Stop-Immigration.org Is Just One Sad, Pathetic, Internet Troll Loser

Like my post title? I love that it will show up on the front page of the stop-immigration.org site when I post it, because of the way that site automatically links to blogs that mention the words "illegal" and "immigration." That's why I picked such a title.

But I've realized by reading the comments of the single person that comes over to my blog from that site that it's not just a joke, it's actually true. I've been checking my site meter and no one but this idiot has found my site by reading that moronic, jingoistic, racist site. So if he's the only one that reads it, he must be the guy who made it. I speak, of course, of the dipstick who's been leaving bizarrely reasoned arguments against all immigration the last couple of days. He calls himself "Patriot Rightly," which besides being stupid sounding (I've never understood the whole internet "handle" thing. Why is the internet like CB radios and rap names that way?) just doesn't really make any sense.

If you've read my last few postings you've probably seen the completely senseless comments he's written, along with some brilliant counter-points made by Armando, Jose and Ben. So I'm going to just touch on a few of the "points" good ol' P. Rightly made, not because they are valid in any way, shape or form, just that they are the same arguments the rest of the racist agenda crowd has been trained to repeat ad nauseum.

Of course the first argument against the racist charge was "I'm 50% Peruvian."

Well goody for you! This has become the new "I've got lots of friends who are..." Black or gay being the most popular of the words to finish that sentence. I find that most people who ever use that phrase to defend themselves against being called a bigot are usually talking about someone they work with or lives in their neighborhood. Which isn't exactly the same thing as "friends" now is it? Of course now it's the claim that "I can't be racist because I'm a minority." Especially if they are the same minority as the one you are accusing them of being biased against. Well I've got news for you Mr. Rightwingly, you can be half Hispanic and still have a hatred for your own kind. In the gay world it's called "internalized homophobia" and in the black world it's called being Clarence Thomas. So don't even try to pull that crap on us.

Of course this is one of the new tools for the racist agenda. Get a minority lackey to be the mouthpiece for your hate-filled ideals to deflect the charge of racism. Why do you think it was Michelle Malkin, an Asian American, they got to write that silly book defending the use of prison camps for Japanese Americans in WWII? She, like you, can state that because she's the particular race she's disparaging she is immune to the racist charge. Well I've got news for you Jingoist Righty, Malkin is one of the most disgusting racists in the country. She has even been going around promoting the idea that the Mexicans coming to America are largely a part of the conspiracy called "reconquista" that aims to take back the southwest U.S. for Mexico (she actually claims that's why most illegal immigrants are here) and call it Aztlan. Well, as I've pointed out to my old hick friend Kyle in the past (when trying to make him realize that Lou Dobbs is a racist ass) this whole conspiracy is not true. It was made up by white supremacists and neo-Nazis to strike fear in the moron masses. It's similar to the way the anti-Semites made up the Protocols of Zion to stoke the fears and hatred toward Jews.

I don't care how dark your skin is, if you aid in pushing the agenda of the white supremacists and neo-Nazis then you are a no good racist pig. Again, see the Clarence Thomas example.

I'm sorry you are a self-hating Hispanic (if that's really true anyway, this is the anonymous internet after all). It must be sad to look in the mirror and wish your skin would lighten so you could be like all the happy white people. Don't fret though, you've got company in Ms. Malkin and Michael Jackson.

And if you don't have a racist agenda yourself, then why are you peddling a racist book from a hate monger on the front page of your site? Look here and here for a run-down the racist drivel coming from Pat Buchanan's book State Of Emergency. Here's a few bits from it:

"This [immigration] is an invasion, the greatest invasion in history." [p. 5]

"We are witnessing how nations perish. We are entered upon the final act of our civilization. The last scene is the deconstruction of the nations. The penultimate scene, now well underway, is the invasion unresisted." [p. 6]

"Chicano chauvinists and Mexican agents have made clear their intent to take back through demography and culture what their ancestors lost through war." [p. 12]

"[W]e are in the midst of a savage culture war in which traditionalist values have been losing ground for two generations." [p. 28]

As for the "issues" caused by immigration, well as usual for the anti movement, if you can't find a real one make some up. The "environmental problem" being caused by immigrants is laughable at best. That these people pretend to care about the environment is sickening.

I'm sorry that "the woods and streams where (you) once played are now houses that all look the same" but the fact you try to lay that at the feet of immigrants is ridiculous. You think all those Mexican farm workers are buying those tract houses in your old playground? You know, a lot of the area where I use to ride my bike in the woods has been turned in to an office park, which sucks. But they didn't build that place just to accommodate the extra janitors they had available. You know what caused that? Your precious capitalism that you proclaim such love for.

And highways keep adding lanes because our elected officials don't have the political will to address the transportation issues facing this country in a real and reasonable way (public transportation) and instead pocket the money they get from the oil and auto industries and just build more roads. That ain't even close to being a migrant worker's fault.

The refusal of most of America's cities to control sprawl and implement policies to encourage and demand sustainable growth policies is the real problem. Why don't you join a pro-public transportation advocacy group, or a local environmental organization? Oh, you'd rather bitch about foreigners?

And they could stop putting lanes on those highways if Americans like yourself would bus, train, walk, and/or bike to work instead of jump in their SUV. I suppose I don't know for sure that you don't, but since your IP address says you live in Texas I'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time on the public transportation services in oil-land. By the way, a much higher percentage of immigrants take mass transit than native born Americans.

Population problem? You lay that at the immigrants coming in? What about the white couples from Iowa mainlining fertility drugs and popping out litters? They don't count in the population problem? Do a little research and you'll see that since 1960 alone the world population has more than doubled from 3 billion to over 6.5 billion. Population is a problem everywhere man, because people are having too many damn kids.

I'm not really sure what you mean by your city was 2 million growing up and is 5 million now, because there is only one city in America with that much population and that would be New York, with over 8 million. The second largest city is L.A. and it has less than 4 million and rounding out the top three is Chicago with about 2.8 million. So where the hell is this "city" with 5 million people? Your IP says you live in the Houston area, so we'll assume that you meant metropolitan area when you said city. But you should really learn to distinguish the two. But it's like I said, you live somewhere where the leaders you put in office won't do anything to address the growth and sprawl issues and are controlled by the oil cartel. It's rich white guys adding more lanes to those highways, not Mexicans.

Besides, if you kick out all the immigrants, it would only be fair that all the other countries kick out the American ex-patriots so we would gain back about 8 million people (counting overseas military) anyway.

Now these issues that are being used now by the anti crowd (environment, population) are real, but the blame for them is not. It's really about wanting someone else to make the sacrifices to make their world better. It's a total smokescreen. Stopping immigration won't solve any of the problems these people claim to care about. And the real solutions to these problems are usually opposed by these same free-marketeers and libertarians. Bring up that we should outlaw all cars that get less than 50 mpg, institute congestion fees for driving into an urban area (like they've done in London with fabulous success), or actually make people drive slower than 60 mph and they cry communism. Oh no, you can't make any testosterone toys or behavior illegal.

But declaring a human being illegal, for no other reason than trying to make a better world for their family, is OK. It makes me sick.

One last thing. Your comment, "World hunger is not my problem. My pantry is full" (after calling my friend a one world communist, which just made everyone snicker at you) says pretty much everything anyone needs to know about you. And I really don't have any more poetic of a response to it than this:

Go fuck yourself.

Some of us see the world in larger terms than what goes on inside our tiny little isolationist world and our own families.

So go back to your bunker and let the rest of us work together to solve these problems.

Diversions Of Politics

They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place.
---Yaphet Kotto, as Smokey James in the movie Blue Collar

I want to just write a little bit today to expand on yesterday's post. First off, the first anonymous comment was from someone who came to my blog from a site called stop-immigration.org, which is an organization that promotes ending all immigration to America, legal and illegal. A little searching around that site and you find little tidbits comparing Mexicans coming across the border to the Nazi invasion of Poland. I don't think I need to point out to anybody why that's just insane. What's weird is how fast this guy posted a message on my blog. A little looking around that right-wing, jingoistic, hate and fear-mongering site and I found that they have an "immigration blog" section that puts up links to any recent blog posts that have the words "illegal" and "immigration" in them. So that's how some nut ball responded to my post so quickly.

Oh, and the link to the study "proving" the horrible effect that immigrants are having on Social Security is from one of those anti-immigrant organizations that sells itself as a "non-partisan" think tank. Typical of the way conservatives run studies, they pick the answer they are looking for and then craft a study that will lead to that predetermined answer. Not what you would consider good science. It's similar to the way they claim that there isn't global warming by pointing to a study done by the one scientist, funded by an oil company, that disagrees with the other gazillion studies and scientists that say otherwise. Or those nefarious studies that claim to "prove" that gay marriage is bad for children, when in fact real studied have proven the exact opposite. They had similar studies that "proved" interracial marriage was bad for kids too.

Anyway, that's not the point today.

I've written about this before (here and here), and I have yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument to me that this whole anti-immigration movement is not based in racism.

And I know that's a loaded term. Calling someone a racist is a very serious charge. It used to be a term that got thrown around too much, so now we are scared as a culture to use it at all. But as the old saying goes, if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck blah blah blah. You know what I mean. And because I call them racists, they claim I'm inflaming the issue. But you want to talk about inflaming the issue? How about trying to link Hispanics crossing the Mexican border to terrorism (or "terror" as the low IQ set likes to call it) or calling it an invasion?

How many times do they need it pointed out to them that that's not how terrorists get into the country, running across the southern border? And they know it, but since the attacks on the World Trade Center they found an issue they could use to scare people into being fervently anti-immigrant. Well, most of these people already were anti-Hispanic immigrant, now they've been armed with a justification beyond that they don't like how "those people" pack too many people into an apartment or park their crappy cars on their lawn.

And that's how this movement has gotten such a footing. It s a movement that drapes itself in populism and solidarity with the working class, while playing on ignorant poor people's bigoted tendencies. Human beings tend to want to blame someone else for their lot in life, and there's usually a politician or greedy business owner willing to offer up a sacrificial lamb for their own aims. It's how they keep the masses in line, give them a boogie man to focus on and distract them from the fact it is the said politician and business owner that is the real cause of their oppression.

A century and a half ago it was often the Irish blamed for the country's problems. In my lifetime we saw the disgusting way Ronald Reagan demonized the so-called Cadillac driving welfare mother who keeps having children so her checks get bigger. In one swoop Reagan put the idea in all Americans' heads that the reason their lives were so hard was because all the black women in the country were on welfare and driving big luxury cars on your dime and were getting rich by having more kids. Never mind that none of it was true, not even close.

But the die was cast. Reagan made sure the minimum wage was never raised during his presidency, gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy, busted unions the best he could, handed out corporate welfare like Halloween candy and created a record (until recently) national debt that hurt our economy for a generation. But he had people believing that it was the poor women on welfare that were the reason they couldn't pay their bills.

And he had his help from the media. Some because they were just stupid, bad reporters, and some because they were just plain evil, like Lou Dobbs. And it continues today. Dobbs whole life is about demonizing Hispanics and propping up racist groups that claim, and this is just one example, Mexicans are trying to take over the American southwest by invasion and will call it Aztlan. And immigrants have become the scapegoats for the problems with our health care system, our public schools, reason we won't have Social Security when we retire and why the minimum wage is so low. And just like the fictitious mother with the Cadillac, people believe that illegal immigrants are coming here and going on welfare and sitting around and lazily collecting free money.

And of course, just like that stupid white guy you know who can barely tie his own shoes who claims the reason he didn't get that great job is because of affirmative action, it is not true. Our health care system, public schools and Social Security are messed up because of our elected officials and corporate greed, not because of a few Mexicans living on the fringes of society. And the minimum wage is low because the Republicans have controlled Congress for the last twelve years and they would rather cut the capital gains and estate taxes for rich people than give poor people an extra nickel an hour.

The diversion of "immigrant are the cause of your problems" is just another way they keep the poor people fighting each other so that they are blind to the real reasons they can't get ahead.

The saddest part is that it works so well.

Bum On The Rod

author unknown

The bum on the rod is hunted down
As the enemy of mankind;
The other is driven around to his club
And feted, wined and dined.
And they who curse the bum on the rods
As the essence of all that is bad

Will greet the other with a winning smile
And extend him the hand so glad.
The bum on the rods is a social flea
Who gets an occasional bite;
The bum on the plush is a social leech,
Blood-sucking day and night.

The bum on the rods is a load so light
That his weight we scarcely feel,
But it takes the labor of dozens of men
To furnish the other meal.

As long as you sanction the bum on the plush,
The other will always be there,
But rid yourself of the bum on the plush
And the other will disappear.

Then make an intelligent, organized kick,
Get rid of the weights that crush;
Don't worry about the bum on the rods,
Get rid of the bum on the plush.

Politics Of Diversion

If there were ever a question that this country is made up of the moron masses, just look at the immigration debate. When you wonder to yourself how people could actually believe things like Bush is a good president or that Republicans care about the middle and lower classes, just remember what stupid nonsense they'll buy into about illegal immigration, mostly thanks to the propaganda from the Republicans and Lou Dobbs. I got an email the other day from someone I went to high school with in Suburban Atlanta, who also went to my college in Illinois. She has since moved back to Georgia. Anyway, it was one of those pointless internet petitions she was forwarding to everyone in her email address book. This is what it said (I have not edited any of the following email transcripts, except for spelling and to not include the names on the petition, not to protect anyone, there are just too damn many):

It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If they give benefits to "illegal" aliens who have never contributed, where does that leave us that have paid into Social Security all our working lives?

As stated below, the Senate voted this week to allow "illegal" aliens access to Social Security benefits. Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires citizenship for eligibility to that social service.

You can Agree or Delete. Instructions are below.

PETITION FOR: President Bush

Mr. President: The petition below is a protest against what the senate voted on recently which was to allow illegals to access our social security! We demand that you and all congressional representatives require citizenship for anyone to be eligible for social services in the United States.

We further demand that there not be any amnesty given to illegals, and NO free services or funding, or payments to or for illegal immigrants.

We are fed up with the lack of action about this matter and are tired of paying for services to illegals! Tell Senor Fox to pay for his own people!

Agree or Delete: Instructions to sign are at the bottom.

This was followed by a list of 323 names and their home towns with my "friend's" being the last one. Then continued:

If you don't forward the petition and just stop it, we will lose all these names. If you do not want to sign it, please just forward it to everyone you know. Thank you!!! To add your name, click on "forward".You will be able to add your name at the bottom of the list and then forward it to your friends.

THE 2,000TH PERSON SEND IT ON TO THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL ADDRESS: President@WhiteHouse.gov

You've all seen these before. I'm not sure what I think is funnier, that people think these things work, or that the person who wrote this one actually wrote that if you don't want to sign it at least send it to everyone you know. Yes, because I'm all about forwarding spam to all my friends with political agendas I don't agree with. The other thing that is always stupid about these things is the claim that if you don't forward it on all the names will be lost. If anyone actually took a second to think about that they would realize how stupid that is. Even if I don't pass it on, it's likely that someone on the list will, so the names won't be lost. In fact, what is more likely with these dumb things is that so many copies get flying around that most of the people who've "signed" it are on many, maybe hundreds or thousands, of them. This is why email petitions are stupid. Not only are there many of the same names getting sent to the target of the petition, but you can't even confirm that all the people on it are real. I could easily make up 2,000 names and places and send it out. Also, how do they decide on 2,000 as the number to then send it to the prez? My guess would be it was just pulled out of someone's ass.

So anyway, I sent an email back to Deb, and even though I was thinking about really going off on her, I just wrote this quick note to point out one correction to the claim that illegal aliens don't "contribute" to Social Security:

That's actually not true. Most working illegal aliens contribute to Social Security but don't get to take benefits later on. If they put in, they should be allowed to get the benefits of it.

You should learn the facts Deb, before you send out propaganda.

Now this is a little thing I like to point out to people. Most illegal workers actually get taxed because they use a SS# to get a job, but they don't actually draw on it when they get old, because they would get caught. So she emailed me back, and the true colors of the anti-immigrant agenda came flying out:

I have learned the facts and this isn't propaganda. Illegal aliens work by using forged or stolen document which is a felony in this country in which individuals usually go to jail, except if you're Hispanic. Let's not speak about that one social security number is used by several individuals at one time, so you think the government should figure out who worked where and pay the person appropriately. The fact is the government won't do that, instead the same amount would be paid out to all using the number, in which the funds for it would come out of another hard working American Citizen's account. And of course you're not putting a lot into social security right now, so it doesn't matter that someone else will get your money.

Let's not speak about all the other federal assistance the illegal aliens get that they don't contribute to, or really shouldn't get since their not American Citizens. OR the fact they are a driving force for why hard working American Citizens aren't able to get the minimum wage raised. The minimum wage needs to go up! The truth is American Citizens would work the jobs the Hispanic community does, but American Citizens aren't able to take care of their families by working those jobs. American Citizens choose not to break laws by living 10 to 20 individuals in a two bedroom apartment, or six families in a single dwelling home. And as long as industries know they could go get a day laborer off the street for nothing, their lobbyist will continue to grease palms to keep the minimum wage were it is now.

Of course if I lived in your reality, and had someone taking care of me, than I might believe your way that everyone should be taken care of at any cost. Man it be so great to have your blinders on, and not see how this country is being rapped by all the illegal aliens; as they negatively impact the health care, education, governmental and industrial systems.

As long as the individual is an illegal alien, that person does not have the rights that apply to American Citizens. They have the right to be treated in a humane manor, but not the right to break the laws of this country.

Well, now the gloves came off. Besides the fact that this was a racist-tinged rant against "Hispanics," she decided to claim that I feel the way I do about the issue because I'm lazy. I also assume she meant our country is being raped by Hispanics, not "rapped."

So I wrote her back:

Ahh, nice racist rant against Hispanics. The fact is, like I said, that undocumented workers put money into Social Security that they never get to take out. That completely goes against your claim that they have "never contributed." That's what I mean by false propaganda, which is what is being used to drive the racist-inspired anger against Hispanics.

It is the politics of diversion by our government, blaming the working poor for the country's problems instead of where the real problem lies, like in the boardroom of Wal-Mart and in the US Congress. It is your anti-immigration Republican buddies that are against raising the minimum wage, and illegal immigrants have nothing to with that, nor do they have any affect on it. They would prefer to cut the estate tax for lazy cunts like Paris Hilton rather than help the working class in this country.

And your claim as to American Citizens don't break the law by living too many people in a house is complete bullshit, I've seen that tons of times. Poor people, illegal or not, end up having to do that all the time. I've seen it a lot. You must never visit the trailer parks in your area.

It's obvious that your real problem is with Hispanics and how they live, regardless of their legal status. This is how the government and the big corporations keep us down, divide the poor masses against each other and stoke the flames of racism.

If you were really interested in doing something for workers rights you would involve yourself in protests against Wal-Mart and their union-busting, low-paying, no health-care business practices. But I'm willing to bet you give Wal-Mart your money all the time. Am I right? Feed the machine that keeps the people down, and blame the brown people for your problems. You could be out there helping to organize a union for Wal-Mart workers, instead you forward pointless petitions against Hispanics.

As for your dig and me and my wife, my so-called "Not putting a lot into social security," or that I have "someone taking care of me," well now, you don't really know dick about my life do you? You aren't the first, and you probably won't be the last, of my old friends who haven't seen me in like forever who make some assumptions about my life because I married someone with an MD behind their name. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but they're not true. I work both in the medical education field (for over five years now) and still have a fledgling theatre career for which I continue to get paid work. As someone who gets most of his money as an independent contractor/self-employed person I actually pay a higher rate to both federal taxes and Social Security since I don't have an employer contributing half like most people do. I'm willing to bet that I've lived in the blue-collar, working class, low-wage world a hell of a lot more than you ever have, especially during the entire 90s when I was in my twenties. So if one of us is likely to have your so-called "blinders" on it isn't me.

Calling someone lazy because they have a different opinion about the illegal immigrant situation than you is just a tired old tactic by you racist hate-mongers form the right. I'm used to it, people call me lazy all the time because I happen to be somewhat poor. It's completely untrue, but I decided a long time ago I didn't care what stupid hicks thought of me.

But you basically called my wife a sucker and accused her of being an enabler of some lazy bum, and that is something I will take offense to. You don't know my wife one bit (if you did, you would know that supporting a lazy do-nothing husband is not something she would ever put up with) and know nothing about our life together, or how much money she makes (which is a lot less than some people want to think), so I'll thank you to leave her out of any argument you might have with me.

It's sad and pathetic the way you feel the need to blame the Mexicans for the world's problems. The old white men in the boardrooms who control this country and its economy count on ignorant fools like you, with your easily exploited racist leanings, to keep their control and keep the working class from getting ahead.

I had originally written that if she insulted my wife again I would catch the next bus to Georgia and beat the snot out of her, but I thought better of that comment and deleted it. But I certainly felt that way, insulting someone's spouse is so low. And like most people, I won't stand for that shit.

I figure that's enough to digest for today. I'll have more comments about this "dialogue" tomorrow. Maybe I'll hear from her again in the meantime. Won't that be fun?

Immaterial Girl

I saw this little news item the other day. Seems that the Dusseldorf, Germany authorities are going to be keeping their eye on Madonna this weekend to make sure she doesn't offend anyone. If you haven't heard, Madonna is pissing off people with her mock crucifixion during a part of her show on the current tour. The Catholics in Italy are not happy and the Germans are giving her the stern warning that if she does it there it could be "construed as insulting religious beliefs."

Geez, who cares? I still don't understand at all what is wrong with insulting people's religious beliefs. It is no different than insulting people's political beliefs, and nobody seems to have a problem with that. Hell, turn on FOX News or any talk radio and you'll see my political beliefs insulted about once every ten seconds. I don't see the difference, beliefs are beliefs. And actually, most people don't actually have a problem with religion in general being insulted, they have a problem with their religion being insulted. Nobody makes fun of other people's religion better than religious people.

Remember the comet people from several years ago? The ones who committed suicide together because they believed that an approaching comet was going to pick them up and take them to heaven? Well, nobody stopped themselves from making fun of that. Of course, with them all dead I guess there's no danger bashing them. Everyone I heard calling them foolish and misguided for such silly beliefs was usually a Christian. Right, believing in a magic comet is so less believable than a guy born to a virgin mother (with God's seed) dying on a cross and then coming back to life three days later. Or that the same guy turned water in to wine. Or some guy took two of every animal on the entire planet and fit them on one boat, and then sailed for forty days.

Talking bushes, parting whole seas, walking on water, images of Mary in grilled-cheese sandwiches. And the comet people were the crazy?

And I know what you are thinking, "But Deni, you make fun of religion all the time."

True, but I don't believe in any of that nonsense. I make fun of all of them. I don't defend one while making fun of another or get all offended when mine gets insulted. Making fun of, or insulting, religion is fair game.

And really, don't these idiots realize that this is exactly what Madonna wants to happen? She's pushing fifty and nobody really pays attention to her anymore. Controversial shit is how she gets noticed. And apparently it doesn't even have to be very original. All that's happening is a rehashing of her shtick from 1989. Yawn.

Have the anti-free speech nut jobs learned nothing? Ice-T and his band Body Count sold so many more copies of "Cop Killer" because of the attention they brought it. And one of the worst rap groups of all time became huge because some right-wing Puritan ass-hole in Florida was offended by "Me So Horny." As soon as he tried to get it banned it went to the top of the charts. Then we all had to endure that fucking awful "Banned in the USA" song.

So all they are doing is making Madonna feel important again, when she really hasn't mattered for a long time. Just ignore her and she'll go away.

All this fuss over Madonna, who is about as relevant as.......well.......an unemployed guy in his mid-thirties with an opinion and a blog.

The Worldwide Leader In Dumb

I really should stop watching TV news. I can't stop though, I'm a news junkie. But it is so easy to get pissed at these people. The real problem today is not the so-called "liberal bias," which is not even close to being true anyway. No, it is the dumbing down, not just of the news, but of the people hired to read the news.

Now I've gone off on the idiot weatherman Chad Myers before, and he keeps proving his stupidity. For some reason CNN keeps rewarding his idiocy by giving him more responsibility, and a shiny new desk and studio. They had Mr. Hair Gel pull up the radar showing the planes in the air during the whole British situation last week. He was pointing out that there were not very many planes coming to the U.S. from England on that day because most had been canceled. He pointed out the few that there were, although I'm still not sure why other than he likes showing off the neato new computer CNN bought him, going from over the States first and moving east toward the UK. On the last one he pointed out he said, "...this one that just departed and is now over Scotland" while pointing to Ireland.

Fuck he's a moron. And nobody corrected the guy. Shit like that is just so damn annoying. People bitch and moan all the time that high school kids today can't pick out countries on the map or label all the states or some other thing that they should know. But shit, this is a lot worse. First, he's a weatherman, his whole life is about maps. How could he not know the difference between Ireland and Scotland? Second, he's in the media, he is responsible for information. And come on, can't they at least talk in his ear and tell him to correct himself when he does stupid shit like that? I'm guessing that nobody else even noticed, which means the producers of the news are no smarter than the pretty-boys hired to read it.

I just wonder where all the smart people in the media are, because it seems to me that used to be a requirement to get the job. But not any more. Instead, we get mind-numbing stupidity of the likes of Soledad O'Brien, Carol Costello, and Carol Lin, a trio of women whose role in the world should be spritzing you with perfume at the make-up counter in Macy's. Instead, they report on the important issues of the day. Well, sometimes. If there's time between the reports on Tom Cruise's new baby.

Though as annoying as those three are, they pale in comparison to the air-headedness of Betty Nguyen. How this giggly bimbo ever got a job other than hosting Tupperware parties or selling Amway I will never understand.

And don't even get me started on Miles O'Brien. Who did he have to fuck to get his career?

CNN has spent a lot of money recently on big new sets with fancy (and really annoying) video screens. You'd think they could spare 20 bucks for a goddamn world atlas for Chad Myers.

Or hey, what about hiring people with half a brain? There's a novel idea.

GOP Joe

A friend sent me this article today from the Wall Street Journal. A subscription is required to read the whole thing, it is basically one of Joe Lieberman's political buddies, Lanny Davis, accusing the opponents of Lieberman of conducting "liberal McCarthyism," acting like a left version of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter & Michael Savage and, most seriously, anti-Semitism.

He defends Lieberman with the line, "...Sen. Lieberman's record as a progressive (emphasis mine)Democrat and his opposition to President Bush not only on most domestic issues but also on the conduct of the war cannot be disputed..."

I wasn't going to really weigh in on the Lieberman primary race because, let's face it, it has been talked about and blogged about to death. But I couldn't help writing about this jerk-off's editorial. Both for the ridiculous anti-Semite charge and the reference to Lieberman as a "progressive."

So here's my comments on his editorial:

Exactly which "progressive" democratic record of Lieberman's is he talking about? Would it be sponsoring bills to protect Dow and Dupont from being sued over defective medical (mainly breasts) implants? Would it be pushing for similar laws to protect tobacco companies, HMOs and pharmaceutical companies from all lawsuits? No politician in Washington gets as much money from the insurance industry as Lieberman. And he's married to a drug company lobbyist.

What about the time he supported a bill that would deny funds to schools that counseled suicidal homosexual teens with the idea that there is nothing wrong with being gay? Is that considered "progressive?"

Would "progressive" be his attempts to force censorship on the music and film industries? Remember that he was also one of those politicians who tried to blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine.

Was his support for the idiotic Clinton impeachment "progressive?"

Oh wait, maybe he was talking about Joe's support of school vouchers (which would destroy public schools) or his anti-affirmative action stance.

Or maybe he's talking about the "progressive" idea of death penalty for minors, which Lieberman supports.

This article by one of Lieberman's political hacks is utter bullshit. He pulls a few quotes off the Internet and concludes that the anger against Joe is somehow based in anti-Semitism. By the way, all of his quotes that he purports to be "what the liberal blogs are saying" do not come from those actual blog postings but from the comments section that anyone can put something on. These are not "bloggers," they are just some blog readers who took a minute to hit the "comment" button and leave a remark, and they could be anyone from members of the GOP to the KKK to Lieberman's own staffers planting stuff. And to take Ned Lamont to task for not "denouncing" these statements is like condemning him for not denouncing a letter to the editor in the Jackson Hole Wyoming newspaper. He likely has never even seen or heard about these comments.

So because a few random nut-balls say some stupid things about old Joe being a Jew, suddenly it's all anti-Semites and McCarthy-ites that are trying to bring him down. Well that's complete bullshit, through and through. There is real anti-Semitism in the world, and this ass-hole trivializes it by trying to claim that Lieberman is a victim of it. It is an insult to every victim of the Holocaust, and every synagogue and Jewish cemetery that has ever had to clean off swastikas painted on their property. Mr. Davis should be ashamed of himself.

Those of us on the left who hate Joe Lieberman don't hate him because he's a Jew. We hate him because he's a conservative jerk who is in the back pocket of the insurance companies and the chemical industry. He is a Republican in Democratic clothing, and any person who considers themselves liberal or progressive should be ashamed of themselves for supporting him. You might as well vote for Rick Santorum or Tom Delay.

As far as "hate and vitriol" coming from us? Well before he starts accusing others of spewing hatred like Ann Coulter, he should talk to his "longtime friend" Joe about how he once referred to his opponent's supporters as Jihadists.

For some better reading on the Lieberman/Lamont race go to this and this. And these are free, unlike the Wall Street Journal site.

Love Letter To Lynne From Lowell

So after my last post I got a snippy little comment from Lynne, who has a blog called Left In Lowell, because she's a lefty politically and lives in Lowell, MA. This is her comment to me:

If you dislike your former place of residence so much, get yourself off of Leftyblogs' MA feed, then, as you are no longer a MA resident.

Thanks.

Sorry for the tone but if you think so poorly of the city, then you must think poorly of the people you left behind. It's sorta insulting.

Well Lynne, it certainly wasn't meant to be sorta insulting, it was meant to be really insulting. I must be off my game. What I don't get is that Lynne has read my blog a bunch of times and commented on several occasions, and has always posted a nice comment agreeing with what I wrote. So how is it that she has never been insulted by my degrading of Beantown before this? I mean, this was one of my tamer tirades against Boston. There have been people suggest to me that my blog should be called "I hate Boston" because of how much I go off on that town, has Lynne really missed it all this time? Why would she be so mad about my last one but not this three part series (here, here, and here) or this, this, or this. In that last one I ended it by writing, "This is what happens when you have a town full of those Southie dunderheads. They may have made for cute little lovable characters in Good Will Hunting, but in real life they're just a bunch of fucking Neanderthal dumbshits." How do you not get upset over that but over a little random bit about how I'm so much happier living in New York over Boston?

And there I think I just answered my own question. Boston knows they are not nearly as cool as New York and they have a lot of inferiority about it. I think it is probably the root of all of Boston's problems. Shit Lynne, I once wrote a whole tirade about how New England liberals (which is what you consider yourself) are the biggest hypocrites in the world, and not a peep from you about it. But one off the cuff remark about how it is so nice that stuff in New York stays open later than in Boston and suddenly I'm an ass-hole. (And really, if you ask anyone who knows me, I've been an ass-hole for so very much longer)

And as for the line, "...if you think so poorly of the city, then you must think poorly of the people you left behind."

Well, duh. That has been my point the whole time. I think I've made the point over and over that the reason Boston sucks the big one so much is because of the people. It is a town full of awful human beings who are shitty to everyone. What makes it even more unbearable isn't just that they're shitty all the time, but that they are so fucking proud of it. People in Boston don't bump you on the sidewalk and almost knock you down because they aren't watching where they are going, they do it because they want to knock you down.

Finally, as far as the Leftyblog Mass. "feed" that I'm on, well I have no idea how I got on there to begin with and don't even know how to take myself off. (And I've been listed there for a long time, I've always been surprised that I never got a pissed off Bostonian comment before since I'm pretty damn ruthless in my hatred for that town.) Someone at some point saw my blog and put my link up on their without my knowledge. I never really called my blog a political blog to begin with. Yes, I'm a person with leftist political leanings and often write about that, but I've always considered it to be more than just a political blog. I only found out about my listing at Leftyblog after discovering that people were coming to me from that site. I'm not complaining, mind you. A link is a link, and if more people find my blog because of it, that's cool. I wouldn't care if there was a link from the American Nazi Party site or NAMBLA if it means more people are reading my rants. But if I'm listed on the Mass. Leftyblog site, that is neither my fucking problem nor responsibility. And it seems like a really dumb, petty, shallow thing to be concerned about.

As a Massachusetts resident, you should be much more concerned about the fact that the people around you can't pronounce the words idea (ideer), car (cah), or park (pahk) without sounding like a bunch of goddamn morons.