"The biggest threat to America today is not communism, it's moving America toward a fascist theocracy and everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe." -- Frank Zappa, Crossfire interview on music censorship, 1986

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc

Watch Bob Novak bitch about Hot for Teacher.

is that there are two kinds of men: those who don't hear Regina Spektor, and those she turns into a puddle.

I just read that more women in America are single than married.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/17/D8KQMGN80.html

Chris Rock's mother and the Reverend Al Sharpton are suing a restaurant because she was seated for half an hour without being served.

At Cracker Barrel.

I just found an old funk mix CD I thought I'd lost. Score.

Crab dip, it turns out, is a good idea from roughly there to there on a baguette, then you remember neither crab nor cream cheese is worth a fuck as food. I once made myself finish the crab dip and it was like a scene with Steve-O from Jackass. Don't get me wrong, I've gone down on a Hefty bag of movie theater popcorn like those bears in the children's book they always have in waiting rooms...this was different. Sinister.

So I got to hang out with an old high school friend last night. He does web design and edits copy for a company that advertises prostitutes online.

It's his business to massage [sic] whatever these girls--resp., trannies--want to post into some semblance of compliance with state and federal law. Steer fire engines like "THAI. SUCK DICK $50" in a more subdued direction. In a very real albeit slightly abstracted sense, the man does in fact market hookers and my understanding is that, regardless of technological nuances, the bitch is still expected to have his money.

He has been known to draw. That I don't draw has not diminished my need for this gadget one iota, nor other Greek letter. A 21-inch digital chalkboard that can turn my chicken-scratch into typeset math is wicked awesome, and the sheer indecency of owning a $3000 electronic canvas just for that is a turn-on by itself. It's like if Robert Redford made Demi Moore do ass-to-mouth and his taxes, then sent her home with half a leftover pizza.

When you turn on the shower, then go do something else--say, laundry--it is vitally important to check whether the shower head is pointing out of the tub. My bathroom rug is now drip-desogging on the curtain rod. Thank you, negligence.

Also drying [segue ahoy!] is the ink of the governor's signature on South Dakota's new abortion ban. Its languauge, on par for these things, provides no protection whatsoever for women's health; the law is called, nevertheless, the South Dakota Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act (HB 1215). I love the smell of absurdity in the morning.

http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/abortion/sdabortionlaw06.html

The Legislature accepts and concurs with the conclusion of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion...including the fact that each human being is totally unique immediately at fertilization. Moreover, the Legislature finds, that to fully protect the rights, interests, and health of the pregnant mother...abortions in South Dakota should be prohibited.

It's for your own good, ladies. A math gag is that the "uniqueness" of a human being at fertilization isn't the crux, here; it's existence. Oh, and just so we're clear what the big scary words mean:

"Pregnant," the human female reproductive condition, of having a living unborn human being within her body throughout the entire embryonic and fetal ages of the unborn child from fertilization to full gestation and child birth

No surprises there. Pregnant means pregnant. Keep that in mind, though, we'll need it shortly.

Now, the absence of a rape exception is also provocative. I, duly provoked, have settled on the word 'monstrous.' It's as if they had one but decided it made everything too constitutional. So as of today the search is on for a doctor with coconut-sized balls. He gets to play the villain until Class-Action Lawsuit Man swoops in to return justice to the citizens of Smallville.

Governor rat-fuck argues that "post-rape contraceptives" are still legal. Back to the law: No person may knowingly administer to, prescribe for, or procure for, or sell to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, or other substance with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human being.

Nothing in section 2 of this Act may be construed to prohibit the sale, use, prescription, or administration of a contraceptive measure, drug or chemical, if it is administered prior to the time when a pregnancy could be determined.

The upshot is a "don't ask don't tell" policy. You are not legally pregnant until EPT can turn pink. Now scroll back up and check the legal definition of "pregnant" again: from fertilization. Confused? Me too.

I am told the subtlety here is that "emergency contraceptives" are not, biochemically, abortion pills. They'll prevent fertilization, not undo it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4650024.stm

The rock star Bono has launched a new global brand, Product Red, with a share of profits to go to the fight against Aids in Africa.

"Philanthropy is like hippy music, holding hands. Red is more like punk rock, hip hop, this should feel like hard commerce," Bono said.

"Here we are, fat cats in the snow," said Bono at the start of the launch, only to correct himself: "I should say winners in the snow."

"I feel a bit of a fraud, a bit of a loser," he said, "because we are not winning in the war against Aids."

This is "conscientious commerce that will reward both our shareholders and the global community," [American Express chief marketing officer John] Hayes added.

Bono rejected suggestions that he was being used by companies to restore their reputations. "We are not endorsing their products, these products endorse us," he said.


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We can't give Tookie back his life but perhaps we can start a movement to have him canonized by the Pope.

Saint Tookie, patron of murderers, rapists, and children's colouring books.

Hollering about this guy isn't doing the wrongfully convicted any favors.

http://www.paulgraham.com/paulgraham/web20.html

Paul Graham's outlook on for online geekery in the near future gives me a warm feeling in the belly, like eggnog with bourbon. On rare occasions, the creamy malaise slides off and I'm Buddha, Gandhi, George Harrison. Life I love you; All is groovy.

So. Breaking the law (and public broadcasting guidelines) to funnel Congressional money into right-wing programming, and hiring campaign stooges for their political pull instead of their qualifications. YEAH, NICE. CINNAMON BITS.

Ex-CPB chair Ken Tomlinson doesn't think putting his party allegiance before objective judgment was wrong. The conservative board at CPB footnoted his early retirement by noting it "does not believe Tomlinson acted maliciously," like meaning well is a good excuse to break the law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/business/media/16cnd-broadcast.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=e2dadb0b04848cc8&ex=1289710800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - Investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting concluded today that its former chairman repeatedly broke federal law and its own regulations in a campaign to combat what he saw as liberal bias.

The report said he violated federal law by being heavily involved in getting more than $4 million for a program featuring the conservative editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal. It said he imposed a "political test" to recruit a new president. And it said his decision to hire Republican consultants to defeat legislation violated contracting rules.


Wanna see how a shithead protests an allegation while admitting his guilt?

"Unfortunately, the Inspector General's preconceived and unjustified findings will only help to maintain the status quo and other reformers will be discouraged from seeking change," said Mr. Tomlinson, who has repeatedly defended his decisions as part of an effort to restore balance to programming. "Regrettably, as a result, balance and objectivity will not come soon to elements of public broadcasting."

Repeat after me: the GOP is the party of principle...and that principle is, "MINE!" In case you're worried any of this is speculative:

...While some of the details under investigation were disclosed in a news article last May, the inspector general's report is the first official conclusion that Mr. Tomlinson violated both the law and the corporation's own rules.

Why does the "conservative" party require misconduct hearings every other week? Isn't government smaller when we aren't forming investigative committees and patching loopholes? Isn't it cheaper not to start legal battles than to cancel Sesame Street?

Off the top of my head: Bill Frist, Tom Delay, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and now this asshole, who can't even pretend he is victimized by a left-wing conspiracy with a straight face. That line has become a knee-jerk response for any Republican caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and I'm sick of hearing it.

On the way out of Saw II:

"Man! Dat was the best movie I ever seen!"

"I'on know man. I kinda like Gone with the Wind."

Seoul National University's Dr. Woo-Suk Hwang made headlines for successfully cloning a human embryo. Now his U of Pittsburgh co-author Dr. Gerald Schatten has severed their professional ties.

It turns out one of Hwang's employees donated the egg. The arrangement was consensual, but apparently crosses some professional line:

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200511/200511130019.html

Using eggs from a donor in a subordinate position is prohibited according to international ethics guidelines.

The question I'm asking myself is, what happens to the all-star team of Hwang & Schatten? Can one guy still tour as Just Schatten? Any chance of a reunion...say, Crosby, Stills, Schatten & Hwang?

I do wanna know which came first...the breach of ethics, or the egg?

"Collecting eggs from women working on a cloning project would be considered unethical."

Under US law, collecting eggs from anyone to work on a cloning project is "unethical." I believe we have a no-tolerance policy on human cloning.

So maybe the egg had to come from an interested party. While I understand the potential for abuse if that party is an employee, it is entirely conceivable nothing improper occurred. It's her cell to sell.

If the head scientist used her own egg, would that be more ethical? Family members' eggs? Bought them on the black market? I can't believe we're talking about job security as the salient ethical issue here. There is a goddamn baleen whale in the foyer.

Do I believe anyone would relinquish precious bodily fluids to keep a job? No. Assuming it is ethical to buy and sell these for the express purpose of cloning research--as Schatten has--I don't see why we need to abridge the right to contract. Barring the event your employer is Dracula, it might be considered a privilege to contribute to a historic experiment.

For once, the debate has everything to do with the price of eggs in China. Also I'm out of puns.

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=iol1131700179979R232

A politician in Russia has proposed sending several hundred volunteer Soccer Hooligans into France to sort out the riot situation.

Fighting fire with fire isn't really an honest metaphor; doing what forest rangers do would involve preemptive Breaking of all Shit in the vicinity. I don't even know what incites controlled anarchy. Slayer and Adderall?

I s'pose what they had in mind was more like skinheads in Jerusalem. Also a totally rad idea.

This cutesiest of verbs, Old Navy tells me, is what happens when you give other people shit you were given but don't want.

I didn't know anyone did this. I mean, I've heard of it being done with fruitcake, but I'm pretty sure nobody gives you a dessert soaked in rum with nuts and cherries unless you ask for it. At any rate, fruitcake and whatever it represents do not, in my opinion, need a fresh image for the 00's. Smoked salmon would have been fine; God knows I spent last Thanksgiving eating one from the holiday prior.

At any rate, Christmas is upon us. You might not have known that if you haven't been in a store since Halloween.

Incidentally, the soundtrack to the massacre of any village is "Two of Us" off Let It Be. In my mind.

When I read Atlas Shrugged several years ago, I wasn't [still ain't] familiar with Marx. I've run across this:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! --Karl Marx, 1875 in "Critique of the Gotha Program"

I feel robbed. Erasing the antithesis between mental and physical labor? Labor is life's prime want? Abundant springs of cooperative wealth? This is the context of the "ability/needs" guilt-trip?

It's like Ayn Rand plagiarized her entire philosophy of the human spirit from this paragraph, then tagged NUH-UH! onto the last sentence.

She needed to set her book apart. She did it not by philosophy, as she harps about in her nonfiction, but with a demonizing phrase: at the point of a gun. An accurate description of her Stalinist childhood, maybe, but hardly fair game in a battle of ideas.

A writer's parlor trick is to use the narrative to humanize his protagonist's motive; a thoughtful unmasking of Orson Scott Card on this front explains the technique at length. The good guys do to make the world better, the bad guys do for greed, therefore the good guy's action is moral. Even if he exterminated a sentient race, or held the secret to free energy hostage and waited for society to collapse.

Nowhere outside the Old Testament and Meinkampf do we see that kind of spite justified. An academic examination of Rand as an intellectual and a moral being becomes a fairly withering criticism.

While we're on the subject of self-important bitches repackaging commie memes, Mona Charen would have me believe her pet phrase "useful idiot" was Lenin's way of referring to American liberals. Since this week's polls have 2/3 of Americans saying "wrong track" despite a Republican Congress and George Bush White House, I'm getting a little humor out of the irony.

I'm not tied down to conservative polemics as useful idiots, though. You can take your pick of sociopathic lunatics (A. Coulter, M. "Savage" Weiner), or drug-addled hypocrite windbags (R. Limbaugh), or jesters flattering the aristocracy, or greedy rats playing a character to turn Americans against each other. Useful idiots implies they get nothing from the deal and don't know any better, which absolves them of too much responsibility.

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=5033

Two words: Robocop 4.

Overheard:

Robocop was awesome because it did shit that nobody had even thought of before. When they lost control of ED 209 in the auditorium I swear to god he blasted twice as many women as he did men. Just random bitches getting shot up in their titties. You didn't see that shit before and you still don't see that shit now.

Addendum: I have procured not this film, but what was actually the fourth entry in the series, titled something like "Robocop: Straight to Cable." It is by no stretch of the imagination a good movie, but a guy does get his hand blown off as Robocop delivers the line "Now I've got your black ass."