My Christmas Thought: Why Do We Engage in Such Stupid Debates?

Should people with cancer who lost their jobs no longer have access to doctors and treatments?

Should people who lose their jobs be able to keep their homes?

Should really, really rich people get huge tax breaks?

It's really a debate.

Should same sex couples be able to visit one another in the hospital?

I don't know.

Should we pay much, much more for pharmaceuticals than people in Canada?

Is global warming caused by people, and if so or if not, should we do anything about it?

I just don't know.

So, over Christmas, when your parents' friends talk about the failure of "Obamacare", just wonder why we are the only developed country that engages in these debates. It's just us!

But, wait, should we execute gays? I don't know. Let's debate!

Marc Riley emailed me!

For those of you who haven't heard the Marc Riley Show on BBC 6Music (Mon - Thu, 2-4pm), it's the best rock/experimental show on the internet. He covers the full spectrum from Roxy Music to Midlake to Toots and the Maytels to infinity.

Recently he's been playing a song called "Songs You Can Sing On Your Own" by Table.

Anyway, I emailed him to say how much I liked it, and *he emailed me back*. I know, schoolgirl, whatever, but, believe me it's awesome:

Marc Riley to me

show details 3:30 PM (17 minutes ago)

IT IS ..ITS CALLED 'SONGS YOU CAN SING ON YOUR OWN ... MAGICAL EH MATE!

---

From: Bryan [mailto:bryanthemusical@gmail.com]
Sent: 15 December 2009 20:21
To: Marc Riley
Subject: Table - "Tear a Blind Hole..."

Just beautiful. Thanks.

Bryan in New York

http://www.bbc.co.uk
This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated.
If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system.
Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender immediately.
Please note that the BBC monitors e-mails sent or received.
Further communication will signify your consent to this.

Jezebel's Anna N. makes a strong argument against the word "douchebag"

She's right, it is pretty passe:

"...'douchebag,' once a thrillingly multifaceted insult, has calcified into a type. Douchebags wear Ed Hardy shirts. They pop their collars. They may differ by region, but even these differences are strictly codified. 'Douchebag' used to be both simple and versatile, a way to describe someone whose disregard for other people, combined with outsized self-regard, was so extreme as to be hilarious. Now it's a culture, with its own stereotypes and its own quasi-ethnic jokes."

True that.

Gawker "actually likes" year-old song that everyone else in the world already knows, likes

Gawker Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder has discovered the Pheonix song "1901"! And he has graciously shared this gem with us, for our benefit! Too bad that Phoenix is already so well known that they appeared on SNL like 8 months ago, and "1901" is currently running about 1,000 times a day in a Cadillac commercial.

From Gawker yesterday:

"A few months ago this song started popping up in my iTunes on shuffle mode, but I kept forgetting to go back to my computer and learn the name."

Yeah, all that crap that keeps popping up in shuffle, but you can't be bothered to actually find out the name of the song or artist, and of course you never knew it to begin with because you don't ever buy any music or seek any out anymore. It's just sort of there. Playing on shuffle.

There's so much wrong with this post, I don't really know where to begin. First is the dated, tone-deaf headline "French Music We Actually Like." Yeah, because, like all French music sucks, dude. I challenge the author of this post to name 5 French artists he either likes or dislikes.

And the whole "actually like" conceit is annoying: apparently they are so discerning in their taste that only occasionally do they come across a song that meets their impeccably high standards. Maybe the trick to finding music you "actually like" is to pay a little bit of attention to music and to occasionally take your iPod off of shuffle mode.

I have to say, though, that the commenters didn't let me down. They quite fairly made a mockery of this post, prompting a bit of snarky defensiveness from Snyder. Examples:

"So tell us about the French music you actually hate, Mr. Snyder."

"I love this song! I do not like the whole "French music we actually like" attitude, though. Have you tried to listen to any French music? As if all French music sounded the same. Oof.

"

My fave:

"Wow, and only eight months after they appeared on SNL! When do you think Gabe's gonna find out Michael Jackson died?"

And Gabriel's weak response:

"I go out on Saturday nights, but apparently not to cool enough parties to know this band as soon as you."

But apparently you don't have to go to parties at all to know about this band:

"You do know this song is also blaring to Cadillac commercials every two or three minutes, too, right?"

and

"The producers of Cougartown, Entourage and every late night talk show ever are going to be so jazzed to find out they go to cooler parties than you too."

Anyway, this whole post is a train wreck and bothers me inordinately for some reason. Gawker, please stick to whining about media layoffs and the recession and New York and leave the music blogging to the pros.

(This, by the way, has nothing whatsoever to do with my commenter account being mysteriously suspended when the refresh happened, and not restored, despite my requests.)

Muslim terrorists attacking mosques

What is it with muslims attacking mosques? Is this a chapter in history that teaches the world that religion in general is just a little bit cray-cray?

The Moustache of Understanding on Brian Lehrer

Why does anyone let Tom Friedman even speak anymore? Oh, yes, Iraq was the right war, and Afghanistan is the wrong one, because of some stupid cocktail napkin theory of his about the war against terrorism vs. the war against terrorists.

I bet his farts smell really bad too.

UPDATE: Yesterday on the Brian Lehrer Show, The Moustache of Understanding made it seem like he couldn't be there in person because he was called in for a meeting with the President. Like, he personally, was asked to come in for a one on one with Obama. There was a little ha ha by Brian about well, that's the only excuse we'd accept, a Presidential invitation. Well, it turns out that Obama called a press conference of sorts with a bunch of top opinion writers (why Friedman is part of this group is another matter). It's not unreasonable to phone in a talk show appearance because of a Presidential press conference, but The Moustache made it seem like Obama needed to run his Afghanistan plan by Friedman just to get his okay or something.

God, this guy is such. a. douche.

Birther scam email

So there's an email going around to birther types and other Republicans claiming that a former U.S. marine and current U.S. District Court judge as ordered Barack Obama to "prove his eligibility" to be U.S. President in court. Ha!

What judge David O. Carter actually said to these nuts is:

"Plaintiffs have encouraged the Court to ignore these mandates of the Constitution; to disregard the limits on its power put in place by the Constitution; and to effectively overthrow a sitting president who was popularly elected by We the People‚ sixty-nine million of the people. Plaintiffs have attacked the judiciary, including every prior court that has dismissed their claim, as unpatriotic and even treasonous for refusing to grant their requests and for adhering to the terms of the Constitution which set forth its jurisdiction. Respecting the constitutional role and jurisdiction of this Court is not unpatriotic. Quite the contrary, this Court considers commitment to that constitutional role to be the ultimate reflection of patriotism. Therefore, for the reasons stated above, Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED."

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/carter.asp

Cute overload

From Vanity Fair, an evisceration of our "cute culture":

"Cootchie-coo behavior used to be reserved for private moments in the home. But now, with the Internet’s help, people feel free to wallow in cuteness en masse, in the company of strangers. The serious political blog Daily Kos, for instance, is awash in cute pictures of kittens and panda bears. The Web site Cute Overload, which gets 100,000 visits a day, is all photographs and videos of puppies (“puppehs” in the site’s own particular argot), kittens (“kittehs”), and baby rabbits (“bun-buns”), who are said to go nom-nom-nom as they munch their little meals."

As someone who has a random kitten gadget in my iGoogle home page and an entire tab dedicated to pictures of dogs, I am certainly guilty of "cootchie-coo behavior". But they're soooooo cuuuuuuute....

Addicted to Cute

Cute Overload

Cute Things Falling Asleep

Google Wave of wonder

This tripped my shit out:

Watch Multiple Cursors Type into the Same Wave

The first time you're reading or adding content to a wave at the same time one of your contacts is editing that wave, something interesting will catch your eye: Wave displays a participant's changes to that wave in real-time, keystroke by keystroke. Within the blip, a colored cursor, labeled with the owner's name, moves through the text as that person types, as shown in Figure 2-6. Wave can show more than one cursor working within a given wave as well. Wherever you see this cursor on your screen is exactly where that user's cursor is on his screen. Active waves with lots of participants are a spectacle to watch, with multi-colored names typing text before your eyes, live.

Boo!

Happy Halloween from the Octomom

Yes, there are now Handerpants

http://www.handerpants.com/

The magic of Twitter

So I have to investigate Twitter for work :-(

Here is one of the first things I came across:

#urdoing2muchif your pregnant and in the club... They should charge you for 2 people ((lol

Actually, I now kind of get Twitter.

God is not fair

So let me get this straight: Ted Kennedy had to get the brain tumor?

Al Franken puts the smackdown on conservative truth-twister

It's pretty fun to watch Al Franken use his formidable rhetorical skills and genuine outrage to give these fucking greed mongering right wingers the beatdown they deserve:

Why the public option is a gay rights issue

Some of my gay friends are really, really mad at Obama for not prioritizing gay issues like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and gay marriage in his first year in office.

While I understand the impatience, I have to say that probably the most important gay issue in this country is our lack of universal health insurance.

If you are straight and married to an employed person, you probably have the option of getting on your spouse's health insurance plan. In some liberal states gays have this option with their partners.

But throughout most of the country, gays and gay families don't have this option. They are basically shit out of luck if they don't have a way to get health insurance for themselves.

I would love to see gays have the right to marry or serve in the military sooner than later.

But with a limited Congressional calendar and only so many laws that can be passed at one time, I would rather see them have access to doctors, dentists and hospitals.

New super retarded GOP site cost $1.4 million

Haha that new Republican website where Michael Steele walks onto your computer screen set the GOP back $1.4 million.

via Gawker:

"How much does it cost to host a site for six months that is visited almost exclusively by stoned Wonkette readers who just want to see Steele walk onto their computer again? It costs $1,039,155. The Democratic National Committee, on the other hand, which gets roughly the same amount of traffic as GOP.com on its site, spent $203,000 on hosting during the same period."

Bad bisexual! Bad bisexual!

Via PopJustice:

These people from New York, unfortunately called Whore's Mascara, are on YouTube giving bisexuals a bad name. For shame:

WNYC pledge drive annoyances

Okay, I know, WNYC needs to raise money periodically and I pledge something most every time. I encourage you to support WNYC.

The thing is, after you pledge you still have to listen to all the endless shilling for cash. And worse, there seems to be a correlation between the annoyingness of an on air-personality and the number and frequency of pledge spots they do. The worst offenders:

1. Jad Abumrad: Oh God, not the science nerd! His show, "Radiolab" is bad enough, what with the wacky, elementary school science class humor and the quirky editing, but hearing him beg for money just reminds me of what I don't like about WNYC. Shut up, Jad.

2. Kurt Andersen: Where do you begin with a Kurt Andersen? He embodies everything irritating about supposedly urbane, witty, evolved Manhattanites, with his show's segments on "The recession's new creative class", the Klingon Language, They Might Be Giants and all things white, over-educated and bothersome. In one of his pledge segments, he compares necessary things and non-necessary things, saying, "a piece of chocololate...not necessary, a piece of really good, European chocolate...well, let's talk." I actually would rather have drinks with a McCain/Palin voter than this poncey douche.

3. Ira Glass: His pledge pitches have turned dark recently, with him calling up people who listen to WNYC but don't pledge and embarrassing them on the air. Why doesn't he just meet them in a dark alley and break their legs? Oh right, because he's Ira Glass.

Why is Joe's Bar closed?

Joe's Bar, the legendarily trashy/tacky/scary place on 6th Street between A & B has been shuttered since last weekend. This is the place that would force the bartenders to stay open till 4am on a Sunday night, just in case someone might stagger in.

I got into a conversation with the owner, an older woman with considerable disgust for pretty much everything, one misguided, drunk morning. I told her to try to look on the bright side but she wasn't having it. I'm a little worried for her, but the folks over at EV Grieve say that some neighbors told them it was some sort of paperwork glitch with the state. Let's hope so.

GOP.com - Facebook fans

Do take a look at the absurd new GOP website. The first bit of attention the redesign got was due to Michael Steele calling his blog "What Up", prompting widespread ridicule in the blogosphere (it's now called "Change the Game" - whatever).

But take a look at the featured Facebook fans:











Is it me, or do these people look more Myspace serial-killer than hip young conservative Facebook?

Okay, this is not good

A sad graphic

The Mustache of Understanding

Periodically I forget what a horrific writer Thomas Friedman is. Happily the internet is there to remind me.

Here are a few classics:

"It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel, as long as you remember you’re driving without one."

"The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging. When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels. "

"The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."
(This one was repeated at least 14 times between 2003 and 2006 and led to the creation of The Friedman Unit or F.U. which is defined as a unit of time equal to six months in the future".)

"The Golden Straitjacket is the defining political-economic garment of globalization. […] The tighter you wear it, the more gold it produces."

"The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it’s all too familiar. It’s the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: 'Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?' "
- Actually the producer just called and said he can't fit that name on the marquis. He suggest it be called simply, "Shouldn't a Mosque Replace the Bar (in the Hotel)?".

For obsessives there is The Mustache of Understanding, which painstakingly chronicles the twisted uranium birdcage filled with gazelles that is the writing of Tom Friedman.

UPDATE: I just caught this one from Tuesday's column: "The market is just a second-by-second snapshot of the balance between greed and fear. You can’t spin it or sweet-talk it. And you never know when that balance between greed and fear on the dollar is going to tip over into fear in a nonlinear way."

Yes, when you take a snapshot of an abstract idea, you can't spin it and certainly can't sweet-talk it. You just hope it doesn't tip the wrong way, particularly in a nonlinear fashion.

Suck it bus lane blockers

via The Gothamist:

"During his first day on the job, new MTA CEO Jay Walder announced a plan to install cameras on the front of city buses to take photos of any vehicles obstructing bus lanes. Like the city's red-light cameras, tickets will be issued automatically."

The entitlement of New York City drivers has always really bugged me. Particularly the ones who think nothing of holding up a double length bus full of passengers because they have to drop someone off right here, right now. Get ready for your tickets, fucktards.

Now can we have tire spikes placed on the edges of bike lanes?

Child rape hysteria

Okay, one more point about the Roman Polanski matter:

The main gist of the vitriolic, sanctimonious and frequently violent commentary on the internet regarding Roman Polanski is that the legal nuances as to whether judicial misconduct deprived Polanski of his ability to make rational decisions about his defense are irrelevant: A CHILD WAS RAPED!! DAMN THE LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION!!! Your stupid legal rights mean nothing in the face of a 30-year-old child sex case!

The problem with this is that our legal rights to a fair trial, or in this case, plea bargaining process, are most crucial in highly inflammatory cases. The types of cases that used to be solved by angry mobs.

Yes, this is an outrageous case. It is also an example of how we tolerate the trampling of rights that protect us all when the allegations in the case are intolerable.

This fucking Roman Polanski controversy

Okay, I'm totally sick of this right now, but I think I need to fully explain my thoughts on the Polanski matter, given that I'm now seen as a friend to child molesters on a couple of websites, because of my comments on the subject.

First off, yes, Polanski pled guilty to knowingly having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Yes, she gave excruciating testimony to the Grand Jury about what she described as a forced drugging and rape, which has recently been made public by The Smoking Gun.

As a result, lots of people who never heard anything about this before read the court material and FREAK OUT!!!1!!! On the internet!!!1!!!!!!

I remember this case from the 70s. It was a pretty big deal back then too. The difference is that back then most people thought that the mother knowingly put her in the situation, and was looking to cash out (which she did) and that this was something of a set up. People were a little suspicious of the fact that there was this grand accusation, then a plea from the family not to try the case, then a monetary settlement.

Of course, now, all of that is irrelevant because there can be no grey area where adolescents are concerned and he should be raped himself and blah, blah, blah.

My feeling is that, yeah, he's a creep, he's a bad dude, but he came to a settlement with the court and the family (42 days in jail and presumably a good deal of cash) and then the judge pulled the rug out from under him, preening for the media. 42 DAYS IN JAIL?!?! THAT'S IT? you say. Keep in mind that this sentence was a result of the family's wish to plea bargain, and Polanski's wish to move on. Polanski forfeited his right to try to prove his innocence in exchange for the promise of a light sentence. When the judge put the full sentence back on the table, engaging in what many consider to be judicial misconduct, Polanski fled.

Also, the victim is past it and wants it dropped, it was 30 fucking years ago, and for God's sake, whatever! Can we go back to talking about healthcare and global warming?

That is all.

More about people who share my name

This post combines two major themes of this lonely blog: people who share one or both of my names and crazy, stupid shit Republicans do.

From Talking Points Memo (reblogged by The Awl), here is an edit of the lowlights of the "Birther" informercial, featuring Bill Keller (not that one). Are we related in some way? Will he be at this year's Keller convention.

The payoff: for only $30, he will send a fax for you to someone.

Fuck you haters

Oh, and by the way, "The One" just called Iran on its nuke program and pronounced it "nuclear". It's really easy. Think "new-clear". You "real Americans" had eight years of "nucular". If you voted for McCain (haven't heard that in a while, right?) it's supposed to taste like a shit taco.

Welcome to the world where leaders lead and things make sense. Go teabag somewhere, dipshits.

MGMT's Children's Show Appearance

The weird thing is that they look about the same age as the average viewer of Nickelodeon's Yo Gabba Gabba! program.

Happy Celebrate Bisexuality Day!

Who knew?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrate_Bisexuality_Day

Why can't the right do funny?

Here we go again: the right's latest attempt to do a Daily Show style fake news comedy show (anyone remember The 1/2 Hour News Hour?) is called "NewsBusters". It's just so awful, so mean-spirited/borderline racist and homophobic and so unfunny, that's it's tragic even by conservative comedy's low standards.

I did find myself laughing, though, at the over-compensating laugh/clap track that accompanies this series of stink bombs.

"All Pornography is Homosexual Pornography"

If you pay any attention to liberal chit chat, you are now familiar with Michael Schwartz' assertion at the Values Voter Summit that "All pornography is homosexual pornography."

As batshit as it sounds, I've actually been making this argument for some time. If you think about it, it's true:

If you're a guy watching hetero porn, your looking at another dude's wang.
If you're a girl watching hetero porn, your seeing chicks naked.
If you're a guy or girl watching gay male porn, well, you're gay/bi or you're watching gay porn.
If you're a guy or girl watching girl-on-girl porn, you're gay/bi or watching something gay.

Any which way, all pornography is homosexual pornography. Nothing wrong with that.

Gawker vs. Jesus smackdown!

Oh look! Christwire.org has a scathing piece on the depravity and debauchery of Gawker and how it is a threat to something.

via The Awl

Meet the Bryans

So I was watching the U.S. Open Men's Doubles Tennis on TV yesterday (as one does) and I was struck by this team wearing the same exact outfit. I was then struck by the fact that they have the same last name (Bryan), which happens to be my first name. Then I realized that they are identical twins. Upon further investigation, I found out they share a house, car, a band, a bank account and have never spent a significant amount of time apart. Meet Bob and Mike Bryan, the #1 Men's Doubles Tennis team in the world.

Oh, and do visit their awesome website. I'm not sure if it's the music you can't turn off, their weird, homoerotic logo,
the fact that you can't right click on images for some reason, or their fan club "Bryan's Bunch" (shouldn't the apostrophe placement indicate it is actually my fan club?)

All of a sudden it's all about the Bryans. And their Bunch.

It Must Be Love.

Joe Wilson is Your Pre-Existing Condition

Can't these fucktard Republicans just sit and listen to the President for half an hour? No, they cannot. Particularly not Joe Wilson.

http://joewilsonisyourpreexistingcondition.com/

Okay this looks fucking awesome

These eco pirate dudes cruise around Antarctica and kick ass on some Japanese illegal whaling ships.

Mega Millions odds better than I thought

From the Mega Millions page on the NY Lottery website:

"Overall chances of winning on a $1 play: 1:39.89."

Wow, so all you need to do to win is buy like 40 tickets, or something. I don't know I dropped out of Calculus.

Tick bites and red meat allergies

For the last few years I've been having some mild to fairly intense reactions to eating meat. It all started out on Fire Island a few years ago when I had a burger and got hives all over my body. I had never had them before and was pretty freaked out watching my skin erupt with gross looking bumps. Also, the itching is close to unbearable.

It has come and gone over the years, but this weekend a few hours after having an incredible slice (or two) of Chris' expertly prepared pork loin, I was pretty much covered in hives.

Today I learned that it appears to be caused by a reaction to a tick bite (that I probably got the summer of my first reaction). This is a newly recognized phenomenon, discovered by a cluster of cases on the tick-ridden north coast of Australia.

Unfortunately, the cure is: don't eat beef, pork, lamb, venison or pretty much anything that walks on four legs. Oh, and a severe reaction can be fatal.

Wow!

http://www.ivanhoe.com/science/story/2009/08/602a.html

Healthcare Hypocrits

via Slate:

We're witnessing a conversation between various people who are dependent on taxpayer-funded health insurance telling the public why tens of millions of people shouldn't have access to it. Most of the opponents of universal health care don't really think the public provision of health insurance services is immoral, evil, or socialistic—after all, they'd be at risk of bankruptcy without it.

Yet another reason not to face the book

Via Passive-Agggressive Notes:

Really? No public option?

Come on, people, it's just an "option". Can we please just fight for our rights for once? We managed to get a Muslim Kenyan elected president, can't we please just have access to doctors and hospitals?

Check out Physicians for a National Health Program for some compelling arguments.

SALE on Tinkles the Toilet Cat!

Look at the surprise on this poor out of work model's face! Hilarious!

http://www.collectionsetc.com/Tinkles_The_Toilet_Cat/product.aspx?productid=2371&itemnumber=88309#

"Green is stupid!"

I just realized what drives Republicans in their inconsistent, incoherent policy positions. Remember when you were in grade school and you really hated this other kid? Hated him in a way that only, say, a 2nd grader can. You hated this kid so much that everything thing that he said, did or liked filled you with rage. This kid liked to wear green. It was sort of his "thing". So you hated green with a passion. "Green is the stupidist color," you'd say. "Only retards wear green. I hate green." And you really believed that, objectively, green is a stupider color than red, yellow, blue, brown, etc. You couldn't understand how anyone could possibly like green because it is so obviously horrible.

Now think Fox News and the "tea baggers" and "birthers" and the like. Universal Health Care? That's stupid! It's socialism! How could anyone support that? Democrats proposed it. Cash for Clunkers? Oh, you mean "stimulus". Only "Obots" like that and they're stupid! Stupid, stupid Obots! The strategic use of soft power as a more effective deterrent to anti-American propaganda and the proliferation of asymmetrical threats? Huh? Oh, Democrats support that? Then that's stupid! STUPID!

Our Kenyan President

If these stupid fucking "birthers" won't shut up about Barack Obama's birth certificate, I say, let's embrace them. I, for one, fully support our Kenyan president and applaud his efforts to promote the interests of Kenya (and Indonesia) above all else.

America is a spoiled, mostly white, evil country that pollutes the world with its ideas. I solidly pledge allegience to the flag of the United States of Kenyamerica(Indonesia).

"If you just ate brown rice"

I heard a woman today on Brian Lehrer moaning about how unhealthly Americans are and how as a Very Healthy Person she doesn't need a public health option (or health insurance at all) and she doesn't want to pay for all these people who live in this culture of sicknesss, blah, blah blah....

My thought was, of course, and what if you get hit by a bus?

(LOLCat by me, btw)

Screw you, United Healthcare Vision

Although you rarely hear Republicans talk about how superlative the U.S. healthcare system is anymore, like they did a few years ago, there's still this weird idea that just about anything wouldn't be better.

Now that I'm gainfully employed, with benefits, I figured I'd take my healthcare plan for a spin and get some contact lenses. I hadn't had an eye exam in over a year, so I'd have to do that before ordering the lenses.

I called up my old eye doctor's office and asked them if they take United Healthcare. "Sure," they said, "come on in!"

I got the exam and then we went to deal with the billing. They looked me up in the UHC database and I didn't exist. So we called up our friends at United. After a lot of back and forth, the doctor put me on the phone with the representative. She helpfully explained that my doctor was part of United Healthcare, but I was covered by United Healthcare Vision, which used to be something called Spectera, but now it's part of United Healthcare. So if it's part of United Healthcare, I asked, why aren't I covered? "It's just a name change," the representative offered. "Yes, but names mean something," I explained, "that's the reason I came to this provider, because my vision insurer is called United Healthcare." "United Healthcare Vision," she corrected me. Eventually, she insisted that I'd have to pay for everything and file a claim for an out-of-network visit. Which will cost me more money, of course. I told her that I was hopeful that we get a Public Healthcare Option soon, and said goodbye.

I started to think about it. What a brilliant/evil business move on UHC's part. Buy an ailing vision insurer that most providers have dropped, change the name to something resembling your company's, but don't incorporate your own providers, and don't tell anyone. That will lead to confusion for patients, which in our fucked up health insurance system always means profits for the insurer!

Congratulations, you assholes. You got me.

Can I haz Public Option now?

Things Marketing People Like

First there was Stuff White People Like, now we have Things Marketing People Love. There are a couple of lulz over there.

Corner of 6th Street & Avenue B, Manhattan, 1980s

Matt Taibibi's Must Read...

This little article in Rolling Stone succinctly describes how we're all just little pawns in Goldman Sachs' would-be-criminal-if-they-didn't-make-the-law racketeering game and how there's nothing we can do about it.

Oh, FUCK THE RICH.

Nuance Wine Finer - make your $5 wine less, uh, cheap tasting

This thing got a really good review in a recent Cook's Illustrated. Apparently, it instantly decants your wine as you pour. So, maybe, for the $30 price tag, you can make those $5-$10 bottles of wine taste like $8-13 bottles? I don't know.

For the record, I'm not being sponsored by the folks at Nuance to plug this thing. I just really want one (hint, hint, Nuance).

Video demo

Rolling Stones Rice Krispies commercial

The original sellouts...it's great to hear Mick screaming about pouring on the milk and hearing the crackle of the rice.

Breitbart tells off Gawker

So our favorite crazy right wing extremist Andrew Breitbart left Gawker a voicemail fuming at them for calling the D.C. Holocaust Memorial killer a "right wing extremist". What an interesting world one must live in to defend that term. Whatever.

Andrew Breitbart: Holocaust Museum Killer Was a 'Multiculturalist'

Breitbart flips off protest against forcing children to be soldiers

At least I find the title of his piece agreeable:

Breitbart: I Jerk

David Brooks hearts Obama

Wow, has David Brooks turned around in the last few years. From his latest Op-Ed piece regarding the Cheney/Obama brouhaha (which I hope will continue until the next election):

"But the bottom line is that Obama has taken a series of moderate and time-tested policy compromises. He has preserved and reformed them intelligently. He has fit them into a persuasive framework. By doing that, he has not made us less safe. He has made us more secure."

Here, here.

Who are these bozos who call in on "The Takeaway"?

"Give us your take at my take at your take at thetakeaway.com":

Beep..."I took out a credit card at zero percent interest and after I made the first payment blah blah blah blah blah blah" bliooop.

It's The Takeaway. God this show sucks.

Google ad servers have a sense of humor

This ad appeared in the right sidebar of this blog this morning:











HOT!!!

Matt Taibbi's brilliant Tom Friedman takedown

Thanks to Cajun Boy, Gawker's new night editor for pointing out to us Matt Taibbi's brilliant evisceration of all things Tom Friedman. Sample:

"Like The World is Flat, a book borne of Friedman’s stirring experience of seeing IBM sign in the distance while golfing in Bangalore, Hot, Flat and Crowded is a book whose great insights come when Friedman golfs (on global warming allowing him more winter golf days:“I will still take advantage of it—but I no longer think of it as something I got for free”), looks at Burger King signs (upon seeing a “nightmarish neon blur” of KFC, BK and McDonald’s signs in Texas, he realizes: “We’re on a fool’s errand”), and reads bumper stickers (the “Osama Loves your SUV” sticker he read turns into the thesis of his “Fill ‘er up with Dictators” chapter). This is Friedman’s life: He flies around the world, eats pricey lunches with other rich people and draws conclusions about the future of humanity by looking out his hotel window and counting the Applebee’s signs."

Flat N All That

Wifi Happy Hour

St. Dymphna's 4:26pm, lazy, drunky Tuesday.

(Where is my life going?)

And one more thing about the death of newsprint/democracy

The common assumption at this moment is that the ad supported web model cannot work. But why has the (largely) ad supported newspaper model worked? For years people doubted the return on investment in big full page ads and inserts that people throw away immediately, but companies had to put their visual noise somewhere.

If newspapers by and large go away, there are only so many places you can put your ads. Electronic screens occupy a lot of eyeballs for a lot of time. Wouldn't that warrant higher rates?

Does democracy need well paid journalists with expense accounts to survive?

Lately, the argument that our nation's fledgling newspaper reporters have been making to justify their existence goes kind of like this: hey, we know that nobody is reading newspapers anymore except for old people and newspaper people, but without "professional journalists" like us, no one will bother sitting through boring legislative sessions, have the connections to expose insider malfeasance or fly off to exotic countries and tell you what's going on there. Without us j-school graduate pros (and our good salaries and expense accounts) Democracy Itself will fail.

Wow! It takes a lot of, uh, self confidence to feel that your day job is to hold up the pillars of democracy and that society is on the verge of collapse without your daily Jack Bauer-like heroics. The problem is, it's completely delusional.

Let's start with local government "problem". The truth is, there are lots of small local papers that do an excellent job of covering local politics as well as covering hyper local events like Community Board meetings that citywide papers won't touch (downtown Manhattan's "The Villager" comes to mind). Also, increasingly local bloggers are actually covering these "boring" public meetings in droves. In places with spottier coverage, it's hard to see how setting up a free webcam at these meetings wouldn't provide all the information any interested member of the community would need.

What about the claim that democracy needs insiders to expose government and corporate shenanigans? This is true, but the assumption that you have eat lunch at The Palm and the Four Seasons to be in the know is laughably dated. Wasn't it protoblogger Matt Drudge who broke and led the reporting on the biggest story of the last decade, the Monica Lewinsky scandal? He didn't even live anywhere near Washington, but got all the biggest scoops because he had the public's ear. And he did it all with a black and white, single page website, using basic HTML.

Finally, we have the almost Imperialist assumption that in order to know what's going on in far away lands, we must send an army of scribes overseas, armed with their Western ideals and j-school credentials. How would a Google News-style aggregator of local blogs from these countries be less informative? Might this even give us greater insight into the countries in question, this ability to hear unmediated voices from the inside?

Look, I feel the newspaper folks' pain. I used to make a little money writing and producing music that came out on vinyl. Now I still do it but everyone seems to download it for free. But one thing is definitely true: the threatened death of music never happened. If anything, there is so much music now that no one has time to digest most of it, let alone pay for it.

What ultimately changes in the digital revolution is not the public's ability to access information (it actually increases exponentially), just who gets paid for it.

Republicans can't quite fathom blacks being part of America yet

Oh Byron York. Your Washington Examiner piece is so telling:

"On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are."

In this case "actually are" means "are among whites". Which are the people who apparently matter. This is a misguided Republican talking point which will play well to their base and further alienate them from moderates and blacks, who, I would like to remind them, vote.

This delicious nonsense was brought to my attention by The Awl. Thanks.

Oh: also, since so many of the commenters (or "commentators" as York insists on calling them) called him a racist, York felt the need to dig a deeper hole with this, uh, rebuttal?

But what does Sasha Grey mean?

Sasha Grey, the porn star with a brain, is now on everyone's radar. The frequently cited example of her voracious intellectual appetite is this Public Service Announcement on eating sperm. Heady stuff (zing!) She has now stepped up one rung, doing a star turn in Steven Soderbergh's latest docu-movie/whatever "The Girlfriend Experience" where she actually does some acting...she plays a hooker! But not your average it'll-be-four-hundred-for-the-hour hooker. No this one pretends to be your girlfriend for like a day. This means you get to make eggs for her and read the paper with her in the morning (like anyone still does that).

All of it sounds like Soderbergh indulging some kinky well-off middle age dude fantasy. Interviews with him have come off as rather creepy as well: his point is basically, hey, porn is totally normal now, prostitution should be legal, and the casting couch on this movie was awesome! Well, not the last part, but you half expect him to say, "as a man in my late 40s who repeatedly beats off to this 21 year old's videos, I thought, she should totally be in my movie."

So now our little vixen is a real-life actress. Sure she's still playing a prostitute of sorts, but the way this culture works, she'll soon be playing a young Hillary Clinton, or at least Monica Lewinsky.

Ross Douthat: Another Clueless "Conservative" NY Times Opnion Writer

Ross Douthat (whose name sounds perilously close to a combination of "douchebag" and "asshat") is the New York Times' latest I'm-a-conservative-but-not-in-the-way-you-think blogger Op-Ed columnist. Now that David Brooks is basically an Obama Democrat, off in the political woods writing about The Concept of Genius and How Society Works, I guess they felt they needed to bring on someone to actually talk like a Republican, sort of.

It's always puzzled me that the Times feels the need to pay lip service to Republican politics, as if doing so will dispel the almost universal (and accurate) perception that it is a liberal paper. The problem is that mainstream conservative voices now are so far off the conspiracy theory deep end that the Times has to resort to oddballs like Douthat who still have a little Republican fire and brimstone, but ultimately are too smart to actually endorse most of the right's crazy ideas wholesale.

Today Douthat makes the party-line argument that Sen. Arlen Spector (R D-Pennsylvania) is such a morally bankrupt political opportunist that the Republicans didn't need him anyway. He also dismisses as "Yankee moderates" Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Guess they don't need those traitors either. No problem, Ross, us Democrats are more than comfortable caucasing with all of the Northeast Republicans. Hand 'em over!

He then makes a vague argument for a new kind of Republican, sort of like what Bill Clinton and Gary Hart were to the Dems of yore, but he admits that none of those exist right now. Anywhere. God am I glad I'm not a Republican right now.

Meanwhile Brooks is over on the other side of the page saying that today's Republican Party has no appeal to young people, urban people, or the upper or lower middle classes. This sounds like more than just a lack of a Bizzaro World Gary Hart.

Thank you, John Cook

This from Gawker today on Joe Biden's "run for your lives from the pig flu" gaffe:

"Biden told Matt Lauer that he has advised his family members not to travel on airplanes, cars, subways, or go to any "confined" spaces, including schools. That sentiment, which is rather at odds with Barack Obama's measured advice last night that everybody wash their hands and cover their mouth when they cough, has provoked a shitstorm. It's almost as though Biden has become such a connoisseur of gaffes that he couldn't resist the opportunity to commit a formally exquisite, potentially panic-inducing one when the opportunity presented itself." [emphasis mine]

"Super High Me" - A good example of a comedian-driven documentary

Doug Benson is this generation's Pot Comedian. Unlike 70s era stoner jokesters like Cheech & Chong though, his main point isn't how crazy and stupid pot makes you, it's how much harmless fun pot provides.

Spoofing Morgan Spurlock's somewhat annoying and dubious documentary "Super Size Me", Benson decides to spend 30 days completely stoned from the moment he wakes up until he goes to sleep. Since he is already a total stoner, he decides to abstain for 30 days, take a bunch of medical and mental tests and then spark it up for the following month, reprising the same tests, on weed.

The results are (not) surprisingly ho-hum. He does a little better on the SAT, his sperm count actually rises significantly, he puts on a bit of weight and his psychic skills vastly improve, for what it's worth.

Along the way he documents the fast-growing medical mariujana outlet scene in Los Angeles (or "Los Ganjales" as he calls it) and catches some interesting protests of pointless Bush-era D.E.A. busts of these legal establishments. We also get a good helping of his very funny stand up comedy and an all around good time with a good-natured pothead with a message.

It's interesting that this was produced around the same time as Jamie Kennedy's whiny downer "Heckler". Both are self-focused and self-indulgent, but in Benson's movie we are invited to the party/protest, whereas Kennedy impotently seeks to rally his celebrity friends against the rising power of audiences, a.k.a. us.

I saw "Super High Me" last night on the G4 gamer-nerd cable channel, in between "Half Baked" and some documentary on the pros and cons of the legal psychedelic Satvia. This is the first channel I have heard of that leans toward a pro-drug message.

Just say...something!

Jamie Kennedy's "Heckler"

I just caught this documentary of sorts on Showtime OnDemand. The movie follows Kennedy ("Malibu's Most Wanted" and "Son of the Mask") around as he confronts comedy club hecklers, film critics and creepy blogger types about why they hate him so much.

I like Jamie Kennedy. I think that Malibu's Most Wanted was one of the best throw away comedies of this decade (along with "Soul Plane"). What bugs me about "Heckler" is his clueless perspective on contemporary media culture. Essentially Kennedy and the wide swath of famous and semi-famous people he interviews want it both ways. They want to throw themselves in the spotlight, get handsomely paid and not be subject to any criticism or scrutiny other than that which is "constructive" (whatever that means).

Kennedy compares the internet to "the bathroom wall" and anonymous bloggers (hello!1!!) are described as the cliche 38 year old virgin in his mom's basement. It always amuses me how much celebrities hate the internet. Things must have been much nicer for them when they could just put out whatever crap they wanted and they only feedback they had to endure was from the Newspaper Establishment. The celebrities in the movie seem to feel truly betrayed by the existence of blogs and independent websites. They seem to be offended that no one asked them before putting up this whole internet thing, and there is an undercurrent throughout that something should be done about all of this.

It's interesting that modern comedians, people whose livelihoods are largely dependent on the free speech triumphs of people like Lenny Bruce are so angry and suspicious of everyone else enjoying those same rights.

So Jamie Kennedy, you seem like a nice guy, we actually have the same birthday, and you definitely are funny, but, like fuck you.

The Awl

Looks like a bunch of Gawker alumni/apostates have started their own (pretty interesting) blog, The Awl. Who is it - Alex Balk, Choire Sischa (sp?), maybe even Jewish swimsuit superhero Emily Gould?

Whatever. I like their blog. Hate the formatting. Can you guys just like change the font or something. It looks even worse than this blog.

Why aren't Science people funny?

I like science as much as the next guy, but it seems like so many of the science oriented radio or TV shows are simply unbearable because the host tries - and fails - to be funny. Examples of this are WNYC's (cancelled?) "Radio Lab", and the worst offender: Alton Brown's Food Network disaster "Good Eats".

The thinking is that most people think that science is boring so you have to entertain people while you teach. The problem is that for some reason science people aren't funny. Instead, they are "wacky". No one thinks wacky is funny except for 5 year olds and, well, science nerds.

Please science show hosts, you're not funny, so give it up.

Orientated

Femi Oke (sp.) on my favorite show, "The Takeaway" on WNYC just used "orientated". I know that the English invented English and all, but it just sounds retarded. Please use the far more elegant "oriented".

That is all.

Baby steps toward banning smoking in New York homes

Last week the do-gooders/fascist dictators at the New York City Department of Health announced that 57 percent of non-smokers have traces of nicotine in their blood. THIS IS A WHOLE 12% HIGHER THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE!!!!!

How could this be they asked? They already banned smoking everywhere except for...the home. So along with their hypochondria baiting press release, they urged us to keep a smoke-free home, signaling a certain type of apartment-dwelling New Yorker to start getting very intolerant of their neighbors who smoke.

Never mind that we all walk down some of the most densely populated streets in the U.S. on a daily basis. Never mind that people smoke outside more now because they aren't allowed to smoke inside. No, no, it must be that there is a remaining freedom that can be taken away from smokers.

Prepare yourself for a future where your bitchy neighbor can call the cops on you for smoking a fucking cigarette.

Can they just accept that some people do bad things to themselves sometimes and move on?

Crazy cult leader creates "Potato Day"

Oh hello, Andrew Breitbart. Remember me? We went to that rich, preppy high school together and you came and saw my band once and you turned into a crazy internet neocon and I said some nasty things about you and you had all of your commenter minions threaten me on this blog. I kind of thought we were done with one another after our little dustup in February, but you keep showing up on my TV screen.

First I caught you on Real Time with Bill Maher where you performed the thankless service of defending George W. Bush's legacy. The national near-consensus that Dubya was the Worst President in U.S. History could not dissuade you. I have to say I sort of admire your perserverance in ideological pursuits, unburdened as it is by facts or truth or common sense.

This week, Jon Stewart took notice of you and your (surely entirely true) televised complaint that your son's liberal pussy Obamatard school no longer recognizes St. Patrick's Day, but instead refers to it as "Potato Day". Haha that's funny because that would be like liberals deciding to rename Cinco de Mayo to Sleeping Dude Under a Sombrero Day.

Andrew, you dissemble, you demagogue, you divert. You've chosen to use your apparently vast inherited wealth to create a cult of wingnut internet wackos. You're not wasting your life. Even worse, you are using it to fuck up the world as much as your trust fund will allow.

We're still waiting for your evidence on the whole "Potato Day" thing. I've searched the internet high and low and all I can find is people commenting on your TV appearance. Then the comments turn into rants about how stupid "Potato Day" is. God you're good.

Nite Klub

For some reason I have the Specials' "Nite Klub" going through my head over and over. Maybe it's the following lyric:

"Hey hey I don't work,
'cause I don't have to,
I don't have to work,
There's no, no work to do."

Yup the down Stairmaster

There was a recent NY Times article about how the recession (have your heard about it?) has hit us well-educated people in New York especially hard. It reminded me of that legendary and much-maligned Village Voice cover from the early nineties, "Yup the Down Stairmaster". It turns out that well-educated people are suffering from this recession, like, a lot!

I would know (but I still get that $430 a week, yo, for a while).

Can they just reopen Save the Robots again, please? See you at 5am with the sawdust on the floor.

"The Takeaway" music

Can they please change the fucking music on "The Takeaway"? Bump bum bump bum bump bum bump bum bump bum bump...bloiip!

It's not hip. It's not cool. You didn't go to South by Southwest this year. Even if you did, you were too old to enjoy it.

Get over yourselves!

That's my take.

bloiip!

Slow Paseo

Maybe it's the generally slow pace of my life on the dole right now, but I am really digging this wine called Slow Paseo. They make a great red and white, it's organic and it's $6.99 at Trader Joe's. Why not get two bottles for your afternoon of drinking and hopelessly emailing resumes?

The "Blue Sweater"

Can we please stop hearing from this broad with her "Blue Sweater" book, about how rich people and poor people connect? Enough!

Julia Allison won't leave me alone

Those of you who read Gawker regularly know far too much about Julia Allison. For those who don't, where do I begin?

She used to appear on TV a lot as an "Editor At Large" for Star Magazine talking about, you know, celebrities, then she was a dating columnist for Time Out New York, now she is some sort of "lifecaster" who runs a blog about herself (natch) and two one other real-life Sex and the City character and they go to parties, dress up in matching outfits and get photographed with people. (Bonus: the blog requires you to navigate with a horizontal scroll bar.)

Basically, she is everywhere in a certain corner of the internet, is generally reviled, and has the habit as referring to herself as a "brand".

Okay, so I'm ducking into a doorway in the East Village this morning to light a cigarette and my eyes wander to this:




















Is this that Julia Allison?

If so, this would prove she actually is a real person, not an ad agency composite like Betty Crocker or Aunt Jemima.

Also, true fame can only (but may not) happen when you make yourself ubiquitous. If this is her place of residence, Kudos to Allison for putting her full name, sorry, brand, in her building's buzzer listing.

Julia, don't ever stop.

? at Trader Joe's Wine Shop

Just picked up a bottle of "?" which is a new red from California at Trader Joe's Wine Shop in Manhattan., $5.99. Went great with my smoked turkey, ham and cheese samich at lunch. Very drinkable, very cheap.

The Battle for the Conservative Soul

There is a highly entertaining battle going on in conservative circles and the Republican party over the Soul of Conservatism. In one corner you have mostly east coast conservative intellectuals and moderate Republicans like David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, George Will and Olympia Snowe arguing that the last eight years have been a nightmare for average people and that's why the voters are heavily trending Democrat. These sensible conservatives recognize that the Bush tax cuts did exactly nothing for working people, the Iraq war was and is an avoidable boondoggle, global warming is a real threat, and gay marriage is a non-issue for people under 30. They understand that their party has been on the wrong side of these issues for the last decade and that their party has lost these battles.

In the other corner we have the unhinged, blathering, tone-deaf extremists like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sarah Palin and my old classmate Andrew Breitbart, seeming to think we are in some sort of Lost time loop that won't let us out of 2003. To them tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy have saved the economy, the mission in Iraq has been accomplished, environmentalists are wimps, and gay marriage is an outrage. All we need is Four More Years! This camp has apparently learned nothing from the last two elections. They imagine some sort of hidden constituency that will only show its face if the party goes more retrograde and extremist. Hey why not try to repeal civil rights legislation and women's suffrage while we are at it? Perhaps we could restore the Colonial era death penalty for homosexuality? That oughtta bring out the voters!

The fact of the matter is that the Lost Decade, or the first decade of the 21st Century, is already over. We handed it to the neocons and in return they took everything we had and ran. The next decade (the Teens I suppose) belongs to us socially liberal/fiscally responsible types, the Democrats and moderate Republicans.

(And don't pay any attention to revisionists who would paint the Republicans as fiscally responsible: they demanded hundreds of billions to dump into Iraq and handed the drug companies more billions in the form of Medicare Part D. These people don't invest in our country, they hand out our money as gifts to their friends and corporate allies.)

Personally, I would just as soon see the delusional, backward conservatives take over the Republican party and nominate Rush for the presidency in 2012. This would free the moderates in their party to become Democrats.

Then the Party of No becomes the Party of Nothing :-)

Dark Magic

The video of the song we produced, "La Bruja", with the downtown glitter mafia known as Escandalo is done! It's up on that video site - what's it called again? - oh yeah, YouTube. The various mixes are available on iTunes and Juno for your iPads as well (I particularly like the Max Tannone remix, as well as the original of course). Watch, listen, buy!

The Lost Decade

It seems to be a perfect accident of history that we had the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s and then the whatever-this-is-s. In the late 90s there were a bunch of clever clever folks who wanted to call this decade the Naughties. You see, "naught" is some sort of ancient British term for zero and this decade was going to be so very naughty, what with all the gay sex and subversive theatre and such. Thank God that term didn't stick.

What we got instead was a horrifying waste of time and resources, a stupid unwinnable war in Iraq in which we are only now recognizing Iran as the beneficiary, and a whole bunch of counterproductive bloviating by the Ann Coulters, Rush Limbaughs and Andrew Breitbarts of the world.

It was as if the 20th Century threw up on the 21st Century.

And here in 2009, with no one able to do so much as find a job, we are finding that the last 10 years, so full of new century optimism in the beginning, was entirely lost to Bush/Cheney and the like.

Only now do we realize it has been a Lost Decade. May we never surrender another ten years to such malevolent, incompentent assholes.