Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in realinterrobang's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, July 9th, 2009
12:23 am	Bring me whose editor's head on a platter with what in their mouth now? Actual news headline: Wichita police horse scared by 5 foot long inflatable penis. [Insert oh so many jokes here.] Current Mood: amused Current Music: no (Comment on this)
Monday, July 6th, 2009
11:14 pm	I couldn't tell you about this if I wanted to. You'd either not believe me, or tell me I wasn't making sense. May I present to you the premier example of the Afghan Souvenir War Rug, complete with THEAFGHANISTAN KLASHENKOB and HANG BOM! Buy it here! Current Mood: amused Current Music: no, but HANG BOM! anyway (Comment on this)
11:57 am	A good observation Marnanel makes a good observation about common metre, that it makes "even the best metaphors sound trite." Personally, I think that observation right there goes a long way toward explaining why -- even aside from the religious content -- most hymns (which are written in common metre, probably for ease of memorisation) are so painfully banal. Or, as Tom Lehrer said (satirically, although he actually was telling the truth, whether he knew it or not): The reason most folk music is so atrocious is because it was written by the people. If professional songwriters had written it instead, the results might have been much different. Current Mood: amused Current Music: argh (1 Comment |Comment on this)
1:29 am	Maybe it's because secretly... ...I'm twelve, but one can derive much amusement from Googling some of the band names Jello Biafra gives in his "Names for Bands" sketch, particularly "Republican Buttocks." Current Mood: amused Current Music: no (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
12:07 am	Quotations, WTF, Constable Mooseface? Edition When I died on the operating table at age 13 (due to an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic) it was the medical staff on hand who brought me back, not any miracle. Mind you, since they killed me in the first place, it was their responsibility. -- Lilith, Pharyngula, comments Real women breed. Period. Which is why I had my tubes tied at 30. ‘Cuz I’m all about the fake. -- Laura W, Balloon Juice, comments Papier mache: when regular mache just isn’t papy enough -- Rusty Shackleford, Sadly, No!, comments 400 million people are living under extreme drought conditions, and very dry land has increased worldwide in a short period of time: 15% of land was so classified in 1970, but it's now up to 30% in 2002. -- PZ Myers, "Mario Molina: Energy and climate change: is there a solution?," Pharyngula If generally neutral terms were used (Conservative, Liberal, Democrat, Republican) every discussion wouldn't be determined by the terms used to open it. -- Roger Ebert, "The O'Reilly Procedure," Roger Ebert's Journal [G. Gordon Liddy] claims that la Raza is a phrase in “illegal alien”, leading one to conclude that not only (as far as wingnuts are concerned) are all Hispanics by definition “illegals” (which is where they’ve been going all along) but that ONLY Spanish-speakers are capable of being “illegals”. The Right should just face up to the fact that they think ALL Hispanics are illegal immigrants, regardless of where they were born. -- Pere Ubu, Sadly, No!, comments It’s still her uterus, no matter how much time you spend poking it -- Zifnab, Balloon Juice, comments Dogs and cats are better than kids. They eat less, are easier to train, usually come when called, don't ask for money, never drive your car, don't hang out with losers, don't drink or smoke, and don't worry about the latest fashions. -- from "Pet Rules -- Memo to the Family Dog and Cat," Best of Craigslist Far be it from me to imply hat Mr. Scheie is a sheep-botherer, but how can I suggest that he’s been seen creeping down to the pasture at dusk with a sack of oats and a scented candle without feeling like a kook? -- Quaker in a Basement, Sadly, No!, comments GM has always been good at generating the “gee whiz” factor with their concept cars. Pity than none of the technology ever becomes reality. The Volt, as far as I can tell, is GM’s pie-in-the-sky version of vaporware to get the critics off their backs. They’ll come out with 3 cars that cost millions to develop, mutter something about how it all was much more expensive than they thought, (pity that), and sorrowfully shake their heads that oops, it looks like they’ll have to sell the Volt at $80K plus in order to break even, and the US doesn’t really need something like that, do we? And go back to selling SUVs. Then gas will go up to $6/gallon and we’ll get the hoocodanode dance all over again. Honda and Toyota will have a nice little electric car available for sale and will snarf up even more of the US market. And GM will wring its hands and complain about the evil UAW all over again. Yawn. -- grumpy realist, Balloon Juice, comments I'd like to remind them that no amount of anguished praying saved children from diabetes until insulin was discovered by Frederick Banting, Charles Best, J. J. R. Macleod, and J. B. Collip. -- Monado, Pharyngula, comments they’re usually talking about someone with the rhetorical prowess and charisma of Jindal, who Churchill wouldn’t mustard-gas if he was on fire. -- alec, Sadly, No!, comments, on the right blogosphere He may be insane, but it least he is unintelligible. -- Randy, Pharyngula, comments If I own a drugstore, I cannot fire a pharmacist who refuses to fill a prescription for birth control for one of my customers. I can’t do it. I have to find some other pharmacist to fill that prescription, and I have to continue to pay the pharmacist who refuses to do his or her job. Think about that the next time you hear the whining from fundamentalist Christians about how they might be sued if they won’t do a flower arrangement for a same-sex marriage. They keep the job, but they want a federally protected right to refuse to do the job. What other group gets this kind of deference? Name one. -- kay, Balloon Juice, comments Science fiction itself somehow had an aura of eroticism about it. It wasn't sexually explicit, but it often seemed about to be. -- Roger Ebert, "It's sweltering hot out," Roger Ebert's Journal This must be read to be believed. It's like a train wreck involving a tanker truck full of mescaline and a copy of Atlas Shrugged. -- Eric Jackson, Science-Based Medicine, comments I need to come up with a business plan that fleeces rightwingers. They gotta be the silliest most gullible group of halfwits that ever lived. -- Death By Mosquito Truck, Balloon Juice, comments [It exists, and it's called Amway. Problem is, it's rightwingers fleecing other rightwingers. -- ?!] If you believe there are no atheists in foxholes, then you have to allow for the possibility, when the bullets start to fly and everybody dives into the dirt, that God's real name is "FUCK!!!" -- Hank Fox, Pharyngula, comments I operate on the general principle that a bug has made an unfortunate life choice if it has decided to come into my home, or, god forbid, colonize my body. Because it is going to be exterminated with extreme prejudice in the most environmentally neutral way possible, but exterminated nonetheless. -- Jennifer, Sadly, No!, comments In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress. -- PurpleGirl, Balloon Juice, comments I was horrified to learn recently that there were 1 billion starving children on Earth – and a big chunk of that horror was because that means there are more than 1 billion children on Earth. -- Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist, Sadly, No!, comments I recently got fired for getting sick, but [Mark Sanford] gets to keep his job when he's disappearing to go see the woman he's cheating on his wife with? Seriously? -- Esme, Shakesville, comments I use "Jesus!" as an exclamation simply because "Fuck!" isn't dirty enough. -- alatham, Pharyngula, comments I’ve long suspected [PETA is] a conservative ratfuck to make liberals look bad – although two things have me more or less convinced otherwise: I’ve met sincere vegans who were just as crazy, and conservative ratfucks aren’t that clever. -- Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist, Sadly, No!, comments And yes, biology or biochemistry has proved [many things] in the scientific sense (when we make predictions based on these ideas, our predictions turn out to be consistently correct, whereas that is not true of competing ideas), if not in the legal sense (convincing the average person that it is correct beyond a reasonable doubt), which is what Creationists want. It's not about scientific proof, it's about legal proof- they want us to prove it to them, not to prove it. But you see, in a court they would be rejected for jury duty because of their obvious biases- they already know what they want the outcome to be. So trying to prove it to them is stupid. -- Basoriana, Science-Based Medicine, comments See, I'm not allowed to make these mistakes. As the Official SpokesGay (TM), I am expected to be clear and comprehensible. Anything less would cause The Company to fire me. And don't ask about The Company - they operate in a shadow world of fashion and intrigue, that's all I can tell you. -- JoshS, Official SpokesGay, Pharyngula, comments i'm 26 and i've already had friends who got married because one had terminal cancer and the other had a good job with good insurance. it was such a bittersweet wedding. he died about a month later. -- john b, Balloon Juice, comments And BTW, why the flying mother of all airborne fucks is John McCain going on CNN and issuing foreign policy pronounciamentos? Didn't Johnny get the message that he fucking lost and should just sit down and shut up and let the President run things? For that matter, who keeps resetting the goddamn stopwatch on Palin's 15 minutes? Doesn't she have some Russians to be keeping an eye on or wolves to shoot or something? -- Pere Ubu, Sadly, No!, comments Um, I'm nearing my 55th birthday. What's an iPod? Seriously. It's a Walkman with a really long tape. -- littlejohn and tsg, Pharyngula, comments as well as being a Walkman with a really long tape, an ipod is something you use to announce to the world that you've got more money than sense and more style than substance. -- facehammer, Pharyngula, comments As David Carter writes in his book “Stonewall,” at the end of the 1960s homosexual sex was still illegal in every state but Illinois. It was a crime punishable by castration in seven states. -- Frank Rich, "40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans," New York Times [One wonders, but also doesn't want to ask, what they did to lesbians...assuming they accepted that lesbians existed, that is. --?!] So, I followed the link and read the comments. Wow! Is there nothing that isn’t some sort of conspiracy to these people? It’s easy to imagine them fuming at a stoplight because the liberals and their allies the Illuminati and the Elders of Zion chose a treehugger color for “go,” the yellow of cowardice for “slow down,” and that commie red for “stop.” -- Dennis-SGMM, Sadly, No!, comments Ah well, no hypocrite like a social conservative. -- Brachalon, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, comments Dick Cheney earned his manly creds as a “hunter,” Bush had a “ranch,” McCain has a “ranch,” the Wasilla wingnut is all about being one with nature, and Gov. Sanford is, at this moment, allegedly hiking the Appalachian trail. And yet every single fucking one of them would vote to pave over the woods I hiked in this morning, or to dump coal slurry in the small pond I walked by, or to dump DDT on the wild blackberries I picked this morning. -- John Cole, Balloon Juice, comments The simple equation is this: Any time a multimillionaire is telling you the tax code should be "fairer," that's a cue that you're about to get something other than "fair" taxes. -- Arguing With Signposts, "Flat tax idiocy," Arguing With Signposts It's a very ugly and insidious film hiding behind a toy commercial drawing direct connections between two illiterate, buck-toothed, jive-talking, monkey-faced robots and black people, while demeaning women in a way that makes Maxim look like MS magazine. -- catseatdogs, "Movie Review: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen," LiveJournal Current Mood: tired Current Music: no (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
1:51 am	Ani Tzoheket im Arabit In ayn you kind of squeeze the back of your throat when you pronounce this one, and I was told that we don't have this in English, and I said, "Well, wait a minute. Ayn! Ayn! I believe we do have that in English, especially down in Texas where I'm from, because we say it all the time -- 'Ayn gunna do it!'" -- Yusuf Estes, Learn Arabic in English 2-1, YouTube Current Mood: amused Current Music: none (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
12:24 am	Quotes, Edicion Se Fue El Fey I think I will just ritually disemvowel myself because I am no longer a grammurai. -- Big Bad Bald Bastard, Sadly, No!, comments As I see it, the real danger that far too many religious people, even the modern flexible non-literal non-fundie types, are willing to countenance or even celebrate preventable human suffering here on earth because their faith tells them that God will square things up for all of us in the hereafter. It’s a big part of what allows them to push real-life circumstances aside and take brave principled stands “in the abstract”. -- Joe Bleau, Balloon Juice, comments Would someone with more time on their hands than me please find and print public-domain images of harlequin fetus, headless conjoined twins, anencephalics, cyclopes, and the other hateful abominations we decadent liberals deny human rights out of ‘concern’ for the ‘health’ of the ‘mother’ and send them to any dipshit who writes an editorial like this for a major paper? They need to be confronted with the consequences of their actions, and unlike back-alley abortions (every gynecologist in a major city before Roe had to extricate part of a woman’s intestine from her uterus at least once), the vile tree the kulturkampfists have planted against obligate abortions still bears its strange and bitter fruit. -- alec, Sadly, No!, comments Not quite OT, but I saw "The Hangover" at the drive-in last night. At one point, the characters have been caught by the cops for stealing a police car. But one of the characters works out a deal where the cops will let them go (this will save the cops from embarrassment at the stolen car). The quid pro quo for this is that the characters have to go to a classroom where a bunch of elementary school kids are hearing all about the police -- the typical sort of outreach thing. The cop tasers the first character, saying something like "This is what we do when they get unruly," then gives the gun to an 8yo girl, who smirks and stuns the second character. Then a slightly older boy gets the gun, and he carefully aims (the taser has a convenient laser sight) and zaps the third guy in the face. This is all played as if it were the funniest thing ever: the cop even asks the guys if they have heart conditions beforehand. -- felagund, Hullabaloo, comments Our entire culture seems to be focused on making sure men get their rocks off at every possible opportunity, but women? Please. We are all about punishing the slut. -- Bey, Balloon Juice, comments There are only three dots in an ellipsis, like so (...), and I fear that at the current rate of use we will be facing record shortages within a decade. The same goes for the humble exclamation point, who never expected that he'd be forced into so many orgies. On the other hand, the comma is ready and willing to help break up your monster blocks of text. -- from "How to write a successful W4W personal ad," Best of Craigslist There always seems to be a hint of jealousy in the ranting of repressed wingnuts about those hedonistic, amoral liberals. “Curse you librels with all yer sex and yer sekyalur musac and yer families with less than eight kids… sigh…” -- Stephen, Sadly, No!, comments And let us not forget how the Catholic Church in Ireland – in its heyday and at the zenith of its political power—discharged its responsibility for the orphaned offspring of women who were forced to bear the children they couldn’t raise themselves. In various orphanges, these children were forced into slave labor, beaten and raped. -- SLS, Balloon Juice, comments My boobies have vim and vigor! They are ready to go in the morning! They have not only read the "7 Habits of Highly Effective Bosoms," they go on speaking tours! -- from "Hot damn, I love my boobs," Best of Craigslist Athenae's Code of Journalism Ethics: Don't steal, don't screw your sources, don't take presents in exchange for coverage, don't wear high heels to a train wreck, and never sit on the coroner's lap. -- Athenae, "*I* Know Enough Not To Get Taken, But You Morons Might Not," First Draft An adult woman is considered to be unable to permanently decide not to reproduce. Yet, if you had been a 22-year-old woman who went to the doctor for prenatal consultation prior to getting pregnant, there’s not one of them that would have dissuaded you on age. And having a baby is just as irrevocable as having a tubal ligation. What’s worse is the way that people talk to women who say they don’t want kids. Either they’re treated condescendingly (“Oh, you’ll change your mind, don’t worry!”) or they’re looked at askance as though there is something mentally wrong with them. Either way, they’re presumed to not know their own mind and treated as a child themselves. And yet, if a man says he never wants to have kids, they’re generally taken at their word. Why is it considered so fucking unnatural and unbelievable when a woman genuinely does not want children? -- Krista, Balloon Juice, comments Have you ever heard a journalist say that someone “bribed” the rich to vote for them with tax cuts? -- christian h., Sadly, No!, comments Buying something from your friendly neighborhood naturopath doesn't mean it's safe OR effective. More like untested and potentially toxic. -- isles, Respectful Insolence, comments It’s an evil thing too, that book Liberal Fascism. It wasn’t done out of stupidity or not knowing, It was done in spite of thinking and knowing. Expressly to shield the right from what they know it has been shown time and again to be responsible for. I’m sure the people who funded that book saw it as an investment for the right, a way to buy some insurance against future claims of any right-wing violence. (It wasn’t too hard to see that coming as the right became more fringe-dominated and angry and unhinged after the Iraq war didn’t go as promised) And so it has proved. It’s now used to support the assertions that all the rightwing terrorists are really lefties, because Liberal Fascism shows that the far right is really the far left. There’s some pharmaceutical grade banality of evil right there. -- binzinerator, Balloon Juice, comments Everything in America is billed as being “hard work.” It’s not just marriage, it’s employment, owning a home, going to a job—you name it, whatever it is, in America, it’s “hard work.” I think it may stem from the Puritan beginnings. I discovered the absolute grimness of it when I went to live in Mexico at age 15 as an exchange student...the concept of “siesta” and “manana” seemed radical for a few weeks. Then, I got it. Life didn’t have to be “hard work.” That was just living in the U.S.A. -- Garuda, Pandagon, comments NYPD cop: I would rather lick the street than ever smell your fart again. -- from Overheard in New York This is going to be one of those things I write that causes people to write in the comments- “OMG COLE, YOU WILL COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING.” And, to be honest, that is true. But this still needs to be said- the last five toothbrushes I have purchased have inexplicably exploded in my mouth, leaving bristles all over the place. I have never had that happen before the past month and a half. And no, I have not changed how I brush. Why am I telling you this? Because it is my blog, damnit. -- John Cole, "Friday Night Open Thread," Balloon Juice Coworker #1, in copier room: That copier needs some KY. Coworker #2: (hysterical laughing) Coworker #1: Oh, no! I meant WD-40. I always do that! -- from Overheard in the Office when Scots emigrate, do they look around the world for wet&cool? -- Johnny Mashey, Deltoid, comments [No, they just move to places with bad weather that sensible peoples don't tolerate. --?!] All I really want is for the kids in my city to go to a decent public school, the water from my tap to be mercury free, the local artist/temp to have medical coverage… put simply, I want everybody to have a shot at having a peaceful, dignified life. How does Stalin enter into it? -- Big Bad Bald Bastard, Sadly, No!, comments I wonder how many times a day exactly Obama facepalms. It’s probably an unhealthy amount. -- Ash, Balloon Juice, comments [I]n he new Robertson/Falwell translation of the bible, you feed the poor lead, and the money changers are chased away to make room for the investment bankers and Ponzi schemers. -- maddogdelta, Pharyngula, comments As a longtime Canadian resident adrift in America for the last six years, I've come to understand that this is a deeply irrational country. Religious fanatics who, anywhere outside the Middle East, would be relegated to shouting from soapboxes in the park, here have their own shows on national television (see Beck, Glenn). They, along with various libertarian free-market kooks, infest the public discourse like herpes, and often determine it's direction. -- John Doheny, Hullabaloo, comments On Bizarro World, correlation am always imply causation! Why silly humans always put horse before cart? -- The Devildamn Batzarro Think This Am Brilliant Analysis, Sadly, No!, comments I once saw a comment on a blog (I think it was at Pharyngula), where a guy objected to gay marriage by saying who will mow the lawn and who will be the stay-at-home mom? Who will cook the dinners and who will support the family financially? Who will take care of the kids and who will repair the car? And this guy was completely serious. In his world, the idea that a woman could support her family financially and a man could take care of his very own kids is just too frightening. -- callie, Dispatches from the Culture War, comments Current Music: "Mister Brownstone," Guns and Roses (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, June 26th, 2009
11:15 pm	Somebody never heard of "bar tutorials," I guess From Overheard in New York: Professor: When would be a good day for our review session? Student: How about Friday? Professor: Nope, sorry. Friday I'm gonna get my drink on! Student: Can we have it in the bar? I don't know about the universities you went to, but at UWO we had "bar tutorials" all the time. I really shit you not. It was really quite common for professors to take their entire tutorial section to the bar for a drink and tutorial. It was even more common for a professor and a student who was asking for extra help or advice to go drinking together, although that could have been anything from coffee to Cokes to beer... Current Mood: amused Current Music: "Go! Move! Shift!", Boiled in Lead (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
12:44 pm	As AuditoryDamage said, this week is fired. And it's only Wednesday. Lessee, annoyances major, minor, and trivial: The construction is driving me mad. Scuttlebutt at the precinct says that blastedheath and I are either in for an illegal, immoral, and fattening rent increase, or else having Chez Geek sold out from under us. (This is seriously not cool.) One of my good friends has apparently decided to take a powder on me, so I'm kind of mopey. :( On Father's Day, I made the mistake of mentioning that I was thinking about buying a house at some point in the future (can't really afford it now). So then, my father, never one to let anything drop, was getting after me about how he (so totally) would have bought me a house if only I hadn’t been so obviously stupid as to refuse to let him saddle me with a mortgage when I had no steady job and $15 000 in pending student loans I already couldn’t pay, and then laughed at me and said, "Well, I can't help you now; I don't have the money!" when I pointed that out. Of course, my sister, who actually did get a house for a couple years, said, "Well, when I had a house, they didn't make me pay for anything!" (Yeah, and like the folks would have treated me just the same! Uh huh.) When I was walking yesterday (and admiring the biggest freakin' snapping turtle I'd ever seen! from a respectful distance, of course) a creepy old perv (white hair, mid-50s, missing index finger from the first knuckle) tried to pick me up. Then he made a specific point of telling me I had "really nice big tits." Yeah, dude, I know they're big; I have to buy bras for them. Tell me something I don't know. Oh, that the random guy in my neighbourhood is a pervert. Thanks. The tan pants I bought at Value Village the other day don't have any pockets, and I didn't even notice! Hulk smash! I am geeky enough (and, perhaps, butchy enough) that I do not like wearing pocketless pants. (Where else do I put my wallet, keys, Chapstick, and the watch that hangs on my belt loop?) Oh yes, and speaking of watches, just after I had the run in with Creepo, I realised that my watch wasn't in my pocket (anymore?) so I had to cut my walk short. I was hoping that I hadn't dropped it in the road near my house, because if that were the case, chances are the watch would have been in the street by the time I got back. As it happened, it was on my bed, but argh anyway. Also, I don't have enough stuff to do here today, and almost tout le monde is away. :( Current Mood: aggravated Current Music: no (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
2:38 pm	*beep! beep! beep! beep! beep! RATTLE! CLUNK! WHIRRR! THUD! beep! beep! beep! beep!* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! (The street is under construction. Heavily under construction, as in there's a gaping hole in front of the house. The noise has been going on -- with a special side bonus of house-shaking vibrations -- pretty much constantly since about 6:45AM. And will probably continue for weeks to come.) Current Mood: cranky Current Music: just effin guess (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
12:13 pm	A vast and sprawling empire In a couple of days, I'm going to finish my list of companies owned by or affiliated to (strategic partners, stock owners, interlocking Boards of Directors, etc) General Motors, 1908-1960, and post it online somewhere. There are approximately 75 entries, although some of them are quasi-duplicates, as GM had a habit of buying all or part of a company, and then absorbing it and making it a division a few years later. Having the duplicate entries (sorted alphabetically) makes it really easy to see the pattern. And you thought Microsoft invented "embrace and extend." Current Mood: cranky Current Music: no (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 12th, 2009
9:51 am	Pace Walter Scott ...but am I the only person in the world who thinks that the "Support the Troops" yellow ribbons are FUCKING STUPID, being based as they are on the song "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree"... ...which is a song where the speaker is going to jail. Jail, folks, not war. Now, I am basically of the opinion (given military discipline and all) that (to paraphrase Sir Walter Scott) going to war is like going to prison, with a chance at dying besides1, but come onnnnn, that's ridiculous. 1 In the original, the line was "Going to sea is like going to prison, with a chance at dying besides," not that people don't (and didn't) die in prison... Current Mood: annoyed Current Music: no (21 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
10:20 pm	Spam spam spam WTF and spam I just got a spam with the subject line "Make your pecker your trump trotter outwit bicuspid" from "Avomide Ackland," with the body text "Buy more and spend less with our great saving system. - graveled zarp." It was going along so well there! Current Mood: amused Current Music: "Red Queen," Holymen (Comment on this)
8:39 pm	Quotes, When All Else Fails, Clean Edition America isn't becoming socialist, it's becoming sociopath. -- Phylter, Crooks and Liars, comments We need to turn this debate away from the doctors. They’re just doing their jobs. The people who are making the decisions are the mothers. If the pro-life movement starts going after the mothers, they are going to find the earth open up beneath them. -- The Other Steve, Balloon Juice, comments [L]inguistics is probably the hottest of the hard sciences. Lots of lip and tongue action, affricates and glottals, and don’t spare the bi-labials! Geology has kimberlite shafts, the Mohs scale of hardness, and the Grand Tetons. Yeah, but geologists don’t know how to orient their tongues for major effect, do they? *bows head* No. -- Pere Ubu and Rusty Shackleford, Sadly, No!, comments Dear Editor, I never thought I’d find myself writing a letter to the Journal of Computational Linguistics... -- Smut Clyde, Sadly, No!, comments Fuck Operation Rescue. I was there when the fuckers descended on the clinic in Baton Rouge. They had tiny infants out in the 100 degree heat of La. In July. Poor little things were sunburned and screaming, but I guess they made a useful prop for their protest. Fuck them. -- South of I-10, Balloon Juice, comments It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. -- Michael Moore, "Goodbye GM," The Huffington Post To say "abortion is horrible" like it or not, is to continue the silence, and self imposed silence born of fear, of those same women, and people who are otherwise participants in abortion. -- stormcoming, "Abortion is about autonomy. Autonomy is a core value," DailyKos I was wondering what the now certifiably insane Pravda was wittering on about… and I then followed up the link to the author’s own blog from the article, and if he’s a Marxist, I’m a melon. -- The Foolful Problem With Women, Sadly, No!, comments Bunk: A claim that is false. Debunk: To show that a claim is false. Rebunk: To insist that the spirit of the false claim, is nevertheless true. -- Steve S, Balloon Juice, comments Those who oppose abortion will gladly quote the following: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (New International Version) 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. ...at you, as it is the central core of their argument, that you do not own even your own body, their god (and therefore his earthly human proxies) does/do. That you can't do what you want with your life, or even your body, as it's property owned by another, and as such, you have to do what the owner wants you to; i.e. this is slavery. Which Bill Bright, Campus Crusade for Christ founder, gladly admitted to over and over, self identifying as a 'slave to jesus' and admonishing others to become likewise. These people at their core do not believe in an autonomist definition of the word freedom, they believe only that all humanity lives as slaves, the only distinction being slaves to jesus or slaves of satan. -- stormcoming, "Abortion is about autonomy. Autonomy is a core value," DailyKos The ghost of Alan Turing should haunt anyone who uses a computer to spread homophobia. Ghosts aren't real, so we'll have to invent some sort of Science Ghost, like on Scooby Doo. -- AwesomeRobot, Pharyngula, comments Perhaps it’s because I work in publishing, but I always thought Helvetica Bold was the best drag queen name evar. -- kiki, Sadly, No!, comments My theory is that PETA is actually funded by the meat industry. It would explain so much. -- Sniper, Shakesville, comments “You don't know if he went to a real doctor or not? Then it looks like Phyllis's fake doctor gave Kyle fake drugs for a fake cure for his fake disease. And what do you know? It fake worked!” -- Zeno Ferox, "It quacks like a duck," Halfway There That is the pure, undiluted heart of today’s wing-nuttery. They put together these little fantasy scenarios about what their favorite bogeyman/strawman liberal would do that would make everyone hate them and then invent a story to go along with it. And, not coincidentally, the moral of the story is how much better Mr. Wingnut is than Mr. Liberal because he’d never do anything as bad as what he dreamed up in in his anti-liberal fantasy. Except that the fact that he thought it up in the first place is proof that he’s more than capable of it. -- Joshua Norton, Balloon Juice, comments Let's face it, when you're trying to get away with something, there's nothing that does more to boost your credibility than for your most vocal "opposition" to be composed of obstreperous zealots who reek of blind manic pathos. -- dkmnow, Respectful Insolence, comments Most unfortunate name I’ve ever encountered was “Wilton Brown Hyman.” -- Most Bike Shop, Sadly, No!, comments It is one of the profound contradictions that suffuse our lives, that these most private of decisions need to be talked about in public, over and over and over...in order to support the legal right to keep them private and safe. -- WarrenS, DailyKos, comments Being happily childless, going to a baby shower is like having a piranha give you oral sex, i.e. it's painful. Guaranteed things will occur: 1. Several annoying hags will ask you, "So when are YOOOOOOOOOOU going to have a baby? Hmmm?", as they look disapprovingly over the tops of their glasses. These same hags will shake their heads sadly when you inform them, "I would rather dip my face in acid then have my crotch ripped open by a head the size of a pumpkin, thank you." -- from "I don't want to be a woman anymore. Thank you.", Best of Craigslist This isn’t about “choice.” It’s about a fundamentalist terrorist movement that believes your wife should be permanently maimed or die in order to deliver a fetus that has no chance of living outside the womb. When the position of the “pro-life” movement is stated this way, as it should be, often, I wonder how many Americans will agree with them. -- Walter, Sadly, No!, comments I'm tired of having to explain this over and over to 'progressives', 'liberals' 'democrats' and other assorted and assundry 'allies'. Either we have autonomy or we don't. Either we own our own bodies- or someone else does. And if that 'someone else' does, be it the state, churches, or just plain old abusive boyfriends, what are the consequences to individual women? -- stormcoming, DailyKos, comments [A]nyone who can read the stories about the families who needed Dr. Tiller’s services and NOT be able to support those families with a clear conscience needs to do some heavy growing up. -- NonyNony, Balloon Juice, comments There's a much greater power in the universe than "belief." It's called "observation." -- from "Dear Christians," Best of Craigslist Does this mean the right’s going to write a bunch of essays on how if only all abortion providers and clinic employees and volunteers and fellow church-goers carried firearms that maybe they could have shot the right wing extremist before he killed the doctor? -- El Cid, Sadly, No!, comments The bit about conscience reminded me of a button a friend in college used to wear. It was guaranteed to stir up trouble amongst the “abortion offends my conscience” crowd. It said something to the affect of “So you’re pro-life? Well, adopt an encephalitic mongoloid or shut the fuck up” I think that still sums it up pretty well. -- Bill in OH, Balloon Juice, comments I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in terms of a certain kind of pro-natalist rhetoric (possibly in terms of a certain kind of pro-natalist thought as well) women don’t even make it as animals. But we do figure as implements. Let’s say you’re breeding kittens out of a tabby you value for some reason (maybe she has good-mouser genes or is a purebred or whatever) and she turns out to be endangered by a litter she’s carrying. What do you do? Unless you’re an idiot, you take her straight to the vet and have her scraped out and cleaned up; if not for her own sake, for the sake of future litters of kittens to come. But let a woman fail to carry one pregnancy successfully to term, even though she may have produced viable kids before and, in the event that her life is saved, will survive to produce others, and the pronatalists cheerfully invite her to go ahead and die; nay, they go even further: they hold up her death as her duty. That’s not the attitude they would take toward a dog or a mare. The reason is that in their eyes she’s far less akin to a dog or a cat or a mare than she is to a DVD player or automatic mixer that breaks down. It’s on the fritz, it can’t be fixed; voilà, to the rubbish heap it goes. -- bekabot, Pandagon, comments Reporter to Editor: “It’s eight inches with an info box.” Other Reporter: “I’d like to see that in a personal ad.” -- from Overheard in the Newsroom That's the thing about convicting the wrong person. It also means letting the killer go free. -- anon, Hullabaloo, comments This from the crowd that makes “St. Pancake” jokes about Rachael Corrie, creates “Liberal Hunting Permit” stickers and “Rope, Tree, Journalist: Some Assembly Required” t-shirts and regularly laments the fact that police don’t use live ammunition on protesters. News flash reichwingers, those people making endless jokes about brutalizing and murdering political opposites? That would be you fuckers, not us. -- Skullhunter, Sadly, No!, comments Right wing prescription for all ills - Take two tax cuts, kill a Jew or liberal and call me in the morning. -- Sam Simple, Hullabaloo, comments I have a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix that, I am certain, sheds a greater volume of hair in a day than the volume of a week's worth of his entire nutritional intake. I believe that my dog is some sort of living wormhole between our universe and a parallel universe where the most abundant element is not hydrogen, but rather dog hair. -- Disciple of "Bob," Pharyngula, comments If the shoe fits, throw it. -- wilfred, Balloon Juice, comments [A]t least when we gain momentum we do it by increasing velocity. -- Rusty Shackleford, Sadly, No!, comments "Everyone that has the right to get married" is a common argument. The usual response is "Why do you want to me to marry a woman and live our entire lives in misery? Or do you just want us to be like you?" -- yoshi, Dispatches From the Culture Wars, comments [For myself, I'm not sure that should be an "or" there. --?!] Current Mood: muggy Current Music: "Chemical Warfare," Subgenius w/Jared Louche (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
11:38 pm	Quotes, Dried Up, Tied, and Dead to the World Edition In short, the White House not only fucked this up royally, just as you say, but they missed a golden opportunity to--metaphorically--grab the collective Village head, jam it down a toilet, and flush. -- LL, Hullabaloo, comments Har har. The fun is non-stoppadelic. -- M. Bouffant, Sadly, No!, comments I had dijon mustard on my sandwich for lunch, and it was delicious. I also felt a strange urge to read Chomsky afterwards. -- John Cole, "Open Thread," Balloon Juice I had a salad with arugula for lunch and now I feel a strange urge to nationalize the auto industry, give terrorists therapy and a hug, and make gay marriage mandatory. -- r€nato, Balloon Juice, comments I HATE supporting these fucking losers over the fucking fascists. -- seabos84, Hullabaloo, comments All I know is, this is just another sad example of Christian-on-Christian violence. When will that community learn to solve its problems by peaceful means? Honestly. I mean, I'm not prejudiced, but when I see a Christian guy coming down the street I quietly cross to the other side. It's not bigotry but just self preservation. Plus they live like animals in those big Christian housing projects. I think it's the culture, their music just glorifies violence all day long, song after song about dudes being nailed to crosses. It's just not a healthy culture. -- Cargo, Sadly, No!, comments Anybody seen the Malcolm Gladwell article in the New Yorker about how David beats Goliath? Everybody knows the part about the sling shot and the smooth stones but the fight starts with David on offense. He runs right at Goliath who is just standing there, gaping, shocked out of his wits that this kid is actually running right at him!! If you want to beat the the bastards, you gotta go on the offensive, stay on the offensive and when they're down, stomp on them. Acting like a weenie gets you nowhere. Goliath eats weenies for lunch. -- arcadesproject, Hullabaloo, comments It’s time for journalists to realize that the news is not simply what assholes are saying, but also how what they’re saying relates to the truth. -- southpaw, Balloon Juice, comments Gosh, it's been something like thirty years since any credible threat from the Left, and yet even with the spread of militias, secessionist teabaggers, Confederate "Good-Ol-Days" reminiscers, white supremacists, anti-gay bigots, anti-abortion bigots, survivalists wondering what to do with all that Y2K stuff, and general whackjobs, the one we're supposed to be fretting over is. Bill Ayers. Um. -- Pere Ubu, Sadly, No!, comments I always thought it was feasible that Bill Clinton was taken aside by someone on the right and told, "Look, we can destroy you and your family unless you play by our rules and dismantle welfare, repeal Glass-Steagal and not keep funding the Pentagon more than it needs to be." -- Sam Simple, Hullabaloo, comments July, 2008 - A conservative motivated by hatred of liberals kills two and wounds seven at a Unitarian church in Tennessee. August, 2008 - Three conservative racists arrested for plotting to assassinate Barack Obama at the Democratic convention in Denver. April, 2009 - Conservative gun rights advocate kills three Pittsburgh police officers and wounds two. May, 2009 - Conservative anti-abortion activist guns down abortion doctor in Kansas. That's six dead and nine wounded from conservative terrorism in the past year. And I've probably forgotten an incident or two. Is this a pattern? You decide. -- Mark, Balloon Juice, comments [This was before the "June, 2009 - Conservative anti-semite walks into the Holocaust Museum in DC and shoots a security guard. Seven dead, nine wounded." entry got added. --?!] God forbid that our leaders should make decisions in the throes of glandular activity. Good thing that men don't do that. I mean, every time LBJ scratched his balls, another regiment of Marines went to Vietnam. -- tanbark, Hullabaloo, comments I don’t know that I will ever fully understand the last eight years. I sort of hope I never do. -- justme, Sadly, No!, comments I think the New Republic is for a mentally ill brand of conservative who for whatever reason think they are liberal. -- gex, Balloon Juice, comments OR {Operation Rescue] is a terrorist organization which has repeatedly engaged in bombings, harassment, and hate murder. The media taking them seriously or treating them as anything but terrorists is literally disgusting. -- alec, Sadly, No!, comments My view on bringing wacky Japanese-market cars here is that companies should strive to keep the product as un-Americanized as possible. Offer a shrimp-scented air freshener and a holographic hood ornament and a GPS system that includes maps of other planets: the whole appeal lies in cultural authenticity. This kind of car should be so Japanese that it makes me want to wear a Hello Kitty backpack, watch incomprehensible game shows and eat whales. I mean, research whales. -- Ezra Dyer, "Hello Kitty, Your Car Is Waiting," The New York Times Too bad Democrats think it's politically toxic, but if they were smart, they'd pass a law expanding women's access to contraception and abortion every single time there was an incident, and name the bill after the targetted people or clinics. -- Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon, comments Current Mood: aggravated Current Music: "Take Me For A Buggy Ride," Bessie Smith (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
4:33 pm	And so... I saw on Balloon Juice that Dr. Tiller's clinic will be closing permanently. I just made a donation to Medical Students For Choice, and would like to let everyone know that you can earmark a donation to your favourite group on their list. I sent mine to the group at the university where I did my undergraduate degree. Current Mood: pissed off Current Music: "Red Right Hand," Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 8th, 2009
4:45 pm	Carma's a bitch, ain't it? I got linked to a piece by Kunstler today off Balloon Juice, which I blogged about on my lunch hour. About 10 minutes ago, I was in my boss' office talking to him about what I was going to do next, and he said, "I have an article here you might like to see," and handed me a hard copy of the same thing. Incidentally, the article pertains to GM and Chrysler and GM's particular malfeasance and the trouble it's gotten us into, and can be summed up by the five words comprising the post title... Current Mood: amused Current Music: no (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 6th, 2009
10:59 pm	Oh my god... Separated at birth: The World's Sexiest Canadian Movie Critic Et Cetera, our very own catseatdogs and Neil LaBute, Tony Award nominated playwright, also TWSCMC's identical twin who was kidnapped at birth by literary aliens from the planet Scriptorum and raised as a hipster. We report, you decide. Current Mood: amused Current Music: no (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
10:37 pm	Memorial Donations for Dr. George Tiller If you are in Canada and would like to make a donation to a Canadian pro-choice cause in memory of Dr. George Tiller, a contact at the Morgentaler Clinic recommends: The Morgentaler Defense Fund 33 Hazelton Ave # 101 Toronto, ON M5R 2E3 (to assist Dr. Morgentaler in his legal battle to ensure abortion access in New Brunswick) The Morgentaler Patient Assistance Fund 727 Hillsdale Avenue East Toronto, ON M4S 1V4 (According to the woman I spoke to at the MC -- I am keeping her safely anonymous -- although most services are covered by the provincial healthcare plan, many women require travel assistance, and many many women come to Canada from abroad to obtain safe, accessible abortions in Canada, where otherwise abortion is illegal or they would be facing prosecution.) ARCC - Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada P.O. Box 2663 Station Main, Vancouver, BC V6B 3W3 (fights to ensure access for Canadians) Canadians for Choice 300-260 Dalhousie St. Ottawa, ON K1N 7E4 (Canadian pro-choice activism) I personally recommend donating to The Morgentaler Patient Assistance Fund, and that is where I'll be directing my money. Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: "Money Talks," Adventures of Stevie V. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:44 am	Health matters James and the Giant Booster Shot: Twenty-three years ago, Roald Dahl wrote an article promoting vaccination, which ChildAlert has republished. In 1962, Dahl's daughter Olivia died of measles encephalitis. In Canada Memorial Donations: If you are in Canada, and would like to make a Canadian donation in memory of Dr. George Tiller, I will have information from the Morgentaler Clinic about where they recommend you send it. I personally would recommend sending to their Patient Assistance Fund, since according to the woman who phoned me this morning, many patients they see are not covered by the provincial health services, since lots of women come from abroad to have abortions in Canada, so that they will not be at risk from illegal abortions, or arrested and prosecuted. Update will follow after I get home from work. I am also looking in to donating money to Medical Students for Choice, particularly if they allow donations to be earmarked for specific branches. MS4C has branches in Ontario at McMaster University, Queen's University, University of Ottawa, University of Toronto, University of Western Ontario, and University of Northern Ontario. (I am a UWO alumna.) Current Mood: exhausted Current Music: no (Comment on this)