Welcome to the Party, Pal

I haven’t forgiven them for thevile thingsthey saidaboutJohn Kerry and I likely never will, and just because you finally wake up and smell the coffee doesn’t mean you’re entitled to a spot at the breakfast counter, but this is quite a turnaround. Why I Parted Ways With The Right Opinion | Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:49:45 pm PST 1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.) 2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, … Continue reading Welcome to the Party, Pal

Bombarded

During the 2008 election local NOLA teevee was blissfully free of overheated national ads. We had ads for the Landrieu-Kennedy senate race and saw the national ads on cable but the local news and, more importantly, Jeopardy were politics free zone. That’s changed with the health care reform debate. Louisiana may be a red state but my area features a Republican, Cao who voted for the House bill and a Democrat, Melancon, who voted against. So, our airwaves have been bombarded with ads praising and attacking our Congresspeeps for their votes. The most annoying ad is one from the Chamber … Continue reading Bombarded

Journalism: Like Ball Tapping, In a Way

Just fucking shoot me: It’s a disturbing game with devastating consequences, and anew WTHR survey suggests it is rampant in Indiana schools. “Ball tapping” is the act of intentionally hitting or kicking a male in the genitals. Earlier this month, anEyewitness News investigation showed the game has become commonplace in some area schools, resulting in serious injuries for students. As part of the investigation, WTHR also conducted astatewide survey of school nurses. The results are in, and they show the problem of ball tapping is more common and widespread than many school officials had realized. Now, look. Before you inundate … Continue reading Journalism: Like Ball Tapping, In a Way

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – more odds and sods edition

Good morning everyone! I’d like to interrupt the Hostiliday proceedings for some late-breaking snark.

The moderators at Free Republic have an interesting job – trying to keep a lid on the bigotry, racism, and overall batshit craziness, without alienating all the bigoted, racist, and batshit -crazy people who make the site what it is.

They pulled this one, for instance, but“we be fast, and they be slow!”.

p>Google Apologizes for Offensive Image
of First Lady

Washington Post ^| November 25, 2009 | Garance
Franke-Ruta

Posted onWednesday,
November 25, 2009 5:03:48 AM
bylbryce

Ruta Search engine behemoth
Google is apologizing for image-search results delivered for first lady Michelle
Obama that show the No. 1 image of her online to be a racist caricature.
“We
apologize if you’ve had an upsetting experience using Google. We hope you
understand our position regarding offensive results,” says a house ad from “the
Google team” served up in conjunction with image results for queries on the
first lady’s name.
“Search results are a reflection of the content on the
web. Our search results simply reflect what’s out there,” Google spokesman Scott
Rubin explained. “According to the way our algorithm works, when we try to
deliver the most relevant search results based on other pages that link to it
and so on, this is what is returned.”
He said it was possible that the image
ranked so high because people were linking to it to condemn it, but noted that
there was no way for the company to know for sure. Page rank is the result of
“more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms,” according to Google.

“Because the image is offensive to many, we felt it was important to explain
to our users why an image like that would appear,” Rubin said.
The racist
image was previously removed by Google in response to a complaint by Search
Engine Roundtable, which objected that “If you conduct a search in Google Images
for [Michelle Obama] you will see a racist image in the number one result.”

(Excerpt) Read more atvoices.washingtonpost.com


TOPICS:Breaking News
KEYWORDS:firstlady;michelleobama

PhotobucketThis is the image of the First Lady as posted throughout the
internet.
Personally, I don’t understand at all what the brouhaha is all
about.
I think the First Lady should consider it a compliment as it is a
most
definite improvement.

1 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:03:49 AM
bylbryce
p>To: lbryce

the No. 1 image of her online

To me, this says it all.

2 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:07:52 AM
byP8riot (I carry a
gun because I can’t carry a cop.)

div class=”ecxecxa2″>To: lbryce

Why the hell is it racist? WaPo states it as a fact. It’s
simply an age-advancing software image which never makes you look better.

Even me.

9 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:11:49 AM
byThrownatbirth (…Iraq Invasion fan since ’91.)

And now –the punch line:

To: lbryce
Let’s not cheapen this site with trash.

4 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:09:25 AM
byAlways Right

Bwahaha

To: All
I apologize to all who find the posting of this story not up
to the standards of Free Republic and agree thatfor some this post deserves to
be removed.

17 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:19:43 AM
bylbryce (Obama
Notwithstanding, America’s Best Days Are Yet To Be .)

div class=”ecxecxa2″>To: lbryce

The article was ok, but we didn’t need the picture or the
comments. Even though it was done routinely with Bush which was childish, there
is just a history of portraying blacks as monkeys that just screams
racism.

19 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:22:05 AM
byAlways Right

YaThink

p>They really, really don’t get it, do they? Somewhere, in what passes for their minds, white people have routinely been insulted racially as “monkeys”.

To: lbryce
if they don’t like it, they can clickout same as they
clicked in

25 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:29:10 AM
bySF_Redux

See?

To: lbryce
It may not be to everyone taste, but it’s definitely
newsworthy IMHO.
No, not when you say:
“I think the First Lady should
consider it a compliment as it is a most definite improvement. “

Then
you make it about US at FR distorting and smearing Michelle Obama. THAT makes it
beneath us.

15 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:18:54 AM
byYossarian

div class=”ecxecxa2″>To: Yossarian

My comment was conveyed in a sense of utter sarcasm and
regret it was lost on some of you.

21 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:23:08 AM
bylbryce (Obama
Notwithstanding, America’s Best Days Are Yet To Be .)

div class=”ecxecxa2″>To: lbryce

My comment was conveyed in a sense of utter sarcasm and
regret it was lost on some of you.
Horsecrap. It was slime, and you know it.
It’s obvious with every post here you make. (e.g. “Forsome, this thread
should be pulled.”)

23 posted onWednesday, November 25,
2009 5:25:01 AM
byYossarian

I guess they just weren’t listening when “Big Jim” Thompson posted this (and the fact that he felt like heneeded tosays volumes):

(edited for clarity and space)

Message to all liberals and leftists from ‘Jim Thompson,’ owner of FreeRepublic.com

Vanity
| July 15, 2009
| Jim Thompson

Posted onWednesday, July 15, 2009 3:43:56 PM byJim Robinson

I’ll tell you what. The dozen or so insults made by about a
half-dozen anonymous members of the general public on an Internet forum
were disgraceful. So we pulled them.

We pulled them because they are racist, but let me now try to weasel-word my way out of it.

But they’re really a
disgrace to insults in general and to the professional race-baiters of
our main stream media that hurl them on a daily basis.

Shorter Jim Thompson – “The racists this place allows to post aren’t as bad as the ones that don’t post”

Our guys
don’t hold a candle to the professionals that have spent the last ten
years or so pummeling the Bush and Cheney families with thousands of
insults

..all of them racial, of course. See? He’s made the jump from racism to insults in a single paragraph. Next he’ll link insults to brussels sprouts, and Big Jim hates brussels sprouts, and won’t hesitate to have posts about them pulled.

every damned day in every newspaper, magazine and TV network
broadcasting to the public. Even the movies. Even in the halls of
congress, in school rooms, in our churches.

Damn those churches, anyway! And you know you can never turn of the viewscreen.

We are bombarded daily by a constant stream of insults hurled by liberals, socialists, Marxists and leftists of every stripe.

That would be because you’re a simpleton with the moral compass of a Bundist.

Family
members and children are not immune from the daily barrage of insults
from professionals and amateur leftists alike. The Internet is chuck
full of insulting comments, photo-shopped photos,

All of which end up here.

cartoons so bad that
they should be ashamed to publish them in their daily papers, but
publish them they do. And laugh. Freaking hypocrites!

They
laugh about the insults hurled 24 hours a day against Sarah Palin and
her husband and little girls. Even the tiny helpless little Downs
Syndrome baby is not immune from their hateful insults.

Big Jim? News flash for ya, babe. When a “Marxist” (not that you’d recognize one if he walked up to you and sangKrasnoe znamia)says that Palin is trotting Trig out as a prop, it’s not an insult to Trig.

Racism? Monkey sounds? Right. Do a google search on “Bush Chimp” and see what pops up.

Like I said – you really really really don’t get it, do you, idiot boy?

George
Bush is just as much a human being as Michelle Obama. And just as
American. The only difference is George Bush is proud to be an American
and proud to defend his country while Michelle Obama was ashamed of
America for her entire adult life. Defend America? Right. The Obamas
wouldn’t lift a finger to defend America. They’d rather destroy it and
destroy all it stands for.

You’re a nutcase.

Bush is a monkey. Bush is a chimp.
Bush is a gorilla. Bush is a subhuman knuckle dragging mongrel. He
sometimes makes funny monkey faces, even funny monkey sounds. We all
have. I have. You have. Michelle Obama has. Monkey see, monkey do. Get
used to it!

Get used to being a nutcase.

Poor white trash live in trailer parks. Poor white
trash live in slums. Poor white trash also live in ghettos. Many people
who aren’t even poor white trash live in trailer parks, slums, barrios
and ghettos.

Many who aren’t poor, white, ghettos, or trailers live somewhere or other! Flagoom! Orner porner flapdoodle! Waugh!

“Dressed like someone from the ghetto” can’t
possibly be a “racist” insult unless you’re assuming all black people
and only black people come from ghettos.
If you are making that
assumption and are personally insulted by such comment, then look
around. You may be a racist.

Why, it’s all so simple when you explain it that way. It’s not you and your flying monkeys that are racists, it’severybody else. Of course – how logical!

Ok, I think I have this figured
out. It’s absolutely ok for the left to trash any conservative, even
children and babies, but it’s absolutely against the rules to return
fire. The left can hurl out the insults, but cry like banshees when it
comes back on them.

Speaking of insults doing harm to sweet
little girls, how much harm is done to a child when Obama authorizes
so-called “reproductive health” professionals to reach up into a womb
and literally rip a human baby limb from limb and remove its lifeless
carcass bit by bit when if left alone, it would have been a bouncing
little baby boy or girl just moments later.

And now posting pics at Free Republic of the POTUS and his wife as monkeys has magically turned into the subject of abortion. It’s like he’s free-associating everything he hates and has forgotten what his sick little screed was supposed to be about. It’s turned into BLACKSLIBERALSABORTIONSTAKEMYGUNSMOVENEXTTOMEAAAGHAAAGHMARXISTSWANTMYMONEYHATE THEMALLKILLTHEMALLAAARRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

That’s the supreme insult. It’s a gross insult to
every human being on this planet living or dead. It’s an insult to life
itself. It’s an insult to humanity, to human decency. It’s a slap in
the face to God the Creator of all life. We will all pay a price for
the disgraceful American Holocaust. Fifty million innocent American
lives slaughtered on the altar of liberalism and the count is growing
daily. Butchers!

FReep you and the smug, arrogant, hypocritical high horse you rode in on!

My name is Big Jim Thompson and I approve this message.

No, Big Jim –fuck YOU. Thank Providence that you and your ugly sycophants are dying off.

Go directly to Hell, do not collect $200, and may the Saint who casts you down be black..

p>Well, now that I’ve spoiled everyone’s breakfast, more old odds and ends after the jump.

Continue reading “Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – more odds and sods edition”

If You Can Post Crappy Videos, I Get To Do This

What awaits me when I die, in part for things like what I am about to do. So, I’ve just about had it with the crappy videos. This is my retaliation. I think that, if they ever make a movie about two people named Jim and Stacy who date and break up, then get back together and break up again, but just can’t break that pattern, and the relationship is by turns wonderful and awful, and the story is told from Jim’s point of view; if they do all of that, I think that a great title for that movie … Continue reading If You Can Post Crappy Videos, I Get To Do This

Oh – they *have* to be holiday-oriented?

I was just trying to get back at Adrastos for planting that irritating earworm, but I’ll play along. And “Taking the keys away” was exactly the phrase I used yesterday when talking to the better half about my concern about having posted out of my time slot. So – in honour of her good nature, I dedicate this one to Mistress A, just because it has many many mentions of her favourite word. Then I’m going to go hide in the Free Republic decontamination room until this thing blows over. p align=”center” class=”asset asset-video” style=”margin: 0pt auto; display: block;”> p>Also. … Continue reading Oh – they *have* to be holiday-oriented?

The Spirit Of The Hostilidays

I’m proud of my First Draft colleaguesBuggy Q andVirgo Tex for feeling the spirit of the season: hostiliday style. I’m sureTommy T will catch on soon since the tune he posted was genuinely horrendous. There’s some concern that mom may take the keys to the blog away but she’s the one who brought me aboard so I’m sure she knew what she was getting into. If not, she’s in for it now: bwa-ha-ha-ha… The NOLA bloggers and our Scout have been indulging in this custom for several years. The videos have ranged from the well-done but offensive to traditional cheesiness … Continue reading The Spirit Of The Hostilidays

Forced Furlough Friday (part II)

And here we go with the rest of the day… 11:35 a.m.: We hit the road after hearing the Midget change her mind about 12 times regarding the car we should take. We settled on the Civic, as it was 31 degrees when we left and while the heater on the classic works, it’s still a classic heater. I swear, I don’t know how people survived in the winter during the ‘60s in these boats. 11:47 a.m.: We pass by a Lowe’s which has people pouring in and out of the parking lot like bees to a hive. When I … Continue reading Forced Furlough Friday (part II)

Forced Furlough Friday

As part of our governor’s plan to try to close the state’s budget deficit, all state employees are required to be furloughed a certain number of days each year over the next two years. It’s a neat trick that amounts to about a 3 percent pay cut while really costing the state next to nothing in personnel power. The reason? They mandate that we can’t be furloughed on days in which we’d be doing actual work (i.e. teaching class, attending faculty meetings etc.). They also managed to mandate specific days where we HAVE TO be off. Of course those are … Continue reading Forced Furlough Friday

This is a Local Spot

I don’t hate Black Friday. I’d much rather put something on layaway and then pick it up a week before Christmas, or just do all my shopping in October, which I did this year. Just about all of it, barring specific requests for things, came from either Etsy, other small e-tailers, Ebay, or antique stores. I don’t partake, myself, in getting up before dawn and hitting the stores for deals, but I know people who do it and enjoy it. It’s like a ritual, almost like a sporting event. Having gotten caught up in some pretty weird stuff myself I … Continue reading This is a Local Spot

In Lieu Of The Malaka Of The Week…

… I thought I’d fire the opening salvo in the annual bad holiday video war. It’s not that there’s not ample (that’s a lot of fucking nots, y’all) malakatude to mock but I’m feeling mellow after dining on teal stuffed with sweet potatoes, turkey with erster dressing and multiple desserts washed down with champagne and boo-jelly nouveau. The whole mishegas makes me want to post a really cheesy video that that twisted comic geniusKen Levineposted today. It’s a Thanksgiving song and an extremely bad one that answers the eternal question, “what time is it?” with “it’s turkey lurkey time.” p … Continue reading In Lieu Of The Malaka Of The Week…

Thanksgiving Day Tangent

FromAlbum3 Since it’s presumably a slow news day, I thought I’d step back and look at the Kennedy assassination…last weekend was the 46th anniversary of the tragedy…andregardless of what some thought, I hope people consider it a tragedy…anyway, I’m curious as to opinions… I was born just over a year and a half after Dallas, which makes me middle aged but not in the picture re: where I was when I heard. Growing up, it seemed JFK was revered as a martyr (though at my tender age, I didn’t know WHY, just that he was the young, not-Nixon president who’d … Continue reading Thanksgiving Day Tangent

Thankful

Friends. Family. Fat happy healthy pets. Employment. A roof over our heads, crumbling though it may be. Enough to eat. Potato chips. Football. Readers. Lots and lots of readers. Readers’ pet pictures on the Internet. The Internet. Good books. Good scotch. Good wine. Grandma’s voice on the phone saying, “I love you too, honey.” Weirdos on the L. Cold clear days of blue sky through the black bare trees. The walk to work. The walk home, even better. Hot cider. Bad jokes. A fake fire. The smell of a real wood fire up the street warming someone else’s home. Coffee. … Continue reading Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving From Snoop Dogg & Martha Stewart

I believe in recycling; including posts. I posted this oddball gem on my blog last year and it surely merits a spot here on First Draft. It features Martha showing Snoop Dogg how to make mashed potatoes, kitchen diva style. Holiday hilarity ensues:p align=”center” class=”asset asset-video” style=”margin: 0pt auto; display: block;”> Continue reading Happy Thanksgiving From Snoop Dogg & Martha Stewart

This is Awesome

Virgo e-mailed this over. It wins: Go to the goddamn grocery and get steak. Yes, the grocery. A little ammonia is not going to kill you, you pussy. You want to be all fancy and grass-fed and environmentally conscious, go ahead, I don’t give a shit, just get a fucking steak. Ribeye is good. And, yes, bone-in. Schmuck. Take the steak home. Get a bigass frying pan and put the shit on the stove, cranking the heat up as far as that fucker will go. Take a shitload of salt—rocksalt, you dumb motherfucker, none of that fine-grained crap here—and toss … Continue reading This is Awesome

Malakatude On The Wire

I’ve hadThe Wire on the brain this week. For one thing, the pride of NOLA, Wendell Pierce, who played Bunk, has endorsed the Mayoral candidacy of his old friend, Troy Henry. Henry isn’t going anywhere as a candidate (not even as a trojan horse) for thereasons I describe in this post, which includes a teevee spot featuring Wendell. Btw, I don’t consider Pierce to be a malaka for supporting an old buddy: it’s what friends do. Back to malakatude onThe Wire. My born again commitment to the malaka of the week has reminded me of Season-2 wherein Greek gangsters and … Continue reading Malakatude On The Wire

In Which I Come Through And Solve A Seemingly Intractable Problem. Yet Again.

Leave December to me & this guy. I had a great idea yesterday. Trust me. Great. I was thinking about Christmas, and how unhappy some people are that it starts in, oh, September. Then I thought about how unhappy some people are that there’s not enough religious crap attached to Christmas. Here comes the great idea. I think that the anti-choice crowd should celebrate their religious Christmas in March, and leave December to those of us who want to enjoy free shit, televised sporting events, and gluttony. Bear with me here. You see, it’s one of the tenets of many … Continue reading In Which I Come Through And Solve A Seemingly Intractable Problem. Yet Again.

Thanksgiving video 2: A place where we ache to go again

One of the six or seven folks who hadn’t watched the show before, I finally gave in toMad Men this season, mostly because an old friend kept pushing me to watch it. (Happy now, Marie?) Now I understand that in addition to his many other sins, we can blame Don Draper every time some goddamned commercial makes us cry. The last episode of the first season, The Wheel takes place during Thanksgiving week, 1960. http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4966929&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1 Continue reading Thanksgiving video 2: A place where we ache to go again

Asking Questions

Aimai on the various Palin videos that are circulating: If you watch the video lots of people were prepared with a first sound bite “she stands for America!” “She makes me proud to be a woman!” That was like the moment in Palin’s interviews when she knew she’d handled the softball questions well. But as the interviewer didn’t end the interview but instead asked for more detail the interviewee begins to get nervous. They have to explain some things that they had taken for granted. The very question seems to challenge them. As they start to talk more, and find … Continue reading Asking Questions