Keep Googling Santorum!

Rick Santorum confronted Google, asking them to change their search algorithms so that the most popular result for his name is NOT what shows up first...you’re going to have to look it up yourself. I’m NOT describing “santorum” on this blog. I just find it funny that the people who cry government deregulation, who consistently go pro-corporation no matter what, who claim to want to protect the Constitution from the progressive, socialist liberals, are also the ones quick to try to shut things up when the corporation’s actions do something they don’t like. Laura Schlessinger did a similar thing last year after she caught heat for ranting at a black woman who asked for her help, using the term n***** more times than in a 50-Cent Greatest Hits album. She claimed that her freedom of speech was being stifled when she faced the imminent backlash. She even blamed CNN for covering the story! I mean, how DARE a news outlet report something that’s newsworthy! What was CNN thinking?

This is the beauty of the First Amendment: So long as what you say or do does NOT infringe on what others wish to say or do, you can do it at your heart’s content. Offending someone does NOT count as infringing on someone’s rights, because the person who is offended can walk away/turn it off. However, you have to live with whatever you said, and if people respond negatively to you because of what you said, there’s no do-over. Until proven otherwise, you will be seen as an a**hole. Santorum used his First Amendment rights to express how much he didn’t think that homosexuals should marry, how they shouldn’t join the military, how they are simply just depraved individuals. In response, Dan Savage and the Tech Savvy At-Risk Youth used their First amendment Rights to create a new meaning for his name that became more popular than Rick himself. Going to Google and trying to get them to change their search algorithms does nothing to change what he did or how Dan Savage responded. If he has a problem with it, perhaps he should change his name.

…This could have been the end of the story, but a few days later at the 6^th or 7^th GOP debate (I lost count) a gay soldier asked him what he’d do if he were president regarding DADT. In proper GOP debate fashion of “civility”, audience members booed the soldier who dedicated his life to protect the country that they claim to love so much. Then as most all politicians do, Mr. Froth-…er…Santorum circumvented the question and claimed that the repeal was a social experiment of the Democrats…this means that the makers of GOProud.org and the Log Cabin Republicans are also Democrats, apparently. When Megyn Kelly reiterated the soldier’s point, he again reiterated his circumventing to talk about more reasons why he thought gays were icky. It wasn’t until there was more publicity about him not thanking this man for his service and not admonishing the audience members who booed him that he at a MINIMUM gave a back-handed apology and claimed to not hear the audience jeers….he still thinks gays are icky, though. See? He expressed his freedom of speech, and because of it, his chances of being president of ANYTHING beside a small video store chain that is going to close anyway is now etched in stone. Also, Dan Savage will make good on his promise that he made on Funny or Die, hopefully. I wonder if Santorum will go after Funny or Die now?

I do know that after this last GOP debate, the neologism is truly synonymous with the man.

Death and Taxes...and Hate Crimes

It’s hard to be a liberal, hippie, pretentious, New York Jew sometimes…

Tuesday morning, I saw the news that DADT is officially no more, and I thought that it was going to be a good day.

Then Tuesday evening came, and I was bombarded by this: Lawrence Russell Brewer is scheduled to be executed for the 1999 Murder of James Byrd. Mississippi teen Deryl Paul Dedmon was indicted for capital murder for his alleged involvement in the murder of James Craig Anderson. Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis’s final appeal for clemency was denied by the parole board. Thus starts my long diatribe about the death penalty and hate crime laws, and you have to suffer through it…I guess you could just click to another page or turn off the computer and get back to work, but you’re not going to do that, are you? Sucker. :-p

First, the Brewer case is pretty cut and dry: three white men in a pickup truck picked up a black pedestrian to give him a ride, but instead took him to a remote area, beat him to unconsciousness, and tethered him to their truck and dragged him to death. What was their motivation? Byrd was black. They were found guilty, and sentences were doled out according to degree of involvement. Brewer got a death sentence.

Next, Dedmon and a group of six other teens threw back a few drinks, and then allegedly went out to look for a black guy to beat up. Anderson was the unlucky contestant in the worst game show ever. The teens were said to have beaten him severely, and then after the other teens drove off, Dedmon allegedly returned and struck Anderson with his F-250, killing him. Everything was caught on film thanks to the motel security camera where there incident took place. The DA on the case plans to seek more indictments in the case.

Finally, Troy Davis sits on death row in Georgia after having been convicted of the 1989 murder of police officer Mark McPhail. Seven of the witnesses who testified for the prosecution have either recanted or contradicted their stories, and there is still no physical evidence linking Troy Davis to the murder. Regardless, the parole board denied his pleas for clemency. After years of appeals and three prior scheduled “death dates”, he is scheduled to die 21^st September.

There are slews of resources for information on all of these cases, so I won’t bore you with any further details. The latter case makes me question the validity of the death penalty as a means of punishment at all. We are one of the last Western influenced countries to still have the death penalty on the table as a punishment option. Other countries banned it for many reasons, including the fact that it is barbaric, it has been used disproportionately for convicts who are not of the majority race/ethnicity, and the simple fact that NO JUSTICE SYSTEM IS PERFECT. The possibility of inadvertently sending an innocent person to death is very real. It probably happened, and so long as we have a death penalty, it will probably happen again. The second we stick the needle in the arm of an innocent person, everyone who had a hand in sending that person to death is guilty of murder as well. Should we then send the judge, jury, prosecutor, lying witnesses, botching lab techs, errant detectives, and executioner to the death chamber as well?

Let’s not forget the race issue. Sure, proportionally, the racial majority of people on death row is white, but when it comes to interracial murders, 16 white-on-black cases compared to 253 black-on-white murders is not fair. Neither is the fact that in general, nearly 75% of victims in ANY death row murder case are white. Does this mean that white victims are more important than other murder victims? I really do feel for the families of victims of murder, and I don’t expect them to ever get over the death of their loved ones easily. Killing the killer seems like karmic justice, so long as the person being killed actually did it. Revenge is a bad path to closure, though. Lex talionis always leads to more violence. “An eye for an eye…ends in making everyone blind.”

All that said I do not feel sorry for Lawrence Brewer or his cohorts. He is also to be executed on 21^st September. If it turns out Deryl Dedmon and his group are guilty, which is likely, I feel no pity for them. If you do a crime in a state where the death penalty is a possibility and you get sentenced, as much as I don’t like the punishment, I just have a very hard time feeling sorry for you. You knew the possible consequences. If I go into your house and you specifically say anyone with muddy shoes on in your house will get their feet chopped off, but I wear muddy boots anyway, it doesn’t matter if I think it’s a harsh consequence. I know the rule.

My issue with the prior two cases is the hate crime legislation that is involved with it. On one hand, the Bird/Shepard Act was basically the “Hey, Sorry We Let All Those Black Lynchings Go Unpunished; We Good Now?” Act. It somewhat evened up the punitive repercussions of hurting someone based on ethnicity, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. Before that, someone would plea out and get a comparative slap on the wrist, if the person was punished at all. There has been a LOT of strange fruit hanging from sycamore trees throughout America’s history that went unpunished.

On the other hand, isn’t EVERY violent crime a hate crime? If it’s a crime of passion, there is a degree of hate involved. Even in a bar brawl, the motivator is that for a second, One person hates that other person enough to punch him in the face…or maybe his rugby-for-p***ies team lost, and he needs to take out his drunken disappointment about his penis size on someone’s face. But even then, dude hates his own penis size! Also, I know of only one case where a hate crime statute was levelled at assailants against a white victim.

So, I’m at an impasse. Hate crime laws and the death penalty: are they fair? Should they be re-examined and possibly abolished? The baser instinct in me says, “F*** it dude. You knew the rules!” However, the logical thought in me thinks that since the justice system is run by people who can possibly err, we cannot have such an absolute punishment as the death penalty, for we will (and probably have) errantly kill an innocent person. On hate crimes, one side of me hates bigots to the point that any extra suffering they get is well deserved. The other side of me thinks that the evening out of the punitive playing field is fair, but the wording is just not right.

All that said I have a special hate in my heart for rapists and child molesters. If you rape someone or hurt a child, I hope someone chops off your junk and sodomises you with it while a pair of syphilitic horses f***s you in your eye sockets. If you do it to any of MY friends, I will hunt you down and make you watch your d*** dissolve as I pour sulphuric acid on your lap while a trained donkey kicks you in the back of the head and kidneys. YES that’s the animal in me talking, and NO, I won’t tone it down. Domino, mother***er. >:-o

Women in TV, from a Cynical Dude's Perspective

Good news: The new fall TV season is dominated by female leads! Bad news: The percentage of female TV writers/producers is less than half what it was 5 years ago! Why is this? I really don’t know. Truthfully, if I can’t see on Hulu or Netflix (or whatever the hell Netflix will call itself to further gouge my pocket), I will probably not see it. However, for the three of you who still have televisions and cable or satellite, I feel for you. There are some promising things, like Whitney, Zooey Deschenal’s New Girl and the remake of Prime Suspect, but there are also a few potentially visual abortions, like Charlie’s Angels, Playboy Club, and Pan Am.

Charlie’s Angels is nothing but a remake of the original show, which, let’s be honest, was nothing but a 70’s style exploitation film-on-TV, depicting hot women in tight clothes doing violent stuff, except this time, there’s a black woman in it. On the bright side, they cast her as the ex-cop, and NOT the reformed thief. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a dude. I’m all for watching hot women in tight clothes doing violent stuff. I watched both of the Charlie’s Angel movie remakes and enjoyed them, but there is no real substance to the plot. I knew what I was going to see: Hot women, tight clothes, explosions. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I highly doubt that this new Charlie’s Angels will be the bastion of female empowerment…but if I want to see Annie Ilonzeh throw an escaping bank robber or of a burning helicopter then shake the ashes of the wreckage out of her afro in slow motion, I’m probably going to tune in…What! I’m a dude! Don’t you f***ing look at me like that!

The real stand-out pariahs, though, are Pan Am and Playboy Club. I read descriptions about both of them, and neither of them looks appealing. It’s a shame, because Christina Ricci is in Pan Am, and I usually like her. They are both set in the 1960s, in the heyday of American society, when a gin for lunch was the norm, the working girls were smoking hot, and there weren’t any brown people…except for the so-called “chocolate bunny” in Playboy Club. I’m not even going to get into how horrid that bit of writing is. I don’t care if it was the black character describing herself as a chocolate bunny; it’s the writers who put those words in her mouth. Essentially, ABC and NBC were trying to remake Mad Men, but to be honest, they look like s*** tacos.

Pan Am follows the lives of Pan Am flight attendants, or as they were called back then, stewardesses, as they navigate their days to become successful in their careers, which essentially meant they had to primp themselves, watch their weight, make sure they were showing enough leg and cleavage, and smile and be bubbly for all their customers’ and supervisors’ flirts and sexual advances, no matter how disgusting they may be. Conversely, The Playboy Club follows the lives of hostesses working in 1960s Chicago Playboy Club, as they navigate their days to become successful in their careers, which essentially meant they had to primp themselves, watch their weight, make sure they were showing enough leg and cleavage, and smile and be bubbly for all their customers’ and supervisors’ flirts and sexual advances, no matter how disgusting they may be.

I know! They’re so disparate! I mean, The Playboy Club has a black woman, after all. Both of these shows glamorise a time when in order for a woman to succeed in the workplace, she had to be the prettiest, bubbliest, plastic images of themselves, when what they thought meant so much less than how fast they could server their male bosses a coffee or vermouth. They set back the women’s movement 40-50 years…oh wait…it IS set in the ‘60s, so I guess that's about right!…The biggest slap in the face is that it glamorises one thing, and completely ignores the tumultuous truth of the 1960s. Were these comedies, I might give them slack, but they are touted as dramas. How about examining the women's plight as being seen just objects, and their struggle to define themselves as individuals instead of just meat? Instead, these period shows depict an era of a fictional candy-coated chickfest that was really awesome, but only to the oblivious white men of the time. This is what happens when only 15% of the TV writers in Hollywood are women.

I don’t have proof, but I think that TV in general is catered toward white men 18-49. I’m not the only one who thinks this either. Beside the period pieces of s***, there are shows like Last Man Standing about a man who’s house is dominated by his wife and three daughters, and he’s pulled in to spend even MORE time taking care of his daughters because his wife got a promotion at her work. Oh you poor thing, having to man up and take care of your family! Cry me a f***ing river. Also, taking Home Improvement and replacing the sons with daughters is not really all that creative.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a dude. I like women and their many lady physical aspects. I love legs, and butts and boobs just like any other red-blooded American heterosexual man. I’ve collected Playboy before, and I won’t even PRETEND like I got them for the articles. The articles are actually quite good, but let’s be real: I bought them for the boobs, and if Angela Bassett should decide to pose for Playboy, I will buy ALL of the copies. However, this new TV season does not look promising. I truly hope that the aforementioned shows fail, and the ones with strong female leads (mostly crime dramas) succeed. I hope that Hollywood starts hiring more female writers, too.

Notice I didn’t mention the lack of brown people in prime time. The reason is that after shows like The Wayans Brothers and Homeboys in Outer Space and movies like Soul Plane and ANYTHING by Tyler Perry, I’m surprised that a law has not passed to ban black people from getting within 100 metres of a filming studio. We had our chance with Cosby and A Different World, and we blew it.

…Seriously, Soul Plane? Was the title Nig-Air already copyrighted?

Best Slogan Ever.

Obama proposed a new jobs plan, and a new tax reform that would affect the tax rates of citizens who earn $1 million annually. It will not pass, because House Speaker/Doc Savage lookalike John Boehner has already vowed to not to go with it. This is business as usual, and any self-respecting American, whether left or right, should be as angry and sick of this stagnant state as I am.

The argument against taxing the “job-makers” (that’s code for rich people) is that they have been burdened too much. The reason they move their businesses overseas is because the American tax code is too pressing, and in order for them to live, they MUST do so. If we lift all the tax codes, they will create more jobs for the unemployed and stimulate the economy with their spending.

The argument for taxing the rich is that they hold the largest share of the American economy (I’ve heard everything from 85% to 95%), yet they are the smallest percentage of the population. It is burdensome to the economic middle and lower class to pay the bulk of taxes to help run the government.

My argument is what it always was: F*** the rich! If they are US citizens, and they earned/stole their wealth here, then they need to pay their dues, like everyone else! Rich people will not create jobs if their tax “burden” is lifted. THEY WILL KEEP THEIR DAMN MONEY! That’s what rich people do! IF they stimulate the economy in any way, it will be in the cocaine and hookers industry. Instead of weekends doing lines off 5 hookers, it will be 15 hookers! A system where the rich people don’t pay out and the lower classes fund the riches’ wealth is a LOT similar to the feudal systems in Europe that early Americans were trying to escape. I am bolstered by my stance, because Warren Buffet, One of the RICHEST people in America (and possibly the world) got a lot of press for saying, “F*** the rich!”…though not in so many words. It takes a real man to look at a situation and say, “F*** me”, and say it proudly.

This whole dismantling of social programs is ridiculous, too. If we go to a state where everyone must basically fend for themselves and “pick themselves up by their bootstraps”, we will be a Wild West society, where crime will be the primary way for the poor to earn money, because that is all they will know. Incidentally, if you look at all the rich people today and look at their history and how they got their money, I can guarantee you that their heirloom riches were ill-gotten. They quote Ayn Rand in their defence of dismantling programs. The problem is if you have read anything by Ayn Rand and ANY superhero comic book, many of Rand’s ideas coincide directly with those of most of the supervillains of the heroic universes. If Lex Luthor and Norman Osborn don’t have your best interests at heart, what would make you think these Randatics (Ayniacs?) do?

I know that social programs work, because I was on nearly all of them growing up. I grew up on welfare, food stamps, and Section 8. I got Fed money to stay in university when I couldn’t afford it. I was f***ing homeless for my last year of high school and first two years of college! Were it not for government programs, I would either be dead from exposure to the elements or from instant lead poisoning! These politicians try to make it look like people on unemployment and living in subsidised housing are a bunch of freeloaders. Sure, there’s fraud, but the majority of my friends who were in as dire straits as me are now middle class, home-owning, 2.5 kids having, upstanding members of society. We pay taxes every year, and we appreciate what we have. We are not leeches, and “middle-finger-U” to anyone who describes us as such.

If I go back to the neighbourhoods where I lived, they’ll be in worse shape than I left them, but it’s not because the citizens there are freeloading hopeless cases. It’s because people believe the hype and vote for politicians who want to end the programs that were improving life. Here’s a little secret: those politicians don’t give a damn about you. They are whores for money, except at least with a whore, you at LEAST get something back when you support them…although you might also get the clap. So, basically, when you support these Ayniac politicians, you’re getting the clap WITHOUT the half-and-half.

I think what I’m trying to say is PLEASE vote! There are more people who are falling for these yarns that de-regulating and not taxing the rich will boost our slowly dying economy. Maybe budget cuts will band-aid the wound, but making people who earned their money in this country pay taxes on what they earned will help truly heal it.

Oh yes, and F*** the rich. It’s just fun to say. That is my campaign slogan for 2012.

www.electionland.com

www.rockthevote.org

www.registertovote.org

Seriously, They're like the Wonder Twins!

Usually for what I am about to write, I’d say that hell has frozen over, but it does that every year. It’s called Watertown [insert rimshot here]! I am about to express what may be construed as sympathy or pity for someone for whom I hold nothing but enmity and disdain. Please let it be known, my dislike for this person still stands. I am just pointing out a blatant hypocrisy that is being perpetuated by everyone from political pundits to news outlets to potential voters themselves…but in the voters’ defence, they (including me) are greatly influenced by the media outlets from whence they get their information. So here goes:

Michele Bachmann is getting shafted by the media.

…Please excuse me while I throw up a little bit in my mouth for “sticking up” for Michelle Bachmann…

The reason why I dared think and type out the sentence that is now burning my retinas and making me queasy is because ever since Rick Perry joined the Republican presidential race, he has been lifted up as a golden boy. He’s very conservative in his views, he has over 10 years of experience in politics but still appeals to the “anti-establishment” Tea Partiers, and he incorporates religion with his political views regularly. Better yet, he’s the “right” religion, unlike Romney, the former front runner. Because as we all know, one brand of Christianity is SO much better than another. Remember when Bachmann was nearly neck-and-neck with Romney a few weeks ago. She had everything: She’s very conservative in her views, she has over 10 years of experience in politics but still appeals to the “anti-establishment” Tea Partiers, and she incorporates religion with her political views regularly. So why did she get knocked off of her top spot? They are almost the same person. Just to be sure I wasn’t concocting this, I snooped around, and when you politically compare Perry to Bachmann, THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON!

I’m sure people will say that it’s because Bachmann just says crazy things. There are so many ridiculous things she has said and done, from insinuating that G-d used Hurricane Irene to punish the North-eastern liberal elitists to siding with birthers (then acting like she never did when she decided to run), to claiming that carbon dioxide is not harmful (I always say, if she believes it’s not harmfull, then let her sit in a room pumped with nothing but carbon dioxide for 3 minutes and prove it), to saying “Shutzpah”…every time someone mentions that gaff, a baby Jew dies…I’m sorry, baby Moshe. Also, her hubby is a “pray-away-the-gay” counsellor. He is also using Michelle as a beard. As photogenic as she is, she forever has a look of wonderment in her eyes that cats get when you flash a laser pen dot onto a surface.

The people who bring up the “Bachmann is crazy” defence need to look more closely at Rick Perry. He called the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico an act of G-d. The BP Oil Spill, that, from the beginning, was KNOWN to have been caused by faulty equipment and horrible safety measures of HUMANS. His book Fed Up! Is chock full of unfounded opinions regarding climate change, which has been confirmed by a ridiculous amount of scientists from all over the globe to exist, and that most of the recent climate crises ware the effect of human activity. His views on Social Security being a Ponzi scheme…well let me just say that even Karl Rove says his remarks are toxic…KARL F***ING ROVE! Let us not forget, this is the same “great American Patriot” who insinuated Texas seceding from the Union!

Perry is just as insane/inane as Bachmann. They are almost the same person. What’s the only notable difference? Perry has a penis. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want EITHER of these people to get elected to the Worst Job in the World, but I suspect the sudden love affair with Rick Perry is the result of inherent veiled sexism in this country. It’s not just the individual supporters. The spin doctors on whom we depend to give us the news are guilty as well. Ever since Perry entered the race, they automatically switched gears from highlighting Bachman and blatantly ignoring Ron Paul to pitting the two Captain Hairdos of the GOP against each other. If you cover only two people, of course they’ll take the lead in polls! I don’t want any of these candidates to be president, but come on! Be fair to ALL of them, based on their views and policies, not whether they have to sit down to pee or not!

…Please remember, this is NOT an endorsement of Michelle Bachmann. If I wanted to deal with that type of insanity, I’d talk to what little family I have again.

99 Problems...

It is going to be a long weekend, filled with sexy dance fighting, a Troca de Cordoes, and BIRFday debauchery. Let this tide you over until next week. If I wasn't single before, I definitely will forever be after this post...I'm not doing the third verse, because I WOULD like for girls to talk to me in the near future.

If you having Darth problems, I feel bad for you son.
I got 99 problems, but a Sith ain't 1.
There’s a Rancor under this trap door,
He wants to suck the marrow out my femor
I tried to rescue a chick wearing Clone clothes
And she’s all like, “Ain’t you a little short for those?”
I’m just try’na get her off of this robot moon
And get a tour of Alderaan…too soon?

I’m from the planet where there are no girls and two suns.
Where I could only go out and shoot wamp rats for fun.
I left to join rebels and become a Knight.
Trained by a green muppet who don’t talk quite right!
My black dad cut off my good hand
An orphan, ‘cuz my aunt and uncle burned to ash
I got clone storm troopers straight tailing my a**
And the rebel leader’s a giant squid-slash-sea bass!
Got tongue-kissed by my sister, just like John Voight’s son
I got 99 problems, but a Sith ain’t 1. Hit me!

99 problems but a Sith ain’t 1.
If you having Darth problems, I feel bad for you son.
I got 99 problems, but a Sith ain't 1.

The year is long ago, place far away
hopped in my landspeeder, tried to get away.
There’s a check point; do I slow down or (hmm)
Bounce on the clones, put the pedal to the floor?
Now I don’t want a laser gunshot to the face
Plus Old Ben said, “Yo, I can handle this case.”
So I, pull over to the side of the road:
"Son do you know why I'm stoppin’ you for?"
‘Cause he’s young, I’m old, and no one thinks,
‘He just met this dude and now he’s going with him for drinks,
at some seedy bar where the band and clientele stink?’
"Good point, but I need to see whose droids those are;
License and registration and step out of the car -
Are you carrying a light sabre? I know a lot of you are."
I ain't steppin’ out of shit, and sabre’s unlit
"Well do you mind if I check out those droids a bit?"
Well my bots are mine, and furthermore,
These are not the droids you are looking for.
"I’m suddenly convinced! You some Jedi or something?"
Well I wear a brown robe in this desert sun
Nice talking, but you just want us to move along.
"*--You know what? I just want you to move along."
See? 99 problems, but a Sith ain’t 1. Hit me!

99 problems but a Sith ain’t 1.
If you having Darth problems, I feel bad for you son.
I got 99 problems, but a Sith ain't 1.

99 problems but a Sith ain’t 1.
If you having Darth problems, I feel bad for you son.
I got 99 problems, but a Sith ain't 1.

...Seriously...what the f*** is wrong with me?