random quotes ... to amuse, inspire, enrage:
"Bite the dog that gave you a haircut."
in the middle of a blogging break (for good reasons! welcome ada marie) i bring you this article from salon.com which is scary as fuck and makes me fear for little ada’s future:
Apocalypse Now by Mike Davis.
Davis does not buy any of the Gore-style cheerleading that we might avert a climatically disastrous future through [...]
an upsetting day. so, reading the news.
Farewell to the crown, farewell, the velvet gown, won’t you all come tumbling down? Goodbye to the crown! (Chumbawamba, “Farewell to the Crown”)
Nepal votes out their monarchy and institutes a republic. Gyanendra has to vacate the palace within two weeks or face eviction. Also, he had to [...]
The NYT had the germ of an interesting idea today: What I’d Be Talking About if I Were Still Running, op-eds from presidential candidates who have dropped out. It was only a germ because it turned out that the op-eds were only very short, virtually substance-less talking point-level comments. Now if the NYT followed this [...]
My partner and I agree on one thing about the Democratic race: That sexism has played a major role in the treatment of Hillary Clinton. A friend of ours recently pointed out that if the genders were reversed — if Barack Obama were a woman, with little experience but inspiring rhetoric — Obama-as-woman would never [...]
In the tradition of santorum, comes now brownbacking — a verb that describes pandering to Biblical literalists by casting doubt on evolution and science.
See Spanish Inquisition for the history of the term.
James Comey’s testimony Tuesday before Congress was riveting.
check out this awesome overpass/sidewalk art at yonkis.com — you have to scroll all the way to the right, and it’s not a flip photo so do it slowly enough to notice the homo sapiens-like creatures … at the shortest point of the wall, at about the 75% mark (L-to-R).
The pointer came from pharyngula, where [...]
I really can’t stand it when politicians engage in cheap & sleazy grandstanding, knowing that what they’re doing is actually irrelevant. I’m speaking of Mitt Romney’s “lawsuit” to get the Mass. courts to step in to force the Mass. legislature to vote on an anti-same-sex-marriage amendment. [nyt 11/25]
Cheap & sleazy political grandstanding may [...]
Ah, a fine Sunday morning reading the paper, and trashing media bias and sloppy reporting at the NYT …
This annoying NYT article (11/12) on police witness “sanctuary” policies is a perfect example of how articles can be technically “balanced” but still really suck present an imbalanced picture.
The police witness sanctuary policies basically tell [...]
The NJ Supreme Court is releasing its SSM decision today @ 3pm. [available at NJSC website]
Will they help us out but energize the Republicans and lead to queers being blamed if the Dems don’t take the House or Senate? or will they fuck us over leaving everyone, but us, happy?
(And if I’m [...]
Joe Conason at Salon explains why the leaders of the religious right don’t care that Republican Christian nationalists are hypocrites, and predicts that they’ll be ba-a-ack:
The leaders of the religious right don’t care whether White House hacks love them or laugh at them, because they see themselves as the users, not the used. Winning power [...]
It was the only thing to do, after such postings as:
There’s No “War” in “Warrant”1 (12/17):
So George Bush secretly authorized the NSA to spy on Americans without warrants or judicial oversight. Oh, it violates your civil liberties, oh, it illegally breaks the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, oh, that tape of you and your boyfriend having [...]
DS: You also suggest that our current system of locally financed schools be abolished, claiming that it perpetuates inequality by allowing suburbs like Scarsdale or Manhasset to spend twice as much on each student as less affluent cities do.
JK: Schooling should not be left to the whim or wealth of village elders. I believe that [...]
yet more depressing news:
iraq: where people keep dying. A friend recently met with her family who lives in Baghdad, who reported a) her elderly aunties regularly have laser sightings trained on them by US soldiers; b) her cousin’s cousin was recently shot & killed by US soldiers; c) they still don’t have power & [...]
some links, some quotes, some comments, all in one … I pulled various of these articles up several hours ago from various blogs, which I would like to link back to, but windows got closed, systems got rebooted, and to make a long story short I no longer know which link came from where. [...]
Hillary Clinton has jumped all over the Grand Theft Auto downloadable sex mod scandal, apparently in an attempt to shore up her right-wing base and reconnect with the Tipper Gore Fan Club. USA Today 7/14; wikinews 7/17; salon.com 7/22; gtaSanAndreas links to a video of the mod in action]. Ted Frank on Overlawyered [...]
I never cease to be astonished by how smarmy politicans can be: today, leaders in the Smarm Community, the anti-choice people (’pro-lifers’). The latest RU-486 story in the NYT, sensationalistically titled “2 More Women Die After Abortion Pills”, covers two recent RU-486 deaths (two, for a total of five; four of which were [...]
I’ve been driven into nihilistic insanity today by more filibuster news, and now I’ll break from leftist/liberal/Democrat orthodoxy. Take the “nuclear option” to a vote, already.
Apparently McCain says that Dems will allow confirmation votes on the 7 filibustered candidates blocked, so long as they can keep the filibuster. [AP by way of Salon.com [...]
wiretaps increased last year: Wiretaps in U.S. Jump 19 Percent in 2004 [sfgate 4/28] i’m pondering whether the wiretappers’ efficiency also increased? can they scan information more quickly now? did governments take cops off the streets to put them in surveillance vans? or did the governments hire a bunch of [...]
Old white men meeting to discuss US intelligence “failures” on Iraq weapons — notice the uniformity of dark suits? Ah, but look at the rainbow of ties! Peeking out beneath the boring suits are a springtime explosion of color, patterns — perhaps even delirious textures. These men crave to express their individuality [...]
