I'm actually surprised that I was so surprised by Weiner's near-tearful confession today. After all, as a female who is very, very actively social on the internet, I can't tell you how many times I've had to fend off earnest males I hardly know who wish to send me a picture of their junk. I don't know what it is about the internet, and the existence of camera phones, that causes this phenomenon. I don't recall this in the pre-internet days (and I did not lead a sheltered existence by any means) -- it's just that I never had anyone make this particular offer in the course of a casual conversation.
But give a guy a couple of beers and a smartphone (or just a smartphone, really) and all of a sudden it's like he's found his "special purpose" and he just can't wait to show and tell you about it, he's just so proud of it.
It's not that I specifically believed Weiner was framed -- but I did have strong suspicions in that area. Who can blame me for equating the name Breitbart and the concept of deceptive misinformation campaigns against individuals and organizations with the intent to damage their image? And Rep. Weiner's high-visibility attacks on conservative nonsense meant he was a likely target for a smear campaign. This is why circumstantial evidence is a bad thing which should be disregarded even if it tends to agree with your worldview. Especially if it tends to agree.
As I've commented before, I do believe social networking is an important tool for almost all modern public figures who wish to reach their audience. But with anything this new, we haven't yet come to the place where the average non-geek has the requisite skill level to navigate the potential minefield of being in charge of their own digital brand. It takes a delicate combination of authenticity and restraint that seems like it should be a no-brainer, but trust me, it's much harder than it looks.
Speaking of that, does anyone know which reporter, at the end of Rep. Weiner's press conference, shouted the question about whether the wiener in question was fully erect or not? What kind of question is that, really? I'm not sure whether to be more disappointed in Weiner's confession, or concerned that our level of national discourse really is the 6th grade.
My humble cephapologies for playing hooky these past few weeks. Rest assured, Octo has not abandoned my fellow beachcombers.
My moving experience has been interrupted by a brief remodeling project. It seems the carpeting in my new abode is unsuitable for cephalopod habitat, so I am replacing the rugs with plush beach sand and hanging kelp and sargassum wallpaper before the furniture arrives. Ahh, the comforts of home!
The remodeling project and moving experience should be completed by early July at which time I will return with some truly shocking stuff.
Meanwhile, here is a story for the seafarers among you:
A large and beautiful ship sails across the Atlantic. Men in elegant tuxedos and women in luxurious evening gowns are gathered in the grand ballroom. Suddenly, the Captain interrupts the festivities:
Captain: Ladies and Gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. Which would you prefer?
Voices in the crowd: The good news ... the good news!
The man in the video is ex-American Adam Yahiye Gadahn (formerly Adam Pearlman - go figure), spokesmodel and operative for al Qaeda. If the sound is a little muddy, I suspect they had to keep editing out the sounds of NRA members spontaneously combusting.
Why does the NRA hate America? Why are they working with terrorists to destroy our country? _________________
Update: Apparently, Youtube took down the video for violating their terms of service. (And, really, I suppose that telling people to go to gun shows and buy guns to wage jihad should be a violation of their TOS...) Fortunately, it's hosted elsewhere. Crooks and Liars, for instance.
It's impossible for me to watch a Fox "panel" chew on a story without thinking of an alligator feeding frenzy or a bunch of mean dogs fighting for possession of a bit of rawhide. Actually it's impossible for me to watch Fox News at all, but for those of a tougher breed, here's a prime example of that ruthless war on reality called Fox.
Listen carefully and you'll spot the message that Sesame Street aims at lower income, Urban kids and you'll smell the racism and you'll hear the Republican anthem that the fraction of a cent per taxpayer that this show costs is "on principle" too much and especially because it tries to elevate the underclasses in direct contravention of Divine Law and Ayn Rand, whichever is the more powerful.
Does anyone really believe that Big Bird is a Communist or that Sesame Street is ruining America and the morals of its children? (perhaps Doctor Spock fans can sigh with relief now that they've moved on to a new chew toy.)
Perhaps you do, perhaps you watch Fox anyway. Perhaps you're a malicious idiot with delusions of persecution, but here it is again:
I appreciate everything you've done for America, and more so since Alan Grayson was pushed out: you’re outspoken, you aren’t afraid to call a lie what it is, and you aren’t scared to stand up for your convictions. We can't afford to lose you.
You’re probably aware that your penis is in the national news right now. See, this is the kind of "news" that even the less-partisan networks love – it's got strippers, it’s got scrotal references, it has somebody in a position of power looking bad. They're not going to let it go easily.
So the word is that you tweeted a picture of Weiner's wiener to a coed. I don't care what the reality is, the rumor is that your cock is flopping across the internet. You should probably deal with that.
And unfortunately, you're hurting yourself a little bit, too. Dealing with this like the Republicans do (deny, shuffle your feet and feign outrage) would only work if Democrats had a dedicated network pushing their agenda (* cough * Fox) and a battery of top-rated right-wing radio blowhards lying to the public.
I'll admit, the fact that Andrew Breitbart was the first person to air the story makes me instantly assume that it's a lie. Unfortunately, you aren't really coming across in interviews well with your "I can't win answering questions" attitude. And I've got to say, when you go on Rachel Maddow's show, and instead of saying "that's not me," you say:
"Well, it could be or it could have been a photograph that was that's taken out of context or manipulated or changed in some way... So, maybe it did or maybe it's a photograph that was dropped into an account from somewhere else, I mean, I can't say. I don't want to cast this net wider by saying it's someone else."
That just doesn't look good. Kinda makes me itchy, and I'm on your side.
Instead, perhaps you should point out the following fascinating information, turned up by Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs.
Apparently it’s possible for anyone to post a picture to anyone else’s account at the yfrog.com picture hosting site — without a password. The trick is to email a picture from a Blackberry to the user’s yfrog.com email address, with the word “@subject” in the text. This results in the picture being posted at yfrog — and a tweet being posted at Twitter with a link to the picture....
It turns out that you don’t have to email from a Blackberry — you just need to use MMS to send the picture, from any device that supports the protocol. I’ve now confirmed that this technique also works on an iPhone... It also turns out that this is not really a security hole in yfrog; it’s a documented feature that’s been public knowledge for at least 2 years.
Interestingly, yFrog has since closed off access to this particular "feature."
There's more to it, but I'll let you do your own research. In the meantime, stay strong, and for the love of G_d, just say "That's not me. I have a penis, but that one isn't mine."
See? Was that so hard? __________
Update: No answer (not that I expect one - they never call, they never write...), but I'm finding my eye drawn to more stories about the Crotch of Doom, which I'd been ignoring up to now.
For instance, Joseph Cannon has some interesting points, on lawsuits, the origin of the picture, and why the GOP is pulling this particular chain as hard as they are (you know, outside of the obvious...)
Listen my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow-
________________
I had pretty much made up my mind that I wasn't going to grant Sarah Palin any more free publicity or waste any more stress-filled time reacting to the Idiot's Princess, but like the safety valve on a boiler, I have my set limit. Pop goes the weasel, or at least the blogger.
I read her garbled soliloquy yesterday, about how the immigrants who built this country up from an agrarian economy to an economic giant had a terribly hard time gaining entrance and getting citizenship and could not favorably be compared to those today who were raised in the USA from infancy, got an education and became part of our society only to be expelled on some error in their parent's papers. She's right, you can't. It took a matter of hours to go through Immigration in the Ellis Island days and if you weren't Chinese, you were all right. No English required, no guaranteed job, no nothin' -- and they came by the millions. Today it takes years, of course, but we're dealing with Sarah Palin, congenitally stupid product of a fourth tier higher educational system and a lifetime of reading nothing. She's dumber than a pre-schooler and she's a Republican front-runner.
My mother read me that Longfellow poem when I was little more than an infant and I don't think any of my contemporaries did not know by early grade school of that somewhat mythological event, but no, not Sarah Palin who seems to think that the famed Boston silversmith was a spokesman for the NRA and a right wing, saber rattling blowhard whose main concern was promoting gun rights in the American wilderness.
“…he who warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and, um, makin’ sure as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free. And we were gonna be armed.” You betcha, gol durn it!
The fact that this perky little peanut brain couldn't graduate 5th grade much less pass a citizenship test -- or even apparently, read a newspaper, isn't just obvious, it's horrifying and what these daily enormities we're subjected to say about her is still less horrifying than what this says about America.
My first thought was: I've seen this scenario in some cheesy Tom Cruise infected Sci-Fi movie. Apparently that thought occurred to the Nature.com editorial staff as well. The Department of Homeland Security it would seem, is testing a system to detect malicious thoughts. No really.
They call it Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) because that's what government departments do with their doings, lest clear speech shed clear light. They make up acronyms that disguise the tunnels they dig under the foundations of liberty, but I digress. The technology purports to identify individuals who are planning to blow things up or have "malintent" as they say in the dialect.
Like a more traditional polygraph, FAST measures heart rates, among other things. Heart rates respiration and perspiration go up, after all when you're nervous about the bomb in your shorts or wishing you could throttle some thick-skull TSA twit as he gives you grief over an aspirin in your pants pocket that shows up on a scanner and starts groping you for explosives as you put your hands over your head in abject submission. Hell I'm sure I'd set off all kinds of alarm bells right now just thinking of how I've so often been treated as a felon on his way into the penitentiary instead of a tired traveler trying to get home.
I have no idea about what else this electro-mechanical night club bouncer measures and I'm not sure it invades any privacy that hasn't already been taken away by the cowardly traitors who passed the "Patriot" Act. I'm too lazy and too unwilling to provoke myself into another Lewis Black style tantrum to read the " Privacy Impact Assessment" our bureaucratic brethren at DHS have given us. I'll leave that to you. Besides my loathing of people who seem to exist only for the purpose of inserting that fly-blown and putrid metaphor into every sentence, it was written, most revealingly, by someone any German speaker will recognize as the Devil himself: Hugo Teufel III, Chief Privacy offer at the DHS under George W. Bush.
Does it work any better than the Polygraph does at detecting the evasions of sociopaths? It would have to, since those tend to be the people we're looking to put on no-fly lists and of course we won't have the results interpreted by a seasoned professional, but rather someone who was promoted from K-Mart security officer last week.
No, it's the stuff of B movies or sarcastic Dr. Strangelove sequels or even Orwell novels, but perhaps we've lost the ability even to see what the politics of fear has done to us in our cringing, cowardly new century.
Over on Brilliant at Breakfast, Jill found this video. Please watch it in it's entirety (well, OK, halfway through, it just switches to alternate camera views of the same thing - I guess you've gotten the picture at that point).
Holy crap, right? This is America? No dancing allowed? Do we live in a police state? Did Reverend Shaw Moore get elected to Congress? What the hell? I thought Cheney and his jackbooted thugs had been disbanded.
That looks like a flash mob that hadn't really set up, getting shut down (and then thrown down) by Park Police. And did you catch that threat implied in the sergeant's statement, that "you might end up in jail for 48 hours"? And then the body slams, and... Oh my god!
But, you know, there's an old saying about every story having two sides. And that's a hell of an expensive camera that keeps showing up in frame: flash mobs don't tend to be using high-end professional video equipment. So I did a little research. First step: the video is branded "Adam vs the Man," and the title gives you the name "Adam Kokesh." So I looked him up.
Turns out that Kokesh is a kind of a media whore. He was a marine, and during his first tour in Iraq, brought back a war souvenir, which is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Now, Wikipedia quotes a story from the Newhouse News Service saying that because of that, he "was demoted to corporal and soon thereafter discharged honorably with a re-enlistment code that basically said, 'you can't re-enlist.'" He then joined the Individual Ready Reserve, which isn't a full-time active duty military slot, but is still in the military. Which means that he was still under the UCMJ.
So he wore his uniform to a rally protesting the Iraq War, which is also a violation of the UCMJ (he's allowed to attend political events, he just isn't allowed to be in uniform - the military doesn't want to appear to support either side of any debate). Got in trouble for that, but they went easy on him.
He started getting publicity for high-profile protests: a squad-sized "occupation patrol" of DC, to give Americans a taste of what it's like; holding up a large sign at the Alberto Gonzalez hearing, saying that Gonzalez had said "I don't know" 74 times; getting arrested for trespassing in Fort Benning; stuff like that. He rode his internet celebrity into a local libertarian radio show here in Albuquerque, which was picked up by the Russia Today television network.
(And, you know, really? Russia Today? I can understand making a living, and I, personally, don't have a problem with RT, but you can see where the image problem kicks in there, right?)
So, that's him.
Now, in 2008, a small libertarian flash mob gathered at the Jefferson Memorial to celebrate the birthday of Jefferson. In breaking them up, one woman was arrested. Her suit was tossed out, with the judge ruling in a 26 page report that:
"The purpose of the memorial is to publicize Thomas Jefferson's legacy, so that critics and supporters alike may contemplate his place in history. The Park Service prohibits all demonstrations in the interior of the memorial, in order to maintain 'an atmosphere of calm, tranquillity, and reverence.' Prohibiting demonstrations is a reasonable means of ensuring a tranquil and contemplative mood at the Jefferson Memorial."
"Plus, an organized protest is required to get a permit," the judge did not add.
(Remember that thing about permits, by the way. And the phrase "organized protests.")
And the five protesters were taken to the police station, charged with demonstrating without a permit, then released a short time later.
Is this a stupid law? I think so. Did the police overreact? Well, hell yes. They didn't need to body-slam anybody - that was over the top. But I've done crowd control: they needed to move fast and shut this down before it escalated: the longer it lasts, the more people join in. And everything can get much worse, very quickly.
And were the Park Police placed in an untenable position? Looks that way to me.
Since you can only send text in Dean's contact form, he isn't getting all the supporting links. Fortunately, I've got a hotmail account that I don't use for anything else. Because not only am I unlikely to get an answer to this, I suspect I'm about to be buried in religiospam.
Pastor Dean,
You know, it's a funny thing. I read your explanation of the controversy surrounding your prayer on the Minnesota House floor, and I'm a little confused.
I'll be honest. I never heard of you before. Maybe that's because I'm not from Minnesota. So there's that. But you're a man of God and everything, right?
You start the explanation by saying "Today I gave a prayer at the opening of the MN House session. Little did I know that I was going to be giving the prayer on the same day that they were going to have a vote on the marriage amendment." But apparently you had to push through the protestors to get into the building, and they were yelling and everything, and they were even there for two weeks already, protesting an issue that seems to be important to you.
So that doesn't sound like a very good explanation, but maybe you were just trying to say that you didn't know about that vote happening that day. I guess I can accept that. I want to be fair and give you the benefit of the doubt.
But then, your explanation of why you got struck from the record and Zellers denounced you and restarted the session with a different pastor giving a prayer and everything, was "Apparently someone was angry about my prayer because I invoked the name of Jesus." But that's not what anybody said at all.
I mean, if I understand the problem, the big thing was that you went up there and pretty much said that President Obama wasn't a Christian. You know, at the end of the prayer, when you were all like:
"I know this is a non-denominational prayer in this Chamber and it's not about the Baptists... or any other denomination, but rather the head of the denomination and His name is Jesus. As every President up until 2008 has acknowledged."
I think that was probably what the problem was. You seem kind of confused about that, so I hope this helps.
I mean, when Zellers, who asked you to come, denounced you, you said that "If Speaker Zellers does not stand for the Constitution, our veterans, the Founding Forefathers, and the Christian God to whom he swears by an oath to uphold these very things, then I would say Mr. Zellers is not fit to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Minnesota."
But that isn't what he said. You even wrote it out earlier, where Zellers said "He does not represent my values or the values of this state." He didn't say anything about the Constitution, or the Founding Fathers or God. You did.
But while I was reading that, I saw where you said that after you gave the prayer, "Before I knew it, instead of the media reporting on it as me standing up for our future generations, all of the sudden I became an anti-gay divisive pastor."
I don't think that was it, really. I mean, I watched the video, and then I read the transcript, and you didn't say anything about being gay. And since that couldn't have been why they said that, I had to go to the google.
And I don't think that you "all of the sudden became the anti-gay divisive pastor." What I think happened was that people remembered when you said that gays should be arrested and jailed, or when you said that Muslims were more moral than American Christians because the Muslims say that gays ought to be killed. (I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound very moral to me, saying that somebody ought to be killed.)
And in that same show, where you said about gays "On average, they molest 117 people before they're found out." (Where'd you get that number, anyway?)
Or when your volunteers ask for donations to stop teen suicide and get them off drugs, but all your programs are anti-gay and anti-abortion: nobody seems to mention that part.
Or when you and that Bryan Fischer guy said that gays are like Nazis. Or when you said that a Congressman, who's sworn to uphold the Constitution, is trying to bring it down and put in sharia law, and he's doing this by protecting gays from hate crimes.
See, when you say things like that, maybe you should check out what the media says about you each of those times. Because I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't "all of a sudden." I'm thinking that you've been called anti-gay and divisive way before now. And probably a lot of worse names.
