Google Illustrates Context-insensitivity

How's that for context-sensitive placement?

Boobs to right of them, Boobs to left of them, Boobs in front of them. Valey'd and cleave'd; Storm'd at with rise and swell, Boldly they raved and well...

 

Meghan McCain got a harsh life-lesson in the last couple of days. It's one of those "if youda ast me, I coulda tolja" moments. She tweeted a twitpic of herself, reading a book about Andy Worhol. Yeah, I KNOW!

She really should have anticipated the outraged reaction against her investigating the life and art of such a notorious leftist intellectual and polluter of the precious mental fluids of... actually, never mind my prescience. If sheda ast me, I'da toldher to never be caught dead publicly enjoying ANYTHING associated with Warhol. I mean, the drugs, the groupies, the alleged orgies, the abstraction!


But I tease, I do. For, while I could easily have seen people on the right going mental about it, and might well have expected to hear some outraged and futile harrumphing to that effect, it was not about that at all.

It was all about Cleavage Control. I Swear to God.





From her Daily Beast response...

Could it be it's because I have breasts? Because for those of you who didn't know, I have two. They're larger than some women's and not as big as others. I don't usually show off my cleavage—as I did in the photos I posted—which I will admit is not the smartest thing I have ever done. But it’s just not worth the drama it caused.

The comments on that posting reveal a drooling mysogyny that is truly appalling. But what's even worse is the presumption that they have the right to say hateful, offensive things.

Such as: (More or less random example of those still undeleted.)

Permalink

8:19 am, Oct 16, 2009

mindlessmissy

Well, like Dave Chappelle will say, I will NOT call you a slut BUT you sure do have on their uniform ...


I mean, come on, you got them tatas poppin' out of your turtleneck and sh!... !

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Permalink

2:21 pm, Oct 16, 2009

Dan100

I won't call you a slut, because I don't know how many people you have slept with.. But I will call you a hoe, because you put a trashy tittie shot on Twitter. You act so offended when people in the media comment on your body, yet you splash your boobs all over the internet. Go figure..

These are the classy ones. 

That stereotyping was disturbingly bipartisan and gender-diverse, which goes to show that boobs baffle brains - apparently all brains.

But I'm all growd up. I KNEW that. I certainly know that what my male brain does when it sees boobies - regardless of who's boobies they are, or what their "intent" might be. To paraphrase the Japanese dictum about nudity, "Boobies are often seen and never noticed."

Meanwhile, I happen to know pretty well that the only time I happen to think of my own primary sexual characteristic is when it does something to call itself to my attention. These days, that more often means avoiding sitting on them, not "avoiding occasions of sin while wearing tight pants."

Particularly tight pants with patch pockets.

In church.

At 14.

Yeah, guys. You KNOW what I mean. 

Stuff tends to do what it does, and you storta get used to putting up with it, while ignoring the hell out of it, so long as it doesn't actually hurt. All that much.

I don't know how well that applies to Megan.  She was at home, and taking a picture of herself reading a book. Looks like she was lying down in a recliner, with her boobs doing what boobs do when you do that. And since that's what it looks like, I can easily see her thinking that's what it meant. If she thought of it at all.

To those of you who think "well, she OUGHT to have thought of What People Would think"- I think the reaction is proof that "Mostly, they don't." And what they do think and have cared to share - they clearly should keep to themselves, as it's puerile, pornographic and offensive.

I take Meghan at her word when she says she didn't think about her boobs. I have it on good authority from various owners of moderately large boobs that they are as much a part of your body as elbows and knees. As an artist, I recognize the pose. It's a reflexive clench intended to keep the girls from hiding in the armpits.  It's not about lookin' sexxxxy. It's about not feeling ridiculous. Or so I'm told by sources with boobs, who's boobs - obviously - can't speak for McCain. Or McCain's.

Speaking of people who hear unattributed voices in their heads, it's quite apparent that there ARE people who are QUITE sure that McCain's boobs are saying slutslutlsutwhore. And probably "Al Gore is, like, SO hot!" But trust something I will share something with you. It's a bad idea to listen to those voices. They aren't any smarter than you are.

By definition.

To the extent of my understanding, Megan's "Sexy Pose" is as reflexive as the little dance I do before sitting down to ensure that I don't cause everyone in the room a moment of hilarity at my expense, and for exactly the same reason. I doubt she's thought about it for a moment since ...well, that time. When puberty slapped her in her face. The period of time we ALL repress with a shudder.

Except, of course, when we apparently see an opportunity to inflict our repressed insecurities on other, random people.

I embrace many things libertarian and the phrase "your right to make a fist ends at the tip of my nose." I also believe that observation should apply to words that are intended maliciously to cause harm. Emotional abuse is abuse and public figures have feelings too.

Frankly, if your mind takes you to where a little casual cleavage means that she's a "slut" or a "whore" - and you think you have the right to express that out loud in public, well, we all understand what those same "family values" would demand of a citizen. And since we both know that, we both know what sort of person that makes you - the sort of person used in the first fifteen minutes of a Western as a character development exercise.

Hey, I suppose that applies here as well.

Just two technical notes, Meg - work on your backhand, and use your sunblock. 

Ok, if I may be serious, for a moment. Meghan is much-touted as an obvious future leader of the Republicans. She's easily twice as credible as Sarah Palin and three times as intelligent. But that's seen as a disqualifer in small-minded America.

Meanwhile, back in the reality-based world, it's assumed that everyone sitting at the "smart kids table" is some kind of tree-huggin' anti-war cawmunist faggot pinko librul. And Megan IS smart...


Meg, you have been set upon by Siberian Peasants. They probably aren't bright enough to co-ordinate their own hysteria. And all the shaming seems so... repetitive. It almost sounds like ... talking points, doesn't it?  Almost ... Rovian. 


Hm. I'm sure it's just a question of superficial appearances.

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NOM Launches "2M4M" Really.:

File this under "Stuff You Just Can't Make Up". First we had the unintentionally hilarious "teabaggers", now we have the National Organization for Marriage. They are the folks who produced this ridiculous "scary" ad:

Now they are formally launching a campaign called "2 Million for Marriage" which they have so helpfully abbreviated for us as "2M4M". No, really. I swear to God.

What's even better is that they apparently didn't register the domains for their campaign before they announced it either. The URL 2M4M.org is, shall we say, less than sympathetic to NOM's cause.

You just can't make this stuff up.

But wait! There's MORE! Nothing like that can be posted on YouTube without a cascade of responses. This is aside from the snarky comments and the single star rating (the aggragate of 1,826 as of writing this).

Let's leave the windup for Rachel Maddow.






Wait... what was that about teabaggers?

UPDATE: The Gay Divas & Icons Remix! Crude, but effective!

Them librul city slickers jus' cain't get good redneck irony laik this.

When Hammerskins pinup star "Joe the Plumber" complains that the black leader of the RNC is trying to redefine conservatism, he may actually believe he's saying something sensible about Conservatism - but almost nobody else does, regardless of their politics or racial bias. The cognitive dissonance is so damn loud that it drowns everything out.

TPMDC | Talking Points Memo | Joe The Plumber Blasts Michael Steele's "Hip Hop" Ambitions: "'You can't sell principles; either you have them or you don't,'"

Exactly. And whatever principles people say they have, you can figure out the ones they actually use by the way they go about doing things. Since Joe's whole gig revolves around being a shamelessly opportunistic phony, and since we have seen what the policies he's pimping lead to, there's really only one conclusion to make; to the extent you find yourself in agreement, it's time to rethink the principles you thought you had.

You know, kinda like the banks. When you dilute your principles in order to maximize interest, bad things happen.

Outside The Goldwater Limit

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Or send your favorite political Representative a little office accent...


I'm coining a new term. The Goldwater Limit. Anything further than one AU from center is incapable of naturally supporting intelligent life.

In related news, the Republican Imperial Martian Compound runs low on tinfoil and duct-tape; aid appeals sent to Uranus.

This is one of those stories I do where the story is about reactions to stories. In this case, it's a DKos diary referencing RedState, LGF and Freep reactions, the reactions there, and to top it all off, the Digg threads regarding all the above. I'm starting to wonder if I should even bother reading the original stories any more...

Nah. But it's important to realize it's the reactions that are driving the story these days - and most importantly, the people like Rush who are trying to make up stories to fit the expectations of their audiences, who seem to have less and less connection with reality.

The deeper and more significant aspect of this is that it seems apparent that Obama set this up with a casual remark, saying in a throwaway comment that people had to "quit listening to Rush Limbaugh if you want to get things done." He let the yeast rise a little -"exploded" might be a better word - and then sent out Rahm Emmanuel to hail the resultant wisdom of the crowd across the asile.

The end result - winguntta has exploded, trying to 'get active' and force the Republican party farther to the right, to join with them in their belief and demand that Obama must fail.

Since rational people have some appreciation of what happens to a nation when critical policy initiatives actually do fail - whatever disagreements you might have about what you may think they should have been, as opposed to what they happen to end up being - this has had the effect of peeling off significant numbers of Republicans. Oh, not to the Democratic party, or to the Left - but they have no home in the Republican party, and no-one speaking intelligently on their behalf.

And that leaves Obama - who is a died in the wool pragmatist and a skilled consensus builder whom I would personally peg as being Center-Right - well, the point is, he hasn't uttered anything conspiciously stupid, and he doesn't spit when he talks.

Meanwhile, back at dKos - the Schadenfreude is so deep you need hip waders.

Ben Smith notes today that Erickson has joined Limbaugh in rooting for Obama's failure. (h/t to Setrak) The RedState founder is even trying to recruit new "soldiers" for the RedState Strike Force, "to undermine Barack Obama's agenda and [help] him fail." Oh Noes!!!

UPDATE: STEELE'S METTLE FATIGUE

Publish Post

Steele Bows Down To Limbaugh: ‘No Attempt On My Part To Diminish His Voice Or His Leadership’

We may now visualize the "Hip-Hop" RNC leader with a tastful, decorative clock featuring Rush Limbaugh's face hanging from a Rebel Flag lanyard.

Tim Couch; Is he a Pedophile, an Idiot, or just a Republican?

It appears that there is no social problem so worrisome or dangerous that it cannot be made even worse by a state legislator. And of late, it seems that the Republicans have been far more successful in recruiting idiots than Democrats.

Kansas State Representative Tim "Creepy" Couch wants to "keep your children safe" by ensuring they aren't harassed by "online bullies."

He intends to do this in such a way as to make sure that any pedophile with a website will have a legally unassailable reason for collecting your child's personally identifiable information. Oh, and yours too. Just in case they also happen to be into credit fraud.

It would be terribly insulting to allege that he's that stupid, considering how many fine organizations he belongs to, like the Chamber of Commerce and the Church of God. He's clearly networked a lot, and he's a small business owner, so it's implausible to suggest that in this day and age he's too dumb to understand the very basics of How Things Like These Here Tubez work. And, as a legislator, he must at least have a copy of the Constitution to review.

Now, as a republican, he must be somewhat familiar with the general distaste of conservative voters for undue regulation, and again, I take him to be a sincere example of a republican, and not some telegenic shill with a theocratic agenda. No, I'm sorry. He's probably not very telegenic.

So - and for reasons that will be clearer below, the most charitable assumption is that his sexuality makes him overly concerned about the "seduction of innocents."

He will make sure that every Kentucky website will have to collect this information and somehow verify it, in order to insure that no posts are made by people who cannot be somehow traced and held accountable. I'm sure, of course, the state will somehow magically make this financially and technically achievable.

Oh, I suppose it could be that he's been troubled by pseudonymonous online critics, though politicans are really not supposed to even contemplate drafting laws in response to personal pique. That would be unethical. If not outright illegal, instead of just blatantly unconstitutional.

Perhaps he's merely an unaccountably popular pinhead. But whatever the reason, his understanding of constitutional law, privacy rights, standard online safety advice for persons on the internet and of course, a decent Republican contempt for onerous, burdensome and whimsical laws that place undue expense upon small business owners is manifest.

Tech Policy Central: Kentucky Bill Seeks Ban on Anonymous Content: "Kentucky Bill Seeks Ban on Anonymous Content

Mar 10, 2008

A Kentucky state legislator named Tim Couch is quickly making a name for himself on the Internet after introducing a bill that would make it illegal to post content online anonymously.

The controversial proposal would require Web site owners to collect real names and contact information from anyone contributing content, and would require users to disclose their full name when posting any material. Couch says his intent is to reduce online bullying and harassment by making people identify themselves.

Leslie Harris of the Center for Democracy and Technology is among those who spoke out against the bill. In a blog post at CDT's site earlier today, she called the proposal 'unconstitutional' and 'dangerous' and warned that 'anonymity on the Internet is under attack.' Harris will be discussing online privacy at Tech Policy Summit later this month."

PolicyBeta remarks:

There are of course times even on the Internet where establishment of identity maybe important, but we seem to have forgotten the value of anonymous speech to our constitutional democracy. As the Supreme Court has made clear, “Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.” McIntyre V Ohio Elections Commission (1995). Anonymity is what protects people from expressing an unpopular political view in a community where the majority holds vastly different political views and allows people to safely provide information about government misconduct. And for those living in repressive societies, anonymous speech is an enabler of human rights and political reform. If it was good enough for Publius, it should be good enough for the Internet.

I might note that I was listening to Thom Hartmann on Air America the other day, and he was recounting the number of people who signed the Declaration of Independance who had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation" by the British in order to secure "information vital to national security interests," such as, say, the location of the other persons who signed it.

One understands why Publius excercised discretion up until the penny dropped.

Of course, it would be far more inflammatory to suggest that Creepy Tom's motives might be to make an list of people for 2am pickup by unmarked black SUV's, so I think I will stick with the slightly less creepy speculation that his desire to "protect" children comes from some combination of stupidity, prudery and God-Bothering. But ince this is a fair and balanced blog, my dear readers, I shall leave which motivations are most plausible up to you.

The proposed Kentucky law is particularly dangerous because it not only requires the unmasking of all speakers in all circumstances, it exposes their personal information to potentially millions of people, putting privacy at risk. And since it is the website, rather than the individual, who is on the hook for fines, it puts all Internet sites in the role of gatekeeper, exactly what Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 USC § 230 was intended to prevent.

It’s no small feat to draft a law that is unconstitutional, clearly preempted by federal law and unenforceable. But many state legislatures are in session and it’s only Tuesday.

Hey, Kentucky - don't feel so bad. He's just a state legislator. We sent Ensign to the Senate!

John Ensign must REALLY hate The Gleaner.

Click the image to see it in full-screen glory. Swipe it if you like it.

The Gleaner is one huge reason why I needn't bother with local politics. There is someone else out there that actually likes politics and can write a slugline like this:

Senator Sunshine gets his panties in a bunch

After expressing his "extreme disappointment" with the SEIA for having the ill-advised temerity to support of a bill that he, the Magnificent Hairdo, opposed, Sen. McWedgeshot accused the organization of being partisan, and warned the solar energy bidnesses that "following a partisan playbook is not a proven or wise track."

Yes. A Republican wrote that.

Then Ensign showed that beneath that splendidly coiffed and cute-as-a-button exterior lies a bitchy little thin-skinned primadonna:

"It is rare to have such overwhelming bipartisan support in today's partisan climate" (yes, again, that'd be a Republican complaining about a partisan climate), but the solar industry had it and your association's leadership squandered it. Decisions by the staff at SEIA caused serious harm to the same industry they are charged with representing. Instead of capitalizing on this opportunity to achieve your goals, SEIA wasted it."

"As a result of this short-sighted and blatantly partisan advice, your association alienated many of the key supporters you rely on to meet your goals..."

In other words, if it comes down to a choice between promoting renewable energies to help stimulate Nevada's economy, wean the nation from fossil fuels and help save the planet, on the one hand, or show some smallish Washington interest group that John Ensign is far, far more important than they are, on the other, rest assured that in the future, Ensign will be doing the latter.

Any constituent - and I am unfortunately one of them - who has had occasion to write to Ensign expressing concerns about tiny little matters like, oh, civil liberties or the Patriot Act is probably already aware of what a self-important asshat he is.

Every single communication from his orifice - I mean office - starts with the pronouncement that it is an official pronouncement from on high. I keep meaning to scan one, but somehow they always end up crumpled and/or shredded.

Yep. An authoritarian who is clearly unsure that without having been told that he is An Authority In All Caps By God, we would not recognize the fact that he Knows Better Than We Do.

In that view he is pathetically correct. Ain't it a shame that the ploy works as well as it does?

On the other hand, one does shudder at the thought of him returning to his former trade as a Vet and inflicting his manifest Authority upon helpless puppies and kittens. You see, according to Republican theology, the Mantle of Authority magically transforms manifest idiocy into Revealed Word.

But that ain't any sort of new idea, alas. The current crop of Republicans have, however, stampeded across the subtle, yet well-marked line that separates a cynical and affectionately patriarchal appreciation of the ease with which The Rabble may be manipulated, past the no-man's land of The Divine Right of Kings and has has sprawled into terratory formerly reserved to those who were gently confined for their Napoleon Complexes

Who knew that when Regan emptied the asylums, it was to the end of populating the House and Senate with the feeble-minded?

Ensign is utterly useless to us even by the standards of corrupt Senators. You see, here's what had the Gleaner after The Hairball's ass along with probably everyone with a pulse and a stake in the Nevada energy sector.

Earlier this week, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) sent out apparently state-by-state-tailored press releases blasting senators, including the 'Do, for opposing legislation that would extend tax breaks for solar and other forms of renewable energy, and that would pay for the breaks by closing tax loopholes enjoyed by hedge funds and transnational conglomerates.

Hairdo "will have to choose between job-creating solar power for Nevada" or standing with the Bush administration policy "that protects the off-shore tax havens of billionaire hedge fund managers," said the SEIA in a release Monday.

In what will no doubt come as a shock to Nevadans, Ensign the next day sided against sense, sanity and his state and with Bush and the hedge funds, voting to filibuster, and effectively kill, the legislation (Grist).

I must find a way to state this so that even people who voted for Bush, Gibbons and Ensign can understand the ESSENTIAL point here.

The pork flows THIS way, dipshit!

Even Ted Stevens understands this, and he thinks the Internet is a hydraulic system.

Sir, when Sen. Ted Stevens makes one seem ineffective and incompetent by comparison, one should really consider a change of career. Perhaps something in The Green Zone, Sir. After all, you are one of the many who's efforts have earned such a reward.

It's a Faux Analogy! Peanut Butter V. Science

Proof that having a really good suit and a tv-trained voice does not make you smart. Or Correct. Or in these Post Faux Days - Credible.

A spokesmuffin and a supposed engineer try to discredit Evolution - with peanut butter.



HT to "Hell's Handmaiden" who has some even MORE hilarity in store for y'all. Better yet, one of them is Creationist Generated.

The response is from "The Bacon Eating Athiest Jew" - so I betcha know where that's going.

I just had to chime in here to assert that you don't have to be an athiest to find these people too goddam* embarrassing to stand near.

*Not Demanding, Sir and or Madame. PLEADING!