A while back, I extended a challenge to Bill O’Reilley to allow himself to be tasered to prove his claim that it’s no big deal. I didn’t actually expect a response. I am glad, though, to see that another torture apologist, Christopher Hitchens, has put his money where his mouth is and subjected himself to waterboarding. His conclusion? Uh, okay, it is torture after all, sorry. And BillO remains everyone’s bitch.
If he wins, Stephen Baldwin will leave the country.
Thus making Bio-Dome 2 considerably less likely.
An Austin musician has called for a boycott of local watering hole/substitute office space Austin Java, over something to do with trees and high-rise condos.
I only have two thoughts on this:
1. Austin has lots of trees. High-rise condos, by their basic nature, do not.
2. Doesn’t Austin have enough high-rise condos already? Who the hell is buying these places?
I should note that, as I write this, I am sitting at Austin Java. They have hella-good cheesecake. Everyone should eat here. But don’t hang out her too much–it’s hard enough to get a table near a plug for my laptop as it is.
Thomas Insel — director of the National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. government’s top psychiatric researcher — said today that “the number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care.”
(h/t ThinkProgress)
Colorado Republican Congressman Tom “I See Brown People” Tancredo got booed at a hearing in Brownsville when he suggested that the proposed border fence go to the north of Brownsville (I wish I were making this up) (h/t Crooks and Liars, who has the video):
Boos and hisses emanated from the audience for a congressional field hearing when Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado dismissed residents’ concerns that the effort to build 670 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border by year’s end would damage the environment and destroy a centuries-old bond between residents on both sides of the Rio Grande.
Late in the five-hour hearing, Tancredo returned to a comment made earlier by panelist Betty Perez, a rancher and local activist. Perez said, “It really isn’t a border to most of us who live down here.”
Tancredo dismissed Perez’s remarks as a “multiculturalist attitude toward borders.”
As jeers rose, Tancredo added, “I suggest that you build this fence around the northern part of your city.”
Brownsville sits at the southernmost tip of Texas, where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico. The border fence as planned would cut through the campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Southmost Texas College, leaving its golf course on the Mexican side.
Gosh, so many possible remarks…I’ll start off with “multiculturalist attitude toward borders” being a sufficient reason to dismiss an enture argument–that makes absolutely no fricking sense…unless you are aware of some overriding “American” culture that is threatened by our proximity to a country like Mexico…so full of…Mexicans…it must have been horrible for Tom. Actually, it just lends some credence to my hypothesis that he is an insufferable fuckwad.
Another point–Congressman Tancredo is from Colorado. That cuts both ways, actually. On the one hand, he has very little to worry about: Colorado is about 800 miles north and 5,000 to 10,000 feet above Mexico. To get there, Mexicans not only have to trek across a big-ass desert, but then they have to climb. I know they’re up to it, but Colorado is a less likely place when California and Texas are sitting right there. On the other hand, the state is called Colorado…could this be a form of linguistic invasion? As a proud American and Texan (and therefore the inheritor of two helpings of whoop-ass served to Mexico), I suggest, nay, demand that “Colorado” be given its proper English name, the State of Red-Colored. Say it a few times–it gets easier. The first option is quite a bit more plausible, don’t you think?
At this point, my apologies to Mexico. My taunts were purely illustrative as part of my Tancredo-as-fuckwad exegesis. As a lifelong Texan and Salma Hayek fan, I assure you I meant no offense.
As a quick aside to those who are not too familiar with Texas, Brownsville is the southernmost city in the state, and possibly the southernmost city in the continental U.S. except for the Florida Keys (which technically aren’t on the continent anyway). It’s not a very good place to try to stir up Mexicophobia or to use the term “multicultural” in a pejorative sense. It is, however, a good place to crash if all the hotels at South Padre are booked up. Also, Kris Kristofferson was born there.
To sum up: Congressman Tom Tancredo has a serious problem with non-Americans, and very poor argumentative skills. He’s also a U.S. fucking Congressman, which makes his inability to form a coherent thought all the more good cause for sleep deprivation. Hopefully he will continue to publicly embarrass himself like he did in Brownsville, and his ideas will fade into obscurity along with his career.
In closing, then, two thoughts: 1. Piss off, Congressman. 2. ¡Viva México!
Think of it as the Iraq ostrich syndrome (h/t HuffPo): out of sight, out of mind:
Lt. Col. Billy Hall, one of the most senior officers to be killed in the Iraq war, was laid to rest yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Pentagon doesn’t want you to know that.
The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial — a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about their loved ones’ sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged the Marine’s burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it into the public domain.
That’s a shame, because Hall’s story is a moving reminder that the war in Iraq, forgotten by much of the nation, remains real and present for some. Among those unlikely to forget the war: 6-year-old Gladys and 3-year-old Tatianna. The rest of the nation, if it remembers Hall at all, will remember him as the 4,011th American service member to die in Iraq, give or take, and the 419th to be buried at Arlington. Gladys and Tatianna will remember him as Dad.
The two girls were there in Section 60 yesterday beside grave 8,672 — or at least it appeared that they were from a distance. Journalists were held 50 yards from the service, separated from the mourning party by six or seven rows of graves, and staring into the sun and penned in by a yellow rope. Photographers and reporters pleaded with Arlington officials.
“There will be a yellow rope in the face of the next of kin,” protested one photographer with a large telephoto lens.
“This is the best shot you’re going to get,” a man from the cemetery replied.
“We’re not going to be able to hear a thing,” a reporter argued.
“Mm-hmm,” an Arlington official answered.
The distance made it impossible to hear the words of Chaplain Ron Nordan, who, an official news release said, was leading the service. Even a reporter who stood surreptitiously just behind the mourners could make out only the familiar strains of the Lord’s Prayer. Whatever Chaplain Nordan had to say about Hall’s valor and sacrifice were lost to the drone of airplanes leaving National Airport.
This makes me mad.
It’s just fun to say, isn’t it? (h/t Atrios)
I wonder if it’s like the Great Pumpkin?
UPDATE (04/28/2008): PMI has a nice graphic addition to the mockery pile-on:
Will someone please explain how this furthers the interests of national security and/or airline safety?:
A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.
“I wouldn’t wish this experience upon anyone,” Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. “My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way.”
Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.
The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.
Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.
Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.
She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.
***
She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.
Any ideas??? Anyone??? Am I going to be denied entry to an airport because I have braces? Either the TSA has too much power and too little of a mandate, or we are all just waaaaaaay too paranoid.
While the thought of having my own nipples pierced causes me to collapse shuddering into the fetal position, I will defend to the death other peoples’ right to do as they will to their own nipples.
Besides, this isn’t national security, it’s (O, for a less-cliched phrase) sexual harassment.
I’m reminded, as I read about Der Spitzer’s downfall, of what some comedian in the ’80s suggested Gary Hart should say in response to his scandal (it later became a bumper sticker):
Yeah, I fucked her. Vote for me.
At least it’s honest. And slightly less humiliating for the other parties involved.
