i didn't even know

I've been following a story about Kos and some of the other major bloggers, and the gist of it is that Advertise Liberally, the ad network started by, though not run by, Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos.com, is used as a kind of payola to orchestrate what bloggers say on the liberal side of the blogosphere. Its total horseshit, of course, just another attempt to smear the world's largest political website, but you'll be hearing it more and more.

The funny part is that the story basically says "liberal weblogs are an echo chamber". The juijitsu necessary to call liberal blogs an "echo chamber" is stunning. The echo chamber analogy is basically what the entire right-wing media machine is based on, and it's been tremendously successful. Read Blinded by the Right: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock (founder of Media Matters, which Bill O'Reilly calls a "left-wing smear site", as ringing an endorsement as you're likely to get). Brock also penned The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy. There's numerous other publications as well.

The common right-wing attack, prevalent in attacks on abortion rights, privacy rights, science education, and anything else they want to knock down is to take their own position and put it on the other side. If they're against clean air and water, they claim the other side is against it. While it is plainly utterly stupid on its face, it forces people to correct them and waste time not advancing their position. Maybe juijitsu is wrong. It's more of a brutal cudgel.

fucking awesome

Ernie Fletcher is the Gov. of KY (guess his party affiliation). He pre-pardoned some fools in his party for an incipient scandal, which was odd since that's illegal, and now he's getting attention for having the muckraking site Bluegrassreport.org blocked on state computers, in addition to a handful of other political sites.
Apparently this does NOT meet state constitutional standards, but the proprietor of BGR doesn't seem TOO interested in filing suit yet.
The KY Gov (that's just funny lookin') followed a developing condition of pols who hate bloggers. MO Gov Matt Blunt also hustled a blogger out of the state capitol building, where he was attending a bill signing, for some bullshit reason.

Dude, seriously, read the article from the post below. We're in the middle of a slip into fascism, and I'm not kidding. It's not a secret conspiracy either. Glenn Greenwald has pertinent discussion constantly.

Read, look hard, please, it's really happening.

just in case

Just in case you're ever wondering why I lose my mind at every infringement on Constitutional liberties that the Bush junta inflicts on our citizenty, read this. Read it all the way through. Find the similarities and argue about it.

I don't think you can. I think the goal of the current crop of fools in charge is obvious and terrifying. If I die in a weird plane crash, well, I'd have ended up a lot more important than I am now.

another word

Main Entry: la·cu·na
Pronunciation: l&-'kü-n&, -'kyü-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural la·cu·nae /-'kyü-(")nE, -'kü-"nI/; or la·cu·nas /-'kü-n&z, -'kyü-/
Etymology: Latin, pool, pit, gap -- more at LAGOON
1 : a blank space or a missing part : GAP
2 : a small cavity, pit, or discontinuity in an anatomical structure
- la·cu·nar /-'kü-n&r, -'kyü-/ also la·cu·nate /l&-'kü-n&t, -'kyü-, -"nAt; 'la-ky&-"nAt/ adjective

This is a pretty useful word in these days, as the shrillest of shrill seem unable, through some defect, to see the result of their foolish war-dreams, their support for a power-mad, incompetent puppet president, their willingness to send a lobbyist to fill the seat of a congressman tainted by...lobbyists..., the desire to hitch every woman's womb to the mechanism of the state, and to define large chunks of our populace as evil for what hole they choose to fuck...the shrill can't seem to see somehow that they have lead us to the cusp of disaster. They believe they are bravely steering the ship, one hand on tiller one on hip, chest thrust forward in manly certitude, and can't see the jagged stones and sucking vortexes that lay just ahead.

I used to think that enough protestation would convince even those on the right, since, in years past, it had done just that. Even Reagan raised taxes when he realized his "trickle-down" economics were only trickling one stinky thing onto those at the bottom. But this version of the Lunatic Winger has no compunctions. They see past failures of their policies not as repudiation of their silly fantasies, which have never worked in governing, but as a lack of willpower to follow through. Of course a lot of the main architects know the true goal, a subversion of government powers to the richest of the rich, the largest corporations, but the rest are useful idiots trained through long hours to believe the utterly vapid lies they then repeat.

Cons love to win, regardless of wether or not they actually win. The appearance of it can be enough for them.

I like to survive, and grow. I like my family and friends to be safe. I want to help others who are not family and friends be safe and happy.

Cons want to take everything they can and turn inwards to gaze at their loot like some pasty white Smaug. Maybe it's time to roust this dragon, and see what its made of?

anne coulter is a giant quivering tumor

That Anne Coulter has any pulpit from which to spew her hate and bile at all makes me doubtful of my countrymen's humanity. This shrill hypocritical ogre deserves nothing by disdain, yet she is fetishized by the very people who's life she mocks with her false words.

and of course, the cons just say "my word! she's not a real conservative!

You know, she is a real conservative, she's a real one in the sense that she is how conservatism, if there ever was such a thing, is practiced today. some old dead politician said something along the lines of "Conservatism is less a political ideology than a mental condition", and I still agree. None of these fools has shown themselves able to govern, none have shown an ability to look past the end of their own self-interest. they're reprehensible, and they're WINNING.

So we're fools or liars, you and me. We're fools in that we refuse to fight, or are too dumb to articulate our points, or too blinded by outrage at the horrors perpetrated by the howling scum on the right, or liars unable to come to grips with our own failings. many correct-thinking people have pointed out this basic problem with the left in the US, but not enough people listen.

Word of the Day: Calumny

Calumny

cal·um·ny

Pronunciation: 'ka-l&m-nE also 'kal-y&m-

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural -nies

Etymology: Middle French & Latin; Middle French calomnie, from Latin calumnia, from calvi to deceive; perhaps akin to Old English hOlian to slander, Greek kElein to beguile

1 : a misrepresentation intended to blacken another's reputation
2 : the act of uttering false charges or misrepresentations maliciously calculated to damage another's reputation
- ca·lum·ni·ous /k&-'l&m-nE-&s/ adjective
- ca·lum·ni·ous·ly adverb

That's what the NRCC is doing to Francine Busby. I voted for her twice today, once in the runoff for the rest of Duke the Bribe's term and once for the Dem primary. Thanks to a last-minute flub I don't know what will happen...she was neck and neck until she said some stuff about illegals that let the rightwing crap machine go apeshit. Of course it means not what they're claiming, but who cares? They'll say whatever they want about whoever. Jerkoffs.

Anyways, we'll find out tonight. Hopefully CA50th voters still have a few living braincells and will vote for a new start, not more of the same.

everyone else

did a post...well, charles and desi did...about hanging out at i-don't-know-how-to-spell-her-name's house, and painting on her walls, and the no-water thing, and the fumes, and charles' headache, and margaritas, and keri demanding ass-sex, and no one mentioned the flailing about on the lawn?

also, i think that deganet sp?) is not likely to get her security deposit back

Noted Scumbag O'Reilly PWNED!!!1!!

Thanks to Crooks & Liars, we can watch Bill O'Reilly lie mercilessly about American GIs in WW2 to try and talk down the criticism of American GIs murdering civilians in Iraq.



Watch the whole video.