Use the word, Lefties
Oh, man. I thought I was angry yesterday. Today, I am apopleptic.
Sorry, y’all. I’m not a very good angry blogger. It’s just not my thing. “Happy, poo-flinging monkey” is more my style. I’ll just sit over here and seethe for a bit.
Go read Ace. He’s a much better angry blogger than I am. He makes an excellent point: by calling for sanctions or consequences or shunning or jail or something against this anti-Muslim filmmaker or that yahoo Koran-burning preacher or whoever, what American ‘liberals’ are really asking for is American legal recognition of the crime of blasphemy.
Blasphemy laws.
They can’t say it. They can’t think such a thing of themselves. Blasphemy is such a crude and un-nuanced and illiberal idea, calling it by that name is like biting down on a scrap of aluminum foil. But that’s the proper word for the thing they’re demanding today.
Make them call it by its proper name.
September 12, 2012 — 9:46 pm
Comments: 41
Gone dark
September 11. I hate this fucking day. If that angry knot of memory has faded at all, it’s not by much.
I hate to blog on 9/11, but I can’t just walk right past it, either. So, new tradition: I’m going to stick a surly graphic up and close comments on this one post. Feel free to hang out on the other threads and whatever. We’ll leave this one a sullen silence.
September 11, 2012 — 3:27 pm
Comments: none
Um, ow
Soooo…I had a mammogram today. The way they do it under the NHS, they go ahead and schedule you an appointment and send you a notice and then hope enough people turn up to make it worthwhile. See, they drive up in a 40-foot tit wagon with a receptionist in one end, changing rooms in the middle, and an X-Ray tech in the back and then just gram mammoes all day.
That poor tech must handle a whole, WHOLE lot of knockers.
My nurse friends have all had similar gigs. One spent, like, eighteen months doing nothing but pap smears in a similar mobile clinic. Goodness me. She had nightmares about fighting her way out of Carlsbad Caverns armed with nothing but a Q-tip.
Oh, and then there was the one who processed stool samples. Worst part of that one, she said — if you’re going to mail people large manilla envelopes and ask for a sample, you really really need to define what you mean by “sample.”
September 10, 2012 — 10:19 pm
Comments: 21
Most unsatisfactory
Hello. Remember this guy? This is a mug shot of Shepard Fairey, the HOPE poster dude. And the Feds want him to do time in federal pound me in the ass prison.
The Associated Press took him to court for tracing the Obama picture used in the poster, which belonged to AP. You’ll find the court docs at the link. I gather (though I am no law-talking weasel), the main points are:
- He claimed he used the photo as reference, but it’s pretty obvious it’s a straight up trace (see overlay)
- He claimed he made around $150,000 off the image, but his companies seem to have pulled off a profit of around $12 million over three years, which surely wouldn’t have happened without the iconic poster
- Based on the above, he offered AP a settlement of a weak $100K, when they probably would have gone away for a substantially bigger sum
- He already has convictions for (reading between the lines, what I assume to be) public graffiti (that was his main gig before the poster: “street artist”
But the Feds are opting to ignore all that. They want him to do time for deleting some emails and fabricating others trying to game the case.
Sure. Okay. Fair enough. Coverup worse than the crime and all that, but leaving the whole rest of it unaddressed is really unsatisfactory. Because I (and millions like me) do what he did, every day — snag news photos, P’shop all over them and post them on the web. It’s a whole cottage industry. And we would really like some guidelines here.
How strong was the AP’s claim? Would any amount of artsy transformation weaken that claim? Did the fact Fairey made a shitload of money make a legal difference? They brought all these questions up, and then left them dangling.
Years ago, when I made art for a big corporation with deep pockets, I wouldn’t go NEAR anyone else’s copyrighted content. Not even for the most ephemeral images. The very idea gave me the shivers. And for the longest time, I wouldn’t do it as a blogger, either. And then I realized everyone — EVERYONE — was having a blast P’shopping photos and nobody was going to federal pound me in the ass prison and I was totally left out of the fun. So I gave in.
But there’s still that worried corner of my mind that knows everybody else does it is a lousy legal defense.
Okay. Back here. Tomorrow. Six sharp, WBT. Round Bzillion of the Dead Pool!
September 6, 2012 — 11:05 pm
Comments: 16
Aw, now, ain’t that purty?
This week is predicted to be sunny and warm — and we haven’t gotten a lot of THAT this Summer — so we decided to go out and roll around in it.
This glittery bit of postcard-perfect Disney fru-fru is Bodiam Castle, one of the prettier ruins in the neighborhood. You may know it as the Swamp Castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where they deliberately cropped out the moat and made it look…less than fabulous, on account of it was the establishing shot for:
All the kings said it was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same! Just to show ’em! That sank into the swamp; so I built a second one, that sank into the swamp; so I built a third one, that burned down, fell over and then sank into the swamp; but the fourth one…stayed up!
It’s roofless and spent a lot of years as a ruin, but it’s about the prettiest ruin I know (possibly after Battle Abbey). You’re allowed full access (the bridge over the moat is ’round the back) including to the surviving upstairs rooms. It’s covered in graffiti which, being hundreds of years old, is worn illegible but laboriously carved in tidy Times New Roman.
We ate sammiches by the moat, much of which went to the ducks. I wish we’d thought to throw a bit in water, where there were carp the size of toddlers. On the other hand — considering how many ducks tried to follow us back to the car — maybe not feeding the big ugly fish was a smart idea.
Oh, hey, we passed about TEN trucks on the road, loaded to the overflowing with hops. This area (and particularly Kent) were once gigantic producers of hops, but after the war, most were bought in from other countries. So what does a big local crop of hops mean? ARTISAN BEER!
September 5, 2012 — 9:46 pm
Comments: 26
I’m so confused.
I wonder what would happen if you walked up to this lady in the shiny pink vagina costume and said, “I totally see you as a big vagina with legs.” She’d probably poke you in the snoot. Feminists are so confusing.
I want to acknowledge that I owe a debt to feminists. It would be churlish not to. The original old broads, I mean. Some of the changes they made to society have suited me very well, thanks so much.
But isn’t it the essence of feminism getting a job and buying your own damn pills? What, you need the patriarchy to meet your most basic needs for you, honey? Isn’t that kind of 1950-think?
Eh. Sorry. I’m a bit grouchy. I’ve been listening to this whole Republican War on Women meme the Dems are trying to launch and it’s really getting on my tits. Like so:
Booker labored to keep the Democrats’ dopey War On Women narrative alive: “I heard people stand up and say, ‘I love women.’ I heard people stand up: ‘I’ve got a sister. I’ve got a mother.’ That’s like saying you’re not a bigot cause you have a black friend.
What the hell do you mean, ‘I’ve got a sister. I’ve got a mother.’ Yoo-hoo! Over here! Lookit me! I am a Republican and I AM A WOMAN!!!
It’s like only men can be Republicans. Because female Republicans are just Stepford voters, brainlessly doin’ what the menfolks say (in between squeezing out young’uns).
And they think WE are the throwbacks to olden days? Cunts.
September 4, 2012 — 9:38 pm
Comments: 53
I made you a chair that is empty
Happy Empty Chair Day! Today’s the day our tribe displays empty chairs prominently.
And because I assume my readers are all lazy sacks of shit like me, I made you a Photoshop Empty Chair Day kit! You can make fun of Dear Leader without leaving the snug four walls of mom’s basement!
You can choose from a folding chair or a lovely wooden chair, if you prefer. They’re .png files, so they’re openable by lots of graphics programs (not just Photoshop, which you probably can’t afford in Obama’s America), but the .png format allows me to give you a transparent background.
That’s right — I did all the cutting around the little irritating bits for you!
Oops, gotta run. Have fun!
September 3, 2012 — 1:10 pm
Comments: 19
I’m’onna need more dick!
I’m just bleeding dick at the moment.
Oh. Now. Really. You’d think an illustrator would be a little more careful what mental images she conjured up for herself. That one’s going to give me a nightmare.
Round 37 Friday!
September 2, 2012 — 7:48 pm
Comments: 19
Winning!
D’awwwww…okay, yes. It’s adorable. But still — couldn’t he let the little girl win?
Have a good weekend, everyone! Go outside. Sit in the sun. Hurry. I heard Autumn sneaking up on us out there today.
August 31, 2012 — 7:59 pm
Comments: 27
Look! An alien!
Wow — this is what happens when you neglect to harvest a globe artichoke. That wavy stuff in the middle is vivid purple. Not surprising, it’s just a big ol’ thistle.
I’ve been unplugged most of the day today and the ‘tubes are clogged with the Convention, so I’ll just leave you the flower to stare at.
Still not through my To Do list, and it’s getting on for midnight here 😮
August 30, 2012 — 10:13 pm
Comments: 17