WWJD?

15 year old alabama resident Ava Lowery has been producing her own short web videos for nearly a year. recently, she created a video titled WWJD. some fine, up-standing american citizens have been sending her death threats and hate mail for daring to suggest that Jesus might have a problem with the war in Iraq.

oops, i did it again...

i guess he couldn't get enough of that oxycontin...

queer eye argument

how about an aesthetic argument: they're just prettier, and you can have garden parties!

Mormons are New Hampshire in this Metaphor.

You know how they say, "Connecticut is the New Hampshire of Southern New England", and vice-versa?

Anyway, they do, so fuck off.

So I was punking around daß Intarwubs, and I realised, "The Baha'i are like the Mormons of Islam."

Which makes them Connecticut BTW.

Fuck off, rite? It's late and I still have medical experiments to conduct on myself, plus I want espresso and chocolate. So just go on with yourselves. It seemed clever, so shut up.

exclamation for no good reason

lacoste wilts next to the original penguin. i work next to the original penguin boutique in nyc. i can't stop buying their clothes. they actually make polo-style shirts interesting. and their new line is way too cute to resist. HELP!

official site
online original penguin outlet

skate skate skate mo'focker!

1 skate wing, 0.75 lbs - split in half
milk
flour
capers
serrano chile pepper
shallot
salt
pepper
lemon
dry white wine
parsley

submerge skate in milk for 1/2 hour

meanwhile, slice half of chile in very thin slices - discard other half or save the rest for another dish

dice shallot, use 1 tbsp

chop around 1 tbsp parsley

ready the flour for dredging

dredge skate in flour, shake off excess. season both sides lightly w/ salt and pepper

put butter (or spread) in cast iron skillet, heat until bubbling.

put one skate wing in skillet - cook both sides 2.5 minutes until slightly browned. put on plate. repeat with other skate wing. put on plate.

deglaze pan with wine. put in shallots. reduce by 1/2. put parsley, capers, more butter, and a squeeze of lemon juice in. heat one minute more.

pour over skate.

Autonomy=Aphrodisiac

the sheer amount of cheap pop psychoanalysis i could marshal against the Dobson religious right using this is deliciously provocative.

great legal minds?

one of today's threads on a young attorneys' board. okay, i'll admit i posted the gas-ex question. :)

The existence of cricket matches in Chelmsford 38K years before the hijra is not a problem for us.

Best argument ever.

Perhaps one of the most interesting questions which modernity poses to traditional religion has to do with divine providence amid a world which is now unimaginably more ancient than our ancestors suspected. There is no dating by numbers in the Qur'an or the Hadith, but medieval Muslims typically thought that the world was about five thousand years old. Now, whatever view we may take of Darwin, we must accept that our species is tens of thousands of years old. Recognisably human remains have been recovered, and reliably dated by radiocarbon methods, which show the antiquity of humanity - unless we are, by misunderstanding the logic of piety, to deny scientific evidence entirely. In 1997 the world’s oldest cricket bat was dug up in the county of Essex (of course). It is recognisably a bat, designed for some form of game, and is apparently 40,000 years old. Our theological question would therefore be: if Essex Man, in time out of mind, had the self-awareness and the humanity and the sophistication needed to play cricket, surely he was also a creature accountable to his Maker. In other words, the story of salvation is much, much older than we ever suspected. To claim that humanity had to wait for most of its history before learning about its source and destiny requires an intolerable interrogation of the divine justice.

Now, this antiquity of our species fits in with Islamic salvation history very elegantly. The hadith indicates that there have been 124,000 prophets. The Qur’an says, Wa-li-kulli qawmin had - ‘for every nation there has been a guide’. The existence of cricket matches in Chelmsford thirty-eight thousand years before the hijra is not a problem for us: homo religiosus existed then, just as did homo ludens, and presumably had access to a chapter of revelation which has since disappeared.

Sweet. "The existence of cricket matches in Chelmsford 38K years before the hijra is not a problem for us..." Best line ever.

The rest of the article sucks, though. Don't bother.

filet mignon in cabernet reduction

yeah i know it sounds frouffy, but you can find beef and wine at reasonable prices at your neighborhood butcher / discount wine shop.

serves 1 - my gf is out of town.

1 cut filet mignon - around 1.25" thick, a little under 1/2 a pound
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup beef broth
1 tablespoon diced shallot
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp chipotle chili rub (equal parts salt, pepper and chipotle chili powder)
1 tsp butter (of if you're health-conscious, low fat spread)
1/2 tsp cornstarch (add to a little water so as not to make it stick or clump later)

rub the rub on both sides of steak. spray some cooking spray on a cast iron skillet and heat on high until it smokes. drop butter in skillet and right as it melts, put steak in. sear 3 minutes each side. set aside. turn down heat. add shallots, toss for a few seconds. then add beef broth, wine, sugar and a little more rub to taste. reduce to 1/3 cup. turn off heat. add cornstarch mixture - make sure it doesn't coagulate. turn the heat to low until sauce bubbles.

pour over steak and serve.

A Spring Night

Our Yard at the Franklin Street Hilton
Cambridge, MA
April 26, 2006

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Written in Pencil in a Sealed Boxcar
by Dan Pagis
Translated by John Felstiner

here in this transport
I am Eve
with Abel my son
if you see my older son
Cain son of Adam
tell him that I

Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Book of Yolek
by Anthony Hecht
Wir haben ein Gesetz,
Und nach dem Gesetz soll er sterben

The dowsed coals fume and hiss after your meal
Of grilled brook trout, and you saunter off for a walk
Down the fern trail, it doesn't matter where to,
Just so you're weeks and worlds away from home,
And among midsummer hills have set up camp
In the deep bronze glories of declining day.

You remember, peacefully, an earlier day
In childhood, remember a quite specific meal:
A corn roast and bonfire in summer camp.
That summer you got lost on a Nature Walk;
More than you dared admit, you thought of home;
No one else knows where the mind wanders to.

The fifth of August, 1942.
It was morning and very hot. It was the day
They came at dawn with rifles to The Home
For Jewish Children, cutting short the meal
Of bread and soup, lining them up to walk
In close formation off to a special camp.

How often you have thought about that camp,
As though in some strange way you were driven to,
And about the children, and how they were made to walk,
Yolek who had bad lungs, who wasn't a day
Over five years old, commanded to leave his meal
And shamble between armed guards to his long home.

We're approaching August again. It will drive home
The regulation torments of that camp
Yolek was sent to, his small, unfinished meal,
The electric fences, the numeral tattoo,
The quite extraordinary heat of the day
They were all forced to take that terrible walk.

Whether on a silent, solitary walk
Or among crowds, far off or safe at home,
You will remember, helplessly, that day,
And the smell of smoke, and the loudspeakers of the camp.
Wherever you are, Yolek will be there, too.
His unuttered name will interrupt your meal.

Prepare to receive him in your home some day.
Though they killed him in the camp they sent him to,
He will walk in as you're sitting down to a meal.

Bubonic Plague in Los Ángeles

Bin away again, but I'm back in black:

LA Woman Hospitalized With Bubonic Plague, Alicia Chang, AP Science, 18 Apr 2006

LOS ANGELES: A woman was hospitalized earlier this month with bubonic plague, the first confirmed human case in Los Angeles County in more than two decades, health officials said Tuesday.

The woman, who was not identified, was admitted April 13 with a fever, swollen lymph nodes and other symptoms. A blood test confirmed she had contracted the bacterial disease. The woman was placed on antibiotics and is in stable condition, officials said.

Bubonic plague is not contagious, but if left untreated it can morph into pneumonic plague, which can be spread from person to person. Bubonic plague is usually transmitted to humans from the bites of fleas infected by dead rodents.

You may wonder about the bubonic plague - didn't it do bad things in the middle ages? Wasn't there an Edgar Allen Poe story about this?

Yes, and yes.

Bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe between 1346 and 1351.

more.

Incidentally, the estimates of Europe's death tolls are higher when you realise this was a third of the population that died in a five-year span. Wikipedia notes,

In addition to its drastic effect on Europe's population, the plague irrevocably changed Europe's social structure, was a serious blow to Europe's predominant religious institution (the Christian Church), resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews and lepers, and created a general mood of morbidity that influenced people who were uncertain of their daily survival to live for the moment.

Wonder how HIV will affect the world in, say, 10 years?

Promoting the Feminist Agenda

wherein i link the thirteenth Carnival of Feminists, hosted by I See Invisible People. i have linked The Carnival of Feminists blog on the blogroll. there is a new carnival every two weeks, so check in regularly for information about future feminist blogfests. i would like to single out Sage's submission at Persephone's Box (now also linked in the blogroll). given my recent bloggeredly obsession with troll-fighting, it is a timely and relevant link. in her submission to the Carnival, she takes down the oft-used technique of equating anger in a woman, especially a feminist one, with mental illness.

update: i would also like to draw attention to the other theme in Sage's post. i also have a friend who developed a mental illness, and Sage's experience resonates with my own experience with my friend.

Playing With Trolls

when i last left you hanging, dear readers, the troll, resorting to the tired old third rule in the Debate Manual For The Tiny-Dicked Army Of People Who Are Threatened By Angry Feminists, called me a bitch. i guess he was a little sensitive about being called a coward for hiding behind a fake handle he created just for the purpose of trolling me. he clearly didn't know that i wear the big 'B' badge with honor. it's one reason i bother to engage with trolls such as these. i feel that i've won once i've goaded one into using a derogatory term for women because it reveals them as the sexists they are. he crossed a line with that post and a silent bystander outed him with a followup to that comment:

So "spacebaby" is your real name, is it, bitch?
Posted by: Don P on April 13, 2006 at 11:12 PM

this was a surprise to me. Don P was a handle i recognized immediately. then, i remembered reading a thread some weeks ago in which several other regular participants discussed the theory that Charlie, Political Animal's most well-known troll, had stolen his handle. i reviewed the thread and thought that it was entirely possible that the troll could have been Charlie all along. to say the least, we hate each other. sometimes, i verbally abuse him for my own amusement in the meanest possible way. i've totally gotten on his bad side, which is exactly where i want to be. i wrote my reply before running off to google Political Animal for the thread where i saw the Charlie==Don P theory [lightly edited as usual]:

"i provided a list of examples ... "

You didn't provide any evidence.

it's your responsibility to follow the controversy. follow Kevin's link, and you will read about women having *all* prescriptions from a particular women's health clinic refused, including prescriptions for antibiotics and vitamins. if you can't bother to do even that much, get lost. it's not my responsibility to handhold you through the basic steps of reading the post and the referred materials. i even went to the other blog and read that comment thread and the article about the pharmacy in question. did you?

you could also read the rest of this thread for more information about other real life examples that have been the subject of previous discussions here about refusal clauses. since you asked, i shall provide links:

Claims established via Kevin's post, Professor's B's post (linked in Kevin's post), and the article that sparked this discussion:

All prescriptions from a particular women's health clinic are being refused at a pharmacy because the clinic provides abortion services. End result:

A woman had a prescription for antibiotics refused.
A woman had a prescription for vitamins refused.

Targets: Women. Women who got their prescriptions from a women's health clinic.

this is supporting evidence for my claim that refusal clauses target women simply trying meet their basic health care needs. the pharmacy in question is attempting to drive women away from a clinic set up specifically to meet their needs.

Birth control pills
EC for a rape victim (and birth control pills and EC for other women as well)

also, check out the first page of results in a google search for pharmacist + refusal + clause -- all links lead to sites assessing their impact on women's access to reproductive health services. if the class of people being denied service were men trying to fill prescriptions to treat health issues related to their reproductive organs, there would be some discussion about that, and it would show up in google's search results.

i guess there must be some conspiracy to hide the fact that these refusal clauses are having a noticable impact on men's ability to get their prescriptions filled.

"stop lecturing ... "

I told you. I'll stop lecturing you just as soon as you stop behaving like a petulant child. If you have a serious, fact-based argument to make, then make it. All you've done so far is call people names and make various wild, unsubstantiated accusations.

you, as a proven troll, are no authority on what is or is not a serious, fact-based argument. you started your 'argument' by personally attacking me because your dainty little eyes couldn't handle profanity on a comment thread at a high traffic politics blog. (get out much?) contrary to your accusations, i didn't single out any specific person for harassment. _you_ did.

you're the one who claimed that creative profanity is 'insane' and 'abnormal'. talk about unsubstantiated accusations and name-calling. as if people who use the word 'fuckwit' are magically transformed into mad and horrific beasts, fit only to be confined in an institution for the mentally deranged and certainly to be deprived of birth control pills if female.

"you can't even use your real name, coward."

So "spacebaby" is your real name ...

it's the handle i use to post here. i'm using my real email address. because i have participated in threads on various incarnations of Kevin Drum's blog since he was on blogspot [CORRECTION: Kevin didn't actually have comments on his blog until he abandoned blogspot for Moveable Type. i have been a reader of his blog since he was on blogspot.], it counts as my 'real name' as opposed to your chosen handle and fake email address which mark _you_ as a troll.

... is it, bitch?

you've been absolutely _dying_ to say that haven't you? you just couldn't stop yourself. i would have to say that your inability to refrain from calling me a derogatory term for women means you lose! bye bye.

after finding the thread where the theory that Charlie had stolen Don P's handle was floated, i came back to leave a parting shot at the troll i now thought was Charlie. i also wanted to apologize to my brother:

hi, Don P, aka 'Charlie.' you are such a chickenshit. now you're stealing the real handles of people who USED to post here?

btw, Yancey, if you're reading, i really *apologize* for mistaking this worthless sack of shit for you. once i realized that the nastiness was real and not a joke i realized that it wasn't you.

when i began monitoring a different thread, i learned that things were not that simple and a lot more than bizarre than i thought.

Playing With Trolls

i'm positive that you've all just been _dying_ for the second installment to the story of my slugfest with the name-stealing troll at political animal. the high level of trolling and parody-trolling in the comment threads there and the explosion of activity on feminist blogs have made me an infrequent participant over the last six months. the first installment of my exchange with 'no pills for spacebaby' is here.

the trolls at political animal are in a class of their own. there is Al. Al now exists only as an astonishingly long-lived parody of a right-wing regular commenter. there are rumors that the original Al died of cancer a long while ago. there's Charlie, everybody's favorite little psycho, whose insanity justifies its own multi-part epic. i couldn't possibly forget to mention Norman Rodgers whose entire routine is a relentless stream of verbal abuse against Kevin. Norman is stupid, so he's boring and not really worthy of any commentary. Patton is an All-Caps nutfreak who is entertaining only because the parody-Pattons are so funny.

i digress. in the midst of my mud-flinging with 'no pills for spacebaby' someone using the handle 'Mandy' posted a meandering, off-topic comment that she didn't like the government telling her what to do because she didn't want to serve aggressive and verbally abusive customers. although her comment had nothing to do with conscience clauses, 'no pills for spacebaby' told me to read her 'thoughtful' contribution to the discussion:

"none of this answers my question -- what is 'crazy' or 'abnormal' about my post?"

I already told you, the whole thing. It's just a stupid rant, devoid of any facts or argument, but full of name-calling.

I suggest you read Mandy's thoughtful post above, calm down, educate yourself, think, try to learn some civility, and then you might in a position to actually post something serious on the issue, instead of just vomiting raw anger.

a boistrous gale of laughter rose from my belly when i read this. a _troll_ was lecturing me about the necessity of civility and content-rich contributions. i also question the unstated assumption that my expression of raw anger was less acceptable than his passive-aggressive kindergarten harassment. i still wonder if 'Mandy' was actually the troll in another guise because her comment was such a convenient tool for trying to change the subject, a favorite troll tactic [typo corrected]:

I suggest you read Mandy's thoughtful post above ...

mandy's thoughtful post includes an unwillingness to serve rude customers. that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, nor does it address the fact that the movement is clearly gunning for customers of one gender only. quit trying to change the subject.

... actually post something serious on the issue, instead of just vomiting raw anger.

i love how you like to pretend that i have not already done this, and you are still being an asshole by using that handle. stop lecturing me about respectful civility until you start behaving with the same. you are not in a position to judge anything about my contributions here because you continue to behave like a troll.

I already told you, the whole thing. It's just a stupid rant, devoid of any facts or argument, but full of name-calling.

if 'the whole thing' is crazy and abnormal, it should be a breeze to pick out specific examples. i'm still waiting on those.

the troll's response was an exercise in incredible obtuseness. trolls will often play at being deliberately obtuse to get you to repeat your arguments over and over again. comparing me to a rude customer would have been relevant if my rant had actually been directed at a flustered, inoffensive pharmacist. i reserve the right to ream the shit out of one who sanctimoniously denies my prescriptions. refusal clause legislation might protect the pharmacist from being fired, but it does not protect him or her from my reaction to an unwarranted attempt to butt into my personal business:

"mandy's thoughtful post includes an unwillingness to serve rude customers."

She didn't say that. She refuses to serve really obnoxious assholes who call her names or threaten her. Seems reasonable to me. Given your behavior in this thread, you seem pretty likely to fit that description yourself.

"... the movement is clearly gunning for customers of one gender only."

What movement? What evidence do you have to offer that this alleged movement is "gunning for customers of one gender only?"

"i love how you like to pretend that i have not already done this ..."

You haven't done it. All you've done is call people names ("fucktards" was especially lovely) and make various unsupported accusations.

"stop lecturing me about respectful civility until you start behaving with the same."

I'll do that just as soon as you show some sign that you are willing to behave with civility. As long as you continue to behave like a child throwing a temper tantrum, you'll continue to be treated as one.

i wondered how long it would take the troll to resort to the old tactic of calling an angry feminist a 'child' and her reaction to discrimination against women a 'temper tantrum'. it's probably the second rule in Debate Manual For The Tiny-Dicked Army Of People Who Are Threatened By Angry Feminists. trolls also incessantly repeat themselves to draw you into repeating your own arguments over and over just so they can claim (again) that you never made any arguments. they will delicately swoon over your language and prissily lecture you about civility and politeness so much that it's impossible to believe they don't have a permanent broomstick installation in their asses. it's often effective to simply call them it [lightly edited for the usual offenses against the english language and rules of punctuation]:

"mandy's thoughtful post includes an unwillingness to serve rude customers."

She didn't say that. She refuses to serve really obnoxious assholes who call her names or threaten her [emphasis mine]. Seems reasonable to me. Given your behavior in this thread, you seem pretty likely to fit that description yourself.

do you have a reading comprehension problem?

" ... the movement is clearly gunning for customers of one gender only."

What movement? What evidence do you have to offer that this alleged movement is "gunning for customers of one gender only?"

i provided a list of examples, and your choice to ignore them in order to further troll me is not going to make me post them again. either address them or admit that you can't.

"i love how you like to pretend that i have not already done this ... "

You haven't done it. All you've done is call people names ("fucktards" was especially lovely) and make various unsupported accusations.

hi, excuse me, but i am not the topic of this thread. either address the examples offered, or stop this crap trolling. you have singled me out and attacked me personally for expressing a general anger at misogynist pharmacists compromising the health of women, and you're still trying to act like you have a right to demand polite behavior from me. shove it, hypocrite.

stop lecturing until you behave in the manner in which you demand from me. drop your asshole handle, and maybe, just maybe you have a tiny little iota of a right to judge crap all about what i said or how i said it, troll. yes, i cursed. stop acting like you've got a case of the vapors. you've seen a few r-rated movies. get over it.

I'll do that just as soon as you show some sign that you are willing to behave with civility. As long as you continue to behave like a child throwing a temper tantrum, you'll continue to be treated as one.

good god, are you the church lady or something? you are a _TROLL_ who attacked me _PERSONALLY_ for expressing a general anger at _NO SPECIFIC PERSON_, and you're pretending to lecture me on good behavior? you can't even use your real name, coward. you forget repeatedly that the topic of this thread is the latest escalation in the refusal clause war. again, cite _SPECIFIC PASSAGES_ where i offer _SPECIFIC EXAMPLES_ of why it is crap and respond to them, not _ME_.

you are not qualified to judge how civil my response to an attack on women's access to basic health care services vital to their well-being 'should' be. people who support this crap are no better than people who supported racial segregation, and my profanity and anger in response to it is not a childish temper tantrum. it's an appropriate response to a coordinated effort to throw up obstacles to women's access to basic medicine like birth control, vitamins, and antibiotics. notice they were refusing to fill prescriptions from a women's health clinic? they aren't refusing to fill prescriptions for jock itch powder from The Manly Clinic.

drop the prissy schoolmarm act and respond to my arguments because i did make some despite your trolly attempt to pretend that i didn't.

this troll was actually quite tireless. it was extremely difficult to dislodge him from his talking points. one effective means of deflecting a troll is to piss them off. sometimes brute force works, but a good troll-hunter should try to develop more elegant and subtle means of attack. the troll's reply indicated that i finally managed to draw blood:

"i provided a list of examples ..."

You didn't provide any evidence.

"stop lecturing"

I told you. I'll stop lecturing you just as soon as you stop behaving like a petulant child. If you have a serious, fact-based argument to make, then make it. All you've done so far is call people names and make various wild, unsubstantiated accusations.

"you can't even use your real name, coward."

So "spacebaby" is your real name, is it, bitch?

one could certainly say that he dropped the prissy schoolmarm persona. i considered this a real win. not only that, shortly thereafter i discovered that i had some supporters. one of them outed the troll after he called me a bitch. that's when things became _really_ interesting. while i had been away, Political Animal's Troll Hall of Fame had acquired a new member.

More Evidence That The Political 'Pro-Life' Movement Is Just Fascism By Any Other Name

a bill has been introduced in ohio that would make it a felony for a woman to cross state lines to have an abortion.

Daily Kos, Online Bastion of Liberalism

one of our favorite right wing shills, ms. malkin, is clearly in the wrong here. however, i am depressed that within an hour or two one poster said that she needed the duke lacrosse team treatment. another poster actually took the time to post a link to his blog announcing that he had called her a 'cunt' in a post.

now, someone please explain to me why the 'rape culture' is a myth? these attitudes were voiced by so-called progressives.

Playing With Trolls

a few days ago i descended into the comment threads at Political Animal. i haven't been there much over the last six months, and i didn't actually go there with the intention of mudwrestling with any of the platoon of trolls that regularly rotates in and out of there. however, i did have the audacity to post an angry feminist comment in response to a post kevin wrote about the latest asshattery of the Pharmacist's Rights [to discriminate against women] movement. getting angry and expressing it with cusswords being the greatest possible offense a woman, especially a self-identified feminist woman, can commit, the comment immediately drew the attention of a particularly tenacious and nasty little troll.

a pharmacy in Seattle has decided they are 'morally' unable to fill any prescriptions from a women's health clinic that provides abortion services. they turned one woman away who had a prescription for prenatal vitamins and another woman who had a prescription for antibiotics. to put it simply, i've had it with conservatarian arguments about respecting the 'freedom' of pharmacists to practice their profession 'as they see fit' when it is increasingly clear that the 'freedom' in question is the 'freedom' to discriminate against female customers with impunity. the comment that lit the fire in my belly was written by someone using the handle 'jibjab':

"never seem to consider that some people live in rural areas where getting to one pharmacy may be a hassle, let alone trying to shop around."

Suppose the sole pharmacist serving a rural community is suddenly told that he must dispense emergency contraception, in violation of his deeply-held moral beliefs, or he will be fired. He decides to quit rather than be forced to violate his conscience. He's been working there for 20 years, and knows all the local people and is intimately acquainted with their health problems and prescription drug needs. Finding a replacement proves impossible.

You really want to sacrifice the health of that community on the altar of your political correctness, do you? [emphasis mine]

the ridiculosity of this moving tribute to the poor pharmacist having to give up his profession because he can't bring himself not to stick his uninvited nose into the private business of his female customers was just too rich. i also find it amusing (and infuriating) that conservatarians think that naming a position 'politically correct' magically delegitimizes it. then there's the obvious strawman argument that the other poster wants to compromise the health of an entire rural community by forcing pharmacies to deliver an equal level of service to all of their customers. not to mention the laughter-inducing image of the poor crybaby pharmacist quitting his job after 20 years, wiping tears from his eyes as god kills a kitten to commemorate this awful occasion.

after that, the hypothetical scenario gets truly ridiculous: the pharmacy can't find a replacement, so the whole community is left without any convenient access to pharmaceutical services. treating women like they have a right to be equally served at a business that serves the public is going to threaten the health of _entire_ communities! those selfish, self-centered women who don't want to be lectured or singled out as morally unworthy of their medications are the problem! it's not the pig-headed asshole [no wait, i mean old, beloved, small-town pharmacist] who objects to filling prescriptions for women managing their fertility in a way he doesn't personally approve.

i was pissed and i opened fire [minor edits for grammatical and spelling errors]:

You really want to sacrifice the health of that community on the altar of your political correctness, do you?

you know what i'm sick of? i'm tired of all the pity, sympathy, and *concern* for those poor business people and pharmacists and their tender, rice paper little souls. when are you free-market, cheer-leading fucktards going to have ANYTHING to say about women who are denied access to a commonly prescribed medication that is part of their BASIC health care needs?

these policies are essentially gender discrimination. women should have a reasonable expectation of being served equally at a place of business that serves the public. i am fucking tired of hearing about the 'right' of pharmacists to be judgemental, moralistic fuckwits by denying women an equal level of service. fuck that and fuck any of you who support that. i hope your mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters disown your bigoted, back-stabbing worthless asses.

free market you say? since when is a market free when half the population isn't being allowed to freely participate in it? oh yeah, i get it. they can 'shop' around in the free, free, free-as-a-bird market full of sanctimonious, panty-sniffing perverts who will refuse to deliver the same level of service they do to their male customers. i can't believe we're even dicussing this like there is even a modicum of ethical justification for treating women like they are second class citizens.

conscience-clause supporters:

please. please find a state where i don't live, take it over, and secede. i'm sick and tired of having to fight tooth and nail just to be treated like an equal member of society. i, as a woman, have every right that any man does to be free of harassment over my private behavior and the measures i take to make that behavior safe and satisfying for ME.

note that i didn't single out any specific poster for name-calling. this rant drew the following comment from someone using the handle 'no pills for spacebaby' and the email address 'no@pills.com':

"spacebaby, You is craaaaaazy lady!"

gee, i've never heard that _one_ before. it's probably the first rule in the Debate Manual For The Tiny-Dicked Army Of People Who Are Threatened By Angry Feminists. if you can't actually refute anything an angry feminist says, just call her crazy! i'll admit that i'm argumentative and don't often let a good battle with a troll go unfought:

"crazy? exactly what is crazy about my post? i'm tired of justifiable anger in response to discriminatory policies being called 'crazy'. it's not crazy. it's normal."

this comment drew the astonishingly mature response:

"spacebaby, you are anything but normal."

in order to determine if i should be insulted or not, i had to find out what this troll thought was normal. it was entirely possible that i should be quite glad not to be 'normal' by his standards. [minor edits for punctuation errors]:

"define 'normal'. did you perhaps have anything related to the topic of the thread or is this just going to devolve into, 'omigod, she's angry so she must be crazy. she is teh suxxor!' no? didn't think so."

the response that followed was so kindergarten that i actually entertained the possibility that the troll was my brother yanking my chain as a joke:

"The opposite of spacebaby."

i began monitoring the sitemeter at political animal to see if the ip address of my brother's employer showed up in the logs at the same time as a comment from the troll. meanwhile, since trolls just _love_ to put the objects of their attention on the defensive with personal attacks, i decided that it was time to turn the focus on the troll and challenge him to back up his claims [typo corrected]:

"so, basically, you have absolutely nothing of substance to say here, and you are totally incapable of providing even the most mediocre entertainment as a troll.

i ask you again, what did i say in my original post that was crazy or abnormal?"

the troll, as is typical, tried to change the subject:

"... nothing of substance ..."

"A perfect description of your 10:06AM post"

i wasn't having that, however:

"A perfect description of your 10:06AM post"

"and what did i say in that post that was crazy or abnormal?"

nevertheless, he proved difficult to dislodge:

"The whole thing is crazy and abnormal."

it was probably annoying for other people who had been reading and participating in the thread. i do have a reputation for hijacking threads in order to fight with trolls after all. i try _hard_ not to do this, but given the fact that troll was SOOOOO trolly and had personally attacked me, i decided to go for it anyway [minor editing for punctuation]:

The whole thing is crazy and abnormal.

why? you graduated from high school, right? you learned how to develop a thesis and provide proof for it, didn't you?

quote specific portions of the post that are crazy and abnormal and explain in a cogent and rational manner why they are proof of insanity and abnormality. you'll also need to provide sourced arguments defining what you mean by 'sane' and 'normal'. Saying something juvenile like "The opposite of spacebaby" doesn't count.

it was at this point that i saw the ip address of my brother's employer in kevin's ip logs, so i thought it was quite possible that he had been playing a prank on me. he has made the conservatarian argument in support of conscience clauses before:

yancey:

if you're playing the troll, stop it. address what i said, or stop yanking my chain. btw, i do take it personally when you get all conservatarian and wax nostalgic about the 'rights' of business to discriminate against members of my gender.

the next comment from the troll was enough to tell me that the hostility expressed in the troll's kindergarten attacks was actually _real_:

"why?"

It's just a long, stupid, name-calling rant. You're not making an argument. You're not citing any facts or evidence. You're just venting.

so, we get to the heart of the matter. i was _angry_ and i used dirty words to express it. call the men in the white coats now! armed with the certainty that the troll was not my brother yanking my chain, i decided to move in for a real engagement [minor editing for typos and punctuation]:

It's just a long, stupid, name-calling rant. You're not making an argument. You're not citing any facts or evidence. You're just venting.

this from someone whose handle screams TROLL. coward.

none of this answers my question -- what is 'crazy' or 'abnormal' about my post? you keep trying to make 'angry' mean a lot of other things. since your entire contribution to the thread has been:

#1: spacebaby,

You is craaaaaazy lady!

#2: spacebaby, you are anything but normal.

#3: "define 'normal'."

The opposite of spacebaby.

#4: "... nothing of substance ..."

A perfect description of your 10:06AM post

#5: The whole thing is crazy and abnormal.[in answer to my question -- "what was crazy and abnormal about my post"]

wow, that sure was on topic. i'm sure there's _something_ in there about refusal clauses for pharmacists who object to filling prescriptions for birth control pills, antibiotics for women whose prescriptions came from a women's health clinic that provides abortion services, EC for women who have been raped, vitamins for pregnant women whose prescriptions came from a women's health clinic that provides abortion services, and i guess whatever else a bunch of sanctimonious, finger-wagging daddies find objectionable.

every single one of these 'refusals' just happens to somehow be related to women's sexuality. oh, how _convenient_! it's practically prurient, and it's an all out attack on access to the products and services and that practically every single woman of childbearing age needs. for me personally (you know, someone who has lived and has to live for the forseeable future as a woman of child-bearing age), this whole mess speaks of an agenda that induces the kind of vomit that will eat through a block of lead. just think of me as the alien, and you'll understand the level of respect i have for this agenda.

i am fed up with the all too common willful blindness to the fact that the refusal clause garbage just always happens to be about refusing _women's_ prescriptions.

now, exactly what did i say that was crazy? i think i just said the same thing i said before with less profanity and anger (see note above about acid and block of lead). if you're whining about my rant, i'd like to ask you to explain why a pharmacist's refusal to fill a prescription for antibiotics for a woman who got it from a women's health clinic that provides abortion services is not rant-worthy? how much 'delay' is politically and socially acceptable to you for a woman to face in filling a prescription for antibiotics?

if she had a surgical abortion, it's actually _really_ important for her to be on antibiotics. the abortion in this case has already happened. the refusal to provide antibiotics to a woman the pharmacist thinks has had an abortion is clearly not about preventing abortions. it's about treating a woman suspected of having an abortion like a pariah in a way that compromises her health. what is 'crazy' or 'abnormal' about profanity, anger, and name-calling in response to this? frankly, i find your lack of a similar reaction appalling.

are women to face a future where their access to health care services for their reproductive organs will be steadily, inexorably relegated to the equivalent of the 'colored' clinic at the edge of town with bullet-proof windows and escorts to help them fight through crowds of screaming nutballs? this whole refusal clause movement is about funnelling women towards a few, identifiable providers so it's easy for the really crazy people to find them and harass them.

petty harassment from pharmacists is just the start. over ninety percent of american women use birth control over their lives. it's a basic and fundamental means for women to take control of their lives. throwing up obstacles to filling prescriptions for it by throwing them at the mercy of the pharmacist's moral opinion is not a minor inconvenience. again, what's crazy about my reaction to this? at least it was on topic.

your sum total on-topic contribution is your handle 'no pills for spacebaby' and your email no@pills.com. essentially, you're offended by my rant, and your response is to snidely declare me unfit for the right to easy access to birth control. that makes you a troll and no one qualified to lecture anyone about name-calling or meaningless rants.

you certainly didn't elevate the conversation much with your response to a natural, if not rhetorically brilliant response to this maddening, infuriating, willful blindness to the misogynist agenda behind the refusal clause movement. sorry if you can't see it, but i guess only your personal experience of life matters. no need to consider anyone else's, especially if it's not exactly like yours and totally not if they're angry or upset about your total indifference to it.

i don't think i've ever encountered a more persistent troll. the little fucker just wouldn't give up. that's how i knew i _really_ had pissed him off. once you have a troll pissed off, it's usually not difficult to draw them out into making a complete ass of themselves. but, the troll had already obliged me by making an ass of himself, and he wasn't broken. yet.

Fantastic Post

go read piny's post on the inner reality of being genderqueer at Feministe.

hm...

great. i'm going to my parents' house this weekend. check out the shit that's flying out in omaha.

now, i'm sure all of this looks bad from the outside. but i'm familiar with the workings of the omaha school system, and i'm going to put in my two cents on the matter.

the omaha city school system, not the "rich" suburban schools in the millard district, has the best high school in the region, central high school. read the wikipedia description. my parents MADE SURE my sister was bused to central high school, which has the best teachers and the best AP program. my parents are obsessed with education. the millard school district just didn't cut it academically. and the other high schools in the omaha public school system weren't all that great either. to my parents, the academic programs at the other high schools weren't rigorous enough, and the students were lazy. the millard buildings looked nice, and the students had nice cars, but the atmosphere was too relaxed and leisurely. the other high schools in the omaha system were also crappy. my parents wanted to live in the nice western omaha neighborhoods, but they didn't want to put my sister in a mediocre high school, so they demanded that my sister was bused to the city, specifically central high school.

here is a photo of central students. central high school is located in the yellow region, where the population is mostly comprised of african americans.

(also, check out omaha north, also in the yellow region.)

perhaps the african american congressman wanted the best programs for the people he represented. why share resources with other schools when your school has the best program? yes. that's right. the best program just happens to be in the "inner city."

this isn't about segregation as we know it at all. this is about allocating resources, and the african american congressman didn't want to share the wealth with the stupid kids out west. :) let's call it "reverse segregation."

as to the millard parent that was quoted, what an idiot. he obviously puts a premium of social snobbery over education, so fuck him. he's stupid, and he wants his kids to be stupid. there are parents like my mother (and my ex's parents) who want the option of busing their kids to central high, so they won't be stupid. (and the other option is spending over $10k a year on bromwell talbot, a private school.)

KEEP BUSING for crying out loud!

anyway, things aren't what they seem...

only in new york...

...will people be unable to save children from abusive parents but will assemble an entire army of people, including cat psychologists, to extract a cat from a building - who refuses to come out.

hehe

well, from the gay daughter of a kerry-voting biochemist whose specialty is gene therapy, i say poo poo! happy good friday anyway.

now, let me off of work early and pay me some holiday pay! i want to go and eat some of momma cohen's matzo balls.

matzo meal #2

okay first the salmon, because fish is good. throw a salmon steak into poaching liquid - i used water, onions, peppercorns, salt, dill, parsley, lemon slices, kosher wine. and heat until just cooked through. very easy. very tasty. very healthy.



okay, see that? it actually looks appetizing. prepare matzo wrapper (see post below). then boil some spinach and then squeeze out the water. chop into little tiny pieces. sliver some shiitake mushrooms and saute with diced onion. combine spinach, mushroom and onions with some dill, parsley, goat cheese and egg white. season with salt and pepper. combine well.

now lay the filling on top of the matzo wrapper. fold over one corner until it makes a nice triangle. brush the outside with more egg white and some olive oil. sprinkle a very small amount of salt over outside.

bake in oven at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.

(the egg white and olive oil on the outside of the matzoh will make the end product resemble a real pastry shell.)



mmm.

if you think matzo is gross

you just don't know how to use it as an ingredient.

okay, people. if you're eating matzo plain and complaining about its blandness, then you need to look at matzo as part of a whole meal rather than an individual separate piece. passover doesn't mean having to eat jelly on plain matzo for lunch every day. it doesn't mean a week of eating cardboard. if you are, you're just not being creative.

if course, i'm a gentile, and i find cooking challenges exciting. passover to me is a chance to get creative with limited ingredients. i understand that passover means a whole lot more to my girlfriend, but i'm speaking from an agnostic, non-jewish, obsessed-with-the-food-channel perspective.

matzo shouldn't even be a challenge. matzo is like pasta. pasta by itself is bland. this is why people pour sauce all over it or stuff it with cheese and meat. if there were an iron chef matzo challenge, mario batali and cat cora would kick everyone's ass, because in essence, matzo is analagous to pasta and greek pastry shells in so many ways.

okay, so let's make this simple. what do we do with other bland foods such as dried pasta, phyllo dough, won ton skins, dried beans, or rice? first, if it isn't pliable or edible to begin with (like dried pasta/beans or rice) we make it nice and soft with water. then we add other ingredients like sauces, vegetables, herbs, spices, etc.

matzo is stiff and brittle. so we soak it with water until it is pliable, preferably to al-dente consistency. this can be achieved by running a matzo board under a faucet for a few seconds and then placing it between two wet paper towels for 10 minutes.

see? it's no longer useless cardboard. now you can make lasagna and a whole host of meals out of it.

anyway, here's a recipe for matzo quesadillas. don't laugh. tortilla skins are bland and unappetizing by themselves. how is matzo any different? you don't eat tortilla skins or moo shu skins plain. you use them as wrappings. water-prepared pliable matzo is an excellent substitute.

2 pliable matzo wrappings (see above)
1 summer squash, cubed
1 zucchini, cubed
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 small onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, chopped
1 tomato, cubed
sprinkle of chipotle chili powder
sprinkle of regular chili powder
salt
black pepper
1 oz brie
1 oz goat cheese

(caveat: listen if any of this isn't kosher enough - and don't give me shit about how my touching it isn't kosher - that isn't the point of this post. i don't want to hear it. my point is that matzo isn't a useless stand-alone food that sucks and has no redeeming qualities. in fact, quite the opposite.)

heat some olive oil in a skillet. soften the garlic. then add the onion, squash, zucchini and pepper. add both chili powders, salt and pepper. cook until soft. remove from heat and mix in the tomatoes and cheeses.

brush one pliable matzo board with olive oil and place in skillet. add quesadilla filling, and fold one side of the matzoh over the filling. heat until slightly browned on one side. then flip over and heat the other side.

serve with salsa or guacamole. wee!

Cornershop Flashback

Wanted to post these lyrics today. I was inspired by reading about Asha Gill. My girlf - a Jewish hapa - and I were discussing how half-Asians are, like, an ethnic group, which isn't true of other halfbreeds except for the Michif.

The lyrics are from Cornershop's 1997 release, "Brimful of Asha", the name of an Indian band named for the Zoroastrian term asha (modern Persian ærd) "cosmic harmony, universal order".

There’s dancing behind movie scenes
Behind the movie scenes, Sadi Rani
She’s the one that keeps the dream alive
From the morning past the evening
To the end of the light

[refrain:]
Brimful of Asha on the 45
Well, it’s a Brimful of Asha on the 45
Brimful of Asha on the 45
Well, it’s a Brimful of Asha on the 45
[/refrain]

And dancing behind movie scenes
Behind those movie screens, Asha Bhosle
She’s the one that keeps the dream alive
From the morning past the evening
To the end of the light

REFRAIN

And singing illuminates the main streets
And the cinema aisles
We don't care about no government warnings
'Bout their promotion of a simple life
And the dams they're building

REFRAIN

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow
Everybody needs a bosom
Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow
Everybody needs a bosom
Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow
Everybody needs a bosom
Mine's on the 45

Mohamed Rufhi (45!), Lata Mangeshkar (45!)
Solid State Radio (45!), Fer-guh-son Mono (45!)
Bonn Publeek (45!)
Jacques duTronc and the Bolan Boogie
The Heavy Hitters and the Chichi Music
All India Radio (45!), Two-In-Ones (45!),
Argo Records (45!), Trojan Records (45!)

REFRAIN

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow
Everybody needs a bosom - mine's on the 45

77,000-Piece Orchestra Set
Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow
Mine’s on the RPM…

Yay, Cornershop.

Scooter Judas

irony, much?

[hat tip to Al Rodgers at daily kos]

immature monday wake up freak out

if i ever saw this tank-top wearing, roots-showing, stone butch on the dance floor, i'd RUN THE OTHER WAY!!! OMFG!!! good thing the picture is only from the waist up, because whatever she must have been packing something fierce that day!

HAPPY MONDAY! (sorry for the fearsome visual aid - i know it's not halloween, but YOU PEOPLE ARE ASLEEP AT YOUR DESKS!!!)

WTF???

government lawyers tried to seize the gold teeth of accused drug dealers.

[from jill at feministe]

civ iv opening song

EPIC! TOTALLY!

right click and download. NOW! NOW! NOW!!!! yeah, even you people out there who have no idea what i'm talking about.

okay after playing a couple hours of this game i have decided that even if your computer fails to play it, it is totally worth it to buy a new video card in order to play it.

and check it out, civilization fanatics... EXPANSION PACK TO BE RELEASED THIS SUMMER!

(on another note: it looks like some people actually build their own computer systems in order to play this game. EXTREME!)

you really can't make any of this shit up...

double agents!

okay, but that a look at that guy... i mean, HELLO!!! he looks like someone who would whack a guy, wrap the body up in tarp, get into a lincoln town car, and dump the body in a marsh in queens. or maybe it's just me.

Difficult Grandmothers

yes, i know. my analysis of the south dakota report is way overdue. i have a programming assignment to complete, and i'm unexpectedly emotionally drained from visiting my maternal grandparents last week. i am profoundly ashamed that i did not keep in touch with them after i left home for college. my grandmother is a difficult person, and that's partly why i haven't seen or spoken to them very much. the other major reason is that it's so very hard for me to imagine a world without them because they were always such a loving and steady presence in my life.

ten years passed in the blink of an eye, and now i have this guilt for wasting all that precious time because they deserve so much better from me. i used to make fun of my mom for extolling that 'family feeling' when i was a cynical adolescent, but i understand what she meant now. i had nearly forgotten the easy and genuine love my mother's family has for us and that makes me ashamed too. i wish they more easily expressed that love towards my grandmother. i can't stop wondering how much of their behavior is due to her personality and how much of her personality is due to their behavior, which is usually rather dismissive.

my grandfather made the offhand remark before i left that it probably would have been best if my grandmother had died in the automobile accident that killed her sister and practically crippled my grandmother nine years ago. i didn't know what to say. i feel like the whole family is waiting for her to die and that she knows it. something in me wants to leap up in anger and yell at them to be kinder and more compassionate to someone who is obviously suffering so much. that ugly little thought has settled into the back of my mind where it is worrying at me, feeding the guilt i have for not doing more to let her know that i love her and that i am glad she lived.

there is only one word to call them:

thugs.

(addendum: actually, i have one more word - whoops!)

is it just me, or does this look exceedingly bad? anyway, if duke expels him, and he returns to new jersey, can we deport him to pennsylvania?

and the shit continues to hit the fan.

update: and more whirling blades chop into feces.

the DA should hurry up. no thanks to the media for rushing out of the gate before DNA results came out. from what i hear from high school friends back in the triangle, the tension is pretty fierce. either way the DNA tests come out, more shit will hit the fan.

you can't even make this shit up...

* shakes head *

byob list

are you a first year attorney in new york city working at a small firm? didn't graduate in the top 10% of your class? making $35k to $50k a year in the new york metropolitan area with $150k in loans?

can't even afford a beer at a dining establishment?

here is a list of restaurants in nyc where you can bring your bottle of night train or colt 45 while you scrape for change in your back pocket to afford an appetizer.

cheers!

(addendum: yes, there are lawyers making $35k a year in nyc. my coworker just left my project for such an offer, and a friend of mine was offered $35k a few months ago, and he passed. no, it is not especially uncommon.)

wtf

another reason why chapel hill / carrboro rules:

1 | 2

they're part of the REAL orange county.

that's right. UNANIMOUS, bitches. UNANIMOUS. in the election year (2004) when democrats were too scared to do or say... well... um... anything. and chapel hill decided to go the extra mile and tack on "gender identity" and "gender expression" on an anti-discrimination ordinance as well. oh and check the date on this little domestic partnership thingamajigger right here. that says 1995, not 2005. (fact: jesse helms was still senator back then.) i was still a teenager in 1995.

if two little towns in the middle of red state north carolina has the cojones to affirmatively and unilaterally push for gay rights in the middle of a risky political climate, why can't the democratic party grow a set of balls?

what, scared of offending working class minorities? oh yeah, check out durham county. still chicken?

sorry, but this just annoys the hell out of me.

harvard expands financial aid program

if your family makes less than $60k a year, you attend for free. last year, the ceiling was $40k.

this is definitely a step in the right direction. if you get into a top college, you should be able to attend. period.

actually, if i had i my way, going to the top colleges should be free for everyone. and there should be no legacy admissions, no affirmative action, and no athletic recruitment. then we'll have a true (academic) meritocracy.

i don't know if i remember correctly, and maybe my parents just made it up, but my dad said the taiwanese educational system is a system based on merit. if you get the top scores, you get into the top colleges, and you get to go for free - regardless of your background. he came from a humble background, and he got into the best university in taiwan. he went for free like everyone else. my mother didn't do so well on the entrance exams, so she ended up having to pay tuition at an okay university. (these facts might be slightly wrong, but it's what i recall from a conversation i had with them when i was seven or eight or so.) and i guess if you did crappy on your exam and you're faced with going to a crappy university with a high tuition, it might make you think twice about investing so much time and money. like a gentle, "hey, maybe academics isn't for you."

even if academics isn't your strong suit, you can still be as cool as ang lee.

In high school, the stakes were higher for Lee. He was studying both for academic success and family honor. His father was also the school's headmaster.

Lee applied himself in school, but he kept up his interest in the arts. He drew comics and sang soprano in the choir, said his younger brother, Lee Kang, who works in TV production and film distribution.

But Lee flunked his college entrance exams twice -- a colossal disgrace for his family and a failure that dooms many young Taiwanese to mediocre careers.

"The only purpose of life was to get into college. Because our father was the principal, the other people in his social circle were principals, teachers. There was indirect pressure. They would ask, 'What colleges did Ang and Kang get into?"' the younger Lee recounted.

Lee recovered by passing an easier exam that got him into the theater and film program at the National Arts School -- a vocational school, not a full-fledged university.

see, now, academics isn't everything. getting an A in applied physics won't get you an oscar. :)

ENIGMA MACHINE!

For the next two days, you can bid on an honest-to-god Nazi Enigma 3 Walzen Chiffriermaschine Chiper Weltkrieg 1941 - an Enigma Machine, a real one from wartime! Just go here for the English version of the page.

I've set up a photo montage of all the pictures from the eBay page here for your viewing enjoyment.

Kudos to b01NG-b01NG for this phatness.