of four without a college degree. That's a kind of poor on which being a POW does not automatically make you an expert.

Obama, rightly, brought this up while campaigning in Wisconsin recently, joking that McCain must think those worth $4 million are middle class. McCain's response?

While he was a POW, he didn't even have a kitchen.

Except... that doesn't have anything to do with anything. Did the Vietcong torture him by sending him out for a week's worth of groceries for five with $50? It's only relevant as a device to engender pity. To guilt us into talking about his personal tragedy instead of his fitness for office.

And before you ask, in spite of the success Obama has enjoyed in his adult life, he grew up in a lower middle class family. Like my mom, his family encouraged him to do greater things with his life than work at the factory and stay in the suburbs. No, instead, he has the gall to work for greater work safety standards and higher wages so that the factory worker's family doesn't starve. How awful.

McCain's behaviour is frankly abhorrent, and if this is how he's trying to achieve the highest office in the country, he doesn't deserve it.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones

2008-08-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

I hate it when you don't know about someone until their death, only to learn that you wish you had.

You made the world a better place.

.

Congratulations!

2008-08-16T22:34:00.000-07:00

It's official, Michael Phelps is not human.

But seriously, cool for him. I can't imagine how he must feel.

Logical Impossibilities

2008-08-11T15:41:00.001-07:00

~~We all know~~ Too few people know that Sean Hannity is a hateful loon who jumps at shadows and makes the world a sadder, uglier place by flouting logic, reason, and reality. Sadly, a man who buys this bullshit about Obama supporting a woman's right to murder a fully formed child living outside of the womb still has a job that not only lends him an air of credibility, but pumps his disingenuous hate speech directly into the ears of thousands of Americans every day.

CORSI: Exactly, even extensively looking back at his record when he was in the state legislature in Illinois. His completely pro-abortion position, his --

HANNITY: Even if a child was born.

CORSI: Even if a child was born, he said the woman still had the right to kill the child in an abortion.

HANNITY: Unbelievable.

Not only is Hannity buying this line, it isn't even remotely true. Beside the fact that murdering a living human being is illegal, Obama doesn't even support late term abortions to the satisfaction of most feminists.

Obama: I have repeatedly said that I think it's entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don't think that "mental distress" qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.

The "mental distress" bit is what rubs us hardcore pro-choicers the wrong way. To us, it sounds like a lot of the criticism we hear from anti-choicers who think those little hussies getting abortions are just doing it willy nilly. I say this only to illustrate my point that Hannity and his idiot "expert" are as far from the mark as they could be and still be talking about a real democrat.

I don't know if my language is laboured or hyperbolic enough to convey my disgust.

.

Anonymous Would Be Proud

2008-08-11T14:06:00.000-07:00

It seems that the petty kind of cyberwarfare often used by the likes of Anonymous to harass and intimidate various people and organisations online is being used by the Russian government against Georgian domains.

Galrahn at Information Dissimenation says that "Russia appears to have targeted the .ge domain for specific government websites, and are pounding the Georgian military networks, but other websites in Georgia in org, net, and other domains are still up, sporadically."

This is the first time in history that Denial of Service attacks are being used as a weapon of real life war. More importantly, Russia is now expanding its campaign beyond South Ossetia, the region most at issue, to more central Georgian cities.

.

News

2008-08-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

While news of John Edwards' sordid, yet totally unremarkable mid-life, heterosexual affair is splashed across the front page of The Oregonian, 1,500 people have already perished in Georgia in what appears to be an all out war.

Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, declared that Georgia was in a state of war, ordering government offices to work around the clock, and said that Russia was planning a full-scale invasion of his country.

...

Attending the Olympic Games in Beijing, President Bush directly called on Russia on Saturday to stop bombing Georgian territory, expressing strong support for Georgia in a direct challenge to Russia’s leaders.

“Georgia is a sovereign nation, and its territorial integrity must be respected,” Mr. Bush said in a hastily arranged appearance at his hotel in Beijing. “We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for the end of the Russian bombings.”

What does it say about the American people that the private life of a former democratic VP and presidential candidate is more noteworthy than significant deathtolls in our allied countries? Georgia was our third largest supporter in the war in Iraq, with more supportive troops than any other after the British. Their troops have been sent home to fight the Russians.

Pentagon officials said late Friday that the Georgian government had officially requested assistance in airlifting home the approximately 2,000 Georgian troops now in Iraq. The request was under review, and standard procedures would indicate that the United States Government would honor the request, officials said.

Maybe it's not the American people who don't care; maybe the media is just so intent on preserving its narrative of limp-wristed, hypocritical democrats and strong, manly republicans that they don't actually care what we think is important. They'll tell us. Here's sand in your eye, America!

Hot

2008-08-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

Paris Hilton is, like, totally disgusted with both candidates, so she's running for office.

Pretending to take time off from reading a travel magazine as she leaned back on a lounge chair, Hilton insinuated herself into the hot issue between Obama and McCain -- how to solve the U.S. energy crisis.

"We can do limited offshore drilling with strict environmental oversight while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars," Hilton simpered, drawing on suggestions from both candidates.

Hilton, a tabloid favorite who gained fame from a notorious home-made sex tape, offered to paint the White House pink and threw down the gauntlet to McCain and Obama.

"I'll see you at the debates, bitches," she said.

Ooh, burn!

UPDATE:

Video.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

John McCain Dignity Watch: Part 1: An Indecent Proposal

2008-08-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

Most of us have long know John McCain to be pretty goddamned dignified. Despite being tortured by the gooks, and married to a trollop, McCain has always maintained his Honor^TM. This is the first installment of an occasional series celebrating John McCain and his stalwart dedication to Honor^TM in this election season.

First up, John McCain offers to trade a peek of his wife's flesh for a biker gang's vote.

Among the charming activities in which Cindy would be participating are the "pickle lickin contest."

Dignity, thy name is John McCain.

(Via TPM)

John McCain's Got Dignity Coming Out the Ass

2008-07-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

Like most men, I have long feared that Barack Obama would fuck my white girlfriend. No doubt it's only a matter of time before I catch Barack Obama and my white girlfriend in flagrante delicto; perhaps in the root cellar, or in the lee of the stable where the grass grows lush and thick.

It's good too see John McCain shares my concern about uppity negroes fucking white women.

The New World Order

2008-07-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

Not only has FISA placed our very own civilian president and his word above the reach of law or public reproach, it has given major corporations, already sociopathic by virtue of diffused responsibility, a greater sense of agency and entitlement than they have since the dawn of the industrial age when child labour was legal and completely unsupervised and corporate heads of state would send their own militias to sabotage the competition. Verizon, AT&T and the others have every reason, now, to think that they are not beholden to the same laws as private citizens.

We may not yet be losing our loved ones in rail or construction "accidents," but we are losing our collective grip on our democracy and sliding quickly toward fascism. As Greenwald notes:

It isn't only the President who shields himself from accountability and the rule of law with heavy-handed invocations of "National Security." In the U.S., private corporations now do the same (though the distinction between the telecom industry and the Executive branch increasingly exists only in theory). These corporations now brazenly cite National Security concerns as a ground for telling legislative bodies that they can't be investigated.

We don't have to be disillusioned and resigned, however. We don't have to let this keep happening. Pay attention to the voting records of your congresspersons and senators. If it's feasible, change your service providers. Write about it. Talk about it.

Tell someone. It's not the end of the world, yet.

.

I'm Proud of This Photo

2008-07-23T22:59:00.000-07:00

I think it turned out pretty good considering I didn't stop to change the settings on my camera and the sun was so bright. I most like the way the names are reflected upon themselves, curving inward as well as outward.