4/27/2007

Random Ten, 04/27/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, for the seafaring Irish nobleman in you.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?
  • Garth Brooks - The Dance
  • Miki Roberts - Baby's Tears
  • Palpable - Marble Madness Marbe Dancefloor Remix
  • Modest Mouse - The World At Large
  • Sho-T - A Stupid Barber
  • O-Zone - Dragostea Din Tei
  • Eminem - Without Me
  • Garth Brooks - The Thunder Rolls
  • SDMS - un deux trois
  • nc feat. NRG Factory - INNOCENCE OF SILENCE
Ridiculous Lucky Captain Rabbit King, Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets are for the youth!

EACS: "Okay, so maybe we won't fire you"

From the Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette: EACS reassigns suspended teacher
Embattled Woodlan Junior-Senior High School journalism teacher Amy Sorrell will continue teaching under an agreement reached Thursday with East Allen County Schools.

The agreement places Sorrell on paid administrative leave for the rest of the school year and requires her to serve a five-day unpaid suspension, said her attorney, Patrick Proctor of Eilbacher Fletcher Attorneys.

The settlement also relocates her to Heritage Junior-Senior High School in the fall. Sorrell’s exact position hasn’t been determined, but it will not be teaching journalism, he said.
Well, it's not a perfect solution, and I'm sure that the closed-minded bastards behind this whole thing aren't going to learn jack, but this gives me some level of hope. I guess maybe I don't live in that much of a backwards, hateful, bigot-filled, conservative, Bible-thumping shithole.

EDIT, 2:56 PM, 4/27/2007: The IndyStar article states Sorrell will be banned from teaching journalism for three years. Wow. Way to make yourselves look like total assholes, East Allen County Schools.

Rush Limbaugh, Meatspace Troll

From Media Matters for America: Limbaugh on Media Matters: "[Y]ou're going to have to learn not to be baited when I'm baiting you"
On the April 25 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh again claimed that the "Media Matters people fell for it, and the drive-by media fell for it, and this is a perfect illustration of what I was talking about on that day," referring to his recent statement that Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech gunman, "had to be a liberal." Media Matters documented both Limbaugh's April 19 statement that Cho "had to be a liberal" and his subsequent observation that "[n]ow the drive-bys will read on a website that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them" (Limbaugh regularly refers to mainstream media outlets as "the drive-by media"). On April 23, Limbaugh similarly claimed that "Media Matters fell for it hook, line, and sinker. They had it up all over the place," adding: "I was making a joke. ... Although I do believe that it was liberalism that got a hold of this guy and made him hate things, professors and this sort of thing."
First, he's flip-flopping so fast I swear he's going to wear a groove in his floor. Does he believe his bullshit statement about Cho "ha[ving] to be a liberal", or is it a joke? To make things worse, he's claiming it's a joke and saying he only said it to make Media Matters report on it. So he's admitting to be a meatspace troll, no better than folks like Fred Phelps. But this also means he doesn't believe the offensive garbage he spews, so why should his loyal wingnuts follow him?

Olbermann's right about this: Flush Limpballs is, at the end of a day, a really poor comedian, but a comedian nonetheless. No sane person would take the garbage he says seriously.

And remember, you can hear Limbaugh locally on 1190 AM WOWO, Ft. Wayne's home for insane right-wing shit.

4/25/2007

Just a quick little question.

My girlfriend needs to get on Medicaid to pay for medical bills. She makes about $500 a month.

But Indiana's Medicaid system won't cover her. Why? Because she's not disabled, a child, pregnant, or elderly.

Now I'm not saying these groups aren't deserving, but what of those of us who simply can't afford to get sick or hurt? Are we supposed to simply bugger off and live with it?

Just a thought.

ACLU Sues Over Plates

ACLU sues state over 'God' plates
The “In God We Trust” license plates that have quickly become a fixture on Indiana roads came under a legal attack today claiming the law authorizing them is unconstitutional for favoring that message over those on other plates.
The lawsuit filed in Marion Superior Court claims the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles gives preferential treatment to motorists wanting the plates, which also feature the American flag, because they don’t have to pay the $15 administrative fee that the agency collects on sales of most other Indiana specialty plates.
Naturally, the bitching has begun. The Christofascists don't want to have to pay for the right to advertise their kising of the Magic Sky Man's ass, so they're carping and whining everywhere they can.

I know this is goign to result in the usual hate being slung around - claims of "activist judges", the old saws about the ACLU "hating religion" and "stifling free speech", the smears about who the ACLU has defended (here's a hint: they do that because nobody else will). It's already happening, actually, and nothing can be done about it becuase these memes, started by far-right Bible-thumping hatemongers, are so ensconced in the media that they're treated as fact, and no amount of the truth can fix that.

4/21/2007

New links, April 21, 2007

After yesterday's post, Bil Browning of Bilerico left a comment about the fact that I'm already on their blogroll. I knew I was forgetting something I had meant to do, so I added Bilerico to the Local and State Weblogs section.

Also, I was finally added to the LeftyBlogs Indiana feed. I'm pleased as pop about that.

4/20/2007

Rights as an exclusive concept.

If I may, boo-hoo. This is an example of something that's really been bothering me.

In the past I-don't-even-know-how-long-anymore, I've seen an avalanche of letters to the newspapers around here, carping and whining about the Ft. Wayne smoking ban and how evil it supposedly is. People compare it to Bush's warrantless wiretaps, free speech violations, even Nazism. It's all rhetorically unsound, to put it nicely, and there's simple reasons for that: why shouldn't people be disallowed to endanger the health of others? For all the endless screaming about "smokers' rights" I see in many of these letters, nobody thinks about the rights of non-smokers to go to the places they WANT to go, without being subject to health-endangering smoke. As for the angle that it's "taking away the freedoms of business owners", do these people complain about business owners being told they have to follows health codes or fire codes? These laws are founded in the same concept: that the public's health is served by disallowing certain things.

Ultimately, I say this: If smokers don't like it, don't go out, or step outside. Your rights end where my lungs begin.

Jack Thompson: Intellectually Devoid Scumbucket



Chris Matthews puts a boot right up Thompson's ass on this one. Maybe this will finally end his psychopathic rantings once and for all. Sadly, I put Thompson on the same level as Fred Phelps: A crazy bastard who believes his own crazy thoughts and believes himself to be the sole arbiter of truth. If you examine their rantings, Phelps and Thompson are strikingly similar.

We're just that bad.

From Bilerico: Homos public enemy #1
Isn't it comforting to know we're the most hated group in the western world? Wow, that's going to help me sleep tonight...

According to a new study out of Australia, gays and lesbians are the most hated minority group in the world. The researchers posed the question, "Would you like to have a person from this group as your neighbor?" The survey then asked about muslims, gays, Jews, immigrants, or someone of a different race. Whudda thunk it that the primary group other folks don't want to live next to would be the queers?

(...)

Where did the good old United States rank? We are the 9th most homophobic out of the 23 countries surveyed with 22.9% of respondents not wanting to live nextdoor to gays or lesbians. (The Muslim community came second in the US too - with 10.9% of Americans bigoted against them.) The average for all countries was 19.6% bigoted against the LGBT community world wide. Ah, you can always count on the United States to be ahead of the pack.
You hear that fluttering noise? That's my perception that the world was moving forward flying right out the damn window.

Honestly, I know I shouldn't be surprised... but I am.

Random Ten, 04/20/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, a Mark Goodson/Bill Todman Production.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?
  • Eminem - Brain Damage
  • Motoi Sakuraba - Shifting Sands 2
  • the Verve Pipe - The Freshmen
  • Sirenia - In My Darkest Hours
  • Nintendo - Run! Men in Tights!
  • Amber - This Is Your Night
  • JULIA - Heaven Is a Place on Earth (German Election Mix)
  • David Bowie - Let's Dance
  • Julie Ann Frost - Balalaika, Carried With the Wind
  • Yooko Ishida - Ai no Senshi
There's a hell of a list for ya.

4/18/2007

Justice Ginsburg: "Today's decision is alarming."

From Feministing: "Today's decision is alarming."

The Supreme Court upheld the ban on the Dilation and Extraction abortion procedure, often called "partial-birth abortion" by anti-choice advocates, by a 5-4 vote today.

Justice Ginsburg penned a moving dissent from today's Supreme Court opinion upholding the Federal Abortion Ban. Some highlights:
Today's decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.
This scares me. That the court can make a ruling on such wrongheaded information casts a disturbing light on the future to me.

4/17/2007

Vultures

I fucking hate vultures. Not the birds, mind you, the type of people.

Ken "Answers in Genesis" Ham blames the VA Tech shooting on not enough peoople kissing the Divine Ass.
Instapukesack blames it on VA Tech banning guns on their campus, since, you know, guns fix EVERYTHING, and the right wing echo chamber starts repeating it.
Jack Thompson, the lying, cheating, game-hating, utterly fucking insane piece of amphibian shit, already blames it on video games, and Kotaku already has it debunked thoroughly.
"Dr." Phil, that lying pseudo-folk pop psychologist piece of shit patient molestor, is doing the same as Thompson.
And, true to form, Fred Phelps and his Klan are going to be staging some of their hate rallies at the funerals of those who were killed.

I swear I'm going to vomit.

4/13/2007

Random Ten, 04/13/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, to cap off a busy week.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?
  • Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places
  • Eminem - Under the Influence
  • Garth Brooks - Two of a Kind, Workin' On A Full House
  • Eminem - If I Had
  • Aqua - Freaky Friday
  • Dali - Moonlight Densetsu
  • The Eagles - Ol' 55
  • Modest Mouse - The View
  • The Eagles - The Long Run
  • nc feat. Dreamscanner - Tomorrow
Hmm... a little skewed towards certain artists this week. Ah well.

4/11/2007

ATTN: Media

Cover real news, please.

Thank you.

4/06/2007

Random Ten, 04/06/2007

It's the Friday Random Ten, and it feels fine.

Hit the Party Shuffle in iTunes and what do I get?
  • Orange Lounge - Love Is Orange
  • Matchbox 20 - Back 2 Good
  • Hidenori Shoji - 8 Guitars (Sand Ocean)
  • Smile.dk - Butterfly (Upswing Mix)
  • Eminem - Criminal
  • Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
  • The Birthday Massacre - Queen of Hearts
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic - Confessions Part III
  • t.A.t.U. - All the Things She Said
  • BeForU - GRADUATION
I'm going to have to add more music to this thing...

Cheney: "Facts be damned"

From MSNBC: Cheney reasserts al-Qaida-Saddam connection
Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June,” Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. “As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.”
You know, he must be desperate to sell this war to the 30% if he's going to go against the facts that blatantly. Worse yet, he doesn't assert these lies in the real media, where there's even the slightest chance he might be told how much of a lying sack he is, just on right-wing shitholes like Flush Limpballs' show. The sad part? His "boss", Dubya, has already said that the Saddam-AQ link was bullshit.

Oh, and to steal a bit from Craig: You can hear Limbaugh's show locally on 1190 AM WOWO, Fort Wayne's home for deranged far-right garbage.

4/03/2007

And now my faith is renewed.

From Blue Indiana: Ding Dong: SJR-7 is dead!
History has been made, folks! SJR-7, the proposed amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage and civil unions, has been defeated in committee. The amendment is dead.

(...)

None of this would have been possible without the courageous stand taken by Indiana companies like Cummins Engine, Wellpoint, Dow AgroSciences, Eli Lilly, and Emmis Communications. These corporations correctly pointed out that SJR-7 would negatively affect their ability to recruit quality employees by painting Indiana as an intolerant state to live and work in.
You probably have no idea how happy this makes me. This is one step closer to the goal of making this state into being seen as something other than a backwards, hateful, bigot-filled, conservative, Bible-thumping shithole. And yes, this does set a good business precedent - believe it or not, gay people need jobs, too, and they're not going to want to live in a state that tells them they're second-class citizens.

I know it's not going to matter - most people in this state will still have fits over the "evil homosexuals trying to convert our childrens", and will still be screaming about "protecting marriage" and "traditional morals", but at least their hatred is not going to be enshrined into law. That makes a difference to me.

4/02/2007

Pence: "Downtown Baghdad == Indiana"

From IndyStar.com: Pence likens Baghdad market to 1 in Indiana
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., traveling Sunday in Iraq's capital with three other GOP members of Congress, compared a shopping area there to a "normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."
Yeah, because when I go down the street, I need a detachment of military guards to escort me:
Pence, speaking after a heavily guarded hourlong walk through the newly fortified market, echoed comments made by U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona and others that the capital was getting safer.
"I, too, find myself leaving my day at the market in Baghdad with a new sense of cautious optimism that freedom might just work for these people," Pence said during a news conference inside the fortified Green Zone.
First, you gotta be amazed at the kind of denialism these people cling to. "It's safer! It's just like back home!" This dementia persists despite stories like these coming out of Iraq every damn day. (Of course, that's only because the "liberal media" "only reports the bad news".) Second you also gotta marvel at the condescension in that statement: "freedom might just work for these people". "These people", like they're barely even human, like they're some concept rather than human beings. And this man is supposed to represent us?