greylit

End the Tubesock Holocaust!

2007-03-29T21:20:30Z

If you've never been over to Jesus' General do yourself a favor. Here is a good example of his fine writing:

Sen. Dan Patrick
Texas State Senate

Dear Sen. Patrick,

Kudos to you for introducing SB 1567, the Texas Baby Purchasing Act of 2007. Undoubtedly, it will save the lives of many blastocyst-Americans.

But what about their tiny spermatazoan-American brothers? Your bill does nothing to protect them. Indeed, it completely ignores the tubesock holocaust. I hope you'll consider amending SB 1567 to address this terrible oversight.

It's a lot easier to protect spermatazoan-Americans than you might think. All you need is a few collection points around the state, a number of modified milking machines, a good supply of mason jars, ink that fluoresces under UV lighting, a few Perry Como albums, a stipend for the donors, and a lot of cellar space.

Here's how I see it working. You offer every man in the state a stipend, say $15 dollars a visit, to drop by their local legislator's office every couple of days to liberate their little spermatazoan-American citizens. To prevent cheating, we apply a UV fluorescent ink to their hands when they visit and then examine their little soldiers under a black light at their next visit. This will allow them to have normal relations with their wives while alerting us to any inappropriate touching on their part.

I know what you're thinking. It won't work on Democrats, because they like to put their little soldiers in ladies mouths -- often while they're trying to kiss that mythical sailor in the boat the femislamunistofscists are always so excited about -- but I think that's something we can work on for the next legislative session.

I'd like to go into this with you in more detail and show you my modified milking machine prototype. It's great. I call it Sheila. I haven't left the trailer since I built it.

Please have your legislative assistant give me call to set up an appointment.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Meme Guilt

2006-12-05T21:26:14Z

I hate memes, but I love music memes. What to do.

(stolen from eswiss)

So, here's how it works:

1. Open your music library.
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

The Soundtrack to My Life?

Opening credits: "Poor Wand'ring One" Gilbert and Sullivan, Pirates of Penzance

Waking up: "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" Warron Zevon

First day of school: "Xii" John Cage

Falling in love: "Car Song" Woody Guthrie

Fight song: "Holidays in the Sun" Sex Pistols

Breaking up: "I Want to Tell You" The Beatles

Prom: "Mr. Zebra" Tori Amos

Proposal: "Protect Yo Neck" Wu Tang Clan (heh)

Life: "Bliss" Tori Amos

Mental Breakdown: "David" Nellie McKay

Driving: "(Nice Dream)" - Radiohead

Flashback: "Trista Pena" Gipsy Kings

Getting back together: "Nacrolepsy" Third Eye Blind

Wedding: "I Don't Believe in the Sun" The Magnetic Fields

Birth of child: "She's Your Cocaine" Tori Amos

Final Battle: "Dumb" Nirvana

Death Scene: "Butterfly" Weezer (Oh, man! LAME)

Funeral Song: "The Bones of an Idol" New Pornographers

End Credits: "Motorcycle Drive-by" Third Eye Blind (Also LAME)

Douchebaggery!

2006-11-22T16:11:46Z

I don't understand why ousted political leaders can't all just get along

Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills.

There's also no guarantee that Republicans will pass a multibillion-dollar measure to prevent a cut in fees to doctors treating Medicare patients.

The bulging workload that a Republican-led Congress was supposed to complete this year but is instead punting to 2007 promises to consume time and energy that Democrats had hoped to devote to their own agenda upon taking control of Congress in January for the first time in a dozen years.

Then again, I heard Clinton staffers removed all the W's from the keyboards when they left the WH why back when.

Still, douchebaggery! Douchebaggery all around!

(hattip TPM)

Jesus Christ

2006-11-02T14:53:44Z

In one course, an advanced trauma treatment program he had taken before deploying, he said, the instructors gave each corpsman an anesthetized pig.

“The idea is to work with live tissue,” he said. “You get a pig and you keep it alive. And every time I did something to help him, they would wound him again. So you see what shock does, and what happens when more wounds are received by a wounded creature.”

“My pig?” he said. “They shot him twice in the face with a 9-millimeter pistol, and then six times with an AK-47 and then twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. And then he was set on fire.”

“I kept him alive for 15 hours,” he said. “That was my pig.”

“That was my pig,” he said.

I dare you to make less sense! (Part MCLXVII)

2006-10-31T16:27:15Z

Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Mr Cheney said that insurgents were using the internet to time their attacks, although he did not provide any evidence to that effect.

"There isn't anything that's on the internet that's not accessible to them. They're on it all the time. They're very sophisticated users of it," Mr Cheney said.

Personally suprised I've never said anything this vitriolic before

2006-10-26T16:00:36Z

From an article that should be called "George Bush is a big fucking idiot, if you didn't already know that"

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush signed a bill Thursday authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform for asserting they're tough on illegal immigration.

''Unfortunately the United States has not been in complete control of its borders for decades and therefore illegal immigration has been on the rise,'' Bush said at a signing ceremony.

''We have a responsibility to enforce our laws,'' he said. ''We have a responsibility to secure our borders. We take this responsibility serious.''

He called the fence bill ''an important step in our nation's efforts to secure our borders.''

Mono-dicked orthodoxy

2006-10-11T19:44:57Z

From William Gibson's Blog

TWO, COUNT THEM, PENE
posted 7:44 PM

This case of diphallus reminds me of that tiny but grimly inexplicable web-genre of DIY willy-whittling that Warren Ellis makes a point of keeping us all abreast of. How poignant, that the gentleman so gifted prefers instead to surgically opt for mono-dicked orthodoxy -- considering the apparent number, however small, of Xacto-wielding body-mod hobbyists out there, bent on home bifurcation.

I can't stop living a lie

2006-10-06T18:37:27Z

I really really want to watch the 2-hour season premiere of Battlestar Galactica tonight.

Gay Rights

2006-10-05T13:57:04Z

God I hate memes. But what do I hate more? Meme-guilt

-----

"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" - Ernest Gaines

We would like to know who really believes in gay rights on LiveJournal. There is no bribe of a miracle or anything like that. If you truly believe in gay rights, then repost this and title the post as "Gay Rights". If you don't believe in gay rights, then just ignore this. Thanks.

For 14 cents a day you too could adopt a clitorus

2006-09-28T13:55:53Z

At least his heart is in the right place.

Just in case you needed more evidence that Chairman President was an idiot...

2006-09-14T17:19:22Z

Bush's proposals would narrow the U.S. legal interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in a bid to allow tougher interrogations and shield U.S. personnel from being prosecuted for war crimes.

But Bush's former secretary of state, Colin Powell, endorsed efforts to block the president's plan.

Powell lent his support to three Republican senators Thursday saying that Congress must not pass Bush's proposal to redefine U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions, a treaty that sets international standards for the treatment of prisoners of war.

Powell sent a letter to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the Republican lawmakers seeking limits to legislation on interrogations, in the latest sign of GOP division over White House security.

''The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,'' said Powell, who served under Bush and is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ''To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.''

...

One, Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., earlier this year confronted Bush over his wiretapping program at a GOP retreat. Now she is the sponsor of a bill embraced by House GOP leaders -- but not the White House -- that would restrict the domestic surveillance program and step up congressional oversight.

A member of the National Security Council under Bush's father, Wilson is facing a tough election challenge in her home state. A day earlier, Republicans abruptly canceled a scheduled committee vote on her bill that was expected to send it to the floor where the administration would push for amendments.

military action

2006-09-13T13:53:03Z

To back up the Billmon quote I had yesterday, look at this article from today's New York Times

In the New York race, Mrs. Clinton’s landslide carried its own broader significance. By performing strongly among a liberal, antiwar primary electorate, she showed that her vote for military action in Iraq in 2002 did not damage her political standing as it did with Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, who lost his bid for re-nomination last month to an antiwar candidate, Ned Lamont.

Mrs. Clinton’s little-known opponent in New York, a union organizer named Jonathan Tasini, tried to tap into voter anger over Iraq, yet he had little money and did not effectively turn the race into a message-sending moment about the war.

“Clinton’s work ethic, her lack of enemies, and her fund-raising help for other Democrats have insulated her from party criticism, including on Iraq,” said Ken Sherrill, a political scientist at Hunter College. “I got a taped phone call from Susan Sarandon urging support for Tasini, but that’s all I really heard about him.”

Billmon Fanboy Posting #2

2006-09-12T16:58:31Z

The lesson learned from the Democratic reaction to Israel's war of choice is that the Dems are only likely to oppose war as long as the war in question can be framed as a fight against Iraqi insurgents and/or Shi'a death squads, rather than a fight for Israel. But the Iraq occupation isn't going to fit neatly into that frame much longer. In fact it's already slipped out of it. The Dems -- always a little slow on the uptake -- just haven't realized it yet. But when the time comes to choose (for Israel, or against war with Iran) I fully expect to see Ned Lamont in the front ranks of the pro-war phalanx, right next to the last great white Democratic anti-war hope, Howard Dean.

People tell me I shouldn't get hung up on this because, you know, if the Dems get in they'll make sure the seniors get their Social Security checks a little faster -- or they'll keep the Supreme Court out of the hands of legal madmen or do something about global climate change or save the whales or whatever else it is that's supposed to make the Democratic Party infinitely preferable to the Republicans.

It's not that I discount these differences entirely -- although they're easily oversold. But compared to the fate that awaits the republic, and the world, if the United States deliberately starts a war with Iran, those other considerations start to look pretty insignificant. I mean, we're talking about World War III here, fought by people who want to use tactical nuclear weapons. I'm supposed to put that out of my mind because the Dems might be a little bit more generous about funding the VA budget??? I'm sorry, but that's fucking nuts.

Billmon Fanboy posting #1

2006-09-12T16:56:05Z

I've never been one to bash (much) Bush's pre-9/11 obliviousness to the Al Qaeda threat -- he definitely wasn't the only one sleepwalking towards catastrophe that summer. Like most critics of Path to 9/11, I'm also not pretending the Clinton Administration was a model of anti-terrorist vigilance on its watch. But I think any fair reading of the record, including the 9/11 Commission report, will show what an obscene mockery ABC and the White House presented to the nation's couch potatoes tonight.
...
There's not much point in kvetching about it now, I suppose. This is the United States of Amnesia, and history is for losers. (A friend of mine likes to say that in the Middle East, what happened a thousand years ago is far more important than yesterday's news. Here, they're both irrelevant.) Still, the prime-time propaganda we've been subjected to over the past few days makes that "you've covered your ass now" crack a particularly acidic pill to have to swallow.

Who doesn't enjoy a good ethnic rally?

2006-09-12T16:52:43Z

Not George Allen, that's who!

my astonishment

2006-08-31T18:01:22Z

Angry, Lentz lobotomized the thing. "Just punishment," he declared. "This box didn't deserve to think." Hurting the circuit seemed no more sadistic than forcing it to learn in the first place.

He blurred the device's retention. He reduced the scope and breadth of connections. Then he tested it a last time in its weakened state, empiricism now taunting all three of us. To my astonishment, the learning algorithm rose up from its reduced straits and began to get the picture.

Skim milk masquerades as cream

2006-08-29T19:12:14Z

Hattip to Jackie for giving me some more inpho about the NY Times article I posted from yesterday. Check out the discussion here.

Now if only some good kind soul can tell me how to post ljusernames again I would be ever so thankful.

the current period as 'the golden era of profitability"

2006-08-28T18:25:55Z

With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.

That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year’s midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years.

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”

...I focussed on the Panini....the only thing that's real...

2006-08-08T14:10:17Z

Back at DPU for a week. It's strange but a great time.

Also, still very satisfied that The Fragile can still get me going in the morning.

Now if I could only ingest it--or perhaps take it as some kind of a dermal patch....hmmmmmm.

Becoming the Beast

2006-08-02T05:43:57Z

So, I'm very tempted to join facebook...but I think the only reason I want to do it is to talk to women. Maybe go to a bar I should?

Monday, on Dr. Phil, Bitch Fest 2006!

2006-07-29T15:45:10Z

WASHINGTON, July 29 — The House approved an increase in the federal minimum wage on Saturday, but its future was clouded because Republicans tied the pay change to an estate tax cut that had been blocked in the Senate.

In a prelude to a summer of campaigning in the battle for control of Congress, lawmakers clashed bitterly over the Republican decision to link the tax break for affluent Americans to a $2.10 increase in the minimum wage before the legislation was approved after 1 a.m. on a 230 to 180 vote.

...

“It’s a political stunt designed to give vulnerable Republicans in tough elections the opportunity to say they voted to raise the minimum wage, even though they know this bill is going nowhere in the Senate,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House.

Yes, one way it can be spun is that Republicans can say they voted against the minimium mage increase before they voted for it. Or, they could try the factually inaccurate double whammy:

"'Unlike some of my colleagues, I see this tax relief and minimum wage bill as complementary,' said Representative Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, one of the Republicans who has joined Democrats in pressing for a wage increase. 'The sustaining of small businesses by keeping their vital assets will allow those making the minimum wage to continue working. This is a jobs bill.'"

Please someone tell Representive Capito that an estate tax cut does not help small business. Better yet, ask him/her (Shelley is a unisex name right?) to explain how it will help small business. Now that I'm thinking about it though, didn't Bush say the same thing during his debates? Yeah, I think it had something to do with this tax cut plan.

When Newspaper Writing Attacks!

2006-07-29T14:28:47Z

The Southern Lebanon clusterfuck is horrible but the NY Times have introduced a little levity:

After two air raids destroyed the bridge over the Orontes river in the Bekaa Valley, cutting off the town of Hermel from the rest of the country, Israel said it was flying new missions against bridges in southern Lebanon but provided no further details.

In other news, Condoleezza Rice has said that any cease-fire will depend on the Southern Lebanese bridges diarming and retreating to an area north of the proposed two mile buffer zone. Spirital leader of the Southern Lebanese Bridge Coalition (or NAMBLA), Sheik Abdullah Al-Span has said that he and his forces will not stop fighting until Israel releases two of their trapped brethren who are being forced into work over streams in the Golan Heights. In San Francisco, Goldie, the leader of Suspension Bridges for Peace, made a very controversial statement today saying that Israel has "mortar on its hands" and "does not have the peace of the region in its interest."

"Nobody cares who'd win in a epic fantasy fistfight between Anne Frank and Lizzie Borden!"

2006-07-24T15:46:44Z

Whenever Congress directs the president to furnish information, Mr. Bush reserves the right to withhold it. When Congress imposes mandates and requirements on the executive branch, the president often says he will read them as advisory or “precatory.”

When Congress tries to define foreign policy — for example, on Russia, Syria, North Korea or Sudan — Mr. Bush objects. Even if he agrees with the policy, he asserts that the Congressional directives “impermissibly interfere with the president’s constitutional authority” to conduct foreign affairs.

Whenever Congress prescribes qualifications for presidential appointees, Mr. Bush complains that this is an intrusion on his power, even if Congress merely requires that the appointee know about the field for which he will be responsible.

When Congress requires outreach or affirmative action for women or members of certain racial or ethnic groups, the president demurs, saying such provisions must be carried out “in a manner consistent with the requirements of equal protection under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”

greylit @ 2006-07-21T10:13:00

2006-07-21T14:16:50Z

At the White House, President Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow, said, “I’m not sure at this juncture we’re going to step in and put up a stop sign,” although he called on Israel to “practice restraint” and said Mr. Bush was “very much concerned” about a growing human crisis in southern Lebanon.

Random Updates

2006-07-20T16:30:23Z

Here are some things I've been meaning to post.

I. If my mother ever had to choose between Eric Bana and Viggo Mortensen--a decision she would not enjoy making--she would choose Viggo, though I forget now why.

II. Saw the preview for the new Zach 'I feel so numb' Braff emo-fest The Last Kiss. Even though it wasn't written or directed by Braff, it seems to follow the same model as Estado de Jardin, i.e. it fully fulfills the emo checklist. Angsty young man? Check. Fear of conformity, even though he really wants to conform, but on his own terms so he doesn't feel like he's betraying the loosely defined ideals he lives by? Check. Problems possibly solved by new, young woman? check. Emo soundtrack? Check.

III. After a long period of battling with myself, I've finally decided that it's okay to want to see Michael Mann's Miami Vice.