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COLORADO SUPREME COURT RULES TRUMP INELIGIBLE FOR BALLOT ON 14th AMENDMENT GROUNDS
Ruling stayed pending US Supreme Court appeal, but it is their final ruling
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
On Ukraine
Oct. 6th, 2023 01:20 amOn Ukraine, a country without a navy, pushing the Russian Black Sea Fleet mostly out of the Black Sea:
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
So… given all this, particularly:
Peskov says Wagner mercenaries who wish to sign a Ministry of Defence contract can, and fighters who took part today’s uprising will not be prosecuted.
and
The head of the Wagner group will leave for Belarus
…was that idea I was floating in the first hour about this being basically a hostile takeover of Wagner basically… correct? Is that where we’ve ended up? And how much of this was pantomime?
Russian politics, damn, amirite?
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
oh that’s a spicy meatball (russia)
Jun. 23rd, 2023 05:58 pmSo if you haven’t noticed, the proto-Russian-civil-war I’ve been watching simmer for a few months has just got hot. Neither side are “good guys” and honestly I’m not sure which is worse.
But it could certainly cause the Russian front line in Ukraine to collapse.
See here and here for starters, there are reports of armoured personnel carriers on the streets in some cities around Moscow (eta: verified, and in Moscow), Wagner have shot down a Russian regular-military helicopter after it opened fire on them, and something is definitely going on with the internet.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
NPR, PBS, and at least KUOW – one of our local NPR-affiliated stations – have quit Twitter over Musk’s abuses.
Now is a great time – particularly if you are a supporting or sustaining member – to ask them to set up in the Fediverse, whether it’s on Mastodon, Friendica, or whatever. I strongly suggest that you mention Mastodon first, since they almost certainly at least know what that is, making it a dramatically easier easier point of entry.
Send ’em feedback, won’t you?
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
***** V I C T O R Y *****
Mar. 29th, 2023 04:11 pmAs did the chicken:
I’ll be damned, Mastodon saved a newspaper. From Update 7 on the GoFundMe:
The Texas Observer’s parent nonprofit board… unanimously voted to rescind layoffs after seeing this successful effort to raise funds.
That’s right. The Observer will not lay off staff on Friday, and the publication will not cease the production of journalism.
Take a moment to reflect on this astonishing accomplishment that YOU made possible.
And I’ve got something important to add myself, which is:
This is why you do not just accept this shit. It does not have to happen. We just proved that, again.
TWO DAYS. TWO. FUCKING. DAYS. IS ALL IT TOOK.
I mean sure, now there’s a longer-term effort, and that’ll have to work too, and the Observer really need to get that Patreon spun up and running for reasons we’ve talked about before, but…
But today?
Two days.
Two days to victory.
Don’t just accept this shit. You don’t have to. See, this here? This right here?
This is called proof.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
gates and orphans
Feb. 3rd, 2015 08:30 amSince it’s been announced, I can confirm: I have accepted an invitation to be Toastmaster at Conflikt 9, January 29-31, 2016. It’s my first GoH position at any convention, and as I’ve been saying, I am confused but honoured to have been selected and I will do my best to be a good one.
Conflikt Chair Jen Kilmer asked me to pick my personal Toast title, as is tradition; previous officeholders have been Toastmistresses, Toastmaster both standard and burnt, and Toastmonsters; I have chosen Toastmuppet. Expect inordinate amounts of Kermitflail, starting right now:
The release concert on Sunday was pretty much amazing, at least from our end. We never did manage to have a rehearsal with everyone at once, but it didn’t seem to hurt us too badly on stage. A lot of people stayed through Sunday afternoon to hear us, and I cannot thank all of you enough for that.
And hoo, I will never complain about setup time for other bands again. Okay, well, I will. But not as much. We took over an hour, and that was as simplified as I could make it, and with all the advance material I could hand over handed over, and nobody screwing around.
And, of course, once again, thanks to everyone: Alexander James Adams (drums, vocals, backing fiddle), Paul Campbell (hammer dulcimer), Jeri Lynn Cornish (cello, bones, chorus), Angela Korra’ti (flute, readings), Leannan Sidhe (vocals), Skellington (lead fiddle), Betsy Tinney (drums), and S.J. Tucker (bass, chorus). It would quite literally have been impossible without you.
OH at #Conflikt8 "was everyone on stage either a Pixie or a Criminal?" @solarbirdy @ConfliktFrog @TrickyPixieBand
— SJ Tucker (@s00j) February 2, 2015
Highlights of the convention – hoo, I dunno, it’s hard to pick. Alec’s show was great, and not in that “as always” way, there was something extra in the energy that night. Having the rest of Tricky Pixie on for a few songs probably didn’t hurt anything. The PDX Broadsides won Saturday’s concert set, no doubt – they’re much better live than in their older recordings. (I haven’t heard the new album yet tho’ – I only heard old demos.) I’m so glad I’m having them in for nwcMUSIC this year. Oh wait, that’s still technically embargoed, lol. Regardless, they’re really good live. And Stringapalooza’s set on Sunday was the tightest thing I’ve ever heard at a convention, they were amazing.
I stayed through the near-very-end of the dead dog/smoked salmon; I like leaving while there are one or two holdouts still holding out, so I don’t feel like it’s really over even though it is. And there were two, and a couple of others who were just there to listen, at around 1am Monday morning, so I packed out before they could change their minds. Sunday night is particularly good as far as I’m concerned, because I’ll do any damn thing, and that includes the relevant-for-20-minutes-thanks-a-lot-guys Doctor Who song I wrote in 2013* and have performed live never, a cappella DEVO tracks, and pretty much anything anyone asks me for, rehearsed or not. I will just do the thing. And it’s great.
Also, this happened – thanks Tom!
S00j wrote a really relevant post about Conflikt and Filk in general, particularly as its position in the geek hierarchy, and you should go read it. She touches quite directly on some of the things I’m trying to address indirectly through the way I feature filk as the founding pillar of geekmusic, and the way I talk about the punk nature of their hands-on/DIY aesthetic, and the participatory culture foundation underlying all of that.
Definitely worth reading. Give it a little thought.
*: it was pretty good, too.
Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby
In more news of awesome
Sep. 6th, 2010 11:38 amAAAAAAAAAAAA ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seanan_mcguire won the Campbell! Go Seanan! Go Seanan! And Girl Genius won a Hugo! AAAAAAAAA!!
And China Miéville! Yay! And Moon, which I adored, and Clarkesworld, which I'll take over a dozen copies of Asimov's.
Really, overall, this was a pretty fuckin' good weekend for things what don't suck.
seanan_mcguire won the Campbell! Go Seanan! Go Seanan! And Girl Genius won a Hugo! AAAAAAAAA!!And China Miéville! Yay! And Moon, which I adored, and Clarkesworld, which I'll take over a dozen copies of Asimov's.
Really, overall, this was a pretty fuckin' good weekend for things what don't suck.
Fundraiser in progress
Jun. 28th, 2010 09:54 pmRelayed from stealthcello:
I'm not involved with the auction directly either, but am similarly relaying news.
stealthcello:[A]n auction currently being held on LiveJournal to help save Fae Hollow [can be found] atNot much time left on this, so go now. See also here. I have it on good authority that they actually have a shot at catching this particular Hail Mary pass, so if you're thinking it's futile, well, think again. There are some people with the dosh out there.save_fae_hollow.
Items for bid are listed on that page; for photos, scroll down. To bid, just comment with your bid after the item you want. There are some beautiful items being offered, including custom cloaks, jewellery, and some great services as well, including the intriguing "Dancing Photographers" and the tasty "Vegan Treats". (Note: I am not involved with the auction, which is being run by some of Alec's Indiana-area fans; I'm just boosting the signal.)
Bidding closes on June 30, and there aren't very many bids yet -- so hop on over and bid to help save Fae Hollow (and get some cool stuff)!
If you'd like to make a simple donation (as opposed to, or in addition to, an auction bid) to help save Fae Hollow, go here: http://faerietaleminstrel.com/inside/
For more info about what's up with Fae Hollow, see the AlexanderFans Livejournal at
I'm not involved with the auction directly either, but am similarly relaying news.
An award to the AP for stating the obvious: AP IMPACT: US drug war has met none of its goals. No shit. On the other hand, it has cost around US$1T, militarised the police force, hammered away property rights, and screwed millions of people, so if you're unkind and suggest that the real goal was increasing government power, then, well, mission accomplished! But in terms of stated goals, it's a complete failure. That's not really disputable.
Get this defence of the drug war from former U.S. drug czar John P. Walters:
Get this defence of the drug war from former U.S. drug czar John P. Walters:
"To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous," Walters said. "It destroys everything we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcement, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided."Um, yeah. That is what it's saying. That's exactly what it's saying. Well spotted! And why is it saying that? Because it's true.
Anonymous and Pirate Bay are helping protesters in Iran get around firewalls and other information-blocking activities by the government. The portal website is Anonymous Iran. They're going to need all the help they can get; Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said to sit down and accept the fake election results and shut up, or we'll crush you like the "Zionist" filth you are.
Lots and lots and lots more at Sullivan's website.
Lots and lots and lots more at Sullivan's website.
106mpg subcompact
Jul. 19th, 2008 11:04 amI've posted about this before, but maybe they actually have this working at range now. We'll see in 2009 in India, at least. These guys have been promising cars based on this compressed-air engine in the two-year timeframe for over a decade, but this is the first time I've seen a one-year timeframe announcement for actual production of a vehicle, even in test quantities.
Raw Story is reporting that Rep. Kucinich's Resolution to Impeach President Bush has gained a co-sponsour.
I strongly suggest contacting your Representatives to encourage them to add themselves as co-sponsours. I also actively request people link to my original post, here:
http://solarbird.livejournal.com/654198.html
...to try to at least in part counteract the continuing de facto media blackout of this story.
I strongly suggest contacting your Representatives to encourage them to add themselves as co-sponsours. I also actively request people link to my original post, here:
http://solarbird.livejournal.com/654198.html
...to try to at least in part counteract the continuing de facto media blackout of this story.
mostly economics, but not all
May. 10th, 2008 12:20 amcedarseed is blogging about the Hez uprising in Beruit, her home town. Wish her luck.As everyone knows, there are lots and lots and lots of houses in various stages of foreclosure, particularly in places like California. In California, a lot of those houses have swimming pools, which are now neglected, which is to say, stagnant, which is to say terrifying West Nile virus-carrying mosquito breeding pits.
See credit use. See credit use soar in March. Soar, credit use, soar! Well, at least we know how consumer spending was less down than expected. At least the reserves failure has stopped getting actively worse, with the banking system only at -US$127B or so in reserves default, which is actually an improvement.
But CMBX spreads have started spiking up again in all categories, and the ABX markets are uniformly down. (All that is bad.) Professor Roubini says that things are not fundamentally improving, and the Fed is getting desperate. His track record as of late has been unfortunately very good, so pay attention. He also has a piece on car loans and car loan funds going south, which, you'll note, the Fed is now taking as collateral! Yay! By which I mean ARG OMG DIAF.
In completely unrelated but better news, impressive data recovery lets a physics experiment lost on Columbia be analysed and published, and EA has backed off from the worst of of their latest round of
The Washington Post reported yesterday that US border agents are routinely searching laptop, cell phone, and other electronic-media data and making copies. At least one person who is part of a class-action lawsuit against this has had laptops taken and never returned. And no, US citizens are not in any way exempt.
The US government is trying to claim that this is the same as searching briefcases, except, of course, that the point of that traditionally was to look for contraband items such as firearms, bombs, and smuggled goods; reading and making photocopies of your business documents have not, for example, been part of that deal. But now, apparently, it is.
In response, several companies have now set up "blank laptop" travel programmes, so that people are carrying dataless laptops around, accessing the data they need later via the internet, preferring the risk of hacking to the risk of the border crossing. Some companies have created policies that cell phones, similarly, must be blanked before entering or leaving the United States.
The damage this does to the ability of companies operating in the US to do business should, of course, be taken as read.
The US government is trying to claim that this is the same as searching briefcases, except, of course, that the point of that traditionally was to look for contraband items such as firearms, bombs, and smuggled goods; reading and making photocopies of your business documents have not, for example, been part of that deal. But now, apparently, it is.
In response, several companies have now set up "blank laptop" travel programmes, so that people are carrying dataless laptops around, accessing the data they need later via the internet, preferring the risk of hacking to the risk of the border crossing. Some companies have created policies that cell phones, similarly, must be blanked before entering or leaving the United States.
The damage this does to the ability of companies operating in the US to do business should, of course, be taken as read.
Euphemisms
Jan. 27th, 2008 11:18 pmEuphemisms being created: Racists devise new code word: "Canadian." Yes, really.
Euphemisms being ignored in favour of reality: the Asia Times writes about "US-style torture" spreading to Thailand.
Euphemisms as a business model: I thought the idea was dumb - cutting up movies to remove "offensive" content for Mormons and "social conservatives" - but I didn't see the harm, and if customers wanted their movies cut up like that and the proprietors weren't making bootleg copies, I figured, hey, leave 'em alone, what's the problem? I kinda had some sympathy for these guys. Oh, look, here's the problem: turns out that the "FlixClub" people doing this? They were also busy soliciting 14 year olds for sexual favours and filming them for kiddie pr0n. Bastards.
Euphemisms being ignored in favour of reality: the Asia Times writes about "US-style torture" spreading to Thailand.
Euphemisms as a business model: I thought the idea was dumb - cutting up movies to remove "offensive" content for Mormons and "social conservatives" - but I didn't see the harm, and if customers wanted their movies cut up like that and the proprietors weren't making bootleg copies, I figured, hey, leave 'em alone, what's the problem? I kinda had some sympathy for these guys. Oh, look, here's the problem: turns out that the "FlixClub" people doing this? They were also busy soliciting 14 year olds for sexual favours and filming them for kiddie pr0n. Bastards.
(Scroll to the bottom for the banking system stuff. I saw that as I was typing this up and didn't want to rewrite the whole thing.)
I finally have a new music icon. The dumb thing is that it's from a quiz graphic that's been sitting on my desktop for months. HELLO! I also thought about using my old Gojira-plays-the-jaw-harp drawing and that's kinda funny and jokey and stuff, but I don't feel really very jokey about this, so I didn't.
I guess that's enough talk about music that this gets a music tag, too. Okay. Yay, new icon. ^_^ Also, hum, a couple of new bits of song yesterday, one not well attached to anything, one clearly part of another song I'd already partly gotten started, so that's good. I have some hard problems I've been trying to solve with some songs so I haven't been doing much new work; I think I need to make time for both, and hopefully the new material will in spire me on how to solve the difficult problems in these other songs.
I'm wholly in support of eastside rail on the existing tracks that the Port of Seattle is buying. The sooner, the better. Here's a story in the Woodinville paper about it; over here is the website of the main citizen group trying to get it going. (Anybody know if there's anything bad I should know about this group?) Don't get me wrong; I want a paved bike trail in that right-of-way, too. It can and should be done. But I want the rail line first; I don't want those rails pulled up.
Bisexuality in women is not a "phase" on the way to lesbianism. I mean, I have some large degree of no shit sherlock, but, well, it's one of those things that keeps coming up.
Here are three articles dealing with oil supplies. 1: Indonesia can't be considered an oil exporter anymore, which is no shock to anyone who follows this. It also pretty much lays to rest the idea that if they got back up to, say, 1.3Mbpd, they'd be an exporter again. First, that's real unlikely; second, they wouldn't be without big changes in domestic consumption. 2: The head of French oil company Total says that oil production is at or near peak. Conventional oil, it's worth pointing out, has not yet regained May 2005 production levels. And 3: I am not fond of the Financial Sense website and do not endorse their content in general - stupid gold bugs, I don't care what Bill Fleckstein is going on about, the idea of a new gold standard is still dumb - but this interview with Matthew Simmons (Twilight in the Desert, which I've referenced elsewhere) is somewhat informative to those who have not been following this situation. As a side note, I was not particularly aware he was aware of some of the (underfunded, as he notes) water projects such as cool-water hydrothermal, but apparently he is.
Mr. Bush seems to want to make sure somebody bombs Iran before he leaves office, telling the Israeli government that he doesn't believe the National Intelligence Estimate report on Iran. Slate's Fred Kaplan says, "In decades past, the CIA has often lost credibility as a result of its own failures and scandals. Now President Bush is splashing doubt not just on the CIA, but on all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, simply because their judgments are out of synch with his policies." Well, what else is new? It follows the Chief Executive's personal Jesus or it's worthless. Is this news?
The stock markets are, by any normal measure, oversold - in the short-term sense, not in the this-bear-market-is-over sense, 'cause it's not - and this decline is due for a significant snapback upwards. But people - even the biggest bears I know - are getting worried, partly because today was kind of a lot, partly because we're overdue for a bounce (or "snapback rally"), but also because of a tradable volatility index future (VIX), which has over the last few months built something called a bearish triangle, and just broke sharply out of it - up, which is to say more volatility, which is bearish. Accordingly, damn near everyone is expecting some sort of "surprise" action tomorrow. I worry that the expectations are so tightly built in that if people get an action beyond what they expect - something that doesn't surprise them positively even with expectations things could get really nasty going into the long weekend.
The last time the market was disappointed with a rate cut, we had a day like today. That was the quarter-point back in December.
Or, you know, everything could be fine and the market could close even or start the snapback rally. Who knows? I got my 401(K) funds the hell out of this market in December, and moved into treasuries, because a 3.6% (...or less...) return, while crappy, beats the hell out of the -30% to -50% you can expect in a serious bear market. And since then I've just been watching the economy keep sending more trains to the site of the train wreck - honestly, I didn't think the CDO markets could set new lows, but oh look, some of them are! And the CMBXes - commercial equivalents - are too. (On those charts, up is bad.)
...or... oh crap. oh crap. I saw this just as I was typing out this entry. Remember how I posted a few weeks ago about how banks, in aggregate, were only meeting reserves requirements because of loans from the Feds? To the tune of $30B in loans? They just updated the numbers with preliminarys for 16 January (that's what the (p) means):
Um. That's not real good. Um. Banks are now meeting reserves requirements entirely via loans from the Fed. Not with help; entirely. Without those loans the entire banking system, net, is in reserves default. Not just failing to meet reserves requirements; reserves negative. Wow. That's neat. ETA: Historical data shows previous occurrences of anything like this have happened never in the range of data available online, which goes back to 1959.
I finally have a new music icon. The dumb thing is that it's from a quiz graphic that's been sitting on my desktop for months. HELLO! I also thought about using my old Gojira-plays-the-jaw-harp drawing and that's kinda funny and jokey and stuff, but I don't feel really very jokey about this, so I didn't.
I guess that's enough talk about music that this gets a music tag, too. Okay. Yay, new icon. ^_^ Also, hum, a couple of new bits of song yesterday, one not well attached to anything, one clearly part of another song I'd already partly gotten started, so that's good. I have some hard problems I've been trying to solve with some songs so I haven't been doing much new work; I think I need to make time for both, and hopefully the new material will in spire me on how to solve the difficult problems in these other songs.
I'm wholly in support of eastside rail on the existing tracks that the Port of Seattle is buying. The sooner, the better. Here's a story in the Woodinville paper about it; over here is the website of the main citizen group trying to get it going. (Anybody know if there's anything bad I should know about this group?) Don't get me wrong; I want a paved bike trail in that right-of-way, too. It can and should be done. But I want the rail line first; I don't want those rails pulled up.
Bisexuality in women is not a "phase" on the way to lesbianism. I mean, I have some large degree of no shit sherlock, but, well, it's one of those things that keeps coming up.
Here are three articles dealing with oil supplies. 1: Indonesia can't be considered an oil exporter anymore, which is no shock to anyone who follows this. It also pretty much lays to rest the idea that if they got back up to, say, 1.3Mbpd, they'd be an exporter again. First, that's real unlikely; second, they wouldn't be without big changes in domestic consumption. 2: The head of French oil company Total says that oil production is at or near peak. Conventional oil, it's worth pointing out, has not yet regained May 2005 production levels. And 3: I am not fond of the Financial Sense website and do not endorse their content in general - stupid gold bugs, I don't care what Bill Fleckstein is going on about, the idea of a new gold standard is still dumb - but this interview with Matthew Simmons (Twilight in the Desert, which I've referenced elsewhere) is somewhat informative to those who have not been following this situation. As a side note, I was not particularly aware he was aware of some of the (underfunded, as he notes) water projects such as cool-water hydrothermal, but apparently he is.
Mr. Bush seems to want to make sure somebody bombs Iran before he leaves office, telling the Israeli government that he doesn't believe the National Intelligence Estimate report on Iran. Slate's Fred Kaplan says, "In decades past, the CIA has often lost credibility as a result of its own failures and scandals. Now President Bush is splashing doubt not just on the CIA, but on all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, simply because their judgments are out of synch with his policies." Well, what else is new? It follows the Chief Executive's personal Jesus or it's worthless. Is this news?
The stock markets are, by any normal measure, oversold - in the short-term sense, not in the this-bear-market-is-over sense, 'cause it's not - and this decline is due for a significant snapback upwards. But people - even the biggest bears I know - are getting worried, partly because today was kind of a lot, partly because we're overdue for a bounce (or "snapback rally"), but also because of a tradable volatility index future (VIX), which has over the last few months built something called a bearish triangle, and just broke sharply out of it - up, which is to say more volatility, which is bearish. Accordingly, damn near everyone is expecting some sort of "surprise" action tomorrow. I worry that the expectations are so tightly built in that if people get an action beyond what they expect - something that doesn't surprise them positively even with expectations things could get really nasty going into the long weekend.
The last time the market was disappointed with a rate cut, we had a day like today. That was the quarter-point back in December.
Or, you know, everything could be fine and the market could close even or start the snapback rally. Who knows? I got my 401(K) funds the hell out of this market in December, and moved into treasuries, because a 3.6% (...or less...) return, while crappy, beats the hell out of the -30% to -50% you can expect in a serious bear market. And since then I've just been watching the economy keep sending more trains to the site of the train wreck - honestly, I didn't think the CDO markets could set new lows, but oh look, some of them are! And the CMBXes - commercial equivalents - are too. (On those charts, up is bad.)
...or... oh crap. oh crap. I saw this just as I was typing out this entry. Remember how I posted a few weeks ago about how banks, in aggregate, were only meeting reserves requirements because of loans from the Feds? To the tune of $30B in loans? They just updated the numbers with preliminarys for 16 January (that's what the (p) means):
AGGREGATE RESERVES OF DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS AND THE MONETARY BASE
Not adjusted for changes in reserve requirements(1)
Not seasonally adjusted
Millions of dollars
[...]
Date total nonborrowed required 2008-Jan. 16(p) 39989 -1387 38278
Um. That's not real good. Um. Banks are now meeting reserves requirements entirely via loans from the Fed. Not with help; entirely. Without those loans the entire banking system, net, is in reserves default. Not just failing to meet reserves requirements; reserves negative. Wow. That's neat. ETA: Historical data shows previous occurrences of anything like this have happened never in the range of data available online, which goes back to 1959.
Today's Reading List
Jan. 9th, 2008 02:58 pmCourtesy Brad Setser at RGE Monitor, here's a short and eminently readable paper on the credit crisis (PDF file) by Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart of Harvard University and the University of Maryland, respectively. It does rather persuasively display that the model best describing the current situation is a deflationary model. Brad's excerpts and discussion are also worth reading.
Glenn Greenwald's five or six most recent posts continue his disassembly of the role of the useless fawners otherwise known as a political press corps. Just below those, he's culled out a few examples of the racist language already being bandied about a bit against Senator Obama, in preparation for the possibility that he wins the Democratic nomination.
One of the things that has angered me so much about the GOP's hard swing not just to fundamentalism but authoritarianism of all sorts is that they've made all sorts of paranoid lefty conspiracy no-longer-bullshit theories actually come true - turning the US into a surveillance-and-torture state, just for example. But that apparently wasn't good enough; they've also had to go validate the fucking tinhat crowd. Dear readers, I introduce the Plunge Protection Team, now pretty much official, tho' not by that name. Thanks, guys - now the whole world is your crappy conspiracy thriller novel, and I hate you for it.
Talking of hate, only the serious kind, the group that Holocaust-revisionist Scott Lively and Kirkland fundamentalist leader Ken Hutcherson helped get established in the US from Latvia and Russia, "Watchmen on the Walls," gets a short writeup in the Christian Science Monitor, related to a murder trial in California. They sadly downplay the revisionism, and don't note Mr. Lively's latest book, which accuses queers of being a secret force behind nearly every evil in the history of civilisation - a Protocols of the Elders of Queerdom, more or less.
Meanwhile, on a related topic, dogemperor has some juicy quotes from Faith and Freedom Network's Joe Fuiten, wherein Rev. Fuiten claims that the United States has always been a fundamentalist religious state (tho' not in those exact words, of course), and calls people supporting secular government "illegal aliens." And you know how they feel about those.dogemperor's post here also has a variety of other material worth reading.
(I suppose those two entries make this as close to a Cultural Warfare Update as I've done in a while, doesn't it? I guess I can throw this entry that tag, too.)
Finally, here's a good bit of rant about the political frustrations felt by many.
Glenn Greenwald's five or six most recent posts continue his disassembly of the role of the useless fawners otherwise known as a political press corps. Just below those, he's culled out a few examples of the racist language already being bandied about a bit against Senator Obama, in preparation for the possibility that he wins the Democratic nomination.
One of the things that has angered me so much about the GOP's hard swing not just to fundamentalism but authoritarianism of all sorts is that they've made all sorts of paranoid lefty conspiracy no-longer-bullshit theories actually come true - turning the US into a surveillance-and-torture state, just for example. But that apparently wasn't good enough; they've also had to go validate the fucking tinhat crowd. Dear readers, I introduce the Plunge Protection Team, now pretty much official, tho' not by that name. Thanks, guys - now the whole world is your crappy conspiracy thriller novel, and I hate you for it.
Talking of hate, only the serious kind, the group that Holocaust-revisionist Scott Lively and Kirkland fundamentalist leader Ken Hutcherson helped get established in the US from Latvia and Russia, "Watchmen on the Walls," gets a short writeup in the Christian Science Monitor, related to a murder trial in California. They sadly downplay the revisionism, and don't note Mr. Lively's latest book, which accuses queers of being a secret force behind nearly every evil in the history of civilisation - a Protocols of the Elders of Queerdom, more or less.
Meanwhile, on a related topic, dogemperor has some juicy quotes from Faith and Freedom Network's Joe Fuiten, wherein Rev. Fuiten claims that the United States has always been a fundamentalist religious state (tho' not in those exact words, of course), and calls people supporting secular government "illegal aliens." And you know how they feel about those.
dogemperor's post here also has a variety of other material worth reading.(I suppose those two entries make this as close to a Cultural Warfare Update as I've done in a while, doesn't it? I guess I can throw this entry that tag, too.)
Finally, here's a good bit of rant about the political frustrations felt by many.
FAIL start for 2008
Jan. 1st, 2008 12:01 amSeattle's fireworks hung after the initial run up the needle.
This is not how to start a year.
ETA FAIL: lulz
This is not how to start a year.
ETA FAIL: lulz
