What’s next? Will crime-ridden Louisiana adopt the MAC-10 machine pistol, firing 1,000 rounds a minute? And how about Sarah Palin’s beloved Alaska, with its 1,500-pound coastal brown bears? The Marine Corps M72A7 anti-tank rocket, perhaps?
It is perhaps hard-wired into men that their eyes should be constantly on the prowl. Maybe it's an evolutionary trait, and our species has developed it to encourage the sowing of human seed in many fields. Women, by contrast, have evolved to be sure their mates gaze in admiration at them alone and nobody else. There's a famous story by Irwin Shaw, “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” about an estranged couple who decide to make up. They go for a stroll down Fifth Avenue, but break up all over again because the man can't prevent his eyes from straying. He loves his mate — yes, he really does — but you see the girls are so pretty in their summer dresses.
The plot of the movie is meh. It involves the lads and their posse being cycled through several unsuccessful and quasi-slapstick situations showing their cluelessness, immaturity and how women easily see straight through them. Meanwhile, the wives and their posses have a great time on a getaway retreat. Women seem to get along perfectly well when set free from men, but men seem uncomfortable without women. It probably all involves which gender has the greater need to be reassured.
Tennessee Jumps on the Anti-Sharia Bandwagon
While a number of other states have filed legislation seeking to keep Sharia out of the courts, Tennessee is going one giant step further by attempting to outlaw it entirely.(emphasis mine-BV)
Senate Bill 1028, introduced by State Sen. Bill Ketron, gives the state Attorney General authority to designate "Sharia organizations," defined as "two (2) or more persons conspiring to support, or acting in concert in support of, sharia or in furtherance of the imposition of sharia within any state or territory of the United States."
The bill states its intent is not to outlaw free religion, or the practice of Islam. It claims that Sharia presents a real threat to Tennessee.
Tennessee is just the latest in a string of states to consider anti-Sharia legislation. But unlike in some other states, where the language in the legislation avoids explicitly mentioning Sharia by name, Tennessee's bill goes so far as to call Sharia "treasonous" and incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.
Opinion polls show a steady rise in Americans' embrace of gay rights, and young voters solidly back positions their grandparents opposed, including gay marriage.
Five or so years ago, Obama's decision might have touched off fierce Republican criticisms. But reaction Wednesday was comparatively sparse and muted from mainstream GOP groups and individuals.
One exception was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an evangelical minister who is considering a second try for the presidency.
"I think it was an absolutely boneheaded political move, and I think it was a boneheaded policy move," Huckabee said in an interview. He said Obama seems to say, "I don't answer to the voters."
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said Obama cares little about the Constitution...
...In her latest comments, Bachmann slammed First Lady Michelle Obama's move as part of her physical fitness campaigns, plus decisions by the Obama administration proper, to promote breastfeeding.
"I've given birth to five babies, and I've breastfed every single one of these babies," Bachmann said. "To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies..."
Andrew Breitbart, at it again?
The conservative blogger – who is at the center of a lawsuit over a video his site posted depicting a government official as racist – now has a cartoon on his Big Government site portraying First Lady Michelle Obama as a plump, hamburger-scarfing glutton.
In the cartoon, posted over the weekend, the First Lady is sitting at a dinner table with President Obama.
"I've stepped up my efforts to control America's eating habits by telling restaurants to lower portion sizes and fat content," a double-chinned Michelle Obama says, referring to her anti-obesity campaign, which celebrated its one-year anniversary last week.
"We find the 'do as I say, not as I do' approach of the Obamas hypocritical and ripe for ridicule. The First Lady seeks to enforce healthy eating on the nation, while indulging on snacks in public appearances," said Lash, pointing to the recent White House Superbowl menu, which included deep-dish pizza and buffalo wings.
...social scientists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences have found that outrage talk is endemic among commentators of all political stripes, but measurably worse on the political right.
"Whether it’s MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann spitting out his coffee because of some conservative transgression or radio host Michael Savage venomously impugning the character of immigrants, cable television, talk radio and blogs overflow with outrage rhetoric, and even mainstream newspaper columns are not above the fray," they said.
Well, as I say...wait a minute. Keith Olbermann spitting out his coffee (it's called a Spit Take, o bright sparks of Tufts Uni) is by definition an attempt at a comedic reaction. We can discuss whether or not it succeeds as comedy in any given case, but a person who uses the spit take is at least trying to be funny. I would argue they're not even being satirical, but (more importantly) they're certainly not spewing venom. Just coffee, I guess.
But Savage, on the other hand...well, take a look at the most recent handful of quotes as tracked by Media Matters, just as some examples. Forget whether or not you agree with what he's saying, that's not my point (and if you're reading my blog, there's like a one percent chance that you do, anyway). Look at how he's trying to say what he's saying. Is he even trying to make a joke? Forget failing/succeeding, is he even trying?
My point is not that Keith Olbermann has never said anything that went over the top, rhetoric-wise. He has and he's been quick to admit it. My point is, rather than spotlighting the finding that the right is considerably meaner than anything on the left, these scientists appear to have thought they had to tie their own hands by assuring us of their finding, "Oh, but the left is mean too!"
Well, no wonder that's their finding...if they're counting a spit take in the same category as Michael Savage saying that immigrants expect free education, that they are to blame for the bedbug epidemic (and that leprosy, tuberculosis & cholera will follow in their wake). And yes, both of those are real.
It's that old demon bugaboo false equivalence, and unfortunately, it is very, very...President Obama. I do not think we will ever rise above this tragically dark cloud until we accept the truth that when we are talking about vitriol, we are talking, overwhelmingly, about the right.
This is not to say that no one on the left ever has their little slips of frustration, either (including me). But with the right, I think, it isn't little slips. It's their everyday mode of discourse, 24/7.
But of course, I'm not a scientist.
"The boomers have overstayed their welcome," declares the man credited by many with creating the phrase "viral video," Douglas Rushkoff, the author most recently of Program or Be Programmed, a book about digital media. "Generation X is finally at the stage where they can have the jobs the boomers had, and the economy crashes. There's nothing left for them...
O'Brien sits back in his office, guitar in hand, trying to make sense of his personal and digital evolution. First he thinks it through as a performer: "The Beatles were trying to be the Everly Brothers, and they couldn't quite pull it off. Elvis really wanted to sound like Dean Martin. But, you know, by failing …" He stops and starts again. "You have an image in your head of this iconic person. For me, it might have been Johnny Carson, where you grow up with him, and you think, 'Well, that's who I need to be' -- to realize that feeling I had when I was 8, sitting in my parents' house and watching him. And then things happen, and you think, 'Oh, my God, I didn't -- that fell apart.' But it's the failure to be that person or to completely follow through on what he did that leads you to something that's much better."
How's that Obama thing working out for you?
Moron.
I mean at least [Obama] had experience as a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER....Hahahaha What a JOKE.
I'm basing it on the so-called Duelfer Report. Charles D-U-E-L-F-E-R conducted the most comprehensive report on behalf of our government. And it was, nobody thought it was partisan. I want to be very clear: he didn't find big caches of weapons of mass destruction. But he found, and proved I think, that Saddam had every intention, and particularly to develop nuclear weapons, was developing chemical and biological weapons, and had a structure in place including nuclear scientists that he was prepared to support if he broke out of the sanctions, which he was inclined to do.
Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004; 5:53 PM
Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1,000 American lives, the top U.S. arms inspector said Wednesday he found no evidence that Iraq produced any weapons of mass destruction after 1991.
Duelfer's report said that no chemical weapons existed and that there is no evidence of attempts to make such weapons over the past 12 years
LIEBERMAN: ... these are not unfounded. Go read the Duelfer Report.
HUFFINGTON: There is nothing in the report that proves anything that you have said.
Dripping with condescension, Lieberman retorted, "I don't think you've read it, sweetheart."
