The Invisible Library

Belle Waring brings to our attention this hand crafted, bronze dipped piece of nonsense from Lisa Schffrin, who obviously has access to a higher grade of cannabis than you or I could ever possibly afford:

Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics. (During the Clinton Administration we were all introduced to then U. of Pennsylvania Professor Lani Guinier — also a half black/half Jewish, red diaper baby.)

[…] It was, of course, an explicit tactic of the Communist party to stir up discontent among American blacks, with an eye toward using them as the leading edge of the revolution. To be sure, there was much to be discontented about, for black Americans, prior to the civil-rights revolution. To their credit, of course, most black Americans didn’t buy the commie line — and showed more faith in the possibilities of democratic change than in radical politics, and the results on display in Moscow.

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The latest stunt by Ron Paul’s cultish followers comes to us from Greg Saunders at The Talent Show (and This Modern World). In the form of a blimp:

What planet are these guys from? In 2007, do people descend into a state of reverent awe whenever they see a large gray cylinder flying in the sky? Call my a cynic, I really doubt that the entire nation would collectively pause with wonder to follow the journey of a rented blimp.

Come on Greg, this is fucking genius! It’s big, ponderously slow and full of hot air! It screams “I am so out of touch with reality that I can float around aimlessly propelled by my own hot air!”

Look, I have fond dreams of a New Zeppelin Age, just like any sci-fi geek. Flying around the world on a cruise ship in the clouds… But come on! In the real world, people have better things to do with their time than watch balloons drift slowly by.

This highlights how retrograde Ron Paul’s ideas really are. He and his supporters want to recreate the 1930’s, Zeppelins and all because that was the last time White Male Christians had unchallenged control of the political scene. After World War II,  it wasn’t cool anymore to be antisemitic. By the sixties, you couldn’t be racist and by the seventies, you couldn’t be sexist. But, if we turn the clock back to those good old days when zeppelins roamed the sky, well, anything goes, so long as you’re in possession of a Bible, an X chromosome and enough gold sway back a mule.

But the fun doesn’t end there, no sir. The ad on the Official Ron Paul Blimp site (because every bad idea needs its very own website) compares donating to the Ron Paul Blimp with the Boston Tea Party. That’s right, supporting Ron Paul is just like throwing your money into the harbor.

Over at Making Light, I’ve been taking part in a spirited discussion of the Ron Paul Phenomenon. It’s good to know I’m not the only person baffled by the popularity of this Libertarian Kook (and among otherwise liberal folk, too!) Seriously, do we need another religious nut from Texas with a hard on for an unrestrained Free Market in the White House? Just because he’s ostensibly against the Iraq War doesn’t make him sane. It just makes him the most lucid weirdo in the GOP.*

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As you may have heard, we’re having a bit of a drought here in Georgia. It’s not so bad in Savannah as it is in Atlanta. We just can’t water our lawns, while Atlantaians are about 90 days away from running out of water altogether. And what is Governor Sonny Purdue’s solution? Why, to ask people to pray for rain, of course.

What the Fuck, Sonny. Seriously. Pray for rain? That’s your bright idea? Not, hay guys maybe we should conserve water? Or hay, could someone loan me a few truck fulls of water? Or, anything sensible? No, let’s just hope it all works out.

Oh, and Phil Plait makes a funny at our expense.

I’ve got to get the fuck out of this state.

BBC:

The UK prime minister is forming a new partnership with other developed countries to make sure international aid is spent effectively.

Ministers from Burundi, Nepal, Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Cambodia will take part in the launch. […] Mr Brown said: “There is no greater cause than that every man, woman and child in the world should be able to benefit from the best medicine and healthcare.

“And our vision today is that we can triumph over ancient scourges and for the first time in history, conquer polio, TB, measles, and then with further advances and initiatives, go on to address pneumoccal pneumonia, malaria and eventually, HIV/AIDS.

“Today we come together - donor governments, health agencies and developing countries - with the certainty that we have the knowledge and the power to save millions of lives through our efforts.”

Maybe after Bush and his cronies demolish the country enough for us to qualify for third-world status we’ll finally be able to get Universal Health care here.

Some dipshit is suing PZ Myers for a bad review of his silly book.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden at Making Light beat me to the punch (and the post title I was gong to use) but has all the pertinent links and info, as usual.

If anyone can explain how a bad but fairly polite review of your book can be considered assault, let me know.

Via Warren Ellis, via Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing, and for your Sunday morning reading pleasure, comes the amazing story of Karl Rove’s father’s solid gold cock ring:

Louie loved his piercings, they made him smile. People who are pierced will understand.So there on the floor in his library, amid teaching videos on piercings and piles of [Piercing Fans International Quarterly], I listened to one man’s account of his travels through the Los Angeles piercing community in the 70’s and 80’s — the “piercing parties” with folks getting pierced on coffee tables in private homes, nurses that helped, and a guy named Jim. I knew about Jim. I had both my nipples pierced at The Gauntlet.

Louie and I exchanged gifts over the years. He really liked those stainless ball weights and I like gold jewelry … so I have a 14 karat gold cock ring that once belonged to Louie, and he had a bunch of ball weights that belonged to me.

So who cares about one man’s journey into piercing? For me it is not about a gossipy story, though some people will take it that way. It is not about telling secrets or things left best unsaid; it is about a little piece of history. Perhaps in telling this story someone else will be able to tell a better one another day.

The “Jim” in this story is the Jim Ward who started the piercing industry. Louie is Louis Claude Rove whose adopted son’s first name is Karl. Louie died quietly in Palm Springs as his very secular, not-believing son ran President Bush’s campaign for President of the United States that energized the Christian evangelical base around the wedge issue of gay marriage…

On a tangential note, I read Warren Ellis’ new novel, Crooked little Vein on the plane ride to Sweden and it is the greatest filthiest most fun detective story I’ve ever read. Karl Rove’s Dad’s solid gold cock ring should be in the sequel.

Johann Hari boarded the National Review cruise to see what Neocons say when they think no one else is listening:

Some people go on singles cruises. Some go on ballroom dancing cruises. This is the “The Muslims Are Coming” cruise - drinks included. Because everyone thinks it. Everyone knows it. Everyone dreams it.

It’s like a cruise through an alternate reality, where Muslim Hoards are devouring Europe, the founding fathers fought a revolution to escape the tyranny of a king so they could establish a firm and resolute Executive President and we’re not only winning in Iraq but mystically redeeming our loss in Vietnam (due not to the Vietcong but to Liberal Commie appeasement, naturally) and everyone wets themselves in anticipation of bombs falling on Iran. Oh, and a black man thinks the KKK are just upset because they don’t have all the benefits that minorities have.

To my left, I find a middle-aged Floridian with a neat beard. To my right are two elderly New Yorkers who look and sound like late-era Dorothy Parkers, minus the alcohol poisoning. They live on Park Avenue, they explain in precise Northern tones. “You must live near the UN building,” the Floridian says to one of the New York ladies after the entree is served. Yes, she responds, shaking her head wearily. “They should suicide-bomb that place,” he says. They all chuckle gently. How did that happen? How do you go from sweet to suicide-bomb in six seconds?The conversation ebbs back to friendly chit-chat. So, you’re a European, one of the Park Avenue ladies says, before offering witty commentaries on the cities she’s visited. Her companion adds, “I went to Paris, and it was so lovely.” Her face darkens: “But then you think - it’s surrounded by Muslims.” The first lady nods: “They’re out there, and they’re coming.”

Link via at Boing Boing.

It’s hard being a satirist these days. No matter what great little idea you come up with to poke fun at the powerful and well connected, it pales in comparison to the tinfol hat, bat shit snorting insanity that actually is the Right Wing Media. Take Bill O’Reilly’s latest fantasy:

A “national underground network” of pink pistol-packing lesbians is terrorizing America. “All across the country,” they are raping young girls, attacking heterosexual males at random, and forcibly indoctrinating children as young as 10 into the homosexual lifestyle, according to a shocking June 21 segment on the popular Fox News Channel program, “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Titled “Violent Lesbian Gangs a Growing Problem,” the segment began with host Bill O’Reilly briefly referencing for his roughly 3 million viewers the case of Wayne Buckle, a DVD bootlegger who was attacked by seven lesbians in New York City last August. Deploying swift, broad strokes, O’Reilly painted a graphic picture of lesbian gangs running amok. “In Tennessee, authorities say a lesbian gang called GTO, Gays Taking Over, are involved in raping young girls,” he reported. “And in Philadelphia, a lesbian gang called DTO, Dykes Taking Over, are allegedly terrorizing people as well.”

In Bill O’Reilly land, lesbian gangs wielding pink pistols are terrorizing heteros and children, driving them into a life of depredation, sodomy and crime. I think it’s the pink pistols that really puts it over the top. If I wrote a story in which I described this sort of thing, no one would believe it. Honestly, I couldn’t have come up with something so bizarre and perverse if I tried. I haven’t heard anything so fucking weird since the last time I read Naked Lunch. Thing is, William S. Burrows was out of his mind on heroin when he wrote about talking assholes and jism drinking alien sodomites and even then he meant them to be satirical fantasies. But Bill O’Reilly was stone cold sober, people. Think about that. Even more far fetched, Papa Bear wants you to consider this, not just as a fantastical bit of absurdest commentary, or as some dark and perverted fantasy, but as an actual, factual and verifiable event in the material world. David Neiwert, via the link above, has all the pertinent details on how this is complete fascist bullshit, in case you’re concerned.

We need stronger satire people, because reality is catching up.