What the Hell?

Stop watching FOX News. They lie to you.

That should be the end of your conversation. If anyone, ever, at any point during the next month or so claims either than the financial reform bill is a bank bail out bill or that net neutrality is somehow an administration attempt at censorship.

Those are lies.

They come directly from FOX.

Tell whoever is speaking to stop watching FOX because they are being lied to and if they are repeating those lies then they are making themselves into liars.

Don't bother to try to have rational discussions with liars.

Just don't. It's a waste of time and energy.

As I've said before it's a a function of laziness. Allowing those shills to form their opinions for them shows you that you're dealing with someone who is simply not smart enough to have a rational conversation.

Walk the fuck away.

Dear Tea Baggers,

You're a punchline. Embrace this fact.

I'm not going to go into the misspelled signage because that's just too easy and in my opinion criticism of spelling is the last resort of someone who doesn't have a good argument.

For a laugh I would suggest that anyone who does want to entertain themselves by mocking the sad, sad signage click here.

No, you, my dear tea baggers are a punchline because of some guy named Jinx on a motorcycle forum.

You know when I was a little boy, there was an old negro farmer that lived down the road from us, named Monroe. He was … (subtle laugh), I guess he was just a little more luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule.

It was a big deal in round that town. Now my daddy hated that mule. Cause, his friends were always kidding him about, “They saw Monroe out plowing with his new mule and Monroe is going to rent another field now he had a mule.”

One morning that mule showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that, there wasn’t any mention about that mule around my daddy. It just never came up. One time we were driving down that road and we passed Monroe’s place and we saw it was empty. He just packed up and left, I guess, he must of went up north or something.

I looked over at my daddy’s face, I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and said, “If you ain’t better than a nigger son, who are you better than?”” - Agent Anderson, Mississippi Burning

And welcome to the Tea-hadist mindset. With Barack Obama in charge…who are you going to be better than?

And don’t think some of us recognize the symptom because we are a pack of condescending know-it-all asshats. We are…but that has fuck-all to do with the observation.

It’s just that we have seen this before. Up North…in our so-called “enlightened” neck of the woods.

Want to know the difference between North and South? Well, a man once told me that up North, it is OK to have a Black as your boss, but you will be damned if you will have one for a neighbor. Down South, it is OK to have a Black neighbor…but you will damned if you will have one as a boss.

So we went through all this Tea Party nonsense up North, about 20-30 years ago. And the reaction was just as vehement, inarticulate, and dumb as what is being spewed now. If you want to see hate and spittle, you should have seen how South Boston reacted to school integration.

But you would not have seen it 24/7 as you do today. It happened…but not in a perpetual echo chamber. And thank Christ for that.

And if you think the enlightened liberal North embraced integrated housing with open hearts, think again, It was called “white flight” and it damn near emptied some cities. “Sure, we support integration…now excuse us while we move to the suburbs where those Zulus won’t be able to spear us with their assegais.”

But white flight was a safety valve. It kept the pressure at reasonable levels. It also prolonged it and led to new levels of stupidity, but you could, after all, vote with your feet. Many did. Many still do.

OK, the job front was a bit stickier. Northern Industry has always been (at least since the 1950’s) largely integrated. Steel Mill owners don’t give a fuck what your skin color is. Besides, you could only tell on the way into work, on the way out everybody pretty much looked the same.

But you always knew what hand you were playing, because the cards were mostly dealt face up. Your boss was still white. Your union steward was still white. Your mayor and your chief of police were still white. And, as much as it pains me to tell you this, Michael Steele did not run the GOP. And even if he did, at least up north, you went home at the end of the day to your own private Idaho in the suburbs, and played golf on the weekends at a club where Michael Steele was never going to get in. Well, not the front door

The workforce may have been integrated, but you still knew who you were better than. Nobody dared yell “You Lie!!” at a white boss.

Over time, most of that has changed (but if you take a shot every time you can name a Black mayor of a predominantly white New England city…you are going to bed sober). But it took a very conscious effort to change it. Acceptance of diversity does not come easy when the question is: “who are you better than?”

And now the way the cards were dealt 18 months ago has upset a huge segment of the population. They no longer know who they are better than. They are lashing out. And there is fuck-all for a safety valve and it does run 24/7 in a perpetual echo chamber.

They say it is about “freedoms”…but they can point to no freedoms that have been lost over the last 14 months.

They say the Constitution is being destroyed, but when you ask them what parts of The General Welfare Clause or Congresses’ power to regulate Interstate Commerce are being violated…they stand mute with rage

They say it is about taxes…but they can find no drastic tax increases in the last 14 months.

Come to think of it, I don’t really remember anyone getting speared with an assegai thirty years ago either. But that didn’t stop people screaming about the danger.

And they say they want their Country Back.

Well, Bing-fucking-O.

Now we have it. They want to return to a time and place where they at least knew who they were better than.

And the fact that most of this spittle is flying from the mouths of the poor, the semi-educated, the low information voter, and from By-God Dixie…well, that is only because it is your turn. A lot of the rest of the Country has already gone through this exercise 20-30 years ago. And the same spittle flew from the same confused lips when it was our turn.

So we don’t look on Tea-hadists with scorn because they are alien and unfathomable. We do so because we recognize these very traits as ours and those of our neighbors.”All in the Family” wasn’t the most popular show in the Northeast because Archie Bunker was despised. It was popular because he was comfortably familiar. But at least he was a character. Nobody tried to run him for President.

And it ain’t just President Obama. It is a lot else: If your job can be done on the Indian sub-continent, who are you better than? If China can launch a spaceship, who are you better than? If the world looks at the mighty Dollar as little better than an American Peso, who are you better than? If an immigrant can work your ass into the ground, and do it smiling for a lot less money, who are you better than?

A whole lot of life has been shaken and stirred the last couple of decades.

This whole Tea-Party nonsense will eventually pass. Because there is no “going back”. OK, you can move to Idaho, or Montana, and it will feel like you have found what was missing. And you might even be happy. As long as you never watch the POTUS on the national news while you are trying to answer the question: “Who am I better than?”

But Jesus wept, people are going to keep asking that damned question. Soccer may be watched for it’s beauty…American Football is about who is better. We are more of a class society than people want to admit. There is still a very strong vein of Scotch-Irish pride that runs through this Country’s character. Unfortunately that pride is seldom based, at least lately, on personal or collective achievement…just who you are better than. You can hear it every time a factory closes in this Country and people cheer. No, they really don’t believe that closing the Auto Factories will make America stronger. But it adds a whole bunch of people to the list of those they are better than.

Still…what the fuck. 600 years of violence and oppression was bound to warp the Scotch-Irish a bit. Hell, you can even consider them heroically well adjusted given their, and my, history. And history will eventually change us again once all the dogs adjust to the new Alpha Male reality and find their place again in the pack. Until then we live in the land of flying angry spittle.

You're protesting today because you think your taxes are too high. But 90% of people saw their taxes lowered. It took me like, 10 seconds to Goggle that piece of information.

As I mentioned in my last post, it's important, if citing the Constitution, to have actually read the document. Nothing in the health care bill, the financial reform bill or any other aspect of the president's term so far has been unconstitutional. It took me almost a whole minute to Google that one 'cause, you know it's the Constitution and anyone who can read this post has access to it. Commerce Clause. Look into it.

You haven't lost any rights. As you may have read, you don't have the right to say whatever you want without consequences. Sure, say what you want but you accept the consequences. I mean, seriously, grow a pair. I'm tired of the whining.

You call the president a Nazi and you don't even understand the irony of standing at Nuremberg-esque rallies and spewing Kristallnacht levels of hate.

You're a punchline; not because of your stupid signs.

You're a punchline; not because of your unrealistic view of the world.

You're a punchline because you've allowed yourselves to be duped to the point where you can't think. You simply repeat the talking points that Fox has gotten from the GOP.

We don't have to agree but you have to think are you're not allowed to talk to me anymore.

Free Speech, Censorship and Reality

Fred Phelps is scum. I mean, I (hope) I personally don't know anyone who feels it is morally or socially acceptable to picket the funerals of dead soldiers or murder victims.

He's scum and the church he runs has so little to do with any rational understanding of the teachings of Christ as to make it unrecognizable.

But he's also a great example. Yes, he's a great example of crazy run amok and how it can infect the people around it but he's also a great example of how very, very wrong the far right is about their claims of censorship. Fred Phelps is allowed to go on doing what he does, teaching his children and his grandchildren his hateful ways and showing his ass (metaphorically) to the whole universe.

His idiocy is protected so all those people whining about the Fairness Doctrine and claiming that they're being censored need to shut the fuck up.

I've been thinking on this issue based on something that happened on one of my favorite websites a while ago. Long, really long, crazy long story short; one of the groups on the site had some really crappy mods and they didn't do their jobs at all. All sorts of racist, hateful, violent things were posted and let stand. Eventually the people who own the site decided, in the best interests of the site and the rest of the community, to shut the group down.

I will admit to some amount of private rejoicing. There's only so much misinformation I can take and they were a font of it.

Then some people were banned for continued asshattery and they started screaming that their right to free speech had been violated, essentially they repeated the word "censorship," a lot inaccuratly and to no purpose. I'm not going to go over their side of the story because, for the most part it's bullshit. You can just Goggle the name of the site + censorship and you'll find it.

Here's what irritates me about the claim. THERE IS NO FREEDOM OF SPEECH ON THE INTERNET. None. You don't have it. Neither do I. None of us do. We have the freedom to follow the TOS of whatever website you're on, the freedom to get your own damned server and make your own rules or the freedom to not act like an ass in public.

Let me repeat that as it's important. Don't act like an ass in public. As pretty much everything you post or have ever posted on the internet is avalible to the public. If you say things that are racist, sexist or just plain ignorant try very hard not to waste everyone's time pretending to be surprised when someone points out that what you said was racist, sexist or ignorant.

You don't have freedom of speech on the internet and you don't have the freedom to speak without consequences. And that's what the people I'm talking about, and a host of other people, are looking for.

They want to say whatever they want, no matter how false or stupid or mean-spirited the things they say are and then they want to go on their merry way with no consequences. they want to say racist things but they don't want to be called racists and they don't want to hear that the things they said are racist. They just want to say them. It's so very, very childish. I'm tired of it.

“Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.” Thomas Jefferson

We really need to stop making excuses for bigots and call them on their shit.

Article 2 Section 1

And back to the politics.

I'm finding myself ridiculously entertained by the far right, crazy, wingnuts and the hate they have going for the census. Seriously. It's funny. I mean, aside from the reality that the more of them who refuse to fill out their forms the less representation they'll have; every citizen is Constitutionally mandated to participate in the census if polled.

It's the law. It's clearly written in the Constitution and for a group of people who claim to be so loving and respectful of said document you would think they would, you know, do what it fucking says. Always assuming that they've read the thing.

Article 1 Section 2 of the US Constitution is pretty clear on the rules.

The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

So, basically, whatever Congress says is a lawful way to conduct the census is a lawful way to conduct the census and we the people need to shut up about it.

So all of those people who are waving the flag and claiming to be "real Americans," while draping themselves in the false clothes of what they call patriotism while refusing to fill out the census? Yeah, they're criminals.

Which is fine. I mean there are lots of criminals in this nation. I have no problem with someone choosing to commit crime. I have a problem with them whining and lying about it. That needs to stop.

Out of Character

For me at least.

I've been on a makeup binge lately. If you know me you know that I'm the girl who will wear makeup to important events and then wipe it off as soon as said event is over. Not a makeup girl am I.

That said, I've been having cosmetic needs lately. But cosmetics, good ones are expensive. Unless you, like me are geeky enough to search out dupes of the best and most popular brands.

I offer them to you now, for your edification and budget saving needs.

I know MAC is the big dog of makeup hotness. It's also expensive to the point of stupidity. The drugstore is your friend.

MAC brushes are great. They're hand made and soft as hell. They're also crazy expensive, like I said before. Why waste you money?

Here's where being a crafty bitch comes in handy. Rather than spending $42.00 on a blush brush just go to the craft store. The art section of your local craft has every type of crush in every texture, made of every material in the world and they won't cost you a ridiculous amount of money.



The itty, teeny, tiny MAC lip brush is $20.00. Or you could stock up on a bunch of artist's brushes and save your money for fun stuff.



Next up is foundation primer. Especially those of you who use the mineral foundation; you want primer. MAC primer, and every other big name brand primer, honestly, is upwards of $20.00. Buy this instead.



Yes, it's Monistat anti-chafing gel. Get over the intended function. It's exactly the same thing and it's $7.00.

The thing that everyone loves so much about MAC, aside from the smooth texture of the product itself, is the high pigment content. Here's a tip; Black Lady makeup.

We women of high melanin need higher pigment makeup. Go buy some. I suggest Milani and Loreal HIP. Both of them have a high pigment content and you can always blend it into a more subtle look if that suits you.





Buy pretty. Buy smart. Spend more money on yarn.