Newsy stuff
Obama kills the pro-censorship "Stop Internet Piracy Act" (SOPA). However, the similar "PROTECT IP" bill goes before the Senate next Tuesday. I hope the same internet activists who had promised to "go dark" tomorrow in protest of SOPA keep their eyes on PROTECT IP.
Pennsylvania seeks to make it even harder for poor, unemployed people to get food stamps: If you've got $2,000 in assets, you're ineligible. Most used cars are worth more than that. How are you going to travel to job interviews without one in rural areas? I guess that doesn't matter to the same people who want to punish poor cellphone owners: Your ability to communicate with prospective employers <<<< wingnut RAEG that you're not living under a bridge, eating shit, and you DARE ask for help.
FINALLY, after years of "Well, some say vaccines could cause autism....", a mainstream media exhortation to vaccinate kids.
Digby links to this article about the increasing repression of women by Israeli black hats, and she takes the opportunity to point out that not only does conservatism seek such repression, but libertarianism will not prevent it.Devolution [i.e., decentralization of government power] means regressing to traditional hierarchies. It's something those who were only recently second class citizens understand in their bones.
Wingnut noises about voter ID to prevent "voter fraud" not only disenfranchise certain blocs of legal voters...Citizens who will be harmed the most are those who turned out in unprecedented numbers in 2008: Black and Latino voters as well as young and elderly voters. People with disabilities will also be among the hardest hit by new Photo ID requirements.
...but, to be blunt, are designed to. The antics of modern-day right-wingers on MLK, Jr. Day are pretty telling. To echo that Digby post above, "freedum from fedrul gubmint" = freedom for states, counties, and towns to treat people of color like shit.
The Digby post linked in the term "right-wingers" above goes to a four-year-old Rick Perlstein piece about contemporary reaction to King by conservatives. St. Ronnie of Orange County called King's assassination the kind of "great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they'd break." Entirely of a piece with assertions that illegal immigrants should die of thirst and heat in the desert, people who smoke pot should be raped in prison, and Occupy protestors should be pepper-sprayed, "BECUZ THEY BROKE TEH LAWZ!!!!"
A minor bit of good news on the racism front: MSNBC dropped Pat Buchanan's racist ass. Overall, however, too damn little, too damn late. Onkel Pat has been a "respected commentater" for more than four decades.
Dear dumbasses working in fast food: This is not cool, and neither is this. (At least Papa John's has apologized and fired the cashier.)
On the misogyny front, this country seems to be eager to imitate Brazil in its disregard for women's bodily autonomy, health, welfare, and lives. Historian Nancy L. Cohen writes that for right wingers, this is a feature and not a bug. And the mainstream media doesn't give a shit, which is why you probably haven't heard much about the Florida abortion clinic burned down on New Year's morning.
Oh, and yeah, big-time forced-birther Randall Terry intends to show graphic ads featuring the usual mutilated stillbirths during the Superbowl. “Nothing says ‘pass the dip’ like a bloody fetus.” Maybe Tim Tebow should get a gig doing salsa commercials.
What this blogger, who used to investigate child abuse and neglect allegations, said:In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!
Despite assholes who blame women's lack of promotions and bonuses on us not speaking up in the workplace, recent research shows that those who do are stigmatized.
RH Reality Check asks whether a generation of "abstinence-only" sex "education" aggravated bullying in the schools. It sounds a little far-fetched on the surface, but the piece is worth reading.
On the other side of the pond, a speech about human rights and shari'a law at Queen Mary, University London, had to be canceled after a man burst into the room, filmed attendees' faces with a camera phone, and threatened to "hunt down" anyone who dissed Muhammad.
Rethinking parking lots. "The Pensacola Parking Syndrome is a term of the trade used to describe a city that tears down its old buildings to create parking spaces to entice more people downtown, until people no longer want to go there because it has become an empty lot."
This post promotes a 1950 book called Roads to Ruin: The Shocking History of Social Progress, by the late ES Turner. "It’s basically a survey of forgotten British moral panics of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Predictions of the death of decency and/or fall of Western Civilization meet social reform proposals that sound (to us today) right and proper, or at least reasonable, or at least unlikely to bring about apocalypse."
Drug-sniffing dogs have an incredibly high false-positive rate.
Remember this stupidity? There's now a satirical Twitter feed called TimesPublicEditor, featuring Tweets like these...THIS SUNDAY: our Education reporter asks the question, are our public schools showing students enough Lars von Trier films?
@Shouldudourjob you raise a good point. Just because a ref sees a linebacker almost take a receiver’s head off, does he *have* to call PI?
I believe the Times has been remiss in not giving more coverage to Horatio Dunwoody, the GOPs first steampunk presidential candidate… Dunwoody is running on an education-first platform, and has pledged to give each child their own mahogany iPad cover
Gingrich got a big applause line when he said TSA positions should be staffed by kindergarteners
Readers have sent in inaccuracies from last night’s GOP debate… 5) The Gulf oil spill was not engineered to distract from the War on Christmas
3) Hybrid vehicle technology was not invented by the Church of Satan… @nocoastoffense we do know Anton Lavey drove a VW Beetle that ran on vegetable oil, but that’s as far as the connection goes
ETA: Anecdote about Arthur Brisbane.We here in Kansas City had to put up with him at the Star twice. First time, when he reviewed Neil Young’s “Rust Never Sleeps” album, Brisbane went on a long rant about how terrible it was that Young was glorifying a punk rocker who did heroin and killed his girlfriend. Because, of course, Brisbane didn’t know the difference between Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. This level of knowledge has been fastidiously maintained throughout his career.
There's a new "documentary" coming out about Ayn Rand. It's said to be less a documentary than a hagiography. As I live in southern New Hampshire, this means I won't be able to find K-Y jelly or Kleenex in the stores for weeks after it comes out.
ETA: I kinda hope Jim-Jim O'Keeffe's luck has finally run out, but the GOP control New Hampshire right now, so I'll curb my glee until he's actually convicted. (Now, that? That is voter fraud, wingnuts.)
Finally, Bill Janklow, drunk driver, probable rapist (hey, she was Lakota, so the cops didn't give a fuck), committer of vehicular manslaughter, and politician from North Dakota, died last Thursday. This is a fitting obituary. This, which clutches its pearls over a tribal leader "venting" at Janklow's death rather than giving his corpse the big sloppy kiss that NPR did, makes my punching hand itch.
Unlocked.
This entry was originally posted at http://ms-daisy-cutter.dreamwidth.org/1765003.html. Please comment there using either your DW account or OpenID.
Pennsylvania seeks to make it even harder for poor, unemployed people to get food stamps: If you've got $2,000 in assets, you're ineligible. Most used cars are worth more than that. How are you going to travel to job interviews without one in rural areas? I guess that doesn't matter to the same people who want to punish poor cellphone owners: Your ability to communicate with prospective employers <<<< wingnut RAEG that you're not living under a bridge, eating shit, and you DARE ask for help.
FINALLY, after years of "Well, some say vaccines could cause autism....", a mainstream media exhortation to vaccinate kids.
Digby links to this article about the increasing repression of women by Israeli black hats, and she takes the opportunity to point out that not only does conservatism seek such repression, but libertarianism will not prevent it.Devolution [i.e., decentralization of government power] means regressing to traditional hierarchies. It's something those who were only recently second class citizens understand in their bones.
Wingnut noises about voter ID to prevent "voter fraud" not only disenfranchise certain blocs of legal voters...Citizens who will be harmed the most are those who turned out in unprecedented numbers in 2008: Black and Latino voters as well as young and elderly voters. People with disabilities will also be among the hardest hit by new Photo ID requirements.
...but, to be blunt, are designed to. The antics of modern-day right-wingers on MLK, Jr. Day are pretty telling. To echo that Digby post above, "freedum from fedrul gubmint" = freedom for states, counties, and towns to treat people of color like shit.
The Digby post linked in the term "right-wingers" above goes to a four-year-old Rick Perlstein piece about contemporary reaction to King by conservatives. St. Ronnie of Orange County called King's assassination the kind of "great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they'd break." Entirely of a piece with assertions that illegal immigrants should die of thirst and heat in the desert, people who smoke pot should be raped in prison, and Occupy protestors should be pepper-sprayed, "BECUZ THEY BROKE TEH LAWZ!!!!"
A minor bit of good news on the racism front: MSNBC dropped Pat Buchanan's racist ass. Overall, however, too damn little, too damn late. Onkel Pat has been a "respected commentater" for more than four decades.
Dear dumbasses working in fast food: This is not cool, and neither is this. (At least Papa John's has apologized and fired the cashier.)
On the misogyny front, this country seems to be eager to imitate Brazil in its disregard for women's bodily autonomy, health, welfare, and lives. Historian Nancy L. Cohen writes that for right wingers, this is a feature and not a bug. And the mainstream media doesn't give a shit, which is why you probably haven't heard much about the Florida abortion clinic burned down on New Year's morning.
Oh, and yeah, big-time forced-birther Randall Terry intends to show graphic ads featuring the usual mutilated stillbirths during the Superbowl. “Nothing says ‘pass the dip’ like a bloody fetus.” Maybe Tim Tebow should get a gig doing salsa commercials.
What this blogger, who used to investigate child abuse and neglect allegations, said:In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!
Despite assholes who blame women's lack of promotions and bonuses on us not speaking up in the workplace, recent research shows that those who do are stigmatized.
RH Reality Check asks whether a generation of "abstinence-only" sex "education" aggravated bullying in the schools. It sounds a little far-fetched on the surface, but the piece is worth reading.
On the other side of the pond, a speech about human rights and shari'a law at Queen Mary, University London, had to be canceled after a man burst into the room, filmed attendees' faces with a camera phone, and threatened to "hunt down" anyone who dissed Muhammad.
Rethinking parking lots. "The Pensacola Parking Syndrome is a term of the trade used to describe a city that tears down its old buildings to create parking spaces to entice more people downtown, until people no longer want to go there because it has become an empty lot."
This post promotes a 1950 book called Roads to Ruin: The Shocking History of Social Progress, by the late ES Turner. "It’s basically a survey of forgotten British moral panics of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Predictions of the death of decency and/or fall of Western Civilization meet social reform proposals that sound (to us today) right and proper, or at least reasonable, or at least unlikely to bring about apocalypse."
Drug-sniffing dogs have an incredibly high false-positive rate.
Remember this stupidity? There's now a satirical Twitter feed called TimesPublicEditor, featuring Tweets like these...THIS SUNDAY: our Education reporter asks the question, are our public schools showing students enough Lars von Trier films?
@Shouldudourjob you raise a good point. Just because a ref sees a linebacker almost take a receiver’s head off, does he *have* to call PI?
I believe the Times has been remiss in not giving more coverage to Horatio Dunwoody, the GOPs first steampunk presidential candidate… Dunwoody is running on an education-first platform, and has pledged to give each child their own mahogany iPad cover
Gingrich got a big applause line when he said TSA positions should be staffed by kindergarteners
Readers have sent in inaccuracies from last night’s GOP debate… 5) The Gulf oil spill was not engineered to distract from the War on Christmas
3) Hybrid vehicle technology was not invented by the Church of Satan… @nocoastoffense we do know Anton Lavey drove a VW Beetle that ran on vegetable oil, but that’s as far as the connection goes
ETA: Anecdote about Arthur Brisbane.We here in Kansas City had to put up with him at the Star twice. First time, when he reviewed Neil Young’s “Rust Never Sleeps” album, Brisbane went on a long rant about how terrible it was that Young was glorifying a punk rocker who did heroin and killed his girlfriend. Because, of course, Brisbane didn’t know the difference between Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. This level of knowledge has been fastidiously maintained throughout his career.
There's a new "documentary" coming out about Ayn Rand. It's said to be less a documentary than a hagiography. As I live in southern New Hampshire, this means I won't be able to find K-Y jelly or Kleenex in the stores for weeks after it comes out.
ETA: I kinda hope Jim-Jim O'Keeffe's luck has finally run out, but the GOP control New Hampshire right now, so I'll curb my glee until he's actually convicted. (Now, that? That is voter fraud, wingnuts.)
Finally, Bill Janklow, drunk driver, probable rapist (hey, she was Lakota, so the cops didn't give a fuck), committer of vehicular manslaughter, and politician from North Dakota, died last Thursday. This is a fitting obituary. This, which clutches its pearls over a tribal leader "venting" at Janklow's death rather than giving his corpse the big sloppy kiss that NPR did, makes my punching hand itch.
Unlocked.
This entry was originally posted at http://ms-daisy-cutter.dreamwidth.org/1765003.html. Please comment there using either your DW account or OpenID.