Random Item

Here's this

According to a police report, two brothers who share an apartment in the 1600 block of East McKinney Street were “play fighting” about 3 p.m. One brother had a sword and the other brother had a bathroom plunger.

One brother said he lunged with the plunger and it suctioned to the stomach of his brother, who was swinging the sword. In his efforts to remove his plunger from his brother’s stomach, he said he accidentally impaled himself on his brother’s sword.

It's Tuesday

I want Jesus.

But How Big Is His Penis?

This is just a warm-up post to get the blood moving and prepare for a whole litany of profane screeds

Krauthammer on Obama:

[There] are strong reasons for Obama to run [for President in 2008]. Nonetheless, he will not win. The reason is Sept. 11, 2001. The country will simply not elect a novice in wartime.

Hey Chas… blow it out your ass. Go on. Blow it. God, you're such a twerp. I can't even hardly believe how enormous a twerp you are. Jackass.

Well that was fun. Politics is fun.

Does anyone have any snacks? I could use a snack. Maybe later tonight I'll buy a sack of chips or something. Perhaps I'll play a video game. Or some solitaire. I mean, it's Friday – what better time to kick back and relax.

Water Damage

"We do not torture". George W. Bush

Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding: "... the first time that a senior Bush administration official has confirmed that U.S. interrogators used water-boarding."

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

I Don't Like It When My Home State Looks Bad

I know that my home state of New Mexico is not a bastion of the Democratic party. Old, fair New Mexico tends to lean toward the conservative political angle, which is is all well and good. Senator Pete Domenici has acquitted himself very well as a representative of New Mexico and he has done good work both inside and outside of New Mexico in the past twenty years. Heather Wilson, on the other hand, is known for her ranting against corporate CEOs and rallying the FCC to action for the corruption of her children after the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake halftime show. Congresswoman Wilson's holier-than-thou attitude didn't sit right with me, and I only just discovered that she's been representing the state of my birth since the mid-1990s. Having Dennis Hastert as a representative in my current state of residence doesn't thrill me either, even before all the Mark Foley news. Now there are allegations the Congresswoman Wilson has been up to some bad things to cover for her husband in a scandal "reminiscent" to Foley's. While these are only allegations at this time, it only deepens my dislike and desire to distance myself from bad representatives in my states of residence. Fortunately, I can look to Senators Domenici and Obama for my ideal representatives.

It's Tuesday

Woof

Dispatch from the Forgotten War: The War on Animals:

Pierce County prosecutors say Michael Patrick McPhail, 26, had sex with his family’s dog Wednesday.

[…]

According to a Pierce County Sheriff’s Department report, McPhail’s wife told investigators that she caught her husband on the back porch about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday having intercourse with their 4-year-old female pit bull terrier.

She took photos of the act, the report says.

Her first response was to grab a camera. That’s curious.

Help The Neofuturists Write a Show

I just took The Neofuturists survey to help Greg Allen write America's most wanted and least wanted play. The concept is brilliant — to use the same tools Hollywood uses to turn its output into homogenous garbage and make a theatrical statement about it. It's also a pretty fun survey to take. I requested a man-eating bear. 

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

Two reasons the Mark Foley Scandal is Good for Republicans

1. Who wants to talk about the complete suspension of Habeus Corpus when it's so much more fun to talk about lurid IMs?

2. An boy molested by a priest grew up to be a gay alcoholic pedophile. See, America? Homosexuality is a disease! Told you so!

Sure, Democrats may take one if not both congressional houses, but the hurt inflicted by the Republicans is going to take more than just an election to fix. It's going to take years if not decades of elections and education to undo this damage. While Mark Foley may be an easy target, he's the perfect misdirection as a time when they need it.

At Least Nobody's Made Fun of his Flop-Sweat

Things are looking bad for Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert this week. I mean, the whole Mark Foley thing sounds stressful, sure, but how bad is it compared to learning that being fat makes you stupid? I don’t want to insult anyone, but if I had to tell someone to pick Dennis Hastert out in a crowd, one of the words I’d use as a descriptor would be "corpulent." And hey, Dennis, it’s okay, buddy. I’ve got about eighty pounds to sweat off myself, and I know I’m not quite as quick on the draw as I used to be. But at least President Bush hasn’t told anyone he’s proud of me. Ouch; that’s gotta burn. The last time that happened the poor schmuck lost his job.

In terms of lives lost and dollars spent, the question of whether or not Hastert knew his buddy was a perv seems trite even if it does call into question the Speaker’s own character. That said, however, I must confess I do enjoy a touch of schadenfreude every now and then.

PS: Thanks, Arlo, for letting me play along.

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

Quick Link Dump

Good stuff by Mr. Wolcott: "We're not the enemy, and if you engage us as the enemy, all you'll be doing is starting yet another war you can't win."

Because Everybody Needs Love

It's important that I share the following information with the world: on Sunday I bought a MacBook Pro and I think that it's a fine computer. That's it. That's all I needed to say. Please get back to your stupid life. Jerk.

Shaming The Peacock

Define Junk

Anybody remember the sale of the Dorito chip that looked like the Pope's hat? This item reportedly sold on eBay for $1,209, according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, which was also reporting a Jesus sighting in someone's bathtub.

Well, ever heard of this fellow? John Freyer wrote his college thesis about how consumer profiling predicts personality traits based on what people buy and consume. Before he started allmylifeforsale.com, Freyer originally wanted to rid himself of unnecessary junk over the course of three months so he could move from Iowa to New York City to continue his graduate studies. He ended up selling everything he owned over the course of a year, from clothing to the food in his pantry. Totals: six hundred items on eBay, six hundred more items from the final yard sale for a grand total of six thousand dollars. Throughout the year it took to sell all his possessions, Freyer received invitations from his buyers to come see how his items were being put to use. After everything was sold in August, 2001, Freyer went on a cross country trek to see his buyers and their items. Freyer comes up in academia in discussions of people being defined by their consumptions and surroundings. He is sometimes seen as an American paradox: someone who is free from possessions while being defined by them at the same time.

I sympathize with Freyer's original pack-rat tendencies because I associate memory with objects. I have a person or event associated with many of my items, even though there may be no logical or even meaningful connection left over time. I just hate letting go of memory. With that in mind (and because I'm approaching a 100 rating on eBay), I tried to think of anything with novelty or memory that I could sell on eBay. Probably what would make the most money would be my laptop, which has plenty of work and memory associated with it. The laptop's memory, however, is transferable, thanks to my trusty flash drive. If I'd had some videotaping capability over the years, I could even transfer these events and memories from my laptop if I wanted. Does this mean I'm defined by my flash drive? Fortunately not, as I have tons of other non-downloadable junk from my home and memories stored in my non-uplinked brain. How soon before we get brain flash drives? The sooner, the better, so me and the other packrats stop taking storage space.

In the meantime, anyone interested in buying the following items?

1. A haphazard comic collection ranging through the early nineties
2. Cannibalized computer parts (a modem, NIC, RJ-45 cables, and screws)
3. Moth balled clothing from a deceased uncle I never knew
4. Gold cowboy boots
5. A large pile of VHS tapes

These items are ready to define someone else. Still, if this is all I'm selling, it might be a bit before I get my 100 rating.

Stop everything you are doing and watch this.

Source.

Diversionary Tactics

Of all crimes – real or imagined – committed by members of Congress, it must surely be the height of reasonableness to classify them by the number (and relative suffering) of their victims; with some noteworthy departures from this dictum, it is a fundamental principle of justice that punishments are allotted in a manner commensurate with this idea.

Tom Mark Foley is a bit of a pederast. Oh my.

2733 Americans have died in Iraq. Perhaps over 50,000 Iraqi civilians are also dead.

Dennis Hastert may of dawdled when he heard that Tom Mark Foley liked boys. Oh my.

CIA secret prison - the very existence of which violates international law – are now retroactively immune from all prosecutorial action U.S. courts. Habeas corpus was suspended without any formal declaration of war. The Vice President shot a man in the face.

Now is the perfect time for the Democrats to talk about domestic spying, the Constitution, Guantanamo Bay, bin Laden, Iraq, the Taliban, Donald Rumsfeld and the worst goddamn chief executive in the history of western civilization. Let Fox News talk about pederasty.

ADDENDUM: Justice always comes at a price.

UPDATE: Wrong Foley. Thanks, ps206.

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion

The Eagle's Sore

Here are some thoughts on being intellectually fisted by an excerpt of John Ashcroft's new book Never Again: The Moral Imperative for Toughness:

The United States will suffer more terrorist attacks during this war with al Qaeda.

Unequivocal statements of futurity in this vein are, by definition, propagandistic. The United States may suffer more attacks. I would even go so far as to say that there his a high degree of probability that such attacks will occur. However, unlike Mr. Ashcroft I make no prophetic claims; the sole purpose of which is to instill fear in the listener.

They [terrorists] are fanatical, relentless, and patient.

This is probably true. I don't know them. I doubt Mr. Ashcroft knows them. Which terrorists is he talking about? One would presume that he's referring to that great mass of indeterminate "al Qaeda types".

Their leadership is scattered, killed, or captured; their safe haven in Afghanistan is destroyed; their command and control structure has disintegrated

Untrue. Well, to be fair, there has been quite a lot of scattering, killing and capturing. However, the great mass of indeterminate "al Qaeda types" can hardly be quantified with such self-assured bravado. We were unable to establish a functional understanding of Iraq's nuclear and chemical weapons capabilities prior to invasion; how in the world can we be expected to believe such unambiguous declarations of destruction, especially since the enemy is – by our own definition – intrinsically protean and sustained by a non-hierarchical religious fanaticism? The Taliban, by the way, is baaack.

We are now at war with a diffuse, loosely organized network, united and motivated by a hatred for our nation and our core values. They are fed spiritually by bin Laden, and thrive in our society on the basic liberties they loath.

Mr. Ashcroft doesn't bother to substantiate his claim that bin Laden is feeding anyone (spiritually or otherwise). To "feed" a movement of this size would, I'm guessing, require communication. To declare that bin Laden is anything other than a figurehead or icon is to employ rhetoric in advance of the facts. There is no evidence to support this claim. Nor is there evidence to support the claim that terrorists are "thriving" in our own society. Ashcroft includes this sentence to advocate for more domestic spying and suchlike, and to do so on the strength of unsubstantiated bullshit statements of truthiness.

The advance of civilization has dispersed technology, information, and destructive capacity so thoroughly that their network easily exploits these advances for their cause. This network will hit us again when they can.

Scary sounding, but true. It's always been true. Civilization does advance and a byproduct of human progress is the cross-pollination of military technology through diverse (even remote) populations. Horrifying. An ungovernable spasm of fear just made me pee myself.

[...]

One simple but difficult principle provides the opportunity for the United States to achieve “never again.” That is: The will to win. The will to do whatever is necessary within the Constitution to protect America separates us from more death and destruction within our shores. It is the will to sacrifice, to persevere in the face of adversity and criticism just as generations of Americans did before us. It is no guarantee, but if we falter, grow complacent, or fail to do what we can, we give the terrorist network opportunities that, with time and patience, they will exploit to kill more innocent Americans.

This is simply gross. To begin with, "whatever is necessary within the Constitution" is probably one of the most terrible, overwrought, insipid and morally backward phases in circulation today. The caveat "within the Constitution", as we all know, has been rendered meaningless by the Bush administration's power grab (via signing statements, expanded executive authority, and the unlawful reinterpretation of the Constitution as functionally meaningless by administration lawyers). Additionally, anyone that feels the need to include such qualifiers as "within the Constitution" or "within the law" or suchlike, is implicitly acknowledging the need to assure their listeners that they're not, in point of fact, amoral murdering criminals. But it's the "whatever is necessary" part that is the real rhetorical sludge of this passage. It stands in stark contrast to other, more intelligent, options: "whatever is the most efficacious, durable, wise, etc." "Necessary" brings two issues to mind: (a) who decides necessity and which measures and/or options meet that standard, and (b) to have reached the point where action is necessary is to have squandered whatever time and circumstances existed in which to exercise choice and/or judgment. "Whatever" is, likewise, a rubbish bin of options – including those which may be reprehensible, counterproductive, asinine, dictatorial, and generally bad. "Whatever is necessary". Fuck that.

And then there's this: "…to persevere in the face of adversity and criticism". Right. Even, one must conclude, if the criticism is valid, constructive, corrective and/or "necessary". This phrase is a political one. Surely America faces adversity in the guise of our enemies. Criticism, however, is a different matter. As big a dickhead as Mr. Ashcroft is, it's hard to image that he's particularly concerned about al Qaeda's criticisms of Bush's policies. It's the salient criticism from sentient Americans over which he intends to "persevere".

ADDENDUM: This is really why I posted anything in the first place.

New Authors

Expect a slew of new authors to join Like You Really Care this week. I fully expect they will introduce themselves.

Why?

Because we need more content.
Because we need more readers.
Because I always had higher aspirations for this blog than personal news.
Because all of the folks I've invited are super smart and super cool and I'm sure you'll like them.
Because I pay for the server and I can do what I want.

Welcome to all of our new writers.