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More of What's Wrong with America
From Well, That Kid is Fucked: "
This brilliant woman was at a Palin/Texas Governor Rick Perry rally.
She's not very smart. And she's teaching that to her idiot child.
"
This brilliant woman was at a Palin/Texas Governor Rick Perry rally.
She's not very smart. And she's teaching that to her idiot child.
Corporations & Women & Leadership
An interesting talk by Deborah Kolb, the Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Professor for Women and Leadership at the Simmons College School of Management about why more women aren’t a part of senior leadership at large organizations.
Brilliant chart
This was in today’s New York Times. It shows the effect of various (frequently discussed) cuts and how they would affect the US deficit. I found it really interesting. Click on the chart to see a big version.
From the accompanying article:
There is no easy way to put a big dent in next year’s projected deficit of $1.267 trillion, short of a dramatic rise in economic growth that would send new tax dollars cascading into the treasury.
…
The biggest and fastest-growing share of the budget still goes for mandatory entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — that no elected official wants to cut, and for interest payments on the debt, which they cannot cut without inviting a default.
What if you kept just the entitlement programs and got rid of everything else? You’d have a modest surplus — about $109 billion. But there would be no one left to mail the benefit checks.
Sarah Cheats
The good news is that she’s capable of writing. (Seriously, that’s a pic of her hand from her $100,000 talk to the tea party nutcases on Saturday night.)
It says:
- Energy
BudgetCuts- Tax
- Lift American spirits
Um…you need a crib note to remember to life people’s spirits?
You should read Andrew Sullivan’s piece about why we should be scared of her. It wraps up with:
Above all, she is capable of generating a personality cult - much, much more so than Obama, because she can harness Christianism to her divine destiny. The power of this kind of appeal - of a charismatic, beautiful woman, an icon of the pro-life cause, persecuted by the evil elites, demonized by libruls, and commanding the biggest military on earth - should not in my view be under-estimated
Male Inequality
My imaginary girlfriend, Sam Bee (from the Daily Show), discusses how men are oppressed today and are behind women in terms of being understood and having options.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Male Inequality | ||||
| ||||
Snooki where she shouldn't be
via urlesque.com
Go to http://www.urlesque.com/2010/02/04/snooki-crasher-photoshop-meme/ to see pictures of Snooki in all kinds of places where you wouldn't expect her to show up. Here's what they have to say about it:
You knew this was going to happen. You had to have known. Big fans of MTV's Jersey Shore = the internet. The internet is also known for putting things where they just don't belong. Who is the perfect pint-sized, cartwheeling wonder that would be so fantastically Photoshopped into scenes previously popularized by the web? Why, Nicole "Snooki" Pilozzi.
SarahP is a Real American!
So here’s the thing: if you (a Real American) bought property and later put up a couple of cabins or houses or whatever, would you notify the local tax folks to let them know that the value of the property had changed so that they could adjust your property tax? It would definitely make me sit back and mull it over.
But…if you’re a politician, you should be doing everything by the book. Why give someone ammunition against you?
But if you are Sarah Palin, you’re a Real American, so you do what you think most Real Americans would do. Or you just don’t care. And keep in mind, this all went down while she was still Governor of Alaska.
From the Associated Press:
Records show that Sarah Palin hasn't paid any property taxes on cabins that have been built on two backcountry plots partially owned by the former Alaska governor.
There are no tax assessments for the two-story, house-sized cabins, a workshop and a sauna spotted Thursday in an aerial survey. Property taxes totaling $156.13 were paid on the land in 2009 — but that bill did not include anything for the structures because the local assessor didn't know about the new construction nearly 100 miles north of Anchorage.
…
Palin's attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said it is not the responsibility of property owners to report structures that go up on their land.
"It is the borough's job," he said in an e-mail. "The property taxes on this parcel are fully paid and have never been delinquent."
Dunivan, however, said owners are required by state law to report any omissions or errors in their tax assessments. Often, the borough learns of new structures in remote areas when neighbors report them. Dunivan said no one has called the borough on the Palin lots, among many in the region to add structures, the flyover survey found.
To me, this is a real scandal. The John Edwards thing is a disgrace and shows him to be a total scumbag but this is breaking the law. (Although adultery is breaking one of the 10 commandments, I know. And might even be illegal is some states – but mostly that appeals to our interest in sex scandals because so many people are sexually repressed. But don’t get me started on that.)
I know that this will never be mentioned on Fox News and if it is, it will be dismissed as a minor thing that we all do that’s being exaggerated by the left to attack poor SarahP.
In my opinion, elected officials should be expected to follow the law. All the laws. Cause I live in a fantasy world.
A few gay men & women
This is great news – members of the military – high ranking members supporting allowing gay people to openly serve in the military. Here’s my imaginary boyfriend Jon Stewart’s take on it (and John McCain has turned into a total douchebag):
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| A Few Gay Men & Women | ||||
| ||||
I heart the puppy bowl
I have a Stupor Bowl (I mean Super Bowl) party every year cause I have a massive tv and I like to gather my friends (& their dogs) around to eat and hang out. I'm not a huge football fan, but I enjoy watching sports with friends. This year I've invited a couple of South African friends who know nothing about football. I'm definitely tempted to make up the rules as we go along when we're "teaching" them about the game...
But my favorite time is halftime when the Puppy Bowl comes on Animal Planet. It truly is the cutest thing on the planet. This year's showdown will include old favorite such as shots from the world-famous 'bowl cam' and some new twists such as a new blimp-cam and bunnies dressed as cheerleaders.
You can go here to check out the players.
But my favorite time is halftime when the Puppy Bowl comes on Animal Planet. It truly is the cutest thing on the planet. This year's showdown will include old favorite such as shots from the world-famous 'bowl cam' and some new twists such as a new blimp-cam and bunnies dressed as cheerleaders.
You can go here to check out the players.
People People People
According to msnbc.com, 73% of people use the same password for their bank that they do for all their other password required websites. Your bank! Where your money is! And let’s not even start talking about whether that is a “good” password or not. Cause I’m pretty sure if you’re using the same password everywhere, it’s not a good one.
Let’s step back and take a look at this:
People often think that the internet is so big that the likelihood of them being targeted is very small. Actually, the opposite is true. Bad guys will often install software on your computer without you knowing it (it’s referred to as malware). You won’t even know it’s running although your computer may seem slower than it used to be. This software can be installed simply by you clicking to open a website or clicking to view something amusing or funny in an email (dancing pigs anyone?). It doesn’t interrupt with your daily work on your computer so you aren’t aware it’s running in the background.
This software is also running on thousands (millions?) of other computers and it’s running on behalf of someone malicious. It’s not necessarily stealing information from your computer (although it certainly can). It can be used together with all the other computers running it to attack other computers on the internet – when you combine together the power of lots of computers together, they become very very powerful and dangerous and can bring a website down or be used to “crack” passwords.
A password is easiest to crack (or break) based on the number of characters and other criteria. A password that matches a word in the dictionary (or is a name or other easy to find information – your birthday, anniversary, etc is often posted somewhere – like Facebook - on the internet) is ridiculously easy to crack. Adding numbers (esophagus69 or 3s0phagus) is slightly harder to crack, but not much. What makes a password strong? Well, the first thing is how long it is – if it’s 12 characters, it’s harder to break and they will likely give up and move onto someone who has a shorter, easier password to break.
How do you end up with a long (12 character) password? Use a memorable phrase: My dog Gus is the coolest! We’ve got caps and an exclamation point in there which makes it harder (although some sites won’t allow it) and it’s long. Some sites also won’t allow long passwords. In that case, you can use an abbreviated version of the memorable phrase: MdGitc! (first letter of each word of the phrase + caps + exclamation point).
I know that remembering passwords is a drag. There are many free password tools – I’m using http://www.passpack.com. It will generate difficult passwords for you and will remember them. I also like it because I don’t need to install anything on my computer and can access it from any computer (and it’s free) and as far as I can tell, secure. (I’ve done some digging into the technical aspects of how it works and am comfortable with it – for now. Internet security is a game where the bar is constantly being raised by the bad guys.)
Do you need to have good passwords for all of your sites? No. There are plenty of sites where I use throwaway passwords – the NY Times, other reading sites. But the password for my email (once someone can break into your email, they can change your password at any site you log into – they just say that they forgot the password & a new one is emailed to you), my bank, other financial institutions, etc. are all strong passwords.
The internet is huge. That doesn’t make your odds of being a victim any less. There are bad people out there using the power of the internet against you.
Oh and make sure you have good antivirus and antimalware software running on your machines. For PCs, Microsoft’s free Security Essentials software has received excellent reviews and can be downloaded here. You are absolutely a target and you are not invisible because the internet is big and there are millions of computers out there. Thousands of them are working together to find vulnerable computers – tests have shown that unprotected computers are attacked within minutes.
SF Knows How to Torture the Haters
The Westboro Baptist Church (God hates fags, aka the crazies that picket military funerals, blah blah blah) was picketing in San Francisco recently. The locals were there to reply:
According to the Laughing Squid website
WBC’s hate-promoting signs were answered by multiple signs of randomness, nonsensical yelling, and even a unicorn. A portable stereo blared Lady GaGa, while press and people passing by ignored the WBC signs and took pictures and videos of the more entertaining signs.
Westboro had scheduled an appearance in front of the Golden Gate Theatre later that evening to protest Fiddler on the Roof. Fellow guest blogger, Burstein!, reports:
Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective, Fred Phelps and his followers cancelled their appearance before Fiddler on the Roof. Apparently, they were all hated out from their big day and just had no more hate to spare.
Health Care Talk on C-SPAN? Check. Fierce Advocate? Check. Must-See TV? Check.
Everyone's talking about Obama's 90-minute appearance today before the House Republicans. It turned into a debate over health care, jobs, and everything else, all live on C-SPAN, and Obama beat back every Republican talking point while also revealing the fraudulence of conservative claims that they're proposing serious alternative policies and/or trying to work with him on Democratic proposals.
Klein: 'Transfixing.' Ambinder: 'An Amazing Moment.' Hayes: 'The most I've liked the president since inauguration day, probably.' Sullivan: 'Remarkable.' Scherer: 'Historic and fascinating.' Smith: 'GOP aides telling me it was a mistake to allow cameras in.'
From Slog.
Here’s some more feedback from Andrew Sullivan’s blog (there’s also a 19 minute YouTube clip there as well):
The full transcript here. Full video here.
Drum:
It's remarkable that Republicans agreed to this. The guy at the mike always has an advantage in these kinds of forums, and in any case Obama is better than most at this kind of thing. For the most part, he's running rings around them.
Barack Obama is a lot smarter and better-informed than his antagonists. A lot. He very calmly and coolly dismantled them.
To me, personally, it’s not a surprise. I debated policy with Mike Pence once and the guy is a stone-cold idiot. That was a years ago and I’ve been surprised since then to learn that conservatives consider him an unusually sharp policy mind and I take leading rightwingers at their word about that. But it’s the kind of thing that I think most Americans aren’t aware of.
NRO's Daniel Foster:
It would be hard to argue the exchange is anything but a plus-plus for Obama and the GOP. Both sides emerged from it looking as if, contra the public's greatest fears, they more or less know what they are talking about on issues like the deficit and health-care reform.
Yesterday, I interviewed David Axelrod and was struck by his inability to explain how the White House would highlight the the difference between disagreement and obstruction. Today's session, if it becomes a regular event rather than a one-off, provided part of the answer. He'll debate them directly. But that may be tough to do. Republicans are already spreading the word that they made a mistake allowing cameras into the event. Apparently, transparency sounds better in press releases than it does in practice.
[D]espite the scrambling to declare that Obama "won" this event, it's not a net loss for Mike Pence and Paul Ryan to take on the president on the facts of health care and entitlements, in person...The president's confession that he "read your bills," may be the first time many Americans are informed that the GOP has health-care bills of any kind, and that they are substantial enough to warrant the attention of the president.
The whole thing basically went like [this]: Republican asks obnoxious question rooted in Glenn Beck-ian talking points; Obama swats it away, makes the questioner look silly, and then smiles at the end. It got so bad, in fact, that Fox News cut away from the event before it was over. Democratic operatives around Washington watching it had pretty much the same reaction: "Where the hell has this guy been?" One source said GOP aides probably wished they'd spoken to John McCain "about what happened to him in the presidential debates" before they broadcast the event. "It's quite a show," a White House official said, apparently going for the same deadpan tone the president was.
Dead
“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump
me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam
cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach
on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead?
Nobody," - J.D. Salinger.
Facebook ad amusement
Gus the dog has a Facebook page and 143 friends. But more importantly, when I was updating it for him today, I noticed the following ad:
What do you think. Should Gus go for it?
(Also, is that girl super young – teenage like?)
Glee is going to turn you gay
I admit it. I heart Glee. I’m a big theatre fag, so a show about a bunch of singing teenagers that’s kinda twisted in its humor works for me. I’m really glad it’s doing so well too.
But there are folks who disagree (hey, it’s America. We’re built to disagree with each other). This article has some really great reasons why Glee is going to ruin America’s children. A few choice quotes (emphasis theirs not mine):
To understand the dangerous implications of this poorly conceived series, let me start with the characters. They are just not believable. All the women students look to be in their late 20s or early 30s in real life. The teachers aren’t the suffering and hardened types you’ll find in real American public schools. This rosy little place of Glee is devoid of gun violence, sexting, drug dealing, suicide and larger questions of faith.
Additionally, the show has far too many musical numbers. From R&B hits to showtunes to classic rock & roll, the boys and girls of Glee really can put on a performance. But it’s not convincing on that million-dollar stage. They come across as trying too hard with their exaggerated facial expressions and hip posturings, the soaring voices ranges. They’ve clearly been coached.
Another major fault with the show is its fawning celebration of teenage homosexuality and consumer indulgence. Again the show makes the case that accepting the gay lifestyle and making yourself as outrageous as possible will help you achieve something despite whatever social limitations you may have. Disregarding any sense of fair play, the show does not offer any alternative to the gay lifestyle argument. There are no teens cured of their relentless and wild male sex desires, there are no moral figures on hand to give a comforting hand, there are no popular boys who say, “I don’t want to hurt my family anymore and I love Jesus, so I am going to stop doing gay things with guys in the bathroom.”
In a nutshell, the Golden Girls turned a generation away from procreation. It made our American boys into the most raunchy, campy, carnal people on the planet. If, as a society, we could have returned to the 80s with what we know now and stop that show, American culture might be drastically different today.
A generation from now, when these children become adults, what kind of country will the United States be? How many middle-aged men will find themselves in a dead-end Glee-based lifestyle? Will they be ostentatious and sensitive, their dreams smashed up against a wall crying out to have that giant hole in their souls stuffed with some musky foreign thrill? Will they be violating what’s left of our traditional cultural landscape with unimaginable high-tech perversions, drenching, nay drowing the bright young men of tomorrow in their relentless sauces of net porn and showtunes, maximized liberties and stem-cell party drugs? Will male sports just become an excuse for gay locker room orgies? How long until these types also legislate to destroy the beauty of marriage, the safety of religion, the rights of the righteous?
You should read the whole article cause it’s chock full of fun statements like the above. Quite frankly, if I wasn’t already watching this show, the above article would have totally turned me into a fan.
Feminism Redux
Recently, I’ve heard a couple of talks on NPR about Hillary Clinton’s run for President that have upset me. In the first one, they were talking about it in the context of feminism: they said that Geraldine Ferraro was all sorts of pissed off at her daughter for voting for Barry rather than Hills in the Democratic primary. Apparently, she felt that her daughter should “stick with the sisterhood” and was not supporting feminism or something by voting for Barry.
And then I heard a blurb on NPR last night that referred to Hillary as the “first credible female Presidential candidate” (agreed) and asked when would we be ready for a female President. And that pissed me off because I don’t think that she lost the primaries because she is a woman. Of course there were some people who voted against her because she’s a woman. And there were obviously people (like Geraldine Ferraro and many other Democratic women my mother’s age) who voted for her largely because she was a woman.
I think that feminism is all about women having choices. If I am voting for someone simply because she is a woman, then I’m not having a choice. I’m using gender to make the decision, without considering the issues. That’s as bad as someone who votes against a woman simply because she’s a woman.
I think that Geraldine Ferraro’s daughter (and I) are perfect illustrations of feminism (although I don’t really know what went through Gerry’s daughter’s head, I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt that she thought this through carefully since she’d have to incur her mom’s wrath for making the decision to not support Hills). I considered both Hillary and Barry based on their campaigns and what they said they believed in. I didn’t weigh either one more heavily because of gender or race.
Isn’t that what we all want? To be judged based on who we are as a person rather than gender, race, sexual preference, blah blah blah blah blah?
Call me post-Feminist, call me crazy, call me anti-feminist. I don’t really care. I think that if/when we are able to judge people based on who they are rather than “what” they are, we are moving in the right direction.
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