You're Not Alone
Olive
You’re Not Alone - Olive
April 2011
March 2011
“President Obama finally and quietly accepted his “transparency” award from the open government community this week — in a closed, undisclosed meeting at the White House on Monday.”
—
Politico (via thepoliticalnotebook)
That’s a damn good sentence.
ALSO? YOU KNOW WHAT I'M STRESSED ABOUT?
tlbb:
“JUST A NORMAL MASC GUY LOOKING FOR SAME”
i wonder if any of these homos have any idea how difficult their appropriation of the word “normal” makes it for the rest of us. as if we’re not “normal” if we care to watch logo instead of espn once in a while. and this internalized homophobia that “normal masc str8 acting sports watching” faggots wreaks havoc on the lgbt community. because now, the “average straight person” (and believe me, i cringe at those words) thinks the “bro-ish” gay guys are the normal or average ones because those gheys find it ok to use the word “normal” to describe themselves. these “normal” gay guys who watch sports and drink beer become the standard against which i am judged by the rest of the world when, in fact, these “normal” gay guys are often in the minority in the lgbt community.
so fuck you gay guys who have taken it upon themselves to claim the words “normal” and “straight acting” because you make it infinitely more difficult for those with the slightest amount of sass to be taken seriously in this world.
Yeah. What she said.
“Regimes that rely too much on a script can find that even a slightly mangled line, or a single missed stage direction, can be not only awkward but deeply destabilizing—devastating or thrilling, depending on one’s perspective. The Berlin Wall opened on the exact day and in the manner it did because Günter Schabowski, a member of the Politburo, was so concentrated on his script at a press conference on November 9, 1989, that he missed the point of the scene he was in. The regime realized that it was losing its grip, and had decided to end most controls on exit visas. Speaking to reporters, Schabowski read the order as it was written, missing, somehow, the accompanying information that it wasn’t supposed to go into effect until the next day, when border guards would be ready. So when one correspondent asked, “Ab sofort?”—immediately?—Schabowski, confused, looked down at the paper he was holding, and focussed only on his lines. “It’s being disseminated today, that means it goes into effect today, as far as I know,” he said. When his answer was broadcast, shortly afterward, on the West German news, many television screens in the East, which picked up the signal, went black—not because of anything the broadcaster did but because viewers got up, turned off the sets, and headed to the Wall. Then they took it down, as if it were no more than a piece of scenery.”
—Amy Davidson
That snake was in the damn reptile house the whole time?
This was all a highly-engineered social media experiment, wasn’t it?
Play
Blergh
Interview has to be rescheduled.
And I put on cologne and everything. For a phone interview. In case you were wondering what kind of head space I was in.
“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
—
Treaty of Tripoli - June 10, 1797
NO WONDER THAT GODLESS MUSLIM COMMIE OBAMA LOVES LIBYA SO MUCH.
No More Subliminal Shit
Peace Division
No More Subliminal Shit - Peace Division
Play
It's impossible to say "This is his assistant" on the phone without lisping
In my experience, at least. It always sounds something like “thissssissssissstant.”
“There is another view, however: as I reported a few days ago, most Palestinians seem entirely pleased that Obama has acted against Gaddafi, who is seen as an Arab embarrassment. Palestinian activists are grudging about this: Obama still vetoed the UN resolution condemning the Israeli settlements, “which is unforgiveable,” a young woman named Najwan Berekdar told me in Ramallah, but she saw Libya as an acceptable intervention, unlike the invasion of Iraq. And my inevitable Jerusalem cabdriver was unequivocal: “Thank you, thank you. Qaddafi is a pig. Everyone is happy with Obama about this.”
—Joe Klein, reporting from Israel
88,000
That’s how many people would have to pay the New York Times the full year all-access rate of $455 in order for them to break even on erecting the paywall, which apparently cost $40 to $50 million to build.
In case you were wondering.
“If Colonel Qaddafi is swept quickly from power, or reduced to impotence in some bunker, nobody will care very much about the manner in which Mr Obama put together his alliance and campaign. It might indeed be remembered as an extraordinary foreign-policy success. After the rescue of Kuwait in 1991, however, the first President George Bush also expected Saddam Hussein’s regime to collapse in short order. Mr Obama’s team says the circumstances this time are entirely different. They had better be right.”
—
Lexington
This is exactly how I feel about last night’s speech. I got the sense that Obama is holding his breath a bit, waiting to see if events on the ground there will pan out for us in a way that makes this look like a good idea. I don’t think he knows yet. I don’t think anyone knows yet. But if this gamble pays off, he will have laid to rest both the Bush Doctrine and the idea that he isn’t willing to use our military might to further American interests. And we have now solidly positioned ourselves on the side of the repressed populations of that region, where before we reflexively backed the most convenient despots.
Young American Primitive?
Young American Primitive
Young American Primitive? - Young American Primitive
U.S. Obesity Epidemic Now Requiring Fatter Crash Test Dummies →
good.is
Most Americans look as if the airbag has already been triggered.
DEALBREAKER
Individuals who say they’re X character from The Office at their office.
Don’t be such a Stanley.
NEW YORK CITY: Gay Man Brutally Attacked On West Village Street
I was at a party with this guy a few weeks ago. A grim reminder that we still face senseless violence because of who we are, even in the West Village:
26 year old Damian Furtch was on his way home from work at a restaurant late Sat night (Sunday morning), when he stopped off at a McDonalds in NYC’s West Village ( a predominantly gay area) to get some food. It was approx. 4:30 am. While inside the restaurant Damian noticed 2 men staring at him – giving him “looks” – we have all been there, we know what this feels like. It was late, Damian was tired, he felt uncomfortable and he didn’t want any trouble so he left. He was across the street, walking away while on the phone to a friend when the 2 men from McDonalds approached him and asked him “if he had a problem” before he knew it he was punched in the face by one man, then instantly felt another punch by the second perp, and then he heard it – “You Fucking Faggot”, the words as hurtful as the punches.
If I ask more than 20 questions, will you start charging me for the answers?
Haha, no, but I bet no one can top this question.
BTW, for what it’s worth, I think there’s too much attention around the magic number 20.If you’re a daily, devoted reader of the NYT, you’ll pay. If you’re not, you won’t. I doubt many people will teeter at the edge of 20. (Ask me anything)
I ask the UNTOPPABLE QUESTIONS.
Amnesty International reports a 25% drop in executions worldwide
[Redacted.]
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen.
The 25% drop is huge progress. Those of you who are concerned about executions in the United States should donate to the Innocence Project. No other group is doing as much as the Innocence Project to reduce executions in the United States.
Agreed. You can donate here at PsyDoctor8’s.
“Our government knew all along that Qaddafi was a thug. A determination was made, however, to overlook his past atrocities for what was said to be the greater good of his abandonment of his weapons programs and his cooperation against the anti-American jihadists we well knew were in his country and the wider rough neighborhood.”
—
It’s a hard fact that the freedom uprising in Libya contains elements of a nasty contingency. As McCarthy says, 3/4 of Egyptians have essentially voted fundamentalist Islam into power. The point has made by McCarthy and others that intervening in Libya, no matter what kind of despot Qaddafi is, only breeds more anti-American sentiment in the region. By tacitly supporting the rebels (though we keep insisting we’re not really in contact with them!), we could ostensibly be promoting the next bin Laden. I’m strictly against current (and any further) intervention, because I think the risk to our security in the future is much higher than it is from the present Libyan situation.
(via natface)
Let’s see what my boy Adam Smith would say about these fears:
Our analysis follows the lead of Adam Smith who laid the foundation for the economic analysis of religion in 1776. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith (1965, pp. 740-766) argued that self-interest motivates clergy just as it does secular producers; that market forces constrain churches just as they constrain secular firms; and that the benefits of competition, the burdens of monopoly, and the hazards of government regulation are as real for religion as for any other sector of the economy.
Smith’s insights were overlooked for more than two centuries, by sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists who approached religion as decidedly non-rational behavior, and by economists who ignored religion altogether. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of 19th and 20th-century social scientists dismissed religious institutions as a dying vestige of our primitive, pre-scientific past. But contemporary scholars have returned to Smith’s insights. Viewing religious behavior as an instance of rational choice, rather than an exception to it, economists have analyzed religious behavior at the individual, group, and national levels. Sociologists are doing much the same, and many now speak of rational choice and market models as the “new paradigm” for the study of religion (Warner 1993)
Why doesn't General Electric pay taxes? →
theweek.com
The largest corporation in America paid precisely zero dollars in taxes to the government last year. Despite making $14.2 billion in profits, General Electric managed to exploit legal loopholes and tax breaks to avoid paying any corporate tax in the U.S., reports David Kocieniewski at The New York Times. In fact, GE was able to claim a tax benefit of $3.2 billion in 2010.
Jack Donaghy hard at work.
Amnesty International reports a 25% drop in executions worldwide →
cnn.com
CNN.com: Thirty one countries have abolished the death penalty but China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen remain amongst the most frequent executioners, according to a new report from Amnesty International released Monday.
The human rights organization officially recorded at least 527 executions in 2010, down from at least 714 in 2009.
“While executions may be on the decline, a number of countries continue to pass death sentences for drug-related offenses, economic crimes, sexual relations between consenting adults and blasphemy — violating international human rights law forbidding the use of the death penalty except for the most serious crimes,” said Salil Shetty, the group’s secretary general.
The totals in the Amnesty report exclude China, which carries out the death penalty more than the rest of the world combined.
“China is believed to have executed thousands in 2010 but continues to maintain its secrecy over its use of the death penalty,” the Amnesty report said. “China used the death penalty in 2010 against thousands of people for a wide range of crimes that include non-violent offenses and after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards.”
The United States carried out the fifth highest number of executions in 2010, with a total of 46. Sixteen states have abolished the death penalty. Illinois did so this year.
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen.
“I’ve put my life into it,” [James] Murphy told The Wire in 2005. “I’m fully aware that it’s my life. I don’t have parents— they’re gone. I don’t get another life. I’m 34 years old and this is it. My entire youth is gone and dedicated to this, so I care enormously. I meet lots of people who don’t realize that this is their only life.”
—
Every LCD Soundsystem song ever, reviewed. (via flavorpill)
The sentence “I’m 34 years old and this is it.” just set me back several years in therapy.
