National Review Guy Cold Refuses To Say Sotomayor’s Name The Way “THEY” WANT US TO. For Freedom.

Oh, Happy Friday to me!!! Wonkette has once again proven why I go there to get teh happeez with a post about why grammar nerds are the coolest nerds ever. And also columnists at the National Review are crazy.

It Sticks in My Craw [Mark Krikorian] [Ed. note: This should be the title of every wingnut blog ever.]

Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor’s name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?). But a couple said we should just pronounce it the way the bearer of the name prefers, including one who pronounces her name “freed” even though it’s spelled “fried,” like fried rice. (I think Cathy Seipp of blessed memory did the reverse — “sipe” instead of “seep.”) Deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent’s simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.

Right-o! There are literally no words in the English language that veritably FORCE you to put some kind of unnatural emphasis on the final syllable, which is why there is no such thing as an iamb or any such nonsense in our grammatical history.

So, yes, Virginia: Shakespeare was a French Nazi, and his sonnets were communist propaganda bullshit that were meant to make your mouth gay with their sodomite rhythms.

Geraldo Gives Full-Throated Endorsement of Sotomayor. She’s Doomed.

Did you think Geraldo Rivera has drowned on what he could only hope was his own sick after a particularly ebullient self-fellating bender? Why, no! He’s giving interviews still. To people who write down his words and get paid for it. *shrug*

Here he is giving the popular Sonia Sotomayor just what she really needed:

The Fox News host was so excited about the high court’s first Hispanic nominee that he leapt from his chair in his home office and bopped his head on a low-hanging light fixture.

“This is as important to us as Obama was to the African American community. I have goosebumps,” says Rivera, 65, born to a Catholic, Puerto Rican father and Jewish mother. He defines himself as the former.

So now she doesn’t have to worry about the narcissists-with-soup-strainers vote, she can just go kick back with a Hot Pocket. She will never work again.

Wasilla Genius Thinks Our Antichrist Muslin POTUS Is Gay

So I’m well aware that I have been silent of late. And it’s because…well, the news has been kind of depressing. The revelation that the pictures Obama didn’t release show rapes performed by the military…well, specifically, the rape of a young boy by a translator in front of imprisoned women just sent me into a nauseous tailspin, from which I have yet to fully recover (no Saltines or ginger ale in Spain).

Boy howdy, was I glad to come across this gem, courtesy of a (gasp!) conservative Christian site out of our favorite hillbilly dumpster, Wasilla!

In answering this question [about whether or not the Antichrist will be a homosexual], it is important to assert the question does not originate with me,

Oh, joy! Only the very best in wing-nuttery begins with a disclaimer!

[H]omosexuality is a modern word invented to replace the word Noah Webster did include, sodomy, defined as a crime against nature.

Uh oh, those Saddlebacking kids are in for a surprise when the end of days gets here…

Having seen what the Bible says of sodomy, we have no further to look than the book of Daniel, chapter 11 to find our answer. It says, “Neither shall he [Antichrist] regard… the desire of women….” As I said at the onset, I am not the first to draw attention to this, but the verbiage is clear.

Ooh, bookending disclaimers! This guy really wants to sound like an unbiased authority!

The time is ripe for such a leader. Indeed, it should not be surprising that the one who is against everything Biblical and Christian should be a partaker of so great a sin; there is no greater way to reject the Creator than to reject your gender and his design for it. And at what other time have we seen such perversion come out of the closets onto our streets, threatening violence if we do not accept their ways?

Is it any wonder that Revelation 13 says that this same Antichrist will make war with the saints of the tribulation, and overcome them? Are they not now readying themselves to make it illegal to “offend” them in any way, calling it hatred to preach against their sin? Is it because they love us? The time is ripe for such a man.

I’d go through and dispute the charges, but…well, it’s just so fucking stupid, why bother marring the purity of his own words with facts?

Reddit Sums Up My Rage Against The Homophobes In My Home State

How sad when Reddit’s tiny alien sums up my mood.

In any case, the bullshit that is Prop. 8 was upheld. On the one hand, I think it’s a shitty ruling, since the CA Supreme Court had previously declared the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. On the other, negating something voted into law would have to entail election shenanigans, I would assume, and there were none here. Just bigotry. Of course, why this bigotry is not being called out and decried by the courts that called out and decried the bigotry directed at interracial couples is…well, bullshit. Total fucking bullshit. And no one can talk me down, to use the parlance of someone now designated a third-class system by the very justice system that is supposed to defend her rights as a citizen and a person.

In any case, I still seriously and fully support Melissa Etheridge’s idea of a tax boycott. Taxation without representation is unamerican (just ask Washington D.C.), and shouldn’t be tolerated. If a substantial percentage of the population has to wait till 2010 for their civil rights to maybe be granted by the state in which they reside, that state should have to wait till 2010 to see if maybe they pay their taxes.

Oh, Settle Down, Hippies

So I’m losing patience with the left. Or, as it is more normally typed on the internet,

DEMKRAT SOSHULIST MUSLINS IS ROONING OUR CUNTRY!!!1!!!1111!

Here’s the thing: I’m quite far left. However, having worked for long enough in serious-minded activism (meaning not just mindlessly chanting outside buildings, or joining angry-sounding Facebook groups…the stuff I do now), I know certain realities of society and the way it has to work in order to affect change. Here is the lesson I learned:

Politics. Is. Compromise.

In other words, there is no politics without a coalition. And there is no coalition without compromise.

I spent this morning watching the MSNBC pundits and civil libertarians of the web getting all frothy at the mouth about Obama’s speech. I subsequently spent the day depressed, the references to the movie “Minority Report” dancing in my head just the way sugarplums wouldn’t. And then I took a breath (meaning, a glass of wine), sat down, and read the more mainstream liberal media, which reminded me that my initial suspicions had indeed been correct:

The speech last night wasn’t perfect, for us hippies, but it was perfect for a politician.

Yes, “indefinite detention” is…well, troublesome. Verrrry troublesome. However, the beauty of this President is that, not only does he know that, but he tries to address the concerns of the very people in whose clubhouse he used to play (Constitutional Law geeks, many of whom attended an off-the-record meeting at the White House the day before the speech). Better yet, he’s man enough to take the Bush comparisons from them directly, then not give ground.

Lest I be accused of being a shallow idealogue, let’s imagine for a second that Obama didn’t even entertain the idea of overriding Habeus Corpus for any reason, ‘kay? What would that mean? It would mean that Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be out of prison tomorrow (all evidence against them being tainted by the torture they experienced. As Law and Order has taught me for 63 years now, fruit of a poisoned tree is always just that). I, personally, have little problem with that release, as a strict admirer of our civil liberties, and would even see it as a harbinger of a new dawn.

However…

Anyone remember Willie Horton? Of course you do. He was the death knell of Dukakis’ career. And he was NOTHING, scandal-wise, compared to these two high-ranking Al Qaeda officials.

Do any members of the ACLU realistically think anyone (no matter how sparkly or miraculously beloved) who effectively pardons the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks for that crime will ever get elected to office ever?

And what if that weren’t the problem? What if society accepted that we are bound by the current legal system and therefore have to let these guys go? Would it then be a huge surprise to see a populist uprising occur against said existing legal system? Maybe a reversal of our current policies, which favor the rights of one wrongly-accused man over those of many guilty ones, towards the Napoleonic approach?

So, yes, I’m sad about the compromising Obama’s having to do. But it’s necessary, and it’s something that all people have to do in order to get along with other people (Ever have to put in a lunch order for a group at an office? Try finding a restaurant everyone likes/can afford if you’re ordering for millions.). And I’ll continue to commiserate in spirit with my beloved civil libertarian blogger friends, all of whom are necessary and consequential in their dissent, their rage, and their articulation of both (cause, hey, the president reads!). I’ll drink cheap wine, curse reality, and toast the death of my Unicorn King POTUS.

But I will get to call him POTUS for 8 years. And so will you.

When Did Rehabilitation Become Manditory Recitivism?

I’m just getting serious here for a second. About Guantanamo.

No, I’m not going to echo the left’s civil-libertarian outrage at the President’s seeming bait-and-switch on it. I may be naive, but I still think it’s going to get closed. Once Congress is brought in on the decision making, they say they’ll stop holding their breath too and vote for it. So I’m still just waiting to be outraged about that.

Here’s the thing, though: the arguments against transferring the detainees to U.S. prisons are getting to me.

Not the BUT THERE WILL BE TERRORISTS ROASTING LAMB ON OUR LAWNS!!! argument, which is so patently ridiculous as to not warrant retort. What I’m talking about is the more “reasonable” of the scare tactics being used by the right (and, let’s face it, Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein): If we let the detainees mingle with our current prisoners, they will become terrorists all.

Really?

Don’t get me wrong: I think neither that our current prison population is composed of happy workers paying their due, nor that there probably isn’t sympathy for sociopathy within the walls of your average SuperMax. What I am wondering, though, is what ever happened to our original penal system?

Let me explain…

The Quakers began this whole ball rolling, from what I remember from my days passing out in whiskey comas with the History Channel playing in the background. The point was that, if someone in society makes a mistake, you send them to prison to teach them how and why they shouldn’t make it again. They originally proposed the SuperMax idea (solitary confinement), for the purpose of religious reflection, believing that the criminal would one day Satori himself right back onto the straight and narrow. Given current SuperMax footage, it seems like said Satoris look more like skizophrenias, but the point is this: Prison, in this country, was meant to be for rehabilitation, not punishment.

When did our penal system devolve into such a state where we believe that–if confronted with the people who (allegedly) are the cruelest, most sociopathic of the Arab lot (as claim the Cheneys of the world reside in Gitmo)–our prisoners will side with them?? Is our current state of prisoner rehabilitation so tenuous (or, I fear, nonexistent) that we think that, if given the choice between going home to their families and helping out their community, or siding with the people who (again, allegedly) sympathize with perpetrators of the worst, cruelest, most hateful (and still recent) act ever to take place on American soil?

And, if the prison population is deemed so sociopathic already as to already have terrorist leanings, how long before they are also deemed too dangerous to even release?

Part of me (the Bay-Area-native part who mistrusts all things double-speak) is thinking that these fearmongers hyping Gitmo’s detainees as potential fomenters of a million societal rebellions are maybe right, and maybe know exactly of which they speak. They may know that mixing together people who have all been collectively locked away and forgotten about for little or no reason by the same society may find some common ground and rebel. Maybe they would. How best to show their rage?

Torch the banks and the credit card companies?
Torch Wall Street?
Publicly embarrass the U.S. around the world?
Elect a NEGRO to the White House?
Elect a SOCIALIST SECRET MUSLIM to the White House?

Hmmm…

Lindsay Graham Hatefucks Himself In The Dark

Up till this session, I’d always thought of Lindsay Graham as being a moderate mavericky sidekick to John McCain. Now, all of a sudden, it seems like he’s a douchenozzle. Well, it’s not just my imagination, as it turns out. Check out this awesome self-debate:

Nuff said.

Onward, Christian Soldier: Rumsfeld’s Super-Creepy Stash Of Jesus-Lovin’ War Porn Released

It was reported a few days ago that Robert Draper at GQ had gotten hold of some memos that Rumsfeld used to hand every morning to Bush. The real news was that they were basically propogandic pictures, headlined with biblical quotations, all geared towards keeping the Idiot-Man-Child-In-Chief happy about how duckily goeth the War on Terror.

Well, the article’s dropped. And the memos? Creepier than I’d thought. Case in point:

On the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush…

On this particular morning, [the cover] showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

After my initial vomiting in my own mouth, I must admit…this made me laugh. Because of a blind item I recently read:

Which Sexiest Man Alive got double-teamed by a porn star and a dominatrix? Back in 2004, a dominatrix at New York club enlisted the porn star’s help in humiliating her mostly-straight client…who was kneeling down on the floor naked. The porn star recognized him immediately: “He had a muscular build and looked quite young… The dude peers up at me from the mat. I more than recognize the dude. I had seen him in countless big screen movies over the last few years. (He was also in People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive Issue 2003. Not the cover model, though). Jesus loves me! I can’t believe I get to fuck this guy. What the fuck?! I can’t believe this guy is into such a heavy scene! The second my dick enters him, he arches his back and he starts singing at the top of his lungs, “Onward Christian Soldier”.

Was Rumsfeld or Bush ever Sexiest Man Alive?

Michael Steele Hearts Universal Health Care, Still Hates Homos

Michael Steele, I hope hope hope hopehopehope you keep this RNC Chairman gig. Really. Not only are you comically bad at your job, but you’re hilarious while you’re being comically bad at your job. Humor bonuses all around!

How is Michael Steele being an epic failure yet AGAIN today? Why, by decrying gay marriage as being bad for small businesses.

Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday.
…
“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

Obviously, The ChairMan of Steele got the memo that the GOP wants to focus on gay marriage, rather than abortion, as its core social issue (another epically bad idea, but that’s a topic for another post). So he was halfway there in the benefitting-his-party thang. It’s only that pesky, undoubtedly inadvertent, argument he just made for universal health care that got in the way of this being a pretty acceptable Bush-era-conservative speech.

Then again, maybe Michael Steele missed the Obama administration’s argument that federally-provided health insurance would save small businesses an assload of money. After all, if you Google “Obama health care small business,” only 19,400,000 results pop up. And who’s got the time to read all that shizzle, Baby?!

NY Times Doesn’t Want Any Part Of Geffen’s Communist Bullpucky

So, last week David Geffen was outed as having perhaps the best idea ever to save the newspapaer industry, starting with the the NY Times. In a fashion that makes transparent the reasons they are so publicly f(l)ailing, Times editor Bill Keller has countered with the worst idea ever.

A “meter system,” in which the reader can roam freely on the Web site until hitting a predetermined limit of word-count or pageviews, after which a meter will start running and the reader is charged for movement on the site thereafter.

Yup, you read that right: They want to charge internet readers by the word. What better way to counteract the nefarious insurgence of communism (i.e. “non-profit” *shudder*) than to profit off the free-est part of your precious free market?

Oh, and he had another idea too:

Mr. Keller described the second proposal as a “membership” system…Mr. Keller described the second proposal as a “membership” system.

That one sounds suspiciously like PBS, no?

I say it’s time the Sulzbergers give up their stranglehold on media beholden to advertising lords and masters already. They have enough money to last for generations’ worth of loquacious scallawagging through the Upper East Side as is, and a city about to rescind terms limits for the highest-bidding mayor (hint: Bloomberg) could use a reliable news source (besides…well, Bloomberg).