JABbering Stooge

They’re talkin’ ’bout
The night Althouse went crazy
The night Althouse spewed pea soup
To get out of bein’ called on her bullshit
There’s no depth to which she wouldn’t stoop

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be trivializing the subject I’m about to rant about by putting it to “Weird” Al Yankovic lyrics, but there it is.

Yes, I’m going to be talking about the Ann Althouse vs. Garance Franke-Ruta dustup. In particular, I wanted to discuss one aspect of the Jessica Valenti Breast Controversy™. What really gets my goat about the whole exchange is that she seems to think that it’s okay for her to hyperventilate over the slightest criticism of her over-the-top ad hominem attacks on legitimate feminists for the crime of being seen with an alleged sexual harasser, and then turn around and dismiss out-of-hand complaints about actual felonious threats and general misogyny as <Althousian sneer>so much clutching at pearls</Althousian sneer>.

Listen Ann, let’s do a little thought exercise here. Those offensive comments over at AutoAdmit that you deride as “boys being boys” - comments that, quite frankly, make me ashamed to have a Y chromosome - aren’t as nonthreatening as high-school yearbook photos or appearances on Candid Camera, where the mark at least had some idea of what was going on and could thus be a good sport about it. Oh, no. This was clearly delving into Monty Python-esque “wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-moah” territory. (Candid photographs, eh? He asked knowingly.) Exhortations of the sort that would earn the pervert a well-deserved scream of “Chikan!!!” on a Japanese subway.

So here’s the integrity check, Ann. If you had been subjected to constant online harassment that frequently goes below the belt, so to speak, along with threats against both your life and your person, to the point where you have to bow out of a technical conference you’re scheduled to speak at out of fear for your own safety, wouldn’t you “get a little hysterical” and demand police protection? Judging from your reaction to Garance’s probe, I’d say the answer is yes.

And yet you wonder why liberal bloggers consider you to be a strawfeminist.

Clinton’s Penis! Clinton’s Penis! Clinton’s Penis!

Hey conservatives, remember all the (manufactured) outrage you directed at Clinton’s Almighty Schlong for “Travelgate,” which turned out to be based on a whistleblower’s letter written during Poppy Bush’s administration?

Well, now’s the time to put up or shut up: what say you to the rampant firings of U.S. Attorneys by the Bushies so that they can put their cronies in place to ignore any crimes committed by Republicans and attempt to give Democrats the death penalty for jaywalking?

This can’t be good:

SINGAPORE - Vice President Dick Cheney’s plane left Singapore on Sunday after a scheduled refueling stop and repairs to a minor mechanical problem experienced on an earlier flight from Sydney, officials said.

JABbering Stooge Official PolitickBook Line on this story:

• Over-under - Time until conservatives blame “libruls” for Cheney’s plane troubles: 1 day

• Odds that above will single out Clinton’s Almighty Penis for blame: 50:1

• Odds that above will blame BDS-afflicted “librul” saboteurs: 5:1

• Over-under - Time until some liberal gets hurt or sent fake anthrax over this story: 1 week

• Over-under - Time until Michelle Malkin disavows responsiblity for above attack: 10 days

Sidebar: Since the ability to get airborne in a hurry is a necessecity in a national emergency, Air Force 1 & 2 are in all likelihood some of the best-maintained aircraft in existence. Would that the airlines gave that consideration to their customers.

For some reason that I can’t quite fathom, this Mallard Fillmore cartoon that appeared shortly after Chris Wallace’s ambush interview of President Clinton really irked me:

Click here to see the rest of the story…

Little noticed amidst the impending celebration of our nation’s 230th birthday was the ten-year anniversary of the theatrical release of one of the best little B-movies of all time: Independence Day (ID4). In honor of that milestone, I would like to take note of some things I thought of while watching the movie for the n-th time.

1. The little irony noted on Wikipedia - Osama’s Wrecking Krew was able to pull off what the aliens couldn’t. However, it should be noted in the aliens’ defense that they had targeted the Empire State Building. As such, the WTC, while still in the blast radius, was far enough away that it did not receive a fatal blow. Given the ease with which the invaders wiped out the Empire State Building, the White House and other targets in the initial attack, I have no doubt that had the aliens picked their overgrown phallic targets differently, it wouldn’t have taken 102 minutes for the WTC to fall to pieces.

2. Mae Whitman, who played President Whitmore’s daughter, is now fully legal. She was last seen doing voice acting for the anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender and Kingdom Hearts II.

3. President Whitmore is most likely a Democrat. I say this for three reasons: 1) He served in Gulf War I, unlike many of the flag-bukkake fetishists in the GOP 2) The McLaughlin Group, most notably, Morton Kondracke, are seen constantly bad-mouthing him in the early part of the film, and 3) the film was released while Clinton was president, so a reasonable suspension of disbelief would lead one to conclude that the President in any film form the time period, unless otherwise specified, was a Democrat.

4. Assuming they survived the initial attack, the likes of Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Pillz-E, Michael Savage, Neal Boortz, etc., etc., etc. would use every opportunity available to blame the alien attack on Clinton’s Almighty Penis.

5. The above pundits would cheer the likely destruction of the New York Times by the aliens in their initial attack.

6. The above pundits would also blame the Los Angeles city destroyer’s shift in focus to Area 51 on the "treasonous outing of that military installation’s location" by the New York Times. Never mind the fact that the NYT was likely incinerated in the initial attack. Most especially, never mind the fact that it is quite explicitly stated that the aliens are powerful telepaths, and could pluck the relevant information from the mind(s) of the President, SecDef, and/or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as easily as you or I would pluck a grape from the vine.

Carey Lee Cramer, best known as the nutjob responsible for the unoriginal "Daisy Girl 2" attack ad in sElection 2K, has been convicted of "aggravated sexual assault of a child, two counts of indecency with a child by contact and one count of indecency with a child by exposure," according to the McAllen Monitor. He has been sentenced to six years in prison, ten years probation, a $30,000 fine, and must register as a sex offender everywhere he goes.

An added bonus: one of the accusers in the case is the girl who starred in "Daisy Girl 2." Jeff Goldstein would be proud.

How much do you want to bet that Republicans will blame this one on Clinton’s Almighty Penis, the way that Ann Coulter blamed the Almighty Clenis for Enron, WorldCom, etc.?

Yep. We have plenty of right-wingers even here in "The People’s Republic of Austin." As much as the Austin American-Statesman shills for Bush and the GOP, they can’t tilt far enough rightward for these folks.

Let’s look at a few of these Emmy winners, shall we?

Frankly, I’m surprised that the wingnuts have gone a whole week without blaming Clinton’s Almighty Penis for Hurricane Katrina. Though I suspect that they’re content to let the MSM do the dirty work for them.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Sept. 6, 2005 4:15 AM)