gross

eight or nine bugs discovered crawling around in my bathtub. no idea where they originated from. they aren't roaches. they aren't ants. they aren't beetles. they're just generic crawly bugs. i'm drowing them in bathwater now. manhattan is gross.

My Rant About America's Shitty Health Care System

i need a prescription for antibiotics. basically, i need to see a doctor for all of 20 minutes. in a cost-efficient system, i would be able to arrange this. especially since i actually HAVE INSURANCE. yes, you read that correctly. i have health insurance. health insurance that i have NEVER used, incidentally. i called four different places, and they weren't taking new patients or they had no appointments available. i have a raging bacterial infection that needs attention NOW. i have a fever and i'm sick to my stomach NOW. i don't want to wait until i actually have a life-threatening staph infection in my bloodstream, thank you very much. want to know the best option given to me by these wonderful medical professionals working in The Greatest Bestest Health Care System In The World That Is So Much Better Than That Pinko Commies Nest Soviet Canuckistan?

go to the emergency room.

now, why didn't i think of that before? it's *such* a wise and efficient use of our health care resources, after all. isn't that what the emergency room is for? to lance boils and hand out prescriptions? clearly, it's not for treating heart attack and accident victims needing immediate attention. instead of costing my stupid ass insurance company a few hundred dollars for a quick office visit with a nurse, i'm supposed to go the emergency room where it will cost my insurance company thousands of dollars instead. for an easily treated, common condition --- a boil.

would some of you panglossian fucks step up to the plate and explain to me again why our system is Teh Leet? really, i want you to explain to me in detail why it is a shining pinnacle of capitalist efficiency. remember, dumbass -- i have health insurance. i am speaking from the position of someone who is COVERED.

pride poops

hey, check out all 5? 6? protesters at ny pride!

this is just logically unsound. the area bearing the brunt of the aids epidemic - almost 75% of the cases - is sub-saharan africa (where there just aren't that many jewish folks, dude), and 75% of hiv positive people in africa are women. so, roughly half of hiv/aids cases in the world are african women. what are ya gonna say now? god hates african women? please.

and to you people, jesus said nothing about homosexuality. cut it out.

[update: the identity of the "god sent aids to punish male homos" sign has been found. on that link, he admits to being a divorcee - and then later on, he complains about gays wanting to get married. shut up, dude - your ass couldn't even stay married. via jewschool.]

lack of sleep makes you an asshole

the next time you run into one of those high-powered types in suits who work until midnight or later, remember... they're assholes because they're miserable. and they are miserable because they don't sleep and have no life.

i pulled the first all nighter in a while. it was unintentional. my a/c simply stopped working properly, and it was alternately very hot and very cold. but i had to make it to barbri. it was rough.

1) when i arrived barbri, i almost exchanged words with a friend of mine who had saved a seat for someone else. (look, i'm not insulted; i just didn't feel like walking an extra six feet. i was THAT exhausted.)

2) the lecture lasted almost four and a half hours, during which i stripped away my stomach lining drinking red bull and then coffee and then red bull again. furthermore, the wide-awake nyu law grads in front of me were chattering so much that it made me want to set their hair on fire.

3) when the c.a.r.e. summer interns approached me as i was walking to the subway in a zombie-like daze to sign some do-gooder petition, i almost blurted out the following: "hey, listen. you better be glad i'm not armed with a machete. please step aside, or i will leave scratch marks in your pretty little face." but i was too tired to muster any energy to speak.

4) i came home and promptly fell asleep face down on my bed. and woke up sweating, because, i forgot to switch on the a/c.

i'm too old for this.

emily1: in other words... insomnia: i understand.

note to self:

the next time you put up an ad seeking lodging on fire island, remember: there is no shame in this game

put up a photo of yourself in prime physical condition (the erect nipples are an added bonus), and also include a photo of your cute little pooch (who can resist a tiny weetle bright-eyed puppy dog)?

Butt Boil

it's hot. i'm mildly nauseous from taking naproxen sodium. my big goal for today is to get the boil at the top of my ass cleft to drain. this is another of my gross and offensive posts. if that bothers you, get lost before the bloody, pus-filled horrors begin.

over christmas break in 1997, when some people were still using the mosaic web browser and dial up connections were all the rage, i noticed that my lower back hurt whenever i sat on my parents' ancient, poodle-funk-scented couch. there's not much to do in oak ridge, tennessee other than sit on my ass. the scenery can change, of course. i could sit on my ass at a chain restaurant, a movie theater, or in front of my parents' television. at the time, i thought the pain was due to the marathon of ass-sitting.

the pain never got worse than a dull ache. it suddenly disappeared while my brother and i were driving back to the northeast. we stopped at a rest stop and i noticed some nasty-smelling, bloody pus on the waistband of my underwear. after some serious freak-outage where i imagined myself as a medieval leper, or perhaps a bubonic plague sufferer, i realized that this was the tell-tale sign of a draining boil. it was the first time i'd ever had the ill luck to suffer from one of the nasty things, but there's a first time for everything. i bought some neosporin and gauze pads to speed along the healing process, and everything was peachy keen within a day.

fast forward 6 months, and i got a familiar twinge in my lower back. because the first boil came and went so quickly, i thought nothing of it. i washed the area and proceeded with my normal activities, but the damn thing just wouldn't drain. after a couple of days, it hurt to both sit and walk. just as i was about to break down and go to university health services so that a doctor and some unknown number of medical students could take a gander at my ass sore, the boil began to drain.

let me put it this way -- it was completely and utterly disgusting. more disgusting than shit. shit is a familiar, every-day by-product of the body. foul-smelling, yellow-brown, oozing bloody pus coming out the top of one's ass crack is most definitely not. so, again, i applied neosporin and gauze pads. i figured that since i was not running a fever and the pain was much relieved by the bursting of the boil, i did not need to show my ass to members of the medical profession. within two days, it was mostly healed, even if it was a bit itchy from the growth of new skin and all.

years passed and the ass-crack affliction did not return. occasionally, it would get mildly irritated in hot, steamy weather, but never did it become infected. so, seven years later, the boil decides to return. by this time, the internet has matured enough that a quick google search gave me a name for the condition in which one develops periodic boils at the top of one's ass cleft -- pilonidal disease. some doctors speculate that it is a birth defect due to late regression of a fetal 'tail' apparent in some sonograms of 14-16 week old fetuses.

frankly, given the choice between the prehensile tail of my ancestors and a chronic skin infection at the top of my ass crack, i'd totally have chosen the tail. now, i am contemplating surgery to resolve this little condition. however, estimated success rates (judging from my extensive googling on the subject) range from 50% to 90%. the estimated recovery period ranges from 2 weeks to 2 months. meanwhile, someone has to clean and pack an open wound on my ass several times a day.

now, if the success rate is 90%, i'd be willing to sacrifice my winter break to have this ass boil problem removed. 50%.... eh, not so much. choices, choices.

*guffaw*

the dramatic and desperate swells of the background music to this presentation makes an otherwise drab animation so very funny.

uh...

maybe it's just me, but i'm wondering what planet this guy is from. most queers i know are all about labels and happily embrace being part of mainstream corporate culture. i think corporations are quite cognizant of the fact that part of the mainstream gay male culture is about lookin' good and living above your means. where are these "anti-corporate gay leftists," all three of them... on pluto?

the most anti-corporate thing i've seen is eschewing microsoft for apple. and really, that just going for a "cooler" product. how gay! ha ha ha. ;)

oh, and now for something completely different... a recipe for pruno (prison bootleg liquor), which is by far the most revolting thing i've seen in a while. if you think our homemade mead from 1998 is gross, you should click on that link and think again. nastay!!!

i'm going to die of a heart attack

i'm having bacon, eggs and beer for dinner. time warner cable cut out for 24 hours; i had no internet service, so i needed comfort food. i realize that this makes me an addict, but hell... so what! i'm going to make pancakes now! bye!

vacation and bush

sorry ladies and gents for being an unposting sonuva these past coupla weeks. but i was away in sunny Hawaii. where there's Gay Pride _MONTH_ and beautiful people everywhere. and altho there is some animosity t'wards haoles, i actually find some comfort in knowing that there are certain places in the world where i feel completely at home, in my dark brown skin, and i get preferential treatment. and even with the pre-disposed animosity, the locals will still treat people nice.

and don't forget our monkey president is making some national broadcast tonight about the war. *sigh*

what the fuck

here's today's (first?) horrible supreme court decision, Castle Rock, Colorado, v. Gonzales, 04-278.

don't shoot the messenger.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police cannot be sued for how they enforce restraining orders, ending a lawsuit by a Colorado woman who claimed police did not do enough to prevent her estranged husband from killing her three young daughters.

Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of the court order against her husband, the court said in a 7-2 opinion. [...] Gonzales contended that police did not do enough to stop her estranged husband, who took the three daughters from the front yard of her home in June 1999 in violation of a restraining order. Hours later Simon Gonzales died in a gun fight with officers outside a police station. The bodies of the three girls - ages 10, 9 and 7 - were in his truck.

Gonzales argued that she was entitled to sue based on her rights under the 14th Amendment and under a Colorado law that says officers shall use every reasonable means to enforce a restraining order. She contended that her restraining order should be considered property under the 14th Amendment and that it was taken from her without due process when police failed to enforce it.

it's too early for me to be reading such stomach-churning reading, but i can't stop. just look at what our future holds for us:

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said,

The creation of a personal entitlement to something as vague and novel as enforcement of restraining orders cannot 'simply go without saying.' We conclude that Colorado has not created such an entitlement.

in other words, "it's not in the bible constitution.

okay. i'm going to have to get back to you on this one, because i just woke up and it is making me an angry psychopath to read this.

grokster

decision here

unanimous decision. no time to comment. gotta eat. long night. pride and all.

i wrote a paper on this. i sort of called it. no bright line rule for contributory liability. groskter may be found to be liable -- sent back to trial to determine level of intent. but i didn't think it was going to be unanimous.

i haven't read the whole decision yet. girlfriend is demanding attention. =P

more here

i am so gay.

Gay!
You scored -43
(-52 being completely gay, 0 being bisexual, and 52 being completely straight)

As of right now, you are interested in the same sex. You have very little to no sexual interest in the opposite sex. If you are sexually inexperienced at this point, it is possible that you have latent heterosexual tendencies that you have not yet discovered.

The Sexuality Spectrum Test

the pimp motherfucker trying to get me to whore for him

can someone please kick this fucker's ass for me? i got this email in my inbox from him.

no, i don't want to be a transwhore, you motherfucker.

please go to the site and make a complaint to gay.com about this flagrant disobedience of the rules.

3rdparty Escort and Entertainment, and its staff are now recruiting a new line of outcall escorts to provide our client with something new and exciting.. Our new line will include TG/TS/TV/CD We are now hiring and offering top wages, and paid transportation to and from outcalls. (20mile max.). We also guarantee a safe and dicreet working enviroment for all our employees. We will also provide nextel direct connect for employee availability.

Form more information Email me at: Form more information Email me at : Thrdparty@hotmail.com

Here's the link to my profile: bostonbtm2b

please complain to gay.com.

how

embarrassing

emily0 also hate future.

today's Enjoyable Graphic of the Day comes to us from (surprise of the week) warren ellis. it is episode 14 of edison hate future, which in that classic, red meat fashion, repeats the same identical graphic but has different text each week. so here it is:

my god, man! what are you saying?!? think of the virgins! think of the virgins!

thanks, warren ellis!

something i learned in barbri today

it is per se slander to call someone a homosexual in new york (this means, that you don't have to show actual damages -- the fact that someone was called a homosexual is enough). it isn't in every state, but it is in new york. clearly, no one thought to challenge this.

i just want to tell anyone out there that i told lots of people the following:

mayor bloomberg is a homosexual.
my landlord is a homosexual. his wife is a homosexual.
everyone at cardozo is a homosexual.
everyone who rides the 6 train is a homosexual.
spitzer, pataki, clinton, schumer -- all homosexuals.
your next door neighbor is a homosexual.

come sue me, you bastards.

the answer

why i prefer the music for gay boys. scroll 2/3 of the way down the page: one of the [female] deejays laments [paraphrased] "the girls [lesbians] like hip-hop and top 40. i like to play more progressive house and other styles..."

hear hear. when i go out clubbing, i don't necessarily want to hear the stuff that's being recycled every hour on the radio. it's always nice to hear remixed versions, but i never hear the remix versions at lesbian clubs. i hear the same old, same old...

when i get the rare chance to go to a gay club for men, i hear music from germany, the netherlands, romania, great britain, etc. i get to hear the remixes you can't buy from tower records [or if you can, they're labeled "import" and cost $12 for a single]. it's just much more interesting.

and this, ladies and gentlemen, is one main reason why there aren't any mixed gay and lesbian clubs.

come on ladies, you are WAY TOO CONSERVATIVE in your club music!!! and the list i have below is considered "mainstream commercial" club music. yet it's shunned at lesbian clubs, who find it too "out there." *sigh*

damn, that's accurate.

your daddy is patrick stewart

what you call him: papito why you love him: he knows best

who's your daddy?

my quick & dirty IQ test results

your IQ is 125

your logical intelligence is genius your verbal intelligence is genius your mathematical intelligence is exceptional your general knowledge is above average

a quick & dirty IQ test

hm. the internets think i am smart, at least at maths. i doubt very much i am an actual genius, though.

actually my friends said i'd be alice...

but that wasn't one of the choices.

you are BETTE!

you've got an established career, a significant other, and ethnicity that no one can define. you're also fairly hot!

which character from the l-word are you?

i don't think "unemployed j.d. who hasn't passed the bar yet" qualifies as having an "established career." =P

mirah

my hawai'ian contact sent me a recommendation for mirah. i heard her song "dreamboat" (off of parts of human desire) and she rocks. herein i quote (most) of the lyrics for the aforementioned song:

The dreamboat's waiting on the docks at night
She's a little bit horny and she feels just right
Hey, how about some of that lubrication?
'Cause this motor's gettin' ready for some fornication.

Hey, whatever happened to the sweet young chick
Who fell for the babe with a strap-on prick?
You see 'em ridin' around town together
In a orange pick-up an' wearin' lotsa leather

why am i unsurprised...

...that of all the l-word characters in the quiz, i'd end up as jenny? funny, because i identify with her character.

except for the part where she nails all the obscenely attractive women. (damnit.)

you are JENNY!

you are sweet, shy, and innocent - but you've got a darker, sexier side & you can't hold it in forever. you're the closet freak of the group.

which character from the l-word are you?

crushed

so today, as if spring were insufficient enough on her own, i were smote down by the hand of the divine. for some (retrospectively stupid-ass) reason, i decided i wanted a coffee, so my roomie and i hit the local brewhouse. and on our way out, we ran into some of her friends.

i don't know much about her. i'd never seen her before, and she was sitting on the ground stroking her (straight) friend's leg to compare their razors' effectiveness. or something.

but desire is a fickle beast, and especially strong-willed in certain seasons.

and without a doubt, those were the most ridiculously stunning eyes i have ever encountered.

i think i said my name when we were being introduced. she talked to me - a kind word. she looked up at me and told me to make a wish.

as i stood transfixed, trying not to fall on my ass as i got my first look at her eyes, i realised i had no idea what she was talking about. i had heard the words, but the effects of our brief eye contact was as if i had accidentally shifted into reverse instead of fifth gear while driving: my brain leapt up out of the hood in a shrieking, exploding fireball. i wanted to understand what she was saying, but the words were crystal clear meaninglessness.

luckily, she repeated herself.

only she smiled, so as i watched the scenery spin out of control around me, it took me a blank, blushing, sweating ten seconds of agony to realise her second words to me were, the clasp of your necklace has come around to the front, so put it back and make a wish, she said. i think. i nervously smiled and slid the clasp to the back. i did manage a wish, which was granted in that she looked at me again (in passing).

i didn't want to speak. if i could, i'd say something stupid with my horrible voice. i was so confounded, i didn't even get her name. i got it later from my roomie, who knows her.

okay, enough gawking. that goes for me, too. i'll never get her; i'll prolly never even encounter her again. doesn't matter - if i did, i'd be as useful as suspenders on a snake, what with who i am and the fact that my tongue appears to swell up inside my mouth around her. even though i know she barely registered my presence.

go on, back about your business. you only get to see the injured and dead being pried out of the car wrecks for that brief minute or so when you cruise by them on the highway, traffic cops waving you on through the single remaining open lane, and now you are moving past the twisted hunk of ruined metal and bloodied glass and back on the smooth whirr of the highway.

a snippet from thomas' dissent in kelo

...Urban renewal projects have long been associated with the displacement of blacks; "[i]n cities across the country, urban renewal came to be known as 'Negro removal.'" Pritchett, The "Public Menace" of Blight: Urban Renewal and the Private Uses of Eminent Domain, 21 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 1, 47 (2003). Over 97 percent of the individuals forcibly removed from their homes by the "slum-clearance" project upheld by this Court in Berman were black. 348 U.S., at 30. Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the Court’s decision will be to exacerbate these effects...

happy pride!!!

for your vicarious clubbing pleasure... here is the essential pride 2005 mix, from the bowels of my mp3 collection. these have all been in airplay/club play in the last six months until now.

kelly osbourne - one word (chris cox club mix)
deborah cox - easy as life (mixshow edit)
inaya day - nasty girl (full mix)
sylver - all this time
shapeshifters - lola's theme
gadjo - so many times (original club mix)
eric prydz - call on me (filterheadz mix)
cabin crew - star to fall (club mix)
vinylshakerz - one night in bangkok (vinylshakerz french xxl mix)
new order - guilt is a useless emotion
dj armin van buuren - shivers (rising star remix)

note: yes, i realize that these songs are more likely to appear on the "queer as folk" soundtrack (i think a couple of them are, actually) than "the l word" soundtrack. well, i think the selection of lesbian-oriented music stinks for the most part, so i'd rather listen to uplifting electronic beats (even if much of the lyrics are depressing, but no one is really listening to the lyrics - they're just dancing around, sweating profusely).

boo!

dear working class:

the government can boot you off your homes so that a multimillion dollar corporation can build a megaplex. but don't worry, you'll still get "just compensation." (of course, not as much compensation as you would get if the private corporation negotiated with you directly in the market, but that's just quibbling.) and of course, this is all for the "public good!"

love,
stevens, breyer, souter, ginsburg, kennedy
a.k.a. the "liberal" justices of supreme court of the united states

ouch. :(

i can see wal-mart salivating at this decision...

and now the voice of reason:

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random... The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms." -- Sandra Day O'Connor

oh and remember this part from the medical marijuana case? (gonzalez v. raich)

This case exemplifies the role of States as laboratories. The States' core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens. Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 635, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993); Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 603, n. 30, 97 S.Ct. 869, 51 L.Ed.2d 64 (1977). Exercising those powers, California (by ballot initiative and then by legislative codification) has come to its own conclusion about the difficult and sensitive question of whether marijuana should be available to relieve severe pain and suffering. Today the Court sanctions an application of the federal Controlled Substances Act that extinguishes that experiment, without any proof that the personal cultivation, possession, and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, if economic activity in the first place, has a substantial effect on interstate commerce and is therefore an appropriate subject of federal regulation. In so doing, the Court announces a rule that gives Congress a perverse incentive to legislate broadly pursuant to the Commerce Clause--nestling questionable assertions of its authority into comprehensive regulatory schemes--rather than with precision. That rule and the result it produces in this case are irreconcilable with our decisions in Lopez, supra, and United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000). Accordingly I dissent.

sandra day o'connor, standing up for freedom in 2005! i <3 sandy. please don't retire.

scroll down and check out the columnist's bio ;)

actually, the jury didn't convict, because the state failed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that michael jackson molested that particular boy. "he probably molested him" isn't enough. "he most likely molested other boys" isn't enough. "strong evidence" isn't enough if it doesn't rise to the level of "beyond a reasonable doubt."

and if he were tried in new york, prior bad acts of child molestation wouldn't even be allowed as evidence. in california, it is allowed, and the judge allowed it - even though the judge always has discretion to determine whether the probative value is substantially outweighed by prejudice to the accused.

i really must sleep. evidence sucks.

quick legal blurb

but i'd argue that the written record of these communications should be privileged. (like in new york, as i learned today - where rape counselor-rape victim communications are privileged) federal evidence rules hold the psychotherapist/patient privilege sacrosanct but not necessary the doctor/patient privilege. if this goes to the supreme court, i'd argue that a rape counselor performs a function that is more similar to that of a therapist than that of a medical doctor. although the 10th circuit court of appeals said that she needs to go through the military's judicial process to get it appealed, i'd like to see this go to the supreme court.

i might have mentioned this before but

kelly osbourne's latest single "one word" is so very catchy. i can't even be embarrassed. honestly. very good. i used to work at her record label. the last "album" could not be worse. but this one. so very retro in a berlin sort of way. yes, i know it's *kelly osbourne* but get over it.

gotcha!

top chinatown snakehead convicted. "sister ping," underground crime boss extraordinaire, has been convicted of human smuggling. that's what ya get when you get greedy, hire a street gang to beat people you tricked to come to the united states to scare them into paying smuggling fees, and then throw people into indentured servitude (including prostitution if the restaurant job doesn't work out - retaurant jobs pay less than minimum wage anyway - and you *wonder* why there is such a demand for these workers - the demand is partially driven by storeowners wishing to circumvent the law) for years to pay off the debt. "doing good" and allowing people to achieve the "american dream"? fuck that. there is no "american dream" if you are a de facto prisoner. anyone with half a brain can see through this crap. bye bye sister ping!!!

things in china certainly aren't as good as they can be, but with the opening up of their economy, even factory workers are making enough to save. that link cuts off the rest of the article, but it basically says that she is able to save more than half of what she makes, and she's planning to move on and get a better job later.

surgery

if you've never tried to arrange a complicated, expensive surgical procedure, let me share: it sucks. you just sit around & wait for the offices to tell you what you need, try to arrange for your passport to be updated, figure out the dates your friendly family member or other person can get off from work, try to get the surgeons to agree to work so that you can have your f.f.m.o.o.p. along, find people to care for your cat.

and then there's the nerves. major surgery - you can die. it's a risk, no matter how healthy you are. we don't even understand how anaesthesia works. and you are just waiting for one thing or another, and i'm no good at waiting.

lucky for me i can finally get some crucial surgery done. lucky for me i have time to get into really good physical shape while i'm waiting. lucky for me i have a ffmoop.

so in the end, it's all not that bad.

but it sure is nervewracking. i just want it done. now. wheel me into the operating room tomorrow - i'd be ready if it were possible.

more drooling over my own cookware

cast iron skillet: perfectly browned breakfast sausages with crispy skin. and eggs fry up FAST.

no more ghetto teflon for me!

and the funny thing is... this skillet costs less than most ghetto teflon pans.

i encourage all of you to buy one of the lodge pro-logic line of skillets. my next purchase will be a cast iron grill pan, because, you know... i live in new york, and barbecueing is difficult if you don't have a balcony. and even if you do have a balcony, the person who lives above you will scream at you for letting smoke waft into her apartment. we live like rats out here. in fact, i think the rats here have more space than the humans.

PH34R T3H B4ST B34ST

as the user handled "shaggy" points out, "Who ever said Bast was toothless[?]"

whether we attribute this incident to she of perfume jars or to her southern equivalent, the lady of pestilence sekhmet, either way the henrys better take care from now on. bitch be gettin' her scratch on. as CNN reports,

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (AP) - Police say three lions rescued a 12-year-old girl kidnapped by men who wanted to force her into marriage, chasing off her abductors and guarding her until police and relatives tracked her down in a remote corner of Ethiopia.

The men had held the girl for seven days, repeatedly beating her, before the lions chased them away and guarded her for half a day before her family and police found her [...] "They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest[.]"

now, these lions were doing that girl a huge favour. marriage-by-abduction is, regrettably, common - even the standard, in this area of east africa, as the article also mentions:

"The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where the majority of the country's 71 million people live."

which i doubt i need to explain is a totally horrific notion, though not uncommon worldwide.

we have this notion of cavemen dragging their wives around by their hair, when in fact it is mostly us that are doing this kind of thing.

so i'm warning you: echidne isn't the only angry feminist goddess out there. there's clearly at least one more, and she's active in northwest africa, and she's got the felidae under her thumb. and you should know not to fuck with cats, especially when they weigh half a ton.

i dunno who's pulling for us here in nueva inglaterra, but by habit of ancestry i put my money on the fertile six-titted mother. sure, she swings in the cold wastes of kadath with some creepy associates, but our blue-skinned übermomma will make drums from the skins of her enemies and drinking cups from their skulls.

and that's the kind of god you want breathing raspy into the ears of the madmen when you are a woman trying to walk down a dark alley at night alone. you want her, or the bloodthirsty eye of rî3uw or the ferocious she of perfume jars. you want some firepower. someone who will show patriarchists what matriarchists aren't wussy, "womyn's land" hippy vegetarians. no, it takes will and power to rule, whether you are male or female.

moral of the story: repent now, before the really scary gods get involved.

that's why there are churches, dumbass

quote:

"Even so, there was a strong sense that "the modern educational system in America is a mess," as the Rev. Jerry Vines of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., a leading social conservative figure in Southern Baptist circles, said in an address at the convention’s Pastors Conference.

"In modern education in America, we have dethroned God, and we have deified man," Vines said. "You cannot satisfy the human soul with mere education."

you're not supposed to "satisfy the human soul" at school. you're supposed to learn to read, write and do 'rithmetic. teaching people about God? that's YOUR job, rev. vines... eesh.

missy elliott goes to jamaica

and samples a local delicacy.

star wars haute-couture redesigns

okay, i admit it. i fucking love star wars: the designer edition" even though he didn't do anything clever involving stormtroopers, jawas and their giant transports or the sandpeople. (the sandpeople are my favourite part of the entire series. i'm a strange one, i know, but i love how they honk and wear metal masks all the time.)

The "VW Bug" AT-AT

My Butt Is Wiggling With Joy

... because i am doing the happy i-got-a-raise dance.

i got a raise!
(wiggle-waggle-jump-jump)
i got a raaaaaiiiiiiseeeee!!!!!!
(wiggle-wiggle)
i got a nice faaaaaat raiiiiise!!
(waggle-jump)
over ten percent!
(wiggle)
woo-hoo!

......(wiggle)......

that's it!!!

i'm sick of this crap. another reason why i should think about getting rich... and do it. i hate all jobs. so, just get me one that pays well. with a great vacation package.

okay, yes, i know that *i* will have to get my own ass a job. thanks, i'm up on it.

as much as i find patent law not as sexy as entertainment law, it sure pays well. and gives you lots of time off. and that house sure is sexy.

oh check THIS shiat out... $775,000 for a 12 bedroom, 8 bathroom house on cherry grove?! i wonder what is wrong with the house...

eff, man. i need to pass the bar. asap. or win the lottery...

more about qat

qat (also known as khat, soomaali (somali) qaad, አማርኛ (amharic) chat) is a plant, celastrus edulis, used as a daily narcotic in south arabia and northeastern africa. it is illegal in the united states - i believe i blogged about a huge qat bust made recently in the DC metro area.

so. i was looking for some information online about mocha city, yemen (as opposed to the five million pages about the coffee of the same name) and came across a page with advice about yemen - i want to study arabic there, is it safe for women foreign students, tell me about the history of such-and-such castle because i hear it is the oldest in the world, etc. but one of these questions was, "how do you use qat? what are its effects and how long do they last?" the (anonymously submitted) answer was interesting and wittily written, so i thought i'd share.

Late morning: buy your qat. If you were an average Yemeni this would cost you the best part of your previous day’s wages. There are two basic kinds: branches which come in a large plastic bag, and shorter stalks (about 30cm long) wrapped in banana leaves. The latter are known as rubtas and two should be enough for a beginner.

Then have a good lunch, because you’re not going to feel hungry for a very long time. After lunch, you sit down with some friends and copious bottles of mineral water and start chewing. Start with the youngest shoots. If you’re a vegetarian you should tweak them gently to remove any insects.

how nice of this person to note that you might get bugs atwixt yer dents if you aren't careful, and useful information for those more used to, say, shisha about food.

Nip off the shoots one by one, crush them with your teeth and push them into your cheek with your tongue. You will gradually build up a wad in your cheek (it doesn’t matter which side). The ability to establish a large wad and keep it there for several hours is a matter of social prowess. Some Yemenis, whose cheeks have stretched over the years, can handle a wad the size of a tennis ball.

remind me to not develop this hobby. talk about silly: "i'm more of a man that you are! look at how big my wad is!"

man, is anything untainted by penis fencing in the world?

now, though, comes the part we're all waiting for:

The effects? Well, if you imagine a couple of joints followed by six double espressos you’ll be on the right lines. [...] By now you’ll probably be in the midst of some deep discussion with your friends and you’ll be impressed to find that you’re far more articulate and intelligent than you ever imagined.

As the sun sets, you’ll realise why the Yemenis like to put multi-coloured glass in their windows. After dark, the lights will twinkle as they’ve never twinkled before and you’ll want to touch the stars. By the end of the session you will have (a) thought of a solution to any problem you care to mention or (b) decided that it doesn’t matter anyway.

sweet. imagine: architecture inspired by drug use on a massive scale (one estimate is that 80% of yemenis use qat daily). i am also reminded again of black hawk down, when the commander says, "we'll infiltrate the city in the early afternoon when the skinnys are all fucked up on qaad." (yes, "skinny" was the somali campaign-slang equivalent of "gook", presumably because the local yokels of east africa are notoriously tall and thin - good adaptation for the awful heat.)

but nothing comes without a price, so let's skip down to it:

By lunchtime next morning you’ll be longing for a nap; your mouth will feel sore and the hyperactivity that was in your brain the previous evening may well have worked its way down to your intestines.

eww, ass-hangover. but i'm longing for a nap every morning anyway, so what's the difference there?

i also suspect that, given the ephedrinoid contents of the shrub, the unlucky hung-over might be a little "e-tarded" (ie. stupid, confused and mentally lethargic).

well, i'm not going to be doing qat anytime soon - it's illegal here and i'm not one for drug use anyway, even the legal kinds - but hey. maybe it'll become the next drug craze in america. sounds better than heroin and cocaine innit.

edit: the only post i seem to have made that mentions qat is this one, entitled "tlön, uqbar, orbus tertius".

That Rageful Thing Again

the vicious bitch that lives inside my soul has a bad case of cabin fever. she's not content to seethe with all her borrowed grace _out of sight_. no, bitch wants an audience. she's the reason i have to be careful -- to live as an introvert, to avoid stress, to live quietly and contentedly on chocolate squares and cardamom-flavored lattes. if i didn't endeavor to live that way, she would spontaneously combust because that is her nature. life isn't easy when you have to carry around hazardous cargo in your soul. burning from the inside out is never a pleasant way to go. she has her little ways of letting me know when she's displeased. i undergo what can best be described as emotional indigestion. everything, and i do mean _everything_, makes me so very rageful.

i certainly can't blame any of this on PMS because that came and went, and my mood is not improved. i think i am tired. the thing i've noticed about working full time is that there never seems to be enough time to do everything. i'm not really complaining because i know i'm extremely lucky to have a job i like that pays me enough to survive. i meant to do my laundry this weekend. in fact, i meant to do my laundry last weekend. last weekend, my computer's motherboard and/or CPU were fried, and it took me most of a day to fix that. not to mention that last weekend was miserable. it was one of those blistering, swampy weekends when the rate of domestic violence shoots through the roof, and some guy shoots his buddy dead for drinking the last cold beer. now, i wouldn't actually kill anyone, but because of that vicious little stowaway in my soul, but i might be tempted to gouge out some eyeballs.

until last weekend, i had never actually installed a motherboard and CPU. now, i am truly a badass. before, i wasn't badass enough to really put together a computer entirely from scratch. I always bought the motherboard and CPU pre-installed in a case. i'm right proud of myself for all this, but it did result in the laundry remaining undone. i'm tired after work and doing laundry ranks right under getting a root canal in my list of fun and relaxing things to do after work.

i was really looking forward to doing nothing this weekend, but it was not to be. i also wanted to write a post about the democratic party, progressivism and the pressure from some 'liberals' to backtrack on women's issues. i wanted to pile on with my own reaction to the great daily kos pie fiasco. but there was always something else that had to be done. we had to drive to the mall to buy an airport express to replace our fried wireless router (the second router to be fried). then we had to drive back to the mall to replace it with a wireless base station with a WLAN outlet. although linux is truly bitchin' these days, it does not have good support for wireless technology, particularly USB wireless access cards. it only took me three hours of trawling google to determine there was no simple and easy way to get the wireless card to work.

i had to admit that my feelings towards the 'great revolution' of wireless technology are mixed. the hardware is expensive and it's a pain in the ass to deal with. having two routers get fried in a row hasn't done much to improve my opinion of it. so, i gave emily0 a really hard time about having to spend most of my saturday wrestling with this newfangled wireless crap when i never wanted it in the first place. after having to spend half of the last weekend dealing with hardware malfunction issues i was a really shitty mood at having to spend another huge chunk of my precious, scarce free time doing the same thing the very next weekend. so, em0, if anything happens to our latest wireless setup, you're on your own replacing it and setting it up. although i may sound like an old fogey, i have to say that the old technology requiring wires and cables is cheaper and more reliable, and therefore, it's good enough for me.

i was hoping to have at least a relaxing sunday this weekend, but it was not to be. em0 and i met up with em0's mom and sister for brunch yesterday. em0's sister has a cell phone that looks a whole lot like mine, so course, i took it when we left. yes, sunday was yet another day of going somewhere, coming home, and having to go back to return something. my post about feminism never got written. the laundry never got washed. although i had planned to get my digital camera working under linux again, that didn't get done either. nor did the grocery shopping, or the house-cleaning, or my room-cleaning. man, i'm getting exhausted thinking about all the stuff i didn't do this weekend.

yes, i am in a bitchy and snarky mood. it's monday, i'm at work, and i had a shitty weekend.

the icepresso

ooh! a new way to intake caffeine!

An Icepresso is a shot of espresso served in a champagne glass, chilled to within an inch of its life and shaken till it looks like a pint of Guiness.

sweet. i want one!

thanks, jewlicious!

caption time!!!

oh, this photo could allow you to come up with some good ones [via swerdloff]

i'll start... this one is easy... "mmm... tastes like rice!"

snake chowder

it's time for a recipe from emily zilch.

i've decided to post one i found while eating brunch at my baby sister's house inside soma magazine. the pic below is the accompanying photo from the zine; i found it on their website.

i've not eaten the recipe, but i felt i had to post something to stand up to darling cook emily2's handmade pasta. i hereby present the recipe for snake chowder!

hong kong-style snake chowder

• 1000g frozen skinless snake
• 200g chicken meat
• five pieces chopped ginger

chop snake into short sections approximately 8-10cm long. Heat about 1500ml water, add ginger and snake and boil 45 minutes on a low heat.

remove snake meat and add the chicken to the broth. boil the chicken in the broth for 15 minutes; while it is boiling, bone the snake meat and shred it.

when the snake meat is prepared and the chicken is finished cooking, add the snake back in and salt to taste.

serve!

miracles happen.

i am convinced that the amount of quality sex one gets is directly proportional to one's g.p.a.

i decided to quit flipping out about my grades and to just CHECK THEM for cryin' out loud.

the first thing i saw was that my cumulative g.p.a. had miraculously jumped up over 0.1 points during my final semester, so when i scrolled down to see my final semester grades just to see if i was trippin' there it was... only one B (i don't even know how i managed a B in that class - my level of preparation for that class was at best, pathetic) and four other grades that were, um, higher than Bs.

holy crap. i didn't really change any study habits this semester (in fact, i studied harder last semester), so it really must be the sex.

law school grades are arbitrary. if you plan to go to law school, keep this in mind.

get out of my little toe!!!

well, if yer gonna do an exorcism anyway, this is a less dangerous way of performing an exorcism.

em0's bookshelf

currently on my library bookshelf:

1. Meroitica 11-13 (1989-92)
2. Meroitica 10 (1989)
3. Gender, Cult & Culture in the Ancient World from Mycenæ to Byzantium: Proceedings of the Second Nordic Symposium on Gender & Women's History in Antiquity, Helsinki 20-22 October 2000 (Studies in Mediterranean Archæology & Literature 166, 2003)
4. The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African & Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage
5. The Book of Idols: Being a Translation from the Arabic of the Kitâb al-A9nâm by Hishâm b. al-Kalbi
6. The God Dagan in Bronze Age Syria (Culture & History of the Ancient Near East 19): BL1605.D33 F45 2003
7. Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit & Israel: Continuity & Change in the Forms of Religious Life: BL1625.F35 T66 1996
8. ʻImma, ou Rites, Coutumes & Croyances chez la Femme Juive en Afrique du Nord: DS135.A25 R68 1990
9. Contes Berbères de Kabylie: GR353.2.K33 S28
10. Colonial Histories, Post-Colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, A North African Heroine: GR353.B43 H36 2001
11. Women in the City of the Dead: GR355.W38 1992
12. À la Croisée des Études Libyco-Berbères: Mélanges Offerts à Paulette Galand-Pernet & Lionel Galand: PJ2343.A2 1993
13. Essai sur la Phonologie du Proto-Berbère: PJ2343.K67 1999
14. The Semitic Languages: PJ3021.S46 1997
15. A Syntactical Study of Verbal Forms Affixed by -n(n) Endings in Classical Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, El-Amarna Akkadian & Ugaritic: PJ3041.Z49 1999x
16. Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine 1000-586 BCE: PJ3079.G37 2004
17. Sex & Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature: PJ4047.L45 2003x
18. Egyptian Proper Names & Loanwords in North-West Semitic (SBL Dissertation Series 173): PJ4127.M83 1999
19. Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription (Harvard Semitic Studies 32): PJ4150.Z5 H84 1987
20. Ritual in Narrative: The Dynamics of Feasting, Mourning & Retaliation Rites in the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat: PJ4150.Z77 W75 2001
21. Women, Gender & Language in Morocco (Women & Gender: The Middle East & The Islamic World 1): PJ6074.S25 2003
22. The Qur'an, Style & Contents (Formation of the Classical Islamic World 24): PJ6696.Q73 2001x
23. Bedouin, Village & Urban Arabic: An Ecolinguistic Study (Studies in Semitic Languages & Linguistics 18): PJ6709.C33 1992
24. The Arabic dialect of Sūsa (Tunisia) (Orientalia Gothoburgensia 4): PJ6770.T8 T34 x, 1980
25. The Phonology & Morphology of Arabic (Phonology of the World's Languages): PJ6781.W38 2002
26. Jewish Life in Arabic language & Jerusalem Arabic in Communal Perspective: A Lexico-Semantic Study (Studies in Semitic Languages & Linguistics): PJ6809.J4 P53 2000
27. Afroasiatic Linguistics, Semitics & Egyptology: Selected Writings of Carleton T Hodge: PJ992.H63 2004
28. Selected Comparative-Historical Afrasian Linguistic Studies in Memory of Igor M Diakonoff (LINCOM Studies in Afroasiatic Linguistics 14) : PJ992.S46 2003x
29. A Grammar of Wambule: Grammar, Lexicon, Texts & Cultural Survey of a Kiranti Tribe of Eastern Nepal (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library – Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region 5/2): PL3801.C44 O63 2004
30. Thai: An Essential Grammar (Routledge Essential Grammars): PL4163.S64 2002
31. Cambodian Linguistics, Literature & History: Collected Articles: PL4321.J33 1993x
32. Modern Spoken Cambodian: PL4323.H83
33. The Dvaravati Old Mon Language & Nyah Kur (Monic Languages Studies 1): PL4333.D54 1984
34. Vietnamese (London Oriental & African Language Library): PL4374.N427 1997

insanity.

[update: whoops, em0 already posted this. but i'm going to go on a tangent.]

priest crucifies nun, claiming she was possessed by demons and that the crucifixion was "justified." however, he admitted that he faced excommunication as well as prosecution, and was seeking a "good lawyer."

speaking of insane... could he get off the insanity defense according to new york law (sorry, but the free exercise clause of the first amendment isn't going to help him)?

NOTE: I KNOW THIS HAPPENED IN ROMANIA. JUST HUMOR ME FOR A MOMENT.

since i am studying for the bar, i will write a barbri-style essay on this topic, so it will appear that i am hard at work.

The first issue is whether the priest may be charged with first degree murder?

Under common law, murder is an unlawful killing with "malice aforethought." New York classifies first degree murder as intentional murder with certain special circumstances. One of these "special circumstances" is if the defendant committed a torture murder.

Here, the priest intended to kill the nun, and he gagged the nun and nailed her to a cross to die a slow and painful death. This is a "torture murder." [Update: HOLD ON... after reading emily0's account below, it seems that the priest only intended to perform an exorcism. if death is essential to a successful exorcism, then he still has the intent necessary for first degree murder. but in the event that exorcism doesn't require the killing of the subject, he can still be convicted of murder... albeit second degree... under the felony-murder rule. in the execution - no pun intended - of the exorcism, he abducted the nun, who died before her safe return, thus committing first degree kidnapping. an act qualifies as an abduction if the victim is hidden in a place where she is not likely to be found. also, he can be convicted of second degree murder in the "highly reckless muder" category.]

So the priest may be charged with first degree murder if, in his eyes, exorcism requires death to be successful. But he can only be charged with second degree murder if exorcism doesn't require death.

The second issue is whether the priest can successfully raise the insanity defense.

Insanity is an affirmative defense in New York, where the defendant needs to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence. New York uses a combination of the M'Naughten Test and the Model Penal Code test for insanity. The M'Naughten test is as follows: At the time of his conduct, the defendant, by reason of mental disease or defect, lacked the ability to either (i) know the wrongfulness of his actions or (ii) understand the nature or quality of his actions. The Model Penal Code test is as follows: The defendant, by reason of mental disease or defect, lacked the substantial capacity to either (i) appreciate the criminality of his actions or (ii) conform his conduct to the requirements of law. In New York, the test is as follows: A person is not criminally liable for his conduct if, at the time of the conduct, by reason of mental disease or defect, he lacked capacity to (i) know or appreciate the nature and consequences of his actions or (ii) that his conduct was wrong.

Here, the priest appreciated the nature and consequences of his actions. He knew that, despite his claims that his actions were "just" from a religious standpoint, he knew that the nature and consequences of his conduct would result in him being prosecuted, excommunicated and that he would need a "good lawyer." And the fact that he thought that he may be excommunicated, that proves that he knew his actions were "wrong." He can't claim that he thought it was proper by church doctrine if he knew his actions might result in excommunication.

Hence, using the insanity defense would be futile.

YOU MAY ALL GO BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM. thank you.

[Actually... ASSHOLE PRESIDENT, if you're out there, you get the question: May the other nuns be charged with first degree murder? Second degree murder?]

wait, there's more

okay, so the roman catholic church stepped up their hypocricy.

The Vatican condemned the bill, which if also passed by the Spanish Senate, will make Spain the first European country to allow homosexuals to marry and to adopt children. The head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council on the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, denounced the legislation as profoundly iniquitous.

When Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero took office over a year ago, he made it clear he intended to remove what he called the Church's undeniable advantages and make Spain a secular state. Mr Zapatero has indicated that he also intends to streamline divorce law and even to relax the conditions placed on abortion.

Opinion polls suggest that a majority of Spaniards support the gay marriage and adoption bill.

The march has been organised by the Spanish Forum for the Family (FEF), a lay Catholic group, whose slogan for the march is "The family is important. For the right to have a mother and father. For liberty".

what kind of fucking ridiculousness is this? what is this shit? the church is culpable for so many sins and they have the temerity to not only turn around and push this, they also are going against the very wishes of the majority of spaniards.

man, i hate religion.

witch-burning

people wonder why i loathe religion. well, they need only enjoy such pick articles of the day such as the following: crucified nun dies in exorcism?

A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent, Romanian police have said.

Members of the convent in north-west Romania claim Maricica Irina Cornici was possessed and that the crucifixion had been part of an exorcism ritual. [...] On Saturday a priest and four nuns were charged in connection with her death. [...]

Police say the 23-year-old nun, who was denied food and drink throughout her ordeal, had been tied and chained to the cross and a towel pushed into her mouth to smother any sounds.

and what was her problem?

Local media reports that the young woman had arrived at the remote convent three months before, having initially gone there to visit a friend and opted to stay. She grew up in an orphanage in Arad, in the west of Romania.

Mediafax news agency said Cornici suffered from schizophrenia and the symptoms of her condition caused the priest at the convent and other nuns to believe she was possessed by the devil.

so, a woman suffering schizophrenia came to a nunnery, and found it a place of refuge.

and then her new sisters murdered her because - because of her illness.

and the best part? those fuckers don't recognise they did anything wrong.

Father Daniel, who is accused of orchestrating the crime, is said to be unrepentant. "God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil," AFP quoted the priest as saying. "I don't understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this. Exorcism is a common practise in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests," Father Daniel added.

unbelievable. and we suppose the church to be a source of knowledge?

does anyone actually feel surprised at this after learning about how the church behaves regarding child molestation and the rape of female catholics, lay and ordered alike, by ordained catholic deacons, priests, bishops and cardinals?

all of this continuing under the ægis of papa j-p "unh me so holy, unh unh me so holy, me love you longtime", our latest candidate for sainthood.

pink & green

my mom just got herself two kittens, and tho it aren't friday no more, this is friday cat blogging, so get over it.
.
the one with the green collar is shadow, the one with the tongue sticking out (whose collar is pink) is pip.

too cute. even i can't resist kittens that cute.

i made homemade pasta

all right... boil some spinach - 1 cup to 1.5 cups

then take it out when it's soft. either food process it with an egg, or chop it all up into tiny little pieces and mix it up with an egg.

throw in 1/2 teaspoon salt and mix it up.

start putting in flour until it makes a nice dough - 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cup.

knead for a bit and let it sit for like 20 minutes.

then roll it out until it's anywhere from 1/16 inch to 1/8 inch.

boil for 7-10 minutes.

all pics by notoriousbhc.

oh god...

LET IT GO. let the woman rest in peace.

just for the record, if i am lying in a persistent vegetative state... do NOT, i repeat... do NOT plaster my drooling face on national t.v.

that would be disrespectful and just plain wrong. making my droopy-eyed, slack-jawed face available to the public WHEN I HAVE NO WAY OF CONSENTING is enough to make me want to shoot myself prematurely.

back in your face!

"back in your face!" is an arabic proverb you say when some moron spits on the sidewalk. turn the evil coming out of someone's mouth back onto them.

and, for the sake of all that is good and pure and enlightened in the world, let us all now say out loud, "BACK IN YOUR FACE!"

because they can't stop spitting on our street, and i don't want to catch their tuberculosis.

in today's paper:

Refusing to give up on the Terri Schiavo case, Gov. Jeb Bush has asked Pinellas prosecutors to sort out time discrepancies Michael Schiavo has provided regarding the hour he found his wife unconscious 15 years ago.

State Attorney Bernie McCabe has agreed to review the time elements in the case, his chief assistant, Bruce Bartlett, said Thursday.

you have got to be fucking kidding me. you can't be seriously demanding this?!? shut the fuck up. no, really. shut. the. fuck. up.

Michael Schiavo has said he called 911 immediately after finding his wife collapsed on the floor of their home on Feb. 25, 1990. Though medical records indicate he called 911 about 5:40 a.m. that day, he told the Medical Examiner's Office recently that he found his wife about 4:30 a.m.

The detail fueled suspicions by Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, that Michael Schiavo had some wicked connection to their daughter's collapse and may have delayed his call for help.

"I think this is a very troubling gap in time," Schindler attorney David Gibbs III said Wednesday. "Michael Schiavo needs to step forward and explain."

Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, said if he did give a different time than previously, it was simply a mistake in recalling a detail of an event 15 years ago.

"I think it's preposterous and ludicrous that if Michael did say 4:30 or 5 or something like that, that there's any issue," Felos said. "The opponents of Terri Schiavo's wishes are intent on creating a controversy in this case where none exists."

unbelievable. i'm reading today's paper and this is the shit i see.

i'm incoherent with rage. these stupid bastards are completely fucking unable to take responsibility, to be wrong. they can't be wrong. they are so unable to deal with the fact that they were wrong that they are trying to get michael schiavo, who went to nursing school and never divorced his comatose wife, to get the death penalty for her murder.

because you know that's where this is going, don't you? there's no expiration date on a murder charge.

not only that, the autopsy specialist who prepared the report for the governor indicated that terry would have been deceased if michael's recent tongue-slip really were true - it was obviously a mistake in memory because of this.

but they can't take it. she wasn't abused, as they claimed. she wasn't put into a coma because of abuse either, as they claimed. and now they can't let this poor fucking man get on with his life and mourning. no, they need to go after him because they can't handle being wrong.

damnit, this makes me mad enough to spit.

i am.

the narcissist/egomaniac in me approves

and it helps we share the same last name. i have no idea who this is, but excuse me as i go to demagogue boot camp. and for the record, i think i would hate her, but only because there can only be ONE ME!!! ;) 0=)

Congratulations emily2, you are...

'Xia Xue' Wendy Cheng of xiaxue.blogspot.com

You are a goddess/god. You've got the looks, the brains and the body. You have such an irreverent sense of humour, people listen to you religiously and worship the ground you walk on. On the other hand you can also be straightforward, blunt and very very controversial. That has the potential to offend many people, but of course you don't care, you just shoot. In the end, people either love you or hate you. Nothing in between.

Which Singaporean Blogger Are You?

i had to buy it

i just bought one of these. oooh! aaahh! a new school take on old school cookware. i would have bought the original and seasoned the pan myself, but unfortunately, every time i turn on my oven, my cantankerous smoke detector starts screaming "fire! fire!" and "detecting carbon monoxide!" i'm not kidding -- my landlord installed a state of the art talking shrieking smoke / carbon monoxide detector in every unit in this apartment. i'm glad to know that i will never have carbon monoxide poisoning as long as i live here or die in a freak fire, but still, i like to cook in peace!

oh, and i will be cooking pancakes, cornbread, and jalapeno/goat cheese scrambled eggs in this thing over pride weekend. get ready!!!

em zilch is...

congratulations, emily0, you are...

... scarlett ting of joewei.blogspot.com!

you are independent, smart and beautiful. it's too bad you don't see that yourself because life's little difficulties brought down a lot of your self confidence. as a result, you talk cryptic and you don't trust people easily. you care a lot for your friends and your loved ones, sometimes even more than you care for yourself, although they don't always seem to appreciate it.

don't let that affect you. as the saying goes, you don't miss the water till the well runs dry. so hang in there, you're a star in the making.

now it's your turn - take the test and find out which singaporean blogger you are.

a much-needed linguistic pornography text

back a while ago i mentioned i were reading fatima sadiqi's sexy-ass women, gender & language in morocco. well, i managed to get my filthy baboon-paws on her grammaire du berbère (ISBN 2-7384-5919-6) and my life may now be complete. it describes the dialect/language of the aït hassan imazighn, a group living near marrakesh in morocco. it's not an easy thing to try to learn, at least for native english speakers - i suspect perhaps native speakers of a semitic language would have an easier time with the emphatic consonants, laryngeals and pharyngeals. like maghrebin arab dialects, most berber languages have only three vowels, unmarked for length; what in ancient times were long vowels and diphthongs have retained as [a], [i], [u] and all others have been lost. thus we have the sentence:

idda hmad s ssuq yawid atay
"Ahmad est parti au souk & a apporté du thé".

but now let's review the breakdown of this sentence:

i dda hmad s ssuq i awi d atay
il est-parti Ahmad au souk il a-apporté ici thé.

that's right, kiddos. there are word-initial consonant clusters - there's even a verb kk "passer" and a verb ssh (geminated [sh]) "manger". here's another doozy of a sample sentence:

tqqn tflut
"la porte s'est fermée" (the door is closed). two words, one vowel between them. and the difference between the causative and non-causative verb is the prefix -sh, which can assimilate:

kshm 'enter', shkshm 'to make enter'

nz 'to sell', znz 'to make sell'

and my current throat-gargling favourite, zh3l 'to do', zzh3l 'to make (to) do'.

that's right. that's a zh as in rouge followed by an 3ayn and an l, as compared with TWO zhs, 3ayn and i.

yeah, so it's right up with there the native languages of the northwest coast. only without the tones. (damnit!)

abb's take on the mj trial

the only sane thing i've read about this media circus

on that note...

this guy is "principled" to the point of losing touch with reality, history, and common sense. ever hear about the time when harvard, a private institution, used to exclude jews and catholics? should jews and catholics have pulled the "hey, freedom of association, man" and backed off, going to boston university - a "nicer" and more "inclusive" private institution - instead?

people are free to change the rules and attitudes within private institutions as well, by whatever means are legal. why doesn't the, um, libertarian in you simply allow this couple to do what they wish, and mind your own business? think about it... unless you're part of the crowd "premised on propagating the Vatican line," it really is none of your business.

Hard Work

nod to commenter dannyinla at political animal:

Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., accused President Bush of lying to the nation about a war which has consumed tens of billions of dollars and claimed more than 1,700 American lives -- including the life of Army Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan.

Sheehan was one of more than a dozen activists who were scheduled to speak at yesterday's anti-war rally at the Red Mile, which was organized by the Clergy and Laity Network and co-sponsored by dozens of liberal religious organizations.

Sheehan ridiculed Bush for saying that it's "hard work" comforting the widow of a soldier who's been killed in Iraq.

"Hard work is seeing your son's murder on CNN one Sunday evening while you're enjoying the last supper you'll ever truly enjoy again. Hard work is having three military officers come to your house a few hours later to confirm the aforementioned murder of your son, your first-born, your kind and gentle sweet baby. Hard work is burying your child 46 days before his 25th birthday. Hard work is holding your other three children as they lower the body of their big (brother) into the ground. Hard work is not jumping in the grave with him and having the earth cover you both," she said.

more ...

i just set off my smoke alarm

by making blackened catfish. despite the fact that my neighbors probably want my head on a stick and the fact that the spice container explicitly told me not to cook the recipe indoors, the effort was worth it.

there is nothing better in the summer than catfish filets dipped in butter and blackened on both sides with cajun spices on high heat. eaten with a cold bottle of beer.

em1, remind me to bring a cast iron skillet to fire island, so can make said recipe over a grill... outdoors.

the fact that the interior of my room looks like the los angeles or beijing horizon -- that is just a minor issue.

torture is bad

okay, i know torturing people isn't funny, but parts of this transcript is telling of the state of popular music today:

Dripping Water or Playing Christina Aguilera Music: After the new measures are approved, the mood in al-Qahtani’s interrogation booth changes dramatically. The interrogation sessions lengthen. The quizzing now starts at midnight, and when Detainee 063 dozes off, interrogators rouse him by dripping water on his head or playing Christina Aguilera music.

proof that listening to christina aguilera is torture.

spring

lissen, it's spring, i've just seen saving face, i'm desperate for something sensual and mindbending and posthuman.

and then i remember a certain piece of fiction, jury duty, by the inestimable cory doctorow (of bOING-bOING fame) and charles stross.

He stumbles for the loo, struggling to keep the alien song inside his chest, lips clamped tightly shut. He has an enormous, painful, rock-hard erection and he thinks wildly of auto-erotic asphyxiators who blow their loads in ecstatic writhing as their oxygen-starved brains stage endorphin-fuelled fireworks displays on the backs of their eyelids. He is certain he is dying. He falls to his knees on the rubber tiles of the lav's floor and begins to retch and weep.

He feels a tentative hand caressing his shoulder and he turns his head. Through a haze of tears, he recognizes Bonnie, her eyes smoldering with barely controlled lust. "You're so fucking transhuman," s/he says, and clamps her mouth to his, ramming her tongue in almost to his gag reflex. She pins him to the yielding tiles and straddles him, grinding her/his crotch against his.

it's a wild, wild story.

thank god. it hit the spot that needed hitting.

it's also free. go read it, and enjoy the brain-melting, erotic, insane fabulousity of a future truly alien to our own.

mm, genders and sexes we've barely imagined. mm, future shock.

S1XX0R

ya mliyat u hnriyin! right now it's 0100 and i'm still awake. damnit. so i'm posting about how i'm ill.

i went to the doc today for the first time in years for reasons of illness - i mean, i go regularly for checkups & sychlike, but today i have an official illness. i've got a eustacian tube infection on the left. that means, basically, an earache. but it sucks, it's a sucky earache. it's day four now of earache, but at least the rising tide of nausea seems to have been stemmed now that i'm on antibiotics. it was so swollen between my sinus and ear that my jaw wouldn't close properly: the teeth on the left didn't meet when i tried to shut my mouth. yuck.

here's hoping i'm better soon. in the meantime, i'm watching terrible movies because my ear hurts and i can't seem to sleep. (unlike every other living thing in this house: two roomies and two cats.)

This Post Will Be Offensive and Gross

last monday, i decided to try running on the treadmill at the gym. when i signed up at the YMCA a little over a month ago, i was not able to jog for a full mile without stopping, much to my dismay. i decided to use the elliptical trainer and the rowing machine for a few weeks to improve my cardiovascular fitness. on monday, i tried jogging at 5 mph to see how much i'd improved. to my surprise, i handled it quite easily.

i was really enjoying the lightness of my feet and the fact that i was not gasping for breath. about six minutes into my jog, i realized i needed to take a shit. really badly. because i'd been running, the urge to vacate was accompanied by abdominal cramps. meanwhile, to my horror, i realized i didn't know where the bathrooms were. it's a ten minute walk to my house from the Y, maybe longer if i'm doubled over with the shit-cramps.

i foolishly continued to jog for a little while longer, hoping that it would just all go away, because i hate getting started on a workout and then having to stop. eventually, the shit-cramps got bad enough that i decided to forsake the treadmill and go in search of a toilet. frankly, i had begun to fear that a few of those nasty, wet pre-shit farts would blow out my ass while i was running.

so, i started exploring the medieval maze that is the central square ymca. i think i visited every single space in that building except the bathrooms. i walked up some stairs and then down some stairs and back again. by that time, i couldn't stand to wait for the elevator. i was afraid i'd drop my load if i didn't keep moving. finally, i decided to ask someone at the front desk. the most annoying thing about the layout of the central square Y is that NO ONE, and i mean NO ONE can give you directions to anything in that building.

the front desk woman asked me if i knew where the women's locker rooms were. by that point, i was pretty sure that i wasn't going to escape the situation without a nice, fresh skidmark on my underwear. for the life of me, i couldn't figure out why she thought i knew where anything was since i was asking *her* for directions. that building must defy the descriptive power of human language because she didn't even bother to try and give me directions to the locker room. it was at that point, after wasting precious seconds with the chit chat about the damned locker rooms that she bothered to inform me that there was a bathroom around the corner.

moral of the story? take a shit before you go jogging.

is pee kosher?

i was reading a jewlicious discussion today on jewish dating & encountered another Great Moment In Male Interactions With Women. i myself have had some excellent experiences with men coming on to me in the most amazingly inappropriate manners (as detailed herein at w4d), but this one beats me for sheer amusement.

in a discussion there, a woman handled "chutzpah" reports,

I find all these labels very humorous and I think the Frumster people take their job of cubbyholing people way WAY too seriously. What would they label a guy who lives in Teaneck and keeps Kosher and Shabbos but wants you to pee in his mouth during oral sex? [...] and it really bothered me because he wouldn’t let me order the non-kosher wine at the non-kosher restaurant we went to (he had plain salad). I guess pee is kosher if comes from someone he keeps kosher? Don’t know.

you can read about her dating experiences on her own website, chutzpah & the suburbs. but all i have to say is, wow. that's some problem there. you keep strict shomer kashrut and shomer shabbat, but you engage in watersports?

stunt city

now that is a good commercial: stunt city.

speaking of irony...

well, here's chutzpah for you. an israeli journalist had a piece submitted under a pseudonym to maariv, an israeli newspaper, that was a brilliant fucking send-up of warmongering, violence and the use of force. and got fired.

wanna know why? and wanna copy his style and submit variations of his letter to american newspapers?

this piece was published in the chain of local magazines published by the israeli tabloid maariv. it appeared in october 2003, and was written under the name "a. schickelgruber". maariv missed the irony, not realizing that "adolf schickelgruber" was the birth name of adolf hitler; nor did they notice that the text consisted of a bunch of quotes from "mein kampf" and other hitler speeches and writings pasted together. after realizing what they had done, they sacked the columnist who wrote the piece, yehuda nuriel.

you gotta read the piece as published - it's on an antizionist website i frequently disagree with, but when you read the article, you'll see why no-one caught it for ages.

because this is the kind of shit people feel safe saying out loud, even though it's fascist jingoism. and i'm talking about the united states, not israel, when i talk about politics.

i feel a letter-writing campaign coming on. who else can we mine for hideous speeches and then use to expose the repuglican agenda for what it is?

signs of the times

here's how you know your president sucks donkey balls: by analysing what news reports report as all-time low approval ratings for the president in comparison to those from israel regarding the removal of jewish settlers from the occupied territories.

a larger percentage of israelis support removal of jewish settlements from occupied palestine (which is currently moving forward again) than the percentage of american citizens who currently support bush.

israel:

Recent opinion polls suggest a fall in support for the withdrawal plan among Israelis, with one survey by Israel's Channel 2 television registering an all-time low of 48%.

bush:

Opinions of George W. Bush are at or near lows for his presidency, according to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. Bush's 46% approval rating is just one point higher than the low of his term, and his ratings on the economy, Iraq, and Social Security have never been lower. Only 4 in 10 Americans say they agree with Bush on issues that matter most to them, and just a bare majority says he has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.

that's right, folks. the citizenry of israel are more supportive of the return of palestinian land from under the homes of jews than the citizenry of the united states are of their own president.

yeeeee-HAW! W3 R T3H 1337!

5ives

since i haven't read it in a while, here's two sets of "5ives"

Five words Madeline would just as soon I stopped using for a while
1. orthogonal
2. notional
3. sciolist
4. functionality
5. janky

Five terrible fake congressional honorifics
1. The distinguished cocksmoker from that hellhole, Mississippi
2. The obsequious bootlicker from Virginia
3. The exalted pederast from Kentucky
4. The noisome harpy from California
5. The fat-assed blowhard from that one flyover state

i find the congressional honourifics special.

usa travel for em2

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

where em zilch has been in the entire world

i've been to half the states (49%) of the US but only visited 7% of the world.

make your own map of world travel here.

by the way, that little dot in the middle east was a layover in the united arab emirates.

where em zilch has been.

create your own visited states map here.

w00t!

J.D. = Jolly Drunk

(ran upstairs from the reception to blog. how sad.)

anyway, be afraid.

i have betrayed ginmar.

when posting about the Great Pie Incident, i missed listing the very first commentator to whom i ran for brilliant insight. which is unacceptable.

so i'm making a special post to link to ginmar because i realise i missed her. if you happen to read this blog - sorry, ginmar.

welcome to the new confederacy

man, i just can't believe this crap still goes on.

Higginsville, Mo. - As the rebel battle flag flapped above the Confederate Memorial Historic Site in Higginsville for the first time in more than two years, Lonnie Miller watched Sunday's ceremony with pride.

"It's not a symbol of racism to me," said Miller, 62, of Kirkwood, whose great-grandfather, Alonzo W. Slayback, was a Confederate officer and whose daughter-in-law, Berryl, is black. "It's a horrible period of history and it needs to be remembered like any other period of history."

hm. if the confederate flag isn't a symbol of hate, then why do native-grown terror organisations and racist thugs always use it as their calling card? why, at cross-burnings, does it appear?

"The Irish, the Scottish, the Italians, the Jewish, the African-Americans have their special festivals," said Jim Beckner, 61, of Raymore, Mo., who organized Sunday's ceremony. "This is one day to honor our Southern heritage that ran through our Southern blood."

come again? if this isn't about racism, then how come you just listed a large percentage of the population of the american south at the time of the civil war as being specifically excluded from this? did i miss something when i learnt in school that many southern soldiers and prominent leaders of the confederacy were jewish, like judah p. benjamin, or that the only jewish-specific military cemetery outside of israel is the burial site in richmond (virginia) for confederate jews dedicated in 1866 by the 'hebrew ladies memorial association'? or that thousands of jews fought for the confederacy in the trenches of some of the worst battles of the war - perhaps some 3000 died in combat on the southern side.

i would decry any simple reading of "southern heritage" as "white, anglo-saxon immigrant slave-holding culture".

and those who support the flying of the flag, one of the most divisive images of the last 150 years for americans, can't have their cake and eat it, too. the irish, the scottish, the jewish and the african-american communities were part of the confederacy, and it's either a sign for southern remembrance or it's a sign of intended racial tension. make a fucking decision, people - you can't have it both ways.

and it's pretty clear to me what the phrase, "this is one day to honor our southern heritage that ran through our southern blood" means when you are excluding ethnic groups present as part of the old south from that heritage.

In Higginsville, Civil War re-enactors wearing battle uniforms and 19th-century-style dress carried Confederate flags and marched into the cemetery to the tune of "Dixie," played by a string trio. Descendants of Confederate soldiers led prayers, sang songs, read the names of their ancestors aloud and honored their ancestors by laying red carnations across the stone monument flanked by about 600 stone gravestones. The graves were adorned with smaller Confederate flags stuck in the ground.

and burning crosses stuck in the yards of black, gay, immigrant and interracial families later that evening.

that's just wrong, people. wrong with a capital creepy.

Blunt's action sends the wrong message by lending credibility to Confederate ideology, puts state government in a position of becoming an "agent of terror" and runs counter to the ideals of President Abraham Lincoln and the history of the Republican Party, Crumpton said. Blunt is a Republican.

"We're not trying to say that Americans should not honor their dead or not revere their heroes," Crumpton said. "The government should not be apart of it. If these individuals want to honor their dead, then that's their business. We all live under one flag. We just had Memorial Day and that's what the state should be supporting."

and in rebuttal:

"Each of us has the right to honor families as we deem properly, and Missouri and American history from our own perspective," spokesman Spence Jackson said.

because white is right.

the best part? the flag was banned in 2003 from flying in missouri by governor's order because it was too divisive an image given the unnaturally long memories of missourians, who fought on both sides of the american civil war in organised units. even in missouri there were native-born unionists in sufficient numbers that the state was the most divided of all those existing at that time.

why do people feel an overwhelming need to stir up the most bitter historical conflicts in their daily lives? read the sign, byotches:

N O D R A M A

thanks, all hat, no cattle.

yeah.

what he said

the great pie fiasco.

kos can't take criticism to save his life - and yet he's done shoved his size twenny shoe in his size sixteen mouth agin. (note to observant reader: yes, both is big for said part, but you know what they say about men with big feet and men with a big mouth? they trip a lot, either their own words or their own steps.)

this time, kos's managed to infuriate 90% of the female kossacks and a very large number of people who have only occasionally visited the daily kos.

here's the deal: TBS runs this offensive ad for their new "reality" show, which is the incredibly horrific the real gilligan's island. the ad - which has two versions, one of which is 'mature' in content - is visible here, but i'll give you the scoop: the show's maryanne and ginger stage a pornorific pie fight and wet t-shirt contest, wrestling in a highly suggestive if clearly acted T&A fest of remarkable proportions. the intended sexual contact is very high and voyeuristic, but as a lesbian i can honestly tell you those two are breeders if anyone is - there's zero sexual spark happening there. in short, it's the scene in the straight porn when the two straight women are waiting for the male lead to show up to show them what a good time really is. (you, the viewer, are supposed to imagine yourself as said person, see?)

anyway, some feminists, presumed by all to be women but i don't know that's necessarily true, took great umbrage at their progressive site running egregious T&A ads in the sidebar. and kos' brilliant response?

So over the weekend, certain segments of the community have erupted in anger over the TBS ad for their reality show, the Real Gilligan's Island. Apparently, having two women throw pies at each other, wrestle each other in a sexy, lesbianic manner, then having water splashed on their ample, fake bosoms is degrading to women. Or something like that.

Whatever. Feel free to be offended. I find such humorless, knee-jerk reactions, to be tedious at best, sanctimonious and arrogant at worst. I don't care for such sanctimony from Joe Lieberman, I don't care for it from anyone else. Some people find such content offensive. Some people find it arousing. Some people find it funny. To each his or her own.

But I am not Lieberman. I won't sit there and judge pop culture and act as gatekeeper to what I think is "appropriate", and what isn't.

And I certainly won't let the sanctimonious women's studies set play that role on this site. Feel free to be offended. Feel free to claim that I'm somehow abandoning "progressive principles" by running the ad. It's a free country. Feel free to storm off in a huff. Other deserving bloggers could use the patronage.

Me, I'll focus on the important shit.

p.s. And congratulations -- the more people have bitched about the ad, the more successful it has become. It is now the most successful ad in the history of this site, with close to 8,000 click throughs over the low-traffic weekend. And, now that you have demanded I respond to the ad, thousands more will click through to see what the big deal is all about.

Sometimes, the best way to kill something you disagree with is to ignore it.

Update: Hmm, after considering the early feedback, it seems most people didn't have a problem with the ad, but had a huge problem with my sweeping generalization of the "women's studies set".

It's a fair critique, and duly noted. I stand by everything else written, which is offensive enough to some people as is. But I honestly didn't mean to smear anyone who has ever taken a women's studies course, or majored or minored or gotten an advance degree in it. Just what is, to me, a small, extremist set looking for signs of female subjugation under every rock. So yeah, a poor choice of words that cast the net far too wide to cover the people that have, in fact, pissed me off.

Sorry about that, but not sorry about my broader point -- that being sanctimonious about this ad is no different than the sanctimony we decry from people like Lieberman, Dobson, and the Family Values Coalition.

Daily Kos :: Permalink :: Trackback :: Discuss

wow. that's, um, wow. some people have more intelligent things to say about this than i can muster: i recommend the ever-insightful echidne of the snakes (very excellent), creek running north's sweet riff (replacing "latino" for "woman"), pandagon's comments and finally but especially feministe.

in related news, some feminist kossacks have also decided to organise a site because women are being ignored (as usual) by the democrats and kos: women kossacks is new but maybe it'll take off. i hope it does.

Sun Dreams

the northeast is a faithless, cruel, head-gaming bitch sometimes. hot and cold. wet and dry. her love is mercurial, undependable, and... inexplicably irresistible. those entranced by it suffer through an endless, punishing death of cold that persists for nearly five months out of every year.

april and may are hard months. it's always cold at night, and it's often cold in the day. there are many torrential downpours of rain blown sideways by umbrella-crunching wind. frequently, surprise monsoons arrive on a bright, sunny day without warning. they obliterate the sun and flood everything within minutes before disappearing just as quickly.

right now, i'm dreaming of days when heat radiates from the ground and the air is something you could swim in. it puts an instant sweat on a cold bottle of beer which feels heavenly if you rest it against your cheek. the evenings and nights are alive with people and movement, when all the cool breezes are a welcome mercy after the listless heat of the day. that's the only time in the whole year when a 7-eleven slurpee tastes good.

the best part is throwing open all the windows and doors and leaving them that way for weeks. i like all the whirring fans placed strategically throughout the house, running day and night. i relish the light that lasts past eight o'clock at night. being able to have an espresso at a cafe sidewalk just about any time of the day definitely counts for something. after a life of trudging from one small enclosed space to another, the immediacy of the world is a welcome change.

i no longer mutter, "i hate this. fuck this. this sucks." under my breath as i step out the door. i started thinking about growing things and that old frustration at not having a garden washes over me. as a compromise, i found a relatively empty area in the yard we share with two other apartment complexes and planted four onions because it seemed cruel to chop them up and eat them after they sprouted spontaneously in my kitchen.