First Draft

Weekend Question Thread

You can select one person from history and ask them a question they have to answer honestly. 

Who would you pick, and what would you ask?

A.

Saturday Bogwhoring Thread

Gifs at Giftube.com

Post away!

A.

A Paultard Christmas

It's been a bit quiet on the hostiliday front but the warfare usually intensifies on the weekend. The most nauseating video I've seen thus far was posted at Minor Wisdom and features two creepy women "singing" Go Tell It On The Mountain.

My latest contribution is a real teabagger of a tune from Christmas 2007 from a Pautard with a raspy voice and a passion for freedom, Ron Paul style:

Nooooooooooo!

Free Butterstick!

A.

ps. The Butterstick-Wonkette love affair is one of those stories I tell about why I love the Internet, right up there with the John Cornyn Box Turtle thing, Sinclair Broadcasting, Spocko, and the Sloganator.

To boldly go where hos have gone before

 

One of my favorite jokes has unfortunately come true in journalism:

Two little old ladies are sitting down for tea and talking about their daughters.

“My Jeanie has so many nice boyfriends,” the one began. “She’s always out to eat at the nicest restaurants. She gets to see the best shows and attend the nicest concerts. And the men are so generous with their money. They buy her such nice things…”

“Yeah,” The second one chimes in. “My daughter’s a whore too…”

The folks at the Belo Corporation are implementing  “bold strategies” that involve news people reporting to sales people. The folks launching this thing are living under the delusion held by the first little old lady. The rest of us see it like the second little old lady.

To that end, I want to see Bob Mong dressed in clear heels and a latex mini skirt. That way, he’d have a harder time looking at himself in the mirror and trying to convince himself that he’s not a whore this morning. It might not be his fault. Perhaps he realized Belo turned on his newsroom and the rest of its journalistic properties by mandating this “synergy” of news and ads. Perhaps he knows it’s an unholy alliance, the likes of which would have the authors of the Bill of Rights spinning in their graves fast enough to create a black hole. Perhaps he looks at this the way a garbage man looks at garbage: It’s all trash. It’s a job. It pays the bills. I don’t know how he rationalizes this set up, or if he even believes in what he’s pumping out of “Bold Strategy Central.” The point is, he’s trumpeting this and that’s despicable.  

You can put a happy face on this all you want. You can say it’s been done before in more subtle and surreptitious ways at every news agency in the country. You can say that there’s a line that’s drawn and that we don’t cross it. That’s all fine and good, but when you keep moving the line the way the DMN has now, you are never sure if you’ll cross the line or the line will cross you. For decades, the rule was that the money twerps stayed out of the way of the news geeks and vice versa. We didn’t let you tell us to print a story on a new business in town in hopes of getting some ads and you didn’t let us tell you that you couldn’t take an ad because we were going after them with a story. That was a nice, thick, broad line. BELO’s line is a narrow one that has the tensile strength of wet tissue paper. You can’t even call it a line. You can’t even dress it up as some bastion of safety against what could lead to clear conflicts of interest where money holds the ace in the deck. If this abomination were to be tried and the two sides were equals in the discussion, it would still be horrible, but at least there wouldn’t be such an egregious power imbalance. Having the ad people serve as bosses for the news people goes against the basic idea of  how a U.S. newspaper should work.

Sure, times are tough. Sure newspapers are in trouble. And sure, if it weren’t for this damned Internet, these unethical bloggers and these kids with their hippity hoppity music, we’d be so much better off in life. However, selling out your paper because times are tough is the LAST thing you should consider doing, regardless of how “bold” of a move it is.

Thus, you have two choices: Either get the hell out of the situation and keep your high ground or put on the red dress.

Either way, admit what you're doing. The honesty would be refreshing.

Friday Ferretblogging: Playtime Edition

Bucky is, by and large, a very lazy animal. He'd like to just sit on my lap and get petted all day, and I'm sincerely considering getting some kind of sling to carry him around in because a) that's hilarious and b) FUZZY! Every once in a while, though, he has a full-on freakout and starts acting like the one-year-old he really is:

A.

Tiger Penis Soup

This pretty much sums it up.

That's right. As long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, I don't care about who sticks what where when how or with whom.  I'd like to take this moment to say that it's completely shocking that a young, rich, good-looking, athletic human being would not be totally monogamous.*  I'm sure this sort of thing has never happened before, and that's why there's all of the coverage.  Dear reporters: That's called sarcasm.  There are more important goddamned things in the world than famous winkies.

And for anyone who's upset about this kind of behavior setting a bad example, please shut the fuck up.  Seriously, people, cut out all the shit about role models.  If you're sad because you feel that someone you never met, who doesn't owe you a goddamned thing, does something that you disapprove of and feel is bad for kids, then consider the following three-step process for self-improvement:  Step the fuck back right now, slap yourself hard, and get a fucking grip.  This is a private matter that should only concern the people involved.

Now, can we continue with our lives, please?

*For the social science-minded (and their adoring groupies):  People are basically as faithful as their options.  The number one predictor of infidelity (how I hate that term) is opportunity.  Who has lots of opportunities?  Young, rich, good-looking people, that's who.  Don't act so shocked.

Malaka Of The Week: Tim Tebow

 

This is more of a "lifetime achievement award" than anything else. The Florida Gator QB hasn't committed any acts of heinous malakatude of late but I may not have him to kick around much longer so I tagged him and he's it. Besides, the SEC Championship between two of my least favorite SEC football powerhouses, Florida and Alabama is this weekend. Atlanta is about to be invaded by drunken frat boys, douchebags, good ole boys and malakas. Unfortunately for NOLA, the loser is likely  to play in the Sugar Bowl so we'll be putting up with them soon enough. The Florida fans are *slightly* less awful than the Bama faithful but it's a race to the bottom at best...

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, Tim Tebow. He's a great college football player but some of the paens to his "character" and his overt religiosity creep me out. What kind of jerk wears biblical verses under his eyes? Tim Tebow, Heisman Trophy winning malaka, that's who.

Tebow is the only college age man I've ever heard of who brags about being a virgin. Talk about malakatude. When I heard that, I got in touch with my inner teenybopper and thought TMI. Shut the fuck up, Timbo. You could have just said "no comment" to the dipshit reporter who asked you if you were saving yourself for marriage:

Of course, Timbo was probably worried about Jehovah raining down fire on him or something like that. Oops, I forgot he's a frakking role model. I've never understood why people think jocks are worthy role models. Of course, it could explain why fans of Babe Ruth ate too many hot dogs, drank too much beer and made far too many passes at girls with or without glasses. Willie Mays was my boyhood hero but when I met him, he was polite but querulous.  I *still* think he was the best ballplayer I ever saw but a role model? I think not.

Let's see what else about malaka Tim Tebow bugs the living shit out of me? Oh yeah, there's the creepy nature of CBS sportscaster Verne Lundquist's man crush on him. Verne positively gushes when he mentions the name Tim Tebow, I suspect he wets himself as well. Yo, Lundquist, what the hell kind of Scandinavian are you? You should be nodding and saying, "Oh jah, he's pretty good." Instead you sound like his prom date or something. Sheesh. Have some dignity, man.

Speaking of undignified sycophancy, there's a  web site dedicated to Tebow's awesome godlike qualities called Tebowisms. It came up on the google as the repository (suppository?) of Tebow jokes but instead informs us that it's dedicated to the greatness of Tim Tebow who is apparently not only Jor-El's son but is invulnerable to Kryptonite too. I guess he's saving himself for Lois Lane. Yikes.

I, for one, am thrilled that Tim Tebow's reign as a college football superstar is nearly over. The only problem with rooting against Florida in the SEC Championship Game is that it would be indirectly rooting for Cosby sweater wearing Crimson Tide Coach Nick Saban, which could get me in deep shit with the rabid Sabanophobes in the Gret Stet. I guess I'll punt instead of going for it on 4th and 1.

Finally, it will  be interesting to see Tebow take his bible thumping ways to the NFL. I look forward to seeing three 350 pound fat guys sitting on his head. The jury is still out on Tebow as a professional. I think he'll either be the second coming of Steve Young (the only liberal Mormon not named Udall) or the next Bobby Douglass who was also a big lug like Timmy. Douglass was a great running QB who played for Da Bears and completed 43% of his passes in a 10 year career, which included a brief stint with the Saints. 

My money's on Tebow being the next Douglass. Am I sure of that? What the hell do I know? But I know one thing for certain: Tim Tebow not only oozes unctuous religiosity but malakatude as well.

Harry, Why is This Guy Still Talking?

Seriously, what a pointless little dickhead:

Sen. Ben Nelson told reporters today he will filibuster the health care bill if it doesn't contain an abortion amendment similar to Rep. Bart Stupak's amendment that passed attached to the House health care bill last month.

"I will not vote to take it off the floor," said Nelson (D-NE).

"Now I don't know that it's going to come down to that, because I don't know that Stupak's not going to pass, number one," he said. "Number two I don't know what kind of alternative legislation may be offered as an alternative bill. I don't know what the next steps are, but I've made it clear that whatever is finally considered has to have that language in it."

Well HI THERE DOOFUS, was nobody paying attention to you today? Was that the problem? Everybody's all over Mary Landrieu and Max Baucus and oh yeah ALL THE DEAD PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SEE DOCTORS. Everybody's giving all this attention all of a sudden to poor people who are sick, and not to Ben Nelson. Fixed that, didn't you?

Here's the thing about how Joe and Jane Voter are watching this. We're out here, where our emergency rooms are basically the Purgatorio, and we do not understand why this is hard to fix at all. There are a number of models to choose from, any one of which would be infinitely better than the combination crap shoot/pig fuck we all deal with on any given day. In our minds, we pick a solution and we go with it, and it either works or it doesn't, but the least difficult thing about it is making sure U.S. senators are happy critters.

Inside that bubble, though, the worst thing on the planet is that Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and a bunch of Republicans who are assholes are upset. That's the hardest thing, getting enough people to agree to pass something that will demonstrably help lots and lots of voters, which voters overwhelmingly want. This is just too hard a task for Harry, because Bitty Baby Ben here isn't feeling loved, and wants a shiny new convertible or something, and true bipartisanship, and a pony. Seriously, this isn't a hard task. You need to open his head up, reach down his neck and take out his larynx with an ice cream scoop.

I am not kidding, the dumbest intern on Capitol Hill has a harder job right now than Harry Reid. Just YOU try remembering an entire office's Starbucks order off the top of your head.

A.

Stephen Seagal Meets Harry Lee

From Album3

Um, literally. Thanks to I guess a chance encounter some twenty years ago, tv viewers are treated to what's gotta be one of the weirdest reality shows ever (and thanks to Oyster for reminding me to watch this train/boat wreck of a show.) Stephen Seagal doesn't just play a sheriff's deputy on tv, but actually is one for Jefferson Parish, which for non Gret Stet'ers is suburban New Orleans (Metairie, Kenner, the West Bank, etc. -- my personal favorite moniker was always "Fat City."

Part bizarro morality play, part "Cops," part Kung Fu meets Popeye's Fried Chicken (at least a half a dozen references to his "lifetime of martial arts training" in the two half hour episodes), this was toothache television at it's finest, to paraphrase the late, great Bill Hicks (who described watching "Cops" as like having a toothache that you can't stop touching.)

By the way: for all the lifetime of martial arts training ("akido -- the way of love" is how I recall his description), it sure seems as if tasers get quite the workout. And, maybe the exception that proves the rule, or maybe that even the vastest television wastelands aren't entirely bereft of anything worthwhile (ok...but...) you can certainly get an idea of just how hopeless vast swaths of the suburbs are...and I get the feeling that similar areas exist all around the country, not just in New Orleans.

One such location leads to an encounter that should serve as a reminder that the police experience sure is different for some: three young black men are pulled from a vehicle, ostensibly for violating open container regulations (in suburban NOLA, for crying out loud, plus the bottle was capped, just not sealed) and held while id's and a weapon (the latter not at all uncommon in these parts) are checked with headquarters via the radio. All are clean...but I wonder what would happen if the kids were wealthy Tulane students and the location was uptown...just saying.

Don't Get Around Much Any More

Beleaguered British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had another oops moment:

Gordon Brown was asked in the House of Commons to congratulate Reese Witherspoon, who visited Parliament Wednesday in her role as a campaigner against domestic violence.

Brown replied that he was "grateful that Renee Witherspoon is leading this campaign." He said the actress had spoken movingly at the funeral of director Anthony Minghella.

Renee Zellweger starred in Minghella's "Cold Mountain" and spoke at his memorial service last year.

Witherspoon is the Academy award-winning star of "Walk the Line" and "Legally Blonde."

Gordon Brown is a good example of how hilarious the humorless can be. I'd still vote Labour if I were a Brit but Gordon's fate is to play John Major to Tony Blair's Margaret Thatcher. It's a pity on many levels because Brown is smarter and more substantive than all of them but, like John Major, he gets no points for style.

Speaking of style, what's more stylish than Nat King Cole singing a Duke Ellington tune?

Avante Garde you make me hard

It's not a bad Xmas vid, but sorry, I just can't pass up gay font geeks.

Yeah, they said all that about Gutenberg too

Okay, first off, Sherman Alexie has produced some wonderful novels and poetry, a lot of which I've enjoyed. So this is not about his talent or his place in the literary canon. 

In addition, just like the rest of us, he is entitled to his opinions about stuff.  So, I got no problem with him having a dog in the fight over technology and digital rights.

But goddamn it, he's been pissing me with his ongoing rants about how e-books and Kindles are going to...going to... well, just wait! They're going to do a LOT of things, a lot of BAD things, like for example: lead to illiteracy, widen the digital divide, increase digital piracy, wrest control of content from authors, bring about the downfall of book sellers and book smellers alike. Also, they might — hell, they probably will— hurt puppies. And somehow, the government might use your Kindle to get all up in your business. And Sherman Alexie is unhappy about this and wants to save us, even if we don't want to be saved. Also, he is an Indian, so he's right about this shit.

At a panel of authors speaking mainly to independent booksellers, Sherman Alexie, the National Book Award-winning author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” said he refused to allow his novels to be made available in digital form. He called the expensive reading devices “elitist” and declared that when he saw a woman sitting on the plane with a Kindle on his flight to New York, “I wanted to hit her.”

Yeah, he said that. As I see it, that quote is very telling.  Even though he's not "anti-technology" and "loves his iPod," Alexie gets emotional about e-books.  He is afraid of the changes they signal, he doesn't like that they take away his supposed control of his work, and he thinks we should be "mourning" the loss of the immediacy and intimacy of actual storytelling. And that makes him want to hit things, like people.

So fine, if you want to be defensive and afraid and overwhelmed and sad and all elegiac-like, go on TV and let it all out. Oprah loves that shit. But don't take all that, wrap it up in with a scattershot bunch of cherrypicked factoids, and pass it off as reason and truth.

I consider the Kindle elitist because it’s too expensive. I also consider it elitist because, right now, one company is making all the rules. I am also worried about Jeff Bezos’ comments about wanting to change the way we read books. That’s rather imperial. Having grown up poor, I’m also highly aware that there’s always a massive technology gap between rich and poor kids. I haven’t yet heard what Amazon plans to do about this potential technology gap. And that’s a vital question considering that Bezos wants to change the way we read books. How does he plan to change the way that poor kids read books? How does he plan to make sure that poor kids have access to the technology? Poor kids all over the country don’t have access to current textbooks, so will they have access to Kindle?

Pretty much about the same time as the advent of the first digital book, educators and producers of assistive technologies have been figuring out how best to use e-books and devices in schools. In addition, there are a lots of FREE online ebook libraries, and for that matter, has Mr. Alexie been to a public library recently? They have computers and the internet machine there now you know, and a number of brick and mortar  libraries are loaning out Kindles (and other ebook readers), with Amazon's legal blessing. Libraries can "de-register" the machines so borrowers can't use them purchase books on the taxpayer dime.

I'm not saying the transition to e-books is seamless or even that there is agreement about it, or that Alexie is wrong to be concerned about real threats, but a great deal of discussion, online and off, regarding the topic focuses on the potential of the technology for democratizing access, much like movable type did in the 17th century, rather than limiting it. I find it hard to believe Alexie isn't aware of this.

I am not some kind of Kindle champion. Hell I don't even own, or particularly want, one.  It just pisses me off when talented people whose work I admire, like Sherman Alexie, act stupid and unaware of just how self-contradictory they sound.  Like he did last night on Colbert:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sherman Alexie
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

He's Got This

A quick word regarding my Twitter feed, which this morning is full of, "Support the president!" and "fuk u, bufalos" type of back-and-forth: You can follow me there. It's mostly yammering about the ferrets and what they're trying to eat today.

Also? There is no more imperative to "support the president" with total absence of debate now than there was during the Bush administration. He is not Tinkerbell. He does not need us to clap. If someone says something critical of Obama it is not going to weaken his essence or something. He's a smart, powerful, pretty self-assured dude with a few hundred folks around him employed to carry out his every whim. He can take it if someone with a web site says, about Afghanistan or anything else, "This is a douche move."

You're required to "support the president" by agreeing with him when you agree with him. That's it. Al Qaeda is not watching us to see if we are weakening in our magic unity powers. Chuck Todd will be upset, sure, because Mommy and Daddy fighting freaks him out, but: We're a pretty tough bunch of folks, 101st Keyboarding Brigade notwithstanding, and we can stomach a little disagreement. You or I being at odds with the president does not mean the apocalypse is upon us. He will survive and so will we.

A.

Ambivalent

Obama's speech hasn't sent me racing to the barricades to either oppose or support his policy. The best thing about the speech was its tone: somber and sober. Nobody does the two S's as well as the President. The worst thing about the speech was the troop increase: I doubt that it will work. Foreign powers have been trying to secure the rural areas of Afghanistan for centuries and there are always rebels in the mountains shooting at them. It's a combination of geography and culture: Afghanistan remains a largely illiterate country dominated by tribes and war lords.

This is a tough time to be President; much of Obama's job is to clean up the messes left behind by the recklessness, arrogance and stupidity of the Bushies. The Pashtun tribal areas of what could be called Afpakistan are perhaps the biggest mess of all. There was a rush to invade Afghanistan combined with mindless support for the Pakistani military junta of Musharraf. As we all know, that's what set the stage for the current mess.

Obama made it clear that he considers this course to be the least bad one for the country. I not only hope that he's right but that he will resist the inevitable demands from the Pentagon for more boots on the ground. I was relieved that he set a timeline for withdrawal and hope that he sticks to it. I think we should start withdrawing earlier than that and follow the sage advice of the Vietnam era Republican Senator from Vermont, George Aiken and "declare victory" and get the hell out of there pronto. Yeah, I know, everyone quotes Aiken at times like these but troubled times call for the classics. Speaking of which, Dan Rather was on the Rachel Maddow Show Monday night and also invoked the Aiken refrain:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What Was She Thinking?

Advice columns generally are a throwback, but this one throws back to about 1620 or so:

Dear Amy: I recently attended a frat party, got drunk and made some bad decisions.

I let a guy take me to "his" room because he promised that he wouldn't do anything I wasn't comfortable with.

Many times, I clearly said I didn't want to have sex, and he promised to my face that he wouldn't.

Then he quickly proceeded to go against what he "promised." I was shocked, and maybe being intoxicated made my reaction time a bit slow in realizing what was happening.

We were soon kicked out of the room by the guy who lived there, who was pretty angry.

I guess my question is, if I wasn't kicking and fighting him off, is it still rape?

I feel like calling it that is a bit extreme, but I haven't felt the same since it happened.

Am I a victim?

-- Victim? in Virginia

Dear Victim?: First of all, thank you. I hope your letter will be posted on college bulletin boards everywhere.

Were you a victim? Yes.

First, you were a victim of your own awful judgment. Getting drunk at a frat house is a hazardous choice for anyone to make because of the risk (some might say a likelihood) that you will engage in unwise or unwanted sexual contact.

Jude sent this to me with an exhortation to stop killing journalism. My immediate reaction was to grab the nearest scotch bottle and a straw and go back to bed for the rest of the day in hopes of killing the brain cells that processed this. My more considered reaction was ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Leaving aside the classic YOU FILTHY WHORE and quibbling over "forcible rape" at work here, this is my problem generally with a lot of what young women hear as "rape prevention" strategies: They focus entirely on the woman's behavior, on controlling women and making them fearful. Don't go alone to a party. Don't drink at a party. Don't drink too much (and of course you always know how much is too much, and of course you would never just let loose and have a good time like a guy could) or kiss someone you don't know. Don't walk home alone. Don't walk home late. Don't walk home at all. Be on your guard constantly. Be afraid to go outside. Be afraid of sunset. Be afraid of yourself. Be afraid of every man you see.

Be constantly constrained into a smaller and smaller box, until someday you can't move at all. And then be hurt from within that box, when it's your husband or your brother or your friend. Look, I'm not being naive here. I've been in situations, traveling alone, where I lied to a stranger that friends back at the hotel were expecting me when there were no friends and was no expectation. I lock my doors at night. I walk all over at all hours, sure, but I know always, always, that if something were to happen to me the first question would be not, "What bastard could do this?" but "What was she thinking doing that?" I, like most women, hell like most people, live knowing that anything shitty that happens to me will somehow be my fault, because that's what we need to believe in order to live without knocking down all our assumptions and all our fears. 

But I don't for a minute think that the problem with the world is that I don't take enough precautions. I think the problem with the world is that such precautions are necessary.

This just kicks in my whole kink about our security generally, that we -- men, women, all of us -- place all the burden on ourselves to avoid trouble, rather than making sure trouble does not exist. We drive an extra mile to get around "that" neighborhood, we draw these imaginary walls and then stay within them and tell ourselves it'll all be okay if only we color inside the lines. When something horrible happens in our own little imaginary fortresses we say, "But this is a NICE community" and act like the world has come crashing down on our island of exceptions. It's the world. And either you fix it or it's a matter of time before it fucking finds you. That's it.

If our streets are not safe for young women the answer is not to tell young women to stay off our streets, it is to make those streets safe. If frat houses, as one of the many outraged commenters to this steaming pile point out, are rape houses, the answer is not for people to stay out of them but for many, many more people to go in. If a woman drinks too much at a party and gets raped the proper action, first last and always, is not to tell her to drink less but to tell the man in question TO RAPE LESS. Preferably while said gentleman is occupying the rear of a squad car.

Which, another commenter:

Amy, how often do you tell young men to watch how much they drink, so that they don't rape someone? How often have you advised young men not to rape? When the majority of rapes against women are perpetrated by men they have pre-existing relationships with (family, friends and acquaintances), you would think that we as a society might see the value in telling young men not to rape their friends and loved ones. Instead you chose to engage in victim-blaming a women who came to you in pain.

The next time a rape survivor comes to you, please remember that not being raped is not a skill or a talent.

If you've never been raped, Amy, it's not because you figured out some secret of common sense ViV didn't. You deserve no pat on the back.

If you've never been raped, Amy, the ONLY reason, is because you have never been in the presence of a man who wanted to rape you. Nothing more.

Fucking THANK YOU.

A.

'We have no interest in occupying your country'

That's probably what set the wingnuts off:

The people of Afghanistan have endured violence for decades. They have been confronted with occupation – by the Soviet Union, and then by foreign al Qaeda fighters who used Afghan land for their own purposes. So tonight, I want the Afghan people to understand – America seeks an end to this era of war and suffering. We have no interest in occupying your country. We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens. And we will seek a partnership with Afghanistan grounded in mutual respect – to isolate those who destroy; to strengthen those who build; to hasten the day when our troops will leave; and to forge a lasting friendship in which America is your partner, and never your patron.

John wants to know why they're pissed, and this is why, and this is all it's about: 

THEY NEVER WANTED TO HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT AGAIN EVER AT ALL.

Once they put their flags down and went back to work, they were done, man. They have the story they need to tell in their heads, and it's about how Bush saved the people of Afghanistan with his freedom missiles. They didn't want to have to do the messy clean-up. They never do. These are the dicks that trash the party and then slither out and leave you to clean up all the broken glass and vomit. Then the next day they're all, "Hey, bro, when we doin' that again, huh? Bitchin'" and then make some comment about a co-worker's tits.

A.

A Question of Effectiveness

Crack Den:

I'm quite happy for newspapers to try to charge readers any way they want. I don't think "information has to be free" or whatever, I just don't think most of them are going to have much luck charging.

Which, honestly. The problem for me with paying for content online isn't that it's a violation of the Internet Belief that All Information is Free either, it's that someone has yet to come up with a way to pay that isn't a total pain in the fucking balls. $2.95 per article and you HAVE to give them your credit card, or some pathetic charge of $5 per month that leads me to believe you think your content's only worth a penny or so, or giving away some things but not others, or giving me half the story and then telling me to upgrade, will lead me to click the fuck away pretty fast.

The nice thing about a newspaper subscription is that they bill you, and then you just go get the paper and pick it up and read it without being interrupted. If halfway through the paper every morning I got a phone call asking if I'd like to up my subscription ... you better believe I'd be chucking it into the trash. The minute I have to think about the mechanism instead of just consuming the thing is the minute I get really, really, really annoyed, because you are distracting me from the product. This is the natural outgrowth of all our discussions over the past five years here, about how it all comes back to marketing and distribution and if you screw those up doesn't really matter a whit what your content is.

It has nothing to do with some grand philosophical shift in our information consumption habits. Come up with a way to do this that isn't a hassle, you'll have an easier time selling it to people. And by the way, tell me why it's important, don't just piss around about how much my generation sucks because of Teh iPods.

A.

Reform

Jesus, just go read:

You know, I listen to a lot of talk radio and the other places where people are talking healthcare reform a lot of the time these days, and these conversations, quite frankly, tend to be dominated by affluent suburbanites who have decent health coverage -- as long as they're not laid off, anyway -- and access to state-of-the-art hospitals in safe communities, people who can't understand why there is a push for changing things in the country. And there are people like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina who thinks that just showing up at the hospital is a perfectly fine way of receiving healthcare.No one is speaking loudly enough for the Joaquin Riveras.

I've said all along that even under the best case scenario possible, health care still sucks. It's still massively inconvenient, expensive, and humiliating to get treated for anything, and "just go to the emergency room" is stupid fucking advice even from a moron like DeMint. You get there, and it's assumed you're scamming drugs so nobody looks at you in hopes you'll go away, or it's three hours and you get paid hourly, or you're referred to someone else who you then have to call and make another appointment with and honest to God you have dinner to get on the table, etc.

I live in an urban area and I have to tell you, things have to be pretty bad to get me to the emergency room. There are three hospitals within driving distance and the one that doesn't take our insurance is the only one that doesn't scare the shit out of me. When I had the flu that escalated into something very scary a few years ago I was in the hospital for eight hours because for the first four, the doctors were somewhat preoccupied with trying to keep a COP WHO'D BEEN SHOT from dying. I'm not quibbling with their priorities, but goddamn, you know? I really think idiots like DeMint need to spend a week hanging out in the closest urban ER just taking frigging notes.

A.

Shep Zitler, R.I.P.

Shep Zitler was a very fine man who passed away yesterday in New Orleans at the age of 92. He was the father of my friend and neighbor, Justin Zitler. I didn't know Shep as well as I would have liked but he was a remarkable man who survived the Holocaust and found the American Dream in New Orleans. When I feel down, I try to think of Shep and others like him who came through the worst with their humanity intact. Shep will be greatly missed by everyone whose lives he touched.

I hope that you'll find his story interesting as well as deeply moving:

Here's a link to Shep's story at Holocaust Survivors.Org.

Here's a link to an interview with Shep conducted by the Southern Institute for Education and Research.

Worst Decade Ever

So I got Time in the mail yesterday.  (Stop:  before we go any further, I realize that Time still employs Joke Line.  I only got it because I was too mushy to tell the adorable clerk at FYE not to sign me up for fourteen thousand not-so-free offers that I'm still paying for.)  Anyway, the cover story is about how awful the Aughts or the Naughties or whateverthehell we're calling it was.

I'm a little reluctant to call truly awful solely because it's the decade in which I got married, and despite the hostilidays video I posted, Mr. BuggyQ is really quite divine.  But I totally understand Time's point of view--it also was the decade of George Dubya Bush, which should really just end the argument.  And that's without bringing up 9/11 (shut up, Rudy).

Whatever you may think about the decade, however, there is one group that will, I think, rue this decade for a long, long time:  the Republican Party.  I remember when the Republican Party was awful, but not insane.  When 9/11 happened, however, America had a collective panic attack.  (For me, it had as much to do with who was in charge as with what had happened, but the point stands.)  We all went a little nuts for a while, and Dubya was able to ram through Iraq and rendition and wiretapping, etc...

But here's the thing:  the Republican Party hasn't gotten over it.  While the rest of us realized that yes, there was a terrorist attack and yes, it was awful and horrific, we're still here, and we're still pretty much okay, and maybe we don't really need to kill all the brown people, the Republicans are still looking for the boogeyman in the closet [insert self-hating gay Republican joke here...]  This is why people like Michelle Bachmann are the stars of the Republican Party today, where in 1993, she'd have been an obscure, ranting backbencher if she got elected at all.  Keep in mind that while Athenae is right that the Republican Party always accepted Pat Buchanan, he never was able to finish more than a distant third as a presidential candidate in the Republican primaries.  Yet through most of this decade, Extreme Loony Pat^tm (watch for the action figure--the hair pops off when Rachel Maddow talks) was actually a voice of reason in the Republican Party.  Yeah, think about that one for a minute.  Athenae said Pat "hasn't gotten any nuttier the past couple of years, just louder about it."  And that's true--but why did he have to be so quiet about it before?  Part of what made him unsuccessful in the presidential races was that his more extreme views were known, and were unpopular.  The Republicans always had the nutty uncles, but in this decade, they let the nutty uncles out of the attic and put them on the floor of the House.  Hell, even Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly aren't as loony as Glenn Beck, and look who's winning the ratings these days!  They may have set the stage for the craziness that is the teabagger movement, but I don't think they expected it to get quite this crazy.

I'm not a fan of prognosticating the end of the Republican Party, and I'm sure there'll be a resurgence for them.  After all, there are a lot of still-panicking Americans out there.  The election next year will probably bring in more Republicans, just because there are a lot of contrarian independents out there who'd vote against the party in power no matter who it was.  But methinks the sane independents aren't going to be running back into the arms of the Republicans any time soon.  At least not as long as Michelle Bachmann and Virginia Foxx and Glenn Beck are running the show.

So there's a silver lining to the Worst Decade Ever.  Remember, that which does not kill us...

Thirty Thousand More

Well, you own it now.

A.

The Saints Are Still Undefeated? Pinch Me

The NFL franchise that brought you the bag heads is now 11 and 0 after whipping the New England Patriots 38-17. Here are a few random notes and slightly modified reflections first posted at the Adrastos Virtual Cafe:

• I admit to being gobsmacked that the game was such a rout. I thought the Pats would win. I would still prefer that the Saints lose a regular season game: it's hard to go 19-0. Just ask Bill Frakking Belichick.

• Speaking of Bill Frakking Belichick, he's the Tricky Dick of professional sports down to the scowl and glower. I keep expecting him to say "let me make this perfectly clear" or "let me say this about that."

•  I wish the NFL wouldn't turn the coaches into human billboards for their team gear. I miss the days of Lombardi and Landry in their suits and fedoras or John Madden looking eternally rumpled in his short shirt sleeves and badly knotted tie.     

•  I've been reluctant to say this before but Drew Brees reminds me of Joe Montana. Joe couldn't throw the ball 75 yards either but he was deadly accurate and cool under fire. Besides, former LSU Tiger great JaMarcus Russell has an amazing arm and has been a major bust in the pros thus far.

•  I usually listen to Henderson and Hokie on WWL radio with the mute button on the teevee but I was DVRing stuff tonight. Jaws is okay but Gruden and the other guy are dolts. It's back to WWL from now on.

•  I refuse to say Who Dat. It's too exclamation pointy for my taste. 

•  The 340 pound Patriot Defensive Lineman Vince Wilfork is aptly named. I could stand to lose some weight myself but he reminds me of former Dodger reliever Terry Forster who David Letterman called "a fat tub of goo."

•  Finally, I wish the teevee people would show the Wiseman brothers in their jump suits just once. I want to see Mr. Clio and Dillyberto in HD. (The Wisemans are NOLA bloggers and bon vivants. They also wear shrimp boots and hard hats to home games. They're a stitch.)
  

I'm too tired to pinch myself so I'll let my favorite Canadian band, Barenaked Ladies, do the job. They're clearly equal to the task, eh:

Welcome to the Party, Pal

I haven't forgiven them for the vile things they said about John Kerry and I likely never will, and just because you finally wake up and smell the coffee doesn't mean you're entitled to a spot at the breakfast counter, but this is quite a turnaround.

Why I Parted Ways With The Right

Opinion | Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:49:45 pm PST

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

What I'm especially fond of is the idea that this is anything NEW. The idea that conservatism has changed. The idea that now, this, images of Obama in a turban or with a bone through his nose, dumb folks in patriotic windbreakers, this is a bridge too far. I like that a whole lot. Honest to blog, the GOP appeals to racists and sexists and authoritarian nutjobs all of a sudden? No shit, knock me over with a feather from a very tiny hummingbird. Jesus H. Samba Dancing Christ on a Custard Cream, you're kidding me. I would never have thought that the party that prated about "states' rights" and was just fine with cities tearing themselves to pieces so long as it could make a buck off peddling "law and order" was full of fuckwads. Who would have goddamn thought?

Now granted, the conservative crazy's no longer cloaked in respectable intellectualism, not these days, so it's getting a little harder to take. You can no longer go the parties and pretend you're not a racist sexist authoritarian lowlife because there's a really bitchin' raw bar. You have to stand in the street with the teabaggers and their ill-spelled signs and their Capri Suns these days and eat fucking corn dogs, you want a conservative good time on the cusp of a new decade. It's hard, isn't it, now that William F. Buckley and his be-cravat-ed ilk aren't around anymore to give you a reason to feel okay about being a totally amoral scumbag monster?

But come on. They have been like this for years. Where do you think Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann and Mike Huckabee CAME FROM, for God's sakes? Do you think they just woke up one day and decided, "You know what? Today I'll be racist and crazy and it'll be AWESOME?" You nurtured them for years with Saint Ronnie and Ralph Reed and yes, even good old batshit Uncle Pat, who hasn't gotten any nuttier the past couple of years, just louder about it. You have to just sack up and admit that these are the feral critters you had chained up in the basement all along, that you fed on raw meat and Red Bulls, and now they've slipped their shackles and are demanding the right to walk among you. It sucks, that you can't just close the hatch and tell your very civilized dinner guests the screams they think they're hearing are just the noises of your washing machine on the fritz.

And you were fine with it so long as you could still kid yourself. You and lots and lots of others.

A.

Bombarded

During the 2008 election local NOLA teevee was blissfully free of overheated national ads. We had ads for the Landrieu-Kennedy senate race and saw the national ads on cable but the local news and, more importantly, Jeopardy were politics free zone. That's changed with the health care reform debate.

Louisiana may be a red state but my area features a Republican, Cao who voted for the House bill and a Democrat, Melancon, who voted against. So, our airwaves have been bombarded with ads praising and attacking our Congresspeeps for their votes. The most annoying ad is one from the Chamber Of Commerce that praises Melancon for "standing up for Louisiana values." I was not aware that upholding the status quo had anything to do with values.

There are, of course, a veritable plethora (one of my favorite cliches) of ads aimed at Senator Mary Landrieu. Everyone wants her vote. I'm afraid, however, that she too will stand up for "Louisiana values" and refuse to support a bill with a public option.

In the case of Ms. Landrieu I would love to be a fly on the wall during some family discussions on health care reform: more than a few of her kin are howling liberals. I hope she listens to her relatives but I suspect that insurance money will seem more eloquent to her. I'm afraid that the best we can hope for from Mary is another vote in favor of cloture: my gut instinct tells me that even Bad Max's bill is too strong for her.

Journalism: Like Ball Tapping, In a Way

Just fucking shoot me:

It's a disturbing game with devastating consequences, and a new WTHR survey suggests it is rampant in Indiana schools.

"Ball tapping" is the act of intentionally hitting or kicking a male in the genitals. Earlier this month, an Eyewitness News investigation showed the game has become commonplace in some area schools, resulting in serious injuries for students.

As part of the investigation, WTHR also conducted a statewide survey of school nurses. The results are in, and they show the problem of ball tapping is more common and widespread than many school officials had realized.

Now, look. Before you inundate me with stories about how as a chick I don't get how harmful it can be to get kicked in the balls, I am not talking about how much it must hurt. Let's get this out of the way: If you are presently kicking someone in the balls, please cease to do so. Unless it is Joe Lieberman. If you have been kicked in the balls and are experiencing complications, please go to an emergency room. Or just show up to Joe Lieberman's office. No, I am talking about the usual things I talk about when I talk about this kind of story: Editorial standards, resource allocation, and monumentally shitty writing.

Here in Chicago we're currently trying to figure out how to get kids to and from school without them being fucking shot or beat to death, or trying to figure out how to heat the school or feed the kids breakfast, lunch and dinner because their parents are working three jobs and still not able to pay rent, or crackheads, or gone to wherever, or in Iraq or Afghanistan, or living on the street. I'm hard-pressed to imagine Indianapolis isn't facing some of the same issues, plus the fucking earth is caving in, in general. But hey, that's not sexy for the suburbs, so we get shit like this, just like every other school-trend scare story, like "rainbow parties" and "grinding" and whatever other bullshit used to be the parental freak-out hot button.

This, WTHR INVESTIGATES! I'm so glad the Internet hasn't trivialized things beyond repair. Seriously, this merited a survey and an actual interview with someone who had been kicked in the balls. I don't know how much this cost, but I do know it took me about ten minutes to dissect the stupidity and that's ten minutes I am never going to get back.

Plus, oh god, the over-serious Onion-esque story itself. If Doc and I ever get drunk enough to write our book, How Not to Be a Douchebag Reporter When You Grow Up, it will feature this story prominently in the chapter about TV jargon. You can just hear the ponderous voice, right? The emphasis on every third word? "The game has become more commonplace in some area schools." As opposed to some schools, as one editor of mine used to yell contemptuously at the TV, in Tibet? And is there really a name for this now? I thought hitting someone in the balls was called, well, hitting someone in the balls. Who knew it had its own theme song? And "more commonplace?" How commonplace was it before?

Via Dave Barry.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - more odds and sods edition

Good morning everyone! I'd like to interrupt the Hostiliday proceedings for some late-breaking snark.

The moderators at Free Republic have an interesting job - trying to keep a lid on the bigotry, racism, and overall batshit craziness, without alienating all the bigoted, racist, and batshit -crazy people who make the site what it is.

They pulled this one, for instance, but "we be fast, and they be slow!".

Google Apologizes for Offensive Image of First Lady
Washington Post ^ | November 25, 2009 | Garance Franke-Ruta
Posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:03:48 AM by lbryce
Ruta Search engine behemoth Google is apologizing for image-search results delivered for first lady Michelle Obama that show the No. 1 image of her online to be a racist caricature.
"We apologize if you've had an upsetting experience using Google. We hope you understand our position regarding offensive results," says a house ad from "the Google team" served up in conjunction with image results for queries on the first lady's name.
"Search results are a reflection of the content on the web. Our search results simply reflect what's out there," Google spokesman Scott Rubin explained. "According to the way our algorithm works, when we try to deliver the most relevant search results based on other pages that link to it and so on, this is what is returned."
He said it was possible that the image ranked so high because people were linking to it to condemn it, but noted that there was no way for the company to know for sure. Page rank is the result of "more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms," according to Google.
"Because the image is offensive to many, we felt it was important to explain to our users why an image like that would appear," Rubin said.
The racist image was previously removed by Google in response to a complaint by Search Engine Roundtable, which objected that "If you conduct a search in Google Images for [Michelle Obama] you will see a racist image in the number one result."

(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...

---

TOPICS: Breaking News
KEYWORDS: firstlady; michelleobama

This is the image of the First Lady as posted throughout the internet.
Personally, I don't understand at all what the brouhaha is all about.
I think the First Lady should consider it a compliment as it is a most
definite improvement.

1 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:03:49 AM by lbryce

To: lbryce

the No. 1 image of her online

To me, this says it all.

2 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:07:52 AM by P8riot (I carry a gun because I can't carry a cop.)

To: lbryce

Why the hell is it racist? WaPo states it as a fact. It's simply an age-advancing software image which never makes you look better.

Even me.

9 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:11:49 AM by Thrownatbirth (.....Iraq Invasion fan since '91.)

And now - the punch line:

To: lbryce

Let’s not cheapen this site with trash.

4 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:09:25 AM by Always Right

To: All

I apologize to all who find the posting of this story not up to the standards of Free Republic and agree that  for some this post deserves to be removed.

17 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:19:43 AM by lbryce (Obama Notwithstanding, America's Best Days Are Yet To Be .)

To: lbryce

The article was ok, but we didn’t need the picture or the comments. Even though it was done routinely with Bush which was childish, there is just a history of portraying blacks as monkeys that just screams racism.

19 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:22:05 AM by Always Right

They really, really don't get it, do they?  Somewhere, in what passes for their minds, white people have routinely been insulted racially as "monkeys".

To: lbryce

if they don’t like it, they can clickout same as they clicked in

25 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:29:10 AM by SF_Redux

See?

To: lbryce

It may not be to everyone taste, but it’s definitely newsworthy IMHO.No, not when you say:
"I think the First Lady should consider it a compliment as it is a most definite improvement. "
Then you make it about US at FR distorting and smearing Michelle Obama. THAT makes it beneath us.

15 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:18:54 AM by Yossarian

To: Yossarian

My comment was conveyed in a sense of utter sarcasm and regret it was lost on some of you.

21 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:23:08 AM by lbryce (Obama Notwithstanding, America's Best Days Are Yet To Be .)

To: lbryce

My comment was conveyed in a sense of utter sarcasm and regret it was lost on some of you. Horsecrap. It was slime, and you know it. It's obvious with every post here you make. (e.g. "For some, this thread should be pulled.")

23 posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 5:25:01 AM by Yossarian

I guess they just weren't listening when "Big Jim" Thompson posted this (and the fact that he felt like he needed to says volumes):

(edited for clarity and space)

Message to all liberals and leftists from 'Jim Thompson,' owner of FreeRepublic.com
Vanity | July 15, 2009 | Jim Thompson

Posted on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 3:43:56 PM by Jim Robinson

I'll tell you what. The dozen or so insults made by about a half-dozen anonymous members of the general public on an Internet forum were disgraceful. So we pulled them.

We pulled them because they are racist, but let me now try to weasel-word my way out of it.

But they're really a disgrace to insults in general and to the professional race-baiters of our main stream media that hurl them on a daily basis.

Shorter Jim Thompson - "The racists this place allows to post aren't as bad as the ones that don't post"

Our guys don't hold a candle to the professionals that have spent the last ten years or so pummeling the Bush and Cheney families with thousands of insults

..all of them racial, of course.  See? He's made the jump from racism to insults in a single paragraph.  Next he'll link insults to brussels sprouts, and Big Jim hates brussels sprouts, and won't hesitate to have posts about them pulled.

every damned day in every newspaper, magazine and TV network broadcasting to the public. Even the movies. Even in the halls of congress, in school rooms, in our churches.

Damn those churches, anyway!  And you know you can never turn of the viewscreen.

We are bombarded daily by a constant stream of insults hurled by liberals, socialists, Marxists and leftists of every stripe.

That would be because you're a simpleton with the moral compass of a Bundist.

Family members and children are not immune from the daily barrage of insults from professionals and amateur leftists alike. The Internet is chuck full of insulting comments, photo-shopped photos,

All of which end up here.

cartoons so bad that they should be ashamed to publish them in their daily papers, but publish them they do. And laugh. Freaking hypocrites!

They laugh about the insults hurled 24 hours a day against Sarah Palin and her husband and little girls. Even the tiny helpless little Downs Syndrome baby is not immune from their hateful insults.

Big Jim? News flash for ya, babe. When a "Marxist" (not that you'd recognize one if he walked up to you and sang Krasnoe znamia ) says that Palin is trotting Trig out as a prop, it's not an insult to Trig.

Racism? Monkey sounds? Right. Do a google search on "Bush Chimp" and see what pops up.

Like I said - you really really really don't get it, do you, idiot boy?

George Bush is just as much a human being as Michelle Obama. And just as American. The only difference is George Bush is proud to be an American and proud to defend his country while Michelle Obama was ashamed of America for her entire adult life. Defend America? Right. The Obamas wouldn't lift a finger to defend America. They'd rather destroy it and destroy all it stands for.

You're a nutcase.

Bush is a monkey. Bush is a chimp. Bush is a gorilla. Bush is a subhuman knuckle dragging mongrel. He sometimes makes funny monkey faces, even funny monkey sounds. We all have. I have. You have. Michelle Obama has. Monkey see, monkey do. Get used to it!

Get used to being a nutcase.

Poor white trash live in trailer parks. Poor white trash live in slums. Poor white trash also live in ghettos. Many people who aren't even poor white trash live in trailer parks, slums, barrios and ghettos.

Many who aren't poor, white, ghettos,  or trailers live somewhere or other!  Flagoom!  Orner porner flapdoodle! Waugh!

"Dressed like someone from the ghetto" can't possibly be a "racist" insult unless you're assuming all black people and only black people come from ghettos. If you are making that assumption and are personally insulted by such comment, then look around. You may be a racist.

Why, it's all so simple when you explain it that way. It's not you and your flying monkeys that are racists, it's everybody else.  Of course - how logical!

Ok, I think I have this figured out. It's absolutely ok for the left to trash any conservative, even children and babies, but it's absolutely against the rules to return fire. The left can hurl out the insults, but cry like banshees when it comes back on them.

Speaking of insults doing harm to sweet little girls, how much harm is done to a child when Obama authorizes so-called "reproductive health" professionals to reach up into a womb and literally rip a human baby limb from limb and remove its lifeless carcass bit by bit when if left alone, it would have been a bouncing little baby boy or girl just moments later.

And now posting pics at Free Republic of the POTUS and his wife as monkeys has magically turned into the subject of abortion.  It's like he's free-associating everything he hates and has forgotten what his sick little screed was supposed to be about.  It's turned into BLACKSLIBERALSABORTIONSTAKEMYGUNSMOVENEXTTOMEAAAGHAAAGHMARXISTSWANTMYMONEYHATE THEMALLKILLTHEMALLAAARRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

That's the supreme insult. It's a gross insult to every human being on this planet living or dead. It's an insult to life itself. It's an insult to humanity, to human decency. It's a slap in the face to God the Creator of all life. We will all pay a price for the disgraceful American Holocaust. Fifty million innocent American lives slaughtered on the altar of liberalism and the count is growing daily. Butchers!

FReep you and the smug, arrogant, hypocritical high horse you rode in on!

My name is Big Jim Thompson and I approve this message.

No, Big Jim - fuck YOU. Thank Providence that you and your ugly sycophants are dying off.

Go directly to Hell, do not collect $200, and may the Saint who casts you down be black..

Well, now that I've spoiled everyone's breakfast, more old odds and ends after the jump.

If You Can Post Crappy Videos, I Get To Do This

What awaits me when I die, in part for things like what I am about to do.

So, I've just about had it with the crappy videos.  This is my retaliation.

I think that, if they ever make a movie about two people named Jim and Stacy who date and break up, then get back together and break up again, but just can't break that pattern, and the relationship is by turns wonderful and awful, and the story is told from Jim's point of view; if they do all of that, I think that a great title for that movie would be...

Wait for it...

The Agony and the Ex-Stacy.

What?  You people deserve it for those videos.  Now I've got to pack for my trip to Hell.

Oh - they *have* to be holiday-oriented?

I was just trying to get back at Adrastos for planting that irritating earworm, but I'll play along.

And "Taking the keys away" was exactly the phrase I used yesterday when talking to the better half about  my concern about having posted out of my time slot.

So - in honour of her good nature, I dedicate this one to Mistress A, just because it has many many mentions of her favourite word.  

Then I'm going to go hide in the Free Republic decontamination room until this thing blows over.

Also.

The Spirit Of The Hostilidays

I'm proud of my First Draft colleagues Buggy Q and Virgo Tex for feeling the spirit of the season: hostiliday style. I'm sure Tommy T will catch on soon since the tune he posted was genuinely horrendous. There's some concern that mom may take the keys to the blog away but she's the one who brought me aboard so I'm sure she knew what she was getting into. If not, she's in for it now: bwa-ha-ha-ha....

The NOLA bloggers and our Scout have been indulging in this custom for several years. The videos have ranged from the well-done but offensive to traditional cheesiness to amateurish ineptitude. The key to the conflict is a ruthless dedication to bad and/or cheesy holiday clips: Liprap specializes in horrible chanukah tripe. During the hostilidays, crap is golden. Hmm, sounds like a repeat of the Bush administration...

Anyway it's time to link you to some of the shit my colleagues have thus far thrown up against the virtual wall in the hope that some of it will stick: Oyster; Ray Ward; Loki the Ohio monkey boy; Liprap; Maitri.

Additionally, any non-NOLA or non-First Draft blogger who wants to play, have at it. You can either post a link to your vile video in a comment here or email me at the address in the upper right hand corner of the blog. Btw, the war *always* ends inconclusively with *everyone* claiming that they "won." I contend that I won in 2007 with the uber offensive, but hilarious, Bob Noxious classic, Fuck Off, Santa. Others demur but they're fucking wrong...

Finally, what's a hostiliday post without a bad video? This is a feeble amateur Aussie version of The 12 Days Of Christmas, which is a pretty shitty song in its own right: