Friday, January 30, 2009

In 1981, Newspapers Didn't Fear the Internet


Clearly, that attitude has changed.



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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Banner Ad FAIL


PETA has launched a new campaign to get people to care about fish. As their own website points out, no one really cares if fish get harvested and eaten because unlike cuddlier animals, "They're slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads." True enough.

In order to cast them in a more adorable light, PETAns have started comparing them to little cats. That's right, according to Ingrid Newkirk and her band of vegan fundamentalists, fish are now "sea kittens". Stupid, right? Well, it gets better.

This a screen capture of www.seakittens.com taken about 20 minutes ago (click image for larger version). I don't know who registered it, but it's hilarious!



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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

I'm a Better Poet Than Elizabeth Alexander



This is the reason no one likes contemporary poetry (see above)


So that inaugural poem on Tuesday was pretty shitty, right? Of course it was. Don't worry, though, I've taken the phrases from the original and re-arranged them to form an awesome asskicking version. If God and Thomas Jefferson had a son and he became President someday, he just might be good enough to have this poem read at his inauguration.


Praise Song for the Spiny Sparkle


Each day we go about our business, catching each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hole in a uniform. Someone is trying to Love thy neighbor somewhere with a pair of pencils.

Sing the names of the teacher who brought us her son in need of repair.

All about us is Love to keep clean and work inside of. We encounter each other and A farmer says, “Take out your wooden thorn. Begin.”

Someone spoons on an oil drum. On the brink. struggle it out at kitchen tables. Do thy self marital.

"I need dirt on the other side.” many have laid the train tracks into which we cannot see.

Need noise, love, harm and the will of others. on the brim, on the cusp more than you need.

repairing the things with cello, boom box, harmonica.

Balls.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

A New Kind of Patriotism

I've got issues with the so-far announced Obama legislative agenda. That much is true. But, of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not a good American. Even my old friend Tim Carney has made that clear. And so, in the spirit of inclusiveness, I'd like to remind everyone that:


Wait, the same people who made dissent a virtue in the previous administration will welcome dissent now, right? Right? Anybody?

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

It's National Drag History Month

According to someone or other, it's somewhat-officially National Drag History Month, wherein we remember all of those gentlemen and ladies who have defied traditional gender roles and entertained the queer, urban bohemian and bridge-and-tunnel crowds alike.

Let the following video clips serve as an ad hoc tribute to the coarse and corseted and the teased and tucked.


Marlene Dietrich looks super hot in a tuxedo in Morocco (1930)


Jack Lemmon makes excuses in Some Like It Hot (1959)


Milton Berle is Auntie Mildred on I Love Lucy (1959)


Divine is a bad, bad girl in Female Trouble (1974)


Joyce Hyser gets out of gym class in Just One of the Guys (1985)


RuPaul quickly became the Supermodel of the World (1993)


"I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK" at the Hollywood Bowl (2006)


Coco and Evie girl it up in the 9-minute short The Jizz Party (2008)


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LibertyWeek 25: The Silver Lining to the News



Welcome to LibertyWeek’s Silver Anniversary with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist and Special Guest William Yeatman. Our 25th episode starts with timely events from years past in The Day in Wikipedia, and then moves quickly into the latest, newest New Mexican news about Gov. Bill Richardson’s municipal bond scandal. We return to the salty seas to see some Somali pirates get their karmic comeuppance, listen to the bailout blather du jour coming out of Washington and New York and stand strong against attempts to demonize those violent video games we love so well. With that down, we congratulate the winners of the Golden Globes and finally turn to our Special Guest for a discussion of the President-Elect’s energy and environment team. We round out the show, as always, with an encouraging bit of Olympic News.

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VIDEO: Barack Obama and the Price of Change




How much will President Obama's plans for economic stimulus and other federal spending cost the American taxpayers? The Competitive Enterprise Institute does the math.

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

LibertyWeek 24: Pro-Freedom Pop Culture


The painfully infrequent, lurching updates are back! My podcast is in its 24th weekly episode and I'm pretty proud of it. Read, listen and love.


A new year brings a new episode of LibertyWeek, with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist and Senior Culture Correspondent Ryan Lynch. We start out by wishing everyone a happy new year and direct them to the new Bureaucrash t-shirt store – with only eleven and a half months of shopping until Christmas, you’ll want to stock up on stylish, revolutionary apparel at Bureaucrash Contraband.

After observing a couple of timely anniversaries, we move on to Scandal Watch, where we raise some questions about the electoral race between current U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) and onetime SNL funnyman Al Franken. Next it’s off to the high seas where we tangle with Somali pirates and are rescued by the French Navy (who knew they still had it in them?) before confronting Vice President-Elect Joe Biden’s war on the economy. We wind up the headlines with the tale of alleged New York City “skank” Liskula Cohen, and her effort to get the courts to force Google to rescue her from her online tormentors.

Finally, it’s time for Pop Culture with Ryan Lynch, in which the panel examines our favorite books, movies (and graphic novels) that have thoughtful, pro-freedom messages. We end the show, as always, with some fresh Olympic News – this time about octo-lympian Michael Phelps’ latest $1 million endorsement deal in China.

Listen here!

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