Home General Discussions With Super Rugby taking a break who is on Rassie mind?
With Super Rugby taking a break who is on Rassie mind?
This weekend is the last week for South African sides in Super Rugby before the International break in June.
It does not look good for our sides at the moment with only two possible teams that can make it into the play-offs.
The Lions and the Sharks will have to however put everything into it to make sure that they do make the cut with the Lions likely to be the South African conference winners.
The Jaguares have finally started to play to their potential after three years in Super Rugby and are a real threat at the moment.
This weekend have some great match-ups which we can look forward to starting with the Sharks that have to travel to Argentina and face the Jaguares on Friday.
This is going to be an interesting match as both teams are not just fighting for a wild card spot but also chasing the Lions for that all important conference winner spot.
Saturday the Bulls will host the Brumbies back at Loftus and it is an all South African derby when the Lions travel to Newlands to take on the struggling Stormers.
After this weekend all focus will shift to Rassie Erasmus who will be picking his first Springbok squad, first for a date with Wales in the USA and then the all important English tour next month.
There are still some major concerns over certain positions which are having the public on the edge and in huge debates the last couple of weeks.
We have already seen that Rassie will not be able to pick overseas players for the test against Wales which will be interesting to see which young guns he will give a change for this test.
The biggest discussion points have been for 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15 on social media with the number nine jumper the one that we do not seemed to be agreeing on.
For the Wales test Erasmus can go a bit wild and give a real opportunity to a youngster like Ivan van Zyl?
The midfield have also been heavily discussed among fans and the media. There were even talks to put Pollard at 12 and Jantjies at 10 at one stage.
We will have to wait and see what Rassie Erasmus does with the squad that will go to the USA and the one he will pick for the English.
I'm glad I am not Rassie. Our teams all fail to inspire and he has to select a squad from that. The 45% is the least of his worries I think.
Who is on Rassie's mind?
Steve Hansen… he wishes he was Steve Hansen.
That's who is on his mind.
I'm looking forward to see what happens under erasmus. That Wales game might not be easy, no idea which mamparra arranged the location.
Someone who does not have the core of Bok rugby at heart no doubt.
Apparently Kobus Reinach has claimed that should Rassie select him, he would win him the world Cup!!
I'm not sure if this is poor journalism or not, but if FdP wasn't able to pull it off for Heyneke, what makes you think you can do it with a fraction of the team Meyer had?
This team came within a hair breath of winning that semi, and Aus would never have taken us in the final.
When looking at our current crop, I can't see us getting beyond the quarters next year, not with the Northern hemisphere teams who have improved exponentially and Argentina who are consistently better as well.
The Springbok in dead, not even Rassie can revive it.


1 Sam's going to ............... with friends.
2 I'm very ............... on cooking. It's a great way to relax.
3 I'm totally fed up ............... politicians at the moment.
4 It's a secret and no one knows about it yet so you ............... tell anyone.
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6 Steve ............... chips at the moment because he's on a diet.
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ii-Read the text and fill the gaps with one word only.
I have two amazing sisters. ............... of them speak French. However, they are both very bad ............... cooking.
At the moment, I'm a bit angry ............... Carla, the younger one, because she hasn't sent me an email ............... two weeks now.
They are very hard-working and hardly ever take ............... off work and they always ............... their deadlines. Carla is a doctor and she has to work very long ............... . Samantha is an architect and she is also ............... a lot of pressure.
Despite all this, my sisters have a lot of energy. In fact, Samantha is ............... to flamenco classes at the moment. Carla goes to yoga classes twice a week ............... help her relax. She ............... smoke 20 cigarettes a day but now she has given ............... .
Samantha is more creative ............... her sister. In fact, she makes a lot of her clothes ............... . She also really enjoys ............... to art exhibitions.
I think the best thing about my sisters is that they are also best friends.
i-Read the article and add the titles which best fit to each paragraph.
In Western society there is a widespread belief that animals are not very intelligent. Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, tend to have a lot of respect for other living things and this is often to their great benefit. Native Americans (or the Indians) noticed that when elks, a kind of large deer, were sick, they looked for and ate a certain plant and quickly recovered. This pretty plant is called the purple coneflower or echinacea and is now on sale in every high street chemist all over Britain.
Melvin R. Gilmore was the first modern scientist to study how indigenous people use plants for medicine. He discovered that the Native Americans use echinacea for a lot of different health problems. The Sioux used the root to treat snakebites while another tribe inhaled the smoke from the burning plant to cure headaches. The juice from the root was used to treat burns and the Cheyenne made tea from the dried leaves to treat sore throats.
In more recent times, echinacea has become very popular in Germany where it is used in nearly 300 different products, from ointments for eczema and sunburn to pills for boosting the immune system. The Germans use it to avoid catching colds and flu.
Did you know that 25% of prescription drugs come from plants? Incidently, the word 'drug' means 'dried plant'. Perhaps Westerners should pay more attention to indigenous people and also to animals. They may be able to teach us a lot more about staying healthy.
Imagine you are abroad on holiday. You are in a ciber café checking your email. Write an email to a friend about your holiday in 150 – 180 words.
I have two amazing sisters. Both of them speak French. However, they are both very bad at cooking.
At the moment, I'm a bit angry with Carla, the younger one, because she hasn't sent me an email for two weeks now.
They are very hard-working and hardly ever take time off work and they always meet their deadlines. Carla is a doctor and she has to work very long hours. Samantha is an architect and she is also under a lot of pressure.
Despite all this, my sisters have a lot of energy. In fact, Samantha is going to flamenco classes at the moment. Carla goes to yoga classes twice a week to help her relax. She used to smoke 20 cigarettes a day but now she has given up.
Samantha is more creative than her sister. In fact, she makes a lot of her clothes herself. She also really enjoys going to art exhibitions.


text:
Wendy Dio Says Ronnie James Dio Biopic Made Everybody Cry
Ronnie James Dio's widow and longtime manager Wendy Dio recently opened up about the musician's upcoming documentary. In addition to giving details about the biopic, Wendy stated that she cried while watching it for the first time.
In February 2020, BMG announced that a documentary on Ronnie James Dio was in production with the full authorization of his estate. It was revealed that the movie is directed by Don Argott and Damian Fenton and will include never-before-seen archival footage and photos.
In addition to the rare footage, the upcoming documentary was said to feature scenes with his closest peers, friends, and family. The project will stand as an ending to Dio's incomplete autobiography, which he was trying to finish before his death.
Dio's widow Wendy expressed how enthusiastic she was when the documentary was first announced and stated that it was a long-awaited project. Furthermore, she said that Dio loved his fans, and she felt excited to see his fans' reaction to a focused look at the rocker's life.
During a recent interview, Wendy gave further details about the forthcoming documentary about the late rock star. Apparently, the highly-anticipated biopic is set to be released later this year. Wendy said it will be very different from Dio's autobiography because it also includes the later stages in his life.
Lucky for her, Wendy got the opportunity to watch the whole documentary with her publicist and somebody from BMG. After watching it for the first time, they all cried as the movie was too emotional considering that it also shows Ronnie James Dio's last years.
In addition to this, the widow of the late Black Sabbath frontman said that the biopic will include Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford, Runaways lead guitarist Lita Ford, actor and musician Jack Black, and many more from the music world. All musicians will share their stories and memories featuring the late rocker, and thus, further his legacy.
About Dio's biopic, Wendy stated:
"It's coming out later this year. I recently saw the first cut of it. It was very emotional. It's very different from Dio's autobiography. 'Cause the book finishes in 1986, with Ronnie playing Madison Square Garden. But the documentary goes all the way through his life till the end. And it was very emotional. I was watching it with my publicist and a person from BMG, who are funding the documentary. And we all cried. It was very emotional.
But it's really interesting and really good. Rob Halford is great in it, talking about stories. Lita Ford and Jack Black are also in it. Eddie Trunk and Mick Wall both kind of narrated it and everything. I'm very pleased with it. I don't know exactly when it's gonna come out this year, but it'll be out this year."
You can check out the entire conversation below.
Wendy Dio
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Hi! I'm Melek. I'm a passionate writer who's also into rock and metal music. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. meleknur@metalheadzone.com

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text:
Was the London murder a murder or a 'terrorist attack'?
Michael Adebolajo: Murderer or "terrorist"? Is he a "terrorist" because he's Muslim? And of Nigerian descent?
First off, let me be clear: I am not at all OK with the grisly murder of 25-year-old British soldier and Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby just outside of his barracks in London yesterday. And I reject the idea of killing one person in retaliation for killings that other people committed. In my book, revenge, if it is going to be exacted, should be exact, not approximate.
One of Lee Rigby's two very apparent murderers, 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo of London, "a British-born convert to radical Islam," according to Reuters, notoriously calmly explained to someone with a video camera — while he still held a knife and a meat cleaver in his bloodied hands (see the video still above) — why he and his companion, also of Nigerian descent, according to Reuters, attacked and killed Rigby, whom they reportedly first ran down in a car and then started hacking with a meat cleaver and knives: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
In Greenwich Village this past weekend, 32-year-old gay man Mark Carson was shot to death in an apparent hate crime; reportedly, Carson's accused murderer, Elliot Morales, 33, who was apprehended by police, had used anti-gay hate speech before he shot Carson to death.
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said of the murder: "It's clear that victim here was killed only because, and just because, he was thought to be gay. There's no question about that. There were derogatory remarks. This victim did nothing to antagonize or instigate the shooter. It was only because the shooter believed him to be gay."
Reuters reports that many posit that recent advances in same-sex marriage rights in the U.S. — including three states having gone for same-sex marriage earlier this month — might have been behind the murder of Carson.
Yet the murder of Carson is called a "murder" and the murder of Rigby is called, automatically, a "terrorist attack" or "act of terrorism."
What's the difference between an act of murder and an act of terrorism/"terrorism"?
The murder of Carson, I surmise, was meant to send this message to all gay men or even to all non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals: You are not safe walking the streets. You might be the next one to be shot (or stabbed or beaten up or whatever).
That's not a form of terrorism — an act of violence (a murder, no less) apparently committed with the intent to strike fear within a whole class of people?
Michael Adebolajo very apparently was using Lee Rigby as an example — he killed him in effigy of all British soldiers, in effect — just as Elliot Morales very apparently was using Mark Carson as an example — he killed him in effigy of all gay men, in effect.
So if Adebolajo and his cohort are "terrorists," why isn't Morales a "terrorist"?
My answer to my own question is that when a member of a historically oppressed minority group (like gay men) is murdered, it's not considered to be a big deal. We can call it just a "murder," as though it didn't extend beyond just the murdered victim at all, but was just one of those random things — an act of God, Wolf Blitzer might say.
But when even one soldier is murdered — even on a public/civilian street, and while not on duty, which very apparently is how Rigby was murdered — that's considered an attack on the plutocrats, the elites, of whom the commoner-funded military (Britain's as well as the United States') is just an arm.
The plutocrats, the elites, can't maintain their overprivileged status without whole armies at their command, and the plutocratic elites are far, far more important than any of the rest of us ever could be, so the murder of just one of their soldiers — even in a non-combat situation — automatically is branded as "terrorism," a more serious crime than plain-old murder.
I disagree that Rigby's murder was an act of "terrorism." Rigby's murder was much closer to a murder than to an act of "terrorism."
If we're going to call Rigby's murderers "terrorists" instead of just plain-old "murderers," then we're going to need to call Elliot Morales a terrorist, too — because his crime very apparently was motivated by his religious and political beliefs, just as Adebolajo's and his partner's crime was motivated by theirs.
The act-of-murder-vs.-act-of-terrorism problem largely can be solved if the usage of the "t" terms — "terrorist," "terrorists," "terrorism" — returns to the terms' status before 9/11. Cases of murder committed by an individual or two people apparently acting on their own and not as part of a known terrorist/"terrorist" group — such as the apparent case with the Boston Marathon bombings (I refer to the two Tsarnaev brothers, of course) and the apparent case with the British soldier who was murdered yesterday — are probably much closer to murder cases than they are to terrorism/"terrorism" cases.
We don't refer to the two Columbine High School killers as "terrorists," for example, even though they slaughtered many more people than did the Tsarnaev brothers or Michael Adebolajo.
That's at least in part, of course, because the two Columbine killers were two white "Christian" kids, and you're much more likely to be branded as a "terrorist" if you are Muslim — and even more so if you are a non-white Muslim.
That shit needs to stop. We can't have a two-tiered system of "justice" in which it's only "terrorism" if the (accused) perpetrator is Muslim or non-white or both. If we must go hog wild with the "terrorism" thing, then it must apply to so-called "Christians" and to other non-Muslims and to whites and to other non-blacks as well.
Update (Sunday, May 26, 2013): Columnist Glenn Greenwald, who once wrote for Salon.com but now works for The Guardian of the United Kingdom, on Thursday also tackled the question of "Was the London Killing of a British Soldier 'Terrorism'?"
In his column, Greenwald notes that
An act can be vile, evil, and devoid of justification without being "terrorism": indeed, most of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century, from the Holocaust to the wanton slaughter of Stalin and Pol Pot and the massive destruction of human life in Vietnam, are not typically described as "terrorism."
Yup. Here, I think, is the money shot of Greenwald's analysis:
The reason it's so crucial to ask this question [of whether or not an act of violence constitutes "terrorism"] is that there are few terms — if there are any — that pack the political, cultural and emotional punch that "terrorism" provides. When it comes to the actions of western governments, it is a conversation-stopper, justifying virtually anything those governments want to do.
It's a term that is used to start wars, engage in sustained military action, send people to prison for decades or life, to target suspects for due-process-free execution, shield government actions behind a wall of secrecy, and instantly shape public perceptions around the world.
It matters what the definition of the term is, or whether there is a consistent and coherent definition. It matters a great deal.
There is ample scholarship proving that the term has no such clear or consistently applied meaning. … It is very hard to escape the conclusion that, operationally, the term has no real definition at this point beyond "violence engaged in by Muslims in retaliation against Western violence toward Muslims." …
Actually, it seems to me, in the Western world, especially in the U.S. and the UK, "terrorism" has come pretty much to mean just "violence engaged in by Muslims." Even the acknowledgment that such violence might be "in retaliation against Western violence toward Muslims" usually never is made in Westerners' discussions of "terrorism," since that obviously would be to bring Westerners' guilt into the discussion, and most Westerners, it seems to me, will have none of that.
Greenwald also notes that "earlier this month, an elderly British Muslim was stabbed to death in an apparent anti-Muslim hate crime and nobody called that 'terrorism,'" and adds that the term "terrorism" "at this point seems to have no function other than propagandistically and legally legitimizing the violence of western states against Muslims while delegitimizing any and all violence done in return to those states."
There are news reports, such as this one, of actions perpetrated against Muslims in Britain by non-Muslims in "retaliation" for the slaughter of the British solider in London. This report (from Slate.com) states that "The incidents [so far have ranged] from name calling and abuse on social media, to the painting of graffiti, attacks against mosques, and pulling off women's headscarves in the street." ("Attacks against mosques" is so vague as to be almost meaningless. I wish that the writer had given us the details there, or if he didn't have the details, to have stated that fact.)
Of course, such low-level, "harmless" terrorism is what the Jews in Nazi Germany experienced before the Nazis ratcheted things waaay up.
This leads to yet another question: Is an act in which someone is not injured or killed "terrorism"? Is it only "terrorism" if someone is injured or killed? These thugs pulling Muslim women's headscarves off — that is not done with the intent of terrorizing these women?
Is such terrorizing OK if it's considered in "retaliation" of, or just in reaction to, another incident? Would this be "counter-terrorism"? Or would this be something like just plain-old "justice," since we non-Muslims never use the "t-" word to refer to any of our own actions?
Anyway, as I wrote in my first paragraph of this post, "In my book, revenge, if it is going to be exacted, should be exact, not approximate."
As a gay man, I'm never happy to read about the slaughter of a gay man because he's gay. To use an example that hit close to home, in July 2007, 26-year-old Satender Singh, a Fijian of Indian descent, was killed in my area (Sacramento) because he was suspected of being gay.
Whether he was gay or not I don't know, but the two men from Eastern Europe who were charged with his murder very apparently thought that he was, because, witnesses said, the Slavic thugs who attacked Singh expressly targeted him because he was, they said, a "faggot" and a "sodomite," among other things.
According to the hate-group watchdog Southern Poverty Law Center, witnesses also reported that these Slavic thugs "bragged about belonging to a Russian evangelical church and told Singh that he should go to a 'good church' like theirs." This was right before one of the thugs delivered a blow to Singh's head, a blow that later caused his death. (Great "Christians," eh? Well, even the Nazis considered themselves to be great "Christians.")
While I truly wish that the homophobic Eastern European immigrants here in California would fucking respect and honor how things are done and are not done here in California (and not act here as it's OK to act in their backasswards countries in Eastern Europe) — and if they don't like our freedoms here, including our freedom from their brand of theofascism, they are free to return to Eastern Europe — never would it have occurred to me that it would have been OK to randomly attack (apparent) Eastern European immigrants on the street in "retaliation" for the murder of Satender Singh.
Tagged as 9/11, Boston Marathon bombing, Britain, British military, Christianity, Christians, Columbine, Columbine High School, crime, elites, elitism, Elliot Morales, England, Greenwich Village, hate crime, hate crimes, Homophobia, Islam, Islamophobia, Lee Rigby, London, Mark Carson, Michael Adebolajo, murder, murderer, murderers, Muslims, New York City, plutocracy, Plutocrats, Politics, Racism, religion, Terrorism, Terrorist, terrorists, Tsarnaev brothers, U.S. military, Wolf Blitzer
Magical Elves, sparkleponies and other assorted gay shit
Pro-gay ally NFL player Chris Kluwe's colorfully titled book is due out next month. Kluwe earlier this month was dropped by the Minnesota Vikings but was picked up by the Oakland Raiders. I'm glad and proud to have him as a fellow Californian; Minnesota's loss is California's gain.
I usually comment on gay-rights issues in the news in a timely fashion, but I've been slacking as of late. So here I'll try to catch up:
It was great to see basketball player Jason Collins, the first active player from one of the "Big Four" sports organizations (the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League ), come out late last month, even if there is at least a grain of truth to gay writer Bret Easton Ellis' criticism that Collins' treatment by the media "as some kind of baby panda who needed to be honored and praised and consoled and — yes — infantilized by his coming out on the cover of Sports Illustrated" also made Collins a "Gay Man as Magical Elf, who whenever he comes out appears before us as some kind of saintly E.T. whose sole purpose is to be put in the position of reminding us only about Tolerance and Our Own Prejudices and To Feel Good About Ourselves and to be a symbol instead of just being a gay dude."
And I also was happy to hear the news that pro-gay ally NFL player Chris Kluwe, who was dropped by the Minnesota Vikings earlier this month (perhaps at least in part due to his vocal pro-gay-and-pro-gay-marriage stance), shortly thereafter was picked up by the Oakland Raiders.
If Minnesota didn't appreciate Kluwe, I'm happy to have him here in California, where Kluwe already has done us some good: Kluwe and another pro-gay ally, NFL player Brendon Ayanbadejo, per Wikipedia, "filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on February 28, 2013, regarding Hollingsworth v. Perry, in which they expressed their support of the challenge to California Proposition 8," which in 2008 amended California's Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, a right that California's Supreme Court had ruled was guaranteed to Californians by the state's Constitution before the haters later amended it with Prop H8.
I admire the very apparently heterosexual Kluwe, who is heterosexually married and has two children. According to Wikipedia, Kluwe wrote a blog called "Out of Bounds" for a Minnesota newspaper before he quit the blog last year in protest of the newspaper's having run an editorial in support of the euphemistically titled "Minnesota Marriage Amendment," which, just as Prop H8 did in California, would have amended the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage. (That amendment failed at the ballot box in November, with the haters losing by just more than 5 percentage points, and subsequently the Minnesota Legislature legalized same-sex marriage this month.)
It takes balls and selflessness to fight for a historically discriminated against and oppressed group of people of whom you apparently aren't a member. Kluwe did the right thing by boycotting the anti-gay newspaper.
Kluwe also has been outspoken about the facts that not all athletes are dumb jocks and that there is more to life than football, even for an NFL player.
And yeah, I'll probably buy his upcoming book, Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies: On Myths, Morons, Free Speech, Football, and Assorted Absurdities, which is due out next month.
Also this month, three states approved same-sex marriage: Delaware, Rhode Island, and, as I mentioned, Minnesota. (I find it ironic that just after the Minnesota Vikings dropped Kluwe, very possibly at least in part due to his advocacy for same-sex marriage, the state's Legislature enacted same-sex marriage.)
True, Rhode Island and Delaware are only our 43rd and 45th most populous states, respectively, but Minnesota is our 21st most populous state, and it joins Iowa as another Midwestern state with same-sex marriage. Once the Midwest goes, how far behind can the rest of the nation be?
Finally, I found it to be a pleasant surprise to learn that President Barack Obama, this past weekend in his commencement speech to the graduates of the all-male, historically African-American Morehouse College, remarked, "… and that's what I'm asking all of you to do: keep setting an example for what it means to be a man. Be the best husband to your wife or your boyfriend or your partner. Be the best father you can be to your children. Because nothing is more important."
True, Obama's wording was inelegant.* If you were a man who had married your boyfriend, he would be your "husband" or your "spouse" or your "partner" or however else you chose to refer to him (hell, call him your "wife" if you want to and if he is OK with that; it's your marriage, not mine). But if you had married him, you probably wouldn't still be referring to him as your "boyfriend."
Still, I found it at least a bit encouraging for the president of the United States of America, whatever his other many flaws and missteps might be, basically state in a college commencement address before an all-male audience that marrying a member of the same sex is perfectly fine if that is what is right for the individual.
You never would have heard George W. Bush, or even Bill Clinton, utter those words at a commencement ceremony.
I noted above that Chris Kluwe is "heterosexually married." I did that on purpose; "married" no longer should automatically mean heterosexually married; "married" should include the possibility of being homosexually married — in all 50 states and in every nation on the planet that recognizes marriage between heterosexuals.
And one day, it won't matter; "married" will just be married, and no one will much care, if he or she cares at all, whether it's a same-sex marriage or an opposite-sex marriage.
But it still matters now, and we Magical Elves and our allies have a lot of work to do between today and the day that it no longer matters because everyone (or at least almost everyone) realizes that each and every one of us is a beautifully unique sparklepony.
*Slate.com's William Saletan reports that Obama's prepared remark was "Be the best husband to your wife or boyfriend to your partner or father to your children that you can be," but, again, what Obama actually said was, "Be the best husband to your wife or your boyfriend or your partner."
Saletan writes:
… But this time, the speech didn't go according to script. Literally. Obama changed the "boyfriend" line from hetero boilerplate to explicitly gay-inclusive. He ad-libbed. And this was a heck of a time to do it. The speech was about what it means to be a man. The president of the United States, who until a year ago didn't support same-sex marriage, has just put an official stamp of masculinity on male homosexuality. …
That's certainly a possibility; it's a valid interpretation, and it would be my interpretation, too, more or less, but, in my viewing of the clip of the remark, it appears to me as though Obama does stumble and/or hesitate a bit in getting the words out, with a nervous-and-unsure-of-himself-sounding inflection on the final word of that sentence, "partner," and it's not 100 percent clear to me whether he stumbles over these words because he's messing them up or because he's not sure how what he is saying — that it's perfectly OK for a man to marry a man — is going to be received by his audience (Morehouse College, after all, is in Georgia, a state that isn't exactly known as a gay-friendly state).
Indeed, sadly, if you also watch the clip, you will hear and see that after Obama asks his audience to "keep setting an example for what it means to be a man," he has to pause for applause, but then, after he says next, "Be the best husband to your wife or your boyfriend or your partner," very apparently his audience at first is silent in momentary confusion but then breaks out in some derisive laughter and mumbling and grumbling.
Indeed, in response to this very apparent derision over his remark that a man may marry a man, Obama puts his index finger up to his audience in apparent admonishment over their apparent homophobia.
As I said, we still have a way to go.
Tagged as Barack Obama, Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies, bigotry, bigots, Brendon Ayanbadejo, Bret Easton Ellis, California, Chris Kluwe, civil rights, Delaware, Discrimination, equal rights, equality, gay allies, Gay rights, Georgia, Haters, Hollingsworth v. Perry, Hollingsworth vs. Perry, homophobes, Homophobia, human rights, Iowa, Jason Collins, manliness, marriage rights, masculinity, Midwest, Minnesota, Minnesota Vikings, Morehouse College, National Basketball Association, National Football League, NBA, NFL, Oakland, Oakland Raiders, Obama, Oppression, President Barack Obama, President Obama, Prop 8, Prop H8, Proposition 2, Proposition H8, Proposition Hate, Rhode Island, Same-sex marriage, sparkleponies, sparklepony
Star Trek Into Spoilers
Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) interrogate the Osama-bin-Laden-like antagonist (Benedict Cumberbatch) of "Star Trek Into Darkness."
I wanted to like "Star Trek Into Darkness" much more than I actually did. I even saw it in 3D at my local IMAX (I got a good discount, but still…).
This contains ample spoilers, so, if you are intent on seeing "Into Darkness" without any surprises/"surprises" being ruined for you, don't read this now. Come back after you've seen it if you remember to do so. Otherwise, read on:
I won't rehash the plot of "Into Darkness." You can get the plot points anywhere else. I'll just delve right into what works and doesn't work.
I'm fine with the band of new actors who now play the characters from the original "Trek" series. I'm not a "Trekkie," so this isn't something like blasphemy to me.
That said, while Zachary Quinto's Mr. Spock is good — although one might argue that it doesn't take a great actor to play a character who, for the most part, is not allowed to display human emotions — Chris Pine's Captain Kirk is a bit flat and reduces the character to maybe one notch above a frat boy. I don't remember the original Captain Kirk (William Shatner's, I mean, of course) being this testosterone driven.
Indeed, the macho persona that is built around Chris Pine's Kirk is driven into the ground. We get it already: He's reckless. He's a maverick. He loves a bar fight and he loves him some pussy — and it doesn't even have to be human pussy. Please, give me Captain Picard over this shit.
The banter and bickering back and forth about Spock's logic and reason and discipline and restraint and adherence to the rules and Kirk's impulsiveness and maverickiness and his compulsive rule-breaking gets very tiresome, as we've seen this schtick countless times before in the original television series and in the films. "Into Darkness" doesn't improve upon it — it only regurgitates it.
Yes, rebooting a franchise runs the risk of just repeating all of it because the film industry these days is all out of fucking ideas.
That's the idea that you get when you discover that the super-human bad guy in "Into Darkness" (played by Benedict Cumberbatch as well as the character can be played) actually is Khan, the same genetically-engineered bad-guy character from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." Only you — or at least I — didn't get this right off the bat, because the British-born Cumberbatch looks nothing like the Mexican-born Ricardo Montalban.
I'm fine with some of "Into Darkness'" use of references to earlier "Trek" episodes, such as the appearance of the tribble, which, sadly, I found to be more effective than the cameo of the ancient Leonard Nimoy, who, I'm thinking, might still appear in "Star Trek" films even after his death (Spock never dies, right?) — but I found important plot points of "Into Darkness" to be blatant rip-offs of earlier "Trek" films.
Kirk saving the ship even though to do this he must expose himself to a lethal level of radiation was ripped right out of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," only this time it is savior Kirk instead of savior Spock who is exposed to the lethal radiation, and therefore the touching scene in "Star Trek II" where it's a dying-of-radiation-exposure Spock inside of the Plexiglass enclosure and Kirk on the outside of it is just reversed in "Into Darkness."
And Spock's primal yelling of "Khaaaaaaan!" in "Into Darkness" is, of course, just a reversal of the moment in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" where it's Kirk who's doing the yelling.
I guess that this paean to "Star Trek II" was supposed to thrill "Trek" fans, but it made me just feel ripped off. It looked like incredibly lazy and uncreative screenwriting to me. I could have stayed home and watched "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" if I'd wanted to. I don't see why the second installment of the "Star Trek" movie reboot had to take so much from the original movie franchise's second installment.
Maybe there is hope for the third installment of the reboot, though. Recall that the third original "Star Trek" movie, subtitled "The Search for Spock," was all about reviving the Mr. Spock who had died at the end of "Star Trek II."
At the end of "Into Darkness," Kirk is brought back to life after his death from radiation exposure in a quick-and-dirty, very apparently scientifically unsound manner (ditto for the revived tribble), and all is well, even though we, the audience, if we have two brain cells to rub together, feel ripped off by this all-too-easy, convenient wrapping of everything up in the film's final moments — even if we can breathe a sigh of relief that the next "Star Trek" movie apparently won't be subtitled "The Search for Kirk."
Anyway, you have to earn a sappy ending, and "Into Darkness" just thrusts one onto us, like the creature in "Prometheus" homoerotically (but very sadomasochistically) thrusts its huge penis-like appendage down that humanoid's throat at the end of that film.
Speaking of which, I'd had high hopes for last summer movie season's "Prometheus," too, which is why I saw it also in 3D at my local IMAX theater (only I got no discount that time…).
But what "Prometheus" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" have in common is that they both take source sci-fi material that once was very popular and successful and remix it, but not in a way that improves upon the source material; as I indicated above, they do it in a way that suggests that Hollywoodland is just all out of fucking ideas.
And both films put flashiness above originality and better-thought-out plot points, apparently believing that if the special effects are good enough, the audience won't notice anything else, or at least will forgive anything else.
That said, as pure summer-movie entertainment (which, I believe, is meant to be fairly mindless by definition), "Into Darkness" is watchable, more so than "Prometheus," because "Prometheus" (as I noted in my review of it last year) has so many inconsistencies in it that it had you leaving the theater pondering all of the shit that didn't make sense.
"Star Trek" always has asked us to suspend our disbelief, so we are willing to be more forgiving for lapses of logic and reason in "Star Trek" fare than Mr. Spock might ever be, but there's no fucking excuse for "Star Trek Into Darkness" to have ripped off "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (and even "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock") so fucking much.
My grade: B-
P.S. I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the political points and comparisons to recent history that "Into Darkness" very apparently is trying to make.
Apparently "Into Darkness'" Khan is supposed to be something like an Osama bin Laden — you know, Bad-Guy Terrorist No. 1 — and Khan's destruction of a Starfleet military installation that is disguised as a peaceful archive apparently is supposed to be like the destruction of the World Trade Center.
So we have Kirk — your typical testosterone-fueled white guy — wanting to go after Khan and snuffing him, and you have Mr. Spock arguing that no, the law — and fairness and justice — require that Khan be captured alive and put on trial.
Khan is captured alive — although only because he allows himself to be — but after Kirk's short-lived death that Khan at least indirectly is responsible for, a now-enraged-over-Kirk's-death Spock goes after Khan with even more intensity and rage than Kirk initially had intended to go after Khan.
So what's the message here? Are we to gather from Spock's actions that it's OK — indeed, that it's probably preferable — to kill the "bad guy" out of a sense of outrage and revenge rather than to capture him and put him on trial? (I use quotation marks because at least in "Into Darkness" we learn that Khan has his own reasons for his "terrorist" actions, regardless of what we think of his actions and/or his reasoning behind them — much as with the case of Osama bin Laden.)
Are we to take from "Into Darkness" that Spock's initial call for restraint is always, or at least usually, bullshit? That immediate militant retaliation is always, or at least usually, the best solution?
If so, what kind of message is this to pump out into the popular culture of a nation that, in no small part because of its popular culture, eschews intellectualism and restraint and prefers reckless violent retaliation (even if it's "retaliation" against the wrong fucking party or nation) as it already fucking is?
And if you think that my comparison of "Star Trek Into Darkness" to current-day events and politics is a stretch, then why does director J.J. Abrams, at the end of the film, dedicate it to post-9/11 veterans?
Do Abrams and his three screenwriters view those who fought in Vietraq as heroes or as dupes? Or as duped heroes? I mean, since Iraq had had absofuckinglutely nothing to do with 9/11 or with Osama bin Laden, what can we say of those veterans? What can we say of veterans who were so incredibly misused, who essentially were used as stormtroopers for Dick Cheney's Halliburton and for other subsidiaries of BushCheneyCorp (including, of course, Big Oil), whose intent was to gain no-bid federal government contracts for their war profiteering and, of course, to steal Iraq's oil for the oil mega-corporations' profits? Who are the good guys again?
I left "Star Trek Into Darkness" with the unpleasant feeling that perhaps J.J. Abrams meant it to be a statement of the moral superiority of the United States of America over other nations — a virtual recruiting ad for the U.S. military, even.
I mean, fuck, "Into Darkness" opens with officers of the Enterprise saving a planet of "savages" that don't look different enough from the "savages" that the white man once "saved" here on Earth (these "Star Trek" "savages" even chuck spears at our so-called heroes, for fuck's sake).
True, the character of the corrupt Admiral Marcus (played by former RoboCop Peter Weller) in "Into Darkness" demonstrates that not all of those in Starfleet are morally superior and advanced — indeed, the character of Admiral Marcus seems to be a stand-in for someone like Dick Cheney — but still, it seems to me, the take-home message from "Into Darkness" is that whatever the always-well-meaning U.S. military fucks up pales in comparison to all that it gets right, and "Star Trek Into Darkness" keeps alive the myth of the studly white man as the perma-hero to the extent that I have an idea for the title of the next "Star Trek" film: "Star Trek: The White Man's Burden."
Tagged as "Prometheus", "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", "Star Trek", "Star Trek: Into Darkness", 9/11, Admiral Marcus, Benedict Cumberbatch, Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, Chris Pine, Dick Cheney, entertainment, film review, Iraq, Iraq war, J.J. Abrams, Khan, Leonard Nimoy, movie review, Mr. Spock, Osama Bin Laden, Peter Weller, post-9/11 veterans, post-9/11 vets, Ricardo Montalban, science fiction, summer movies, Terrorism, terrorists, Trekkies, tribble, Vietraq War, William Shatner, Zachary Quinto
This 'scandal' too shall pass — and practice saying 'President Billary'
To me, perhaps the worst of the "trifecta" of scandals/"scandals" currently supposedly plaguing the Obama administration is the latest one, the Associated Press phone records scandal, but even that is an imperfect scandal/"scandal" at best.
First of all, of course, it's incredibly shitty, short-sighted and hypocritical of us to have ignored the unelected Bush regime's relentless unconstitutional secret surveillance of Americans in the name of the "war on terror" yet to slam the Obama administration for the same type of abuse now.
That said, Barack Obama's bewildering decision to continue so many of the Bush regime's illegal and/or immoral policies and procedures — illegal or probably illegal secret surveillance, civilian-slaughtering killer drones, the assassination/extrajudicial execution of U.S. citizens abroad by these killer drones, the Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp, etc. — is one of the reasons that I could not, in good conscience, cast a vote for Obama again in November.
That said, why does the right-wing white guy from the rich crime family get off scot-fucking-free for far worse abuses than does the black guy from far humbler beginnings?
I don't see how it's remotely fair to hold Barack Obama to an entirely other and entirely much, much higher set of standards than George W. Bush ever was. If we could capture the energy of the unfairness of such a double standard, our energy needs would be met at least through the end of this millennium.
That said, this shit, this blatant abuse of presidential or other executive power, does need to stop now. The problem is, until and unless things really change for the better, this double standard would only continue: Any white, rich, right-wing man who manages to win (or, like George W. Bush, "win") the White House would continue to shit and piss all over the U.S. Constitution and international law, just like George W. Bush did, while any other kind of president, like Barack Obama or Billary Clinton, would be subject to impeachment for a mere fart.
And this is the double standard on crack that the Repugnican Tea Party traitors wish to maintain in perpetuity, of course. Their attacks on Barack Obama (and Billary Clinton) now aren't about improving the presidency or the nation, but are 200 percent political. The sore losers never will get over the fact that the majority of the American voters elected Obama over the rich, right-wing white guy twice in a row, so now they're doing their best to cripple not only Obama but also presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Billary Clinton.
Thing is, those who are screaming "SCANDAL!" right now are the same ironic 47 percent who voted for Mittens Romney in November. This isn't a new group of people. These are the same old Obama haters.
They're partying hardily in their echo chamber right now, but are they gaining new converts? Not likely.
Many if not most of even the dullest "swing voters," it seems to me, smell pure wingnut politics when its sulfurous odor wafts into their nostrils.
Even those "swing voters" who can't see through the Repugnican Tea Party traitors' bullshit and lies aren't very likely to be hooked by the scandals du jour. Let's see:
"Benghazigate":
A recent Public Policy Polling poll showed that a majority of Americans would rather see Congress focused on real issues, such as immigration reform and gun control, rather than on the bullshit "Benghazigate." And this probably is the money shot from the PPP's summary of its poll:
One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39 percent of them don't actually know where it is. Ten percent think it's in Egypt, 9 percent in Iran, 6 percent in Cuba, 5 percent in Syria, 4 percent in Iraq, and 1 percent each in North Korea and Liberia, with 4 percent not willing to venture a guess. [Emphasis mine. I find this to be hilarious, and very indicative, of course, of what "Benghazigate" is really all about.]
The PPP concludes: "At any rate, what we're finding about last week's Benghazi focus so far is that Republicans couldn't be much madder about it, voters overall think Congress should be focused on other key issues, and Hillary Clinton's poll numbers aren't declining on account of it."
"IRSgate":
As far as "IRSgate" is concerned, (1) How many Americans exactly loved the IRS before "IRSgate" anyway? and (2) If you are a member of the "tea party" you're probably steamed, but according to an Associated Press-GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications poll of just more than 1,000 Americans taken just a month ago, only a paltry 23 percent said they consider themselves to be a supporter of the "tea party," while a whopping 62 percent said they're not a supporter of the "tea party." A CBS News poll taken in March found similar results: Of almost 1,200 Americans polled, only 22 percent called themselves supporters of the "tea party," while 65 percent said they are not.
So, um, yeah: Not a lot of "tea party" members and sympathizers in the nation, and it's not like the "tea-party" set ever would vote for a Democrat for president anyway, is it?
"APgate":
As far as "APgate" is concerned, while I possess a journalism degree and so I'm not happy about the apparent government surveillance of the phone calls of employees of the Associated Press — but, of course, looking at the records of the phone calls that were made between parties isn't as severe as are actual phone taps, the actual listening in on phone conversations, and my understanding is that we're not talking about actual phone taps here — I can't see the typical American caring about this as much as do I and others who have some background in the media. I mean, it wasn't their phone-call records, right?
Plus, these are the same Americans who made nary a peep when the unelected Bush regime routinely engaged in probably-unconstitutional secret surveillance of Americans in the name of keeping Americans safe from terrorists (including, probably, actual phone taps done fairly willy-nilly), and the sad fact is that many if not most Americans have a hard time being all that outraged or concerned about something (IRS "bullying," phone-call surveillance, cancer, whatever) unless it touches them personally.
So there you have it: While there are some real issues here, such as how security at our overseas diplomatic installations very apparently needs to improve and how post-9/11 government surveillance abuses need to stop, for the most part these current scandals/"scandals" are the all-too-familiar war-drum beating by those who have hated Obama and Billary all along, which only the dullest and the blindest among us aren't going to see.
And, I surmise, the war-drum-beating savages on the right are more likely to harm themselves because of their blatantly politically motivated overreach — during which they are ignoring the issues that most Americans actually care about the most — than they are to gain any new converts to their "cause." (Remember how the Repugnican Tea Party, in the aftermath of Mittens' stinging defeat, was going to become kinder and gentler? Um, yeah. That lasted all of a nanosecond, didn't it?)
The Repugnican Tea Party traitors' 47 percent showing in a presidential election isn't likely to grow, given the rapid demographic shifts in the United States (especially with the growing ranks of younger and browner voters), if nothing else.
And ruthless attacks on your political opponents can have unintended, paradoxical effects. Your attacks actually can strengthen your opponents' support from others.
For example, while I'm so disappointed in President Hopey-Changey that I couldn't vote for him again in November (but I'd rather castrate myself with a pair of fingernail clippers before I ever cast a vote for a Repugnican Tea Party traitor), unfair, hypocritical, double-standard attacks on Obama make me want to come to his defense, even if it's only to blog.
And while I've never been big on Billary — I supported Obama over Billary in the protracted 2008 Democratic presidential primary season because I had figured that of the two, Obama would be the actually progressive president — ruthless, unfair attacks on Billary by the Repugnican Tea Party traitors will make me much more likely to support her in 2016.
The Repugnican Tea Party traitors easily could inspire me to support Billary far more than she herself probably ever could, especially if she has no serious competition for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, and I don't see any such competition arising.
If I had to put a large sum of money on who the next president will be, it would be on Billary.
If "Benghazigate" wasn't enough to hurt her poll numbers — "Voters trust Hillary Clinton over Congressional Republicans on the issue of Benghazi by a 49/39 margin, and Clinton's +8 net favorability rating at 52/44 is identical to what it was on our last national poll in late March," reports the PPP, adding, "Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans remain very unpopular, with a 36/57 favorability rating" — I can't see the Repugnican Tea Party traitors bringing down Billary between now and November 2016.
Tagged as "tea party", 47 percent, AP, Associated Press, Barack Obama, Billary Clinton, Congress, Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Mitt Romney, Mittens Romney, Politics, pseudo-scandals, Republican Party, scandal, scandals
'IRSgate' is just yet another pathetic right-wing pseudo-scandal
"Benghazigate" is on life support, so, thankfully for the Repugnican Tea Party traitors who can't win presidential elections anymore, there's a new "scandal." Reports the Associated Press today:
Washington — Republicans said [today] that the Internal Revenue Service's heightened scrutiny of conservative political groups was "chilling" and further eroded public trust in government.
Lawmakers said President Barack Obama personally should apologize for targeting tea party organizations and they challenged the tax agency's blaming of low-level workers. [Emphasis mine. Note that long before any actual fair investigation has been done, the Repugnican Tea Party traitors already have convicted President Barack Obama of wrongdoing.]
"I just don't buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "After all, groups with 'progressive' in their names were not targeted similarly."
If it were just a small number of employees, she said, "then you would think that the high-level IRS supervisors would have rushed to make this public, fired the employees involved, apologized to the American people and informed Congress. None of that happened in a timely way."
The IRS said Friday that it was sorry for what it called the "inappropriate" targeting of the conservative groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.
But according to a draft of a watchdog's report obtained [yesterday] by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner, senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011. …
Now, before I go on, let me inconveniently-for-the-right-wing remind you that the anti-Obama wingnuts in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009 specially singled out the left-leaning, progressive group ACORN for defunding (and the spineless "Democrats" in D.C., not wanting to be deemed "guilty" by association with ACORN, let them).
ACORN in turn sued the U.S. government, correctly, in my book, calling the act of Congress a bill of attainder — "an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without privilege of a judicial trial," per Wikipedia — but ultimately, per Wikipedia, in 2010 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a ruling on the matter "cited a study finding that only 10 percent of ACORN's funding came from federal sources and stated, 'We doubt that the direct consequences of the appropriations laws temporarily precluding ACORN from federal funds were so disproportionately severe or so inappropriate as to constitute punishment.'"
Wow. I didn't know that whether or not something is a bill of attainder has to do with the percentage of government funding that's involved in the matter, but, in any event, that relatively small percentage of federal funding shows you what "ACORNgate" actually was all about: attacking the organization that, according to the right-wing conspiracy theorists, had stolen the 2008 election for Barack Obama, who, like the employees of ACORN were, once had been a community organizer.
(While voter registration fraud apparently was committed by some ACORN workers who were paid per voter registration — a reason why voter registration never should be linked to payment, in my opinion — only the casting of fraudulent votes, not fraudulent voter registration, ever could affect the outcome of an election. Duh.)
In terms of whether or not the Congress punished ACORN appropriately when it stripped ACORN of its federal funds, here is what Wikipedia reports of the actual criminal investigations of ACORN (the wingnuts in Congress, of course, were not interested in a fair investigation, but in scoring a political "victory" over Obama and his supporters):
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts attorney general, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the ["undercover"] videos [made by a right-wing punk and convicted criminal] that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially." He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.
On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.
On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited," and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.
On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.
But by then, of course, it was too late. The right wing already had destroyed ACORN, which apparently disbanded primarily because it so successfully had been smeared, not because it needed the federal funding so much. The right wing had had no interest in whether or not ACORN actually was guilty as charged. The right wing had interest only in destroying an organization that stood in effigy of Barack Obama.
(And Obama, being the political reptile that he is, just like he didn't defend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright or Shirley Sherrod or Van Jones from race-based, right-wing attacks, didn't defend ACORN, because he never has wanted to be associated with the "bad," "radical" black Americans who frighten! white Americans.)
The case of ACORN is a perfect example of representatives of the U.S. government singling out an organization for destruction out of purely political motives. Apparently this is perfectly A-OK if it's a left-leaning/progressive organization that is unfairly targeted for destruction, but it's an abomifuckingnation (or should I say Obamifuckingnation?) if a right-leaning organization ever is so targeted.
So back to "IRSgate."
The Repugnican Tea Party traitors' charge, apparently, is that Barack Obama, or at the very least someone very close to him (with his full knowledge and approval, of course), had the Internal Revenue Service unfairly single out "tea party" groups for heightened scrutiny in an attempt to at least harm, if not destroy, those groups.
I don't see the need to stretch this out like I usually stretch shit out. This seems pretty simple to me:
The "tea party" groups have made their feelings about having to pay any taxes to the federal government quite well known. The "tea" in "tea party," recall, is supposed to mean "taxed enough already," ha ha ha.
So — as opposed to other political and supposedly non-political and actually non-political groups, you have some groups that quite publicly have stated that their opposition to the federal government's collection of federal taxes is one of their chief reasons for even existing.
So — would it really be a shock that the IRS would take more interest in these anti-federal-tax groups than it would take in other groups?
Would it be a shock that the young man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a large marijuana leaf might attract more attention from the narcotics cop than would others in the crowd?
I'm shocked that I have yet to see any "coverage" of "IRSgate" that points out that duh, of course an anti-tax group might get heightened scrutiny from the nation's tax collectors.
Slate.com's David Weigel points out what should be two other fairly obvious reasons why the "tea party" groups might get heightened scrutiny from the IRS:
One: Tea Party groups flowered quickly [indeed, they fairly exploded overnight], and in situations like that you want to see where the money went. Two: As Ezra Klein explains, the rules governing non-profits are increasingly ill-suited to the reality of non-profits. The secrecy accorded to 501(c)4s has made them incredibly attractive for people who want to stack money away without having to disclose their donors.
All of this pesky logic and reason and facts and reality aside, what needs to happen in "IRSgate" (or whatever "-gate" we're calling this one) is exactly that which did not happen in "ACORNgate": The facts need to be examined very carefully and methodically, and it needs to be determined, very carefully, whether or not anyone within the IRS violated any actual laws or rules or regulations regarding the work that the IRS does.
If — IF — any laws or rules or regulations were violated, the violators need to be dealt with in a fair manner. (No, they probably don't need to be shot or hanged, as the "tea party" dipshits might recommend as the appropriate punishment.) And the IRS would need to make the necessary changes to prevent any future such violations.
And the right wing won't shut up, of course, until and unless it is determined how far up the chain of command any decision to single out "tea party" groups for any actually illegal heightened scrutiny by the IRS went. (I don't use the term "improper heightened security" because "improper," of course, is an opinion, and, of course, most "tea party" dipshits probably would view any scrutiny of "tea party" groups by the IRS to be "improper.")
But, of course, the right wing won't ever actually shut the fuck up about "IRSgate."
Just as no facts or actual investigation was going to change their minds about ACORN, they've already written their "IRSgate" narrative with their troglodytic chisels in stone: Barack Obama had the IRS crack down on "tea party" groups in a blatant attempt to crush his political opponents.
The only question now, it seems to me, is whether or not the rest of us are just going to allow the Repugnican Tea Party traitors to get away with this one, just like they got away with their ACORN bullshit.
Tagged as "ACORNgate", "IRSgate", "tea party", -gate, ACORN, Barack Obama, Benghazi, Benghazigate, federal taxes, hypocrisy, hypocrites, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, James O'Keefe, Politics, President Barack Obama, Republican Tea Party, taxes, wingnuts
May 8, 2013 · 12:18 pm
Why 'Benghazigate' never will catch fire
Apparently we're actually supposed to believe that the members of the Repugnican Tea Party are very, very concerned about preventing the preventable deaths of Americans in the Middle East. The preventable death of even one American in the Middle East is absolutely unfuckingacceptable, right?
After all, "Benghazigate," in which four Americans (including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens) were killed in Libya in September when the American consulate in Benghazi was stormed by militants — even though Mittens Romney failed comically miserably to make political hay out of it during the presidential debates — like Freddy or Jason, just won't go the fuck away.
Today the do-nothing, sleazy and slimy, Repugnican-Tea-Party-controlled U.S. House of Representatives held yet another so-called "hearing" in D.C. on "Benghazigate" because the party just doesn't want you to forget about "Benghazigate."
But the same Repugnican Tea Party traitors who have expressed no real problem whatsofuckingever over the wholly unnecessary and wholly preventable deaths of more than 4,ooo U.S. military personnel in the unelected Bush regime's wholly bogus Vietraq War have zero fucking credibility when they cry, incessantly, that we have to get to the bottom! of "Benghazigate."
They don't care about American deaths in the Middle East, of course. If they did, they wouldn't have supported the Vietraq War. But the Vietraq War was launched by a white Repugnican president, you see, and that fact alone makes it all A-OK.
"Benghazigate" is all politics — and if it had happened under a Repugnican president, the Repugnican Tea Party traitors of course would lecture us about how you shouldn't shamelessly politicize a tragedy like this — and "Benghazigate" is meant to give the Repugnican Tea Party traitors a twofer: an attack upon Democratic President Barack Obama and an attack upon former Secretary of State Billary Clinton, who probably will run for the presidency in 2016.
I don't allege that the September attack on Benghazi was unpreventable. I don't allege that there wasn't any negligence where security was concerned. There might have been. I wasn't there, wasn't in the situation.
But preventing another incident like the one in Benghazi in September isn't the Repugnican Tea Party traitors' main goal. That should be what comes out of the incident, but what the Repugnican Tea Party traitors want, more than anything else, is control of the White House, and if they can shamelessly politicize the deaths of four Americans in Libya (while they have ignored the deaths of more than a thousand times that number of Americans in Iraq) to help them achieve that, they will do so.
But "Benghazigate" never will be the "scandal" that the Repugnican Tea Party traitors have wanted it to be. The reason that Mittens couldn't turn "Benghazigate" into an Obama-damaging scandal last fall in order to help his presidential bid is that enough American voters know that the Repugnican Tea Party traitors are fucking chickenhawks who don't actually give a flying fuck about the deaths of Americans abroad. Enough Americans know that Mittens and his ilk are sociopaths who are lying through their fangs when they claim to care so fucking much about the lives of even just a handful of Americans in the Middle East.
Enough Americans recall how cavalierly the unelected Bush regime sent thousands of our troops to their pointless deaths in Vietraq for Dick Cheney's Halliburton's war profiteering to be able to buy for a nanosecond that the Repugnican Tea Party traitors now are being sincere when they claim to care so much about the four Americans who were killed in Benghazi. And enough Americans identify how sick and fucking twisted it is for these sociopathic hypocrites to be using the violent deaths of others for their own political gain.
That's why "Benghazigate" hasn't caught fire outside of the right-wing echo chamber and why it never will. It fizzled out in the fall, when Mittens' sad and pathetic attempt to use it for his own political gain fell flat, but the Repugnican Tea Party traitors still are huffing and puffing on those long-spent ashes that they delusionally believe still actually are embers.
All of this isn't to say that Barack Obama has been a great president. He has not. His continued slaughter of civilians with his killer drones in Pakistan and in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East only ensures more anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, which makes us Americans less safe, not safer.
Apparently afraid of being branded "soft" or "weak" on "terror," Obama repeatedly has trounced all over the law, both international and domestic, in order to demonstrate what a bad-ass he is (even though no matter what he does, the wingnuts still are going to call him "soft" or "weak" on "terror").
Yes, even the Obama administration's assassination — its extrajudicial execution — of Osama bin Laden on another sovereign nation's (Pakistan's) soil without that sovereign nation's knowledge or approval was a violation of international law, and we know that at least three U.S. citizens (one of them a 16-year-old) thus far have been killed by one of Obama's drones and that at least four U.S. citizens have been killed altogether by drone strikes in the so-called "war on terror."
(And before you cry, "Yeah, the war on terror!" I will pronounce right now that the "war on terror" is as bullshit now as it was when the unelected Bush regime declared the "war on terror." A war is only a conflict between two nations, and the United States of America is not at war with another nation.)
As much as President Hopey-Changey has not delivered upon his promises of (positive) change and has not given us much, if any, reason to hope for a better future — which is why I could not vote for him again in November — one thing that we cannot say about him is that overall he has not kept Americans safe.
We're five years into the Obama presidency and we have yet to see anything like the almost 3,000 who were killed on September 11, 2001, or the almost 2,000 who were killed in late August 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Even if we give George W. Bush a pass on 9/11 — despite the August 6, 2001 presidential daily briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." — there is no excuse for the fact that with at least two or three days' warning that the approaching Hurricane Katrina could be catastrophic to New Orleans and the surrounding areas, the unelected Bush regime basically allowed hundreds of (predominantly black) Americans to drown.
So for the Repugnican Tea Party traitors to act now like their party actually is the party with the actual track record of keeping Americans safe is way beyond ludicrous.
As incredibly fucking stupid as Americans can be, not nearly enough of them are stupid enough to believe, after the catastrophic George W. Bush years and the comparatively very peaceful Obama years, that the best thing that we could do for our own safety is to put another Repugnican in the White House.
So keep it up, Repugnican Tea Party traitors. Your repeatedly bringing up the issue of national security can only remind everyone of the facts of recent U.S. history, and those facts, to put it mildly, do not favor you.
Update: In a pretty good piece on Salon.com about how fucktarded it is to compare everything to Watergate, I followed a link to a piece on the wingnutty website townhall.com. In the piece, written by apparently fairly well-known wingnut Neal Boortz, Boortz proclaims that this is the reason why Benghazi isn't a Watergate (this is a copy and paste; my comments are in brackets):
… Let me tell you what the American people are concerned with right now – and we're talking about those who aren't gunched up with 24/7 discussions about college football recruiting and gay NBA players. In a nutshell (and thank goodness for the few exceptions we DO have) the majority of the American people are more worried right now about acquiring and keeping their monthly checks from the government than they are about 0bama's [sic — apparently the uber-patriotic Boortz and/or townhall.com refuse to capitalize the name of the duly elected president of the United States of America] lies or foreign policy failures. ["The majority of the American people" are preoccupied with their handouts from the government. So we're beyond a mere "47 percent" now, apparently.] They think a Benghazi is a small yappy dog.
These people are more concerned about next Winter's [sic — you don't capitalize the seasons] home heating assistance checks than they are about dead ambassadors. They're worrying about getting more federal dollars for child care to help them take care of the next tricycle motor they're fixin' to download without the benefit of a husband. [A "tricyle motor," apparently, is a baby, and while the members of the right wing say that women can't have abortions or even contraception, at the same time they're going to slam the wrong women for giving birth. (And "wrong," of course, means non-white, non-conservative, non-"Christian" and/or poor and/or the like.)] They're wondering who is going to pay their medical bills, and how they can get their hands on one of those great Section 8 housing vouchers. Some are looking to upgrade their 0bamaPhones.
How many people do we have on Social Security disability right now? The figure is nearing 12 million Americans. These 12 million are principally worried about how to keep those checks coming, while another 12 million (at least) are wondering how to get on this bandwagon as well. After all, their backs hurt and you surely can't expect them to get out there and work for a living, can you? (Apologies to those of you with actual disabilities, but we could probably cram every one of you into a Jai Alai Fronton somewhere in Miami if we had to.)
Then there's millions more who's [sic — why can't wingnuts get basic fucking English correct? It's "whose," not "who's"] main concern is making sure their unemployment benefits don't run out (Me? Get a job?) and others who are waiting for 0bama to make their boss pay them more than they're actually worth on their jobs. …
There you have it. The "small yappy dog" joke is funny, admittedly, but what we have here is a restatement of Mittens Romney's "47 percent" rhetoric: More Americans don't care about Benghazi than the number of Americans who actually do because these lazy Americans care only about getting their next handout from the guvmint.
Wow. Seriously. The "47 percent" bullshit hasn't been working out for the wingnuts very well, but they only are going to continue it? Your stock response to those who disagree with your politics is to claim that they're living off of the guvmint even when most of them quite demonstrably are not?
True, many if not most Americans are more concerned about their personal economic situations than they are about what happens abroad. Benghazi might indeed, to them, be a "small yappy dog." But did we not have a pretty good economy under Bill Clinton, only to see George W. Bush destroy it with his Vietraq War, which has cost us trillions of dollars (it's a huge chunk of our federal budget deficit), and with his tax cuts for the super-filthy-rich (which also is a huge reason for our federal budget deficit)? Does the Repugnican Party have no responsibility for the fact that Americans might be more concerned about their personal economic situations right now than they do about foreign affairs?
And might Americans be quite understandably numb to the bloodshed that they — we — witnessed (and some of us were touched by personally) during the eight very long Bush years?
I mean, fuck: Almost 3,000 dead from 9/11. More than 4,000 dead in the bogus Vietraq War. Almost 2,000 dead from Hurricane Katrina.
After you serially are assaulted with shit like this, are you really supposed to be all fucking bent out of shape over the deaths of four Americans? Really?
It's interesting, though, I think, to compare my answer to the question of why Benghazi never will be Benghazigate with Boortz's "answer" to the question.
It wasn't long ago enough that the wingnuts falsely accused those of us on the left of "hating Americans."
Being that the wingnuts, probably first and foremost, are fucking hypocrites, I guess that it doesn't come as a huge shock to see that now it's fairly apparent that it's the wingnuts who actually hate Americans — "the majority" of whom, you know, care only about their guvmint handouts. (Ironically, as I have noted, it's the red states, not the Obama-loving blue states [whose denizens love Obama so much that they actually capitalize his name], that are the welfare states. Of course.)
Tagged as "war on terror", 9/11, Barack Obama, Benghazi, Benghazigate, Democratic Party, drone strikes, drones, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Hurricane Katrina, hypocrisy, hypocrites, Iraq, Iraq war, killer drones, Libya, Middle East, Mitt Romney, national security, Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, Politics, Republican Party, Republican Tea Party, safety, Terrorism, traitors, U.S. House of Representatives, Vietraq War, War, wingnuts, wingnuttery, Yemen


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"A cook. Michael Jackson was a chef."
Puts a whole new spin on the song, 'Beat It', I guess.
Not sure about you, but I find elegant after-five wear really hard to find especially now that I'm on the north side of Forty. Once upon a time a decade ago, 'short and tight' was perfectly acceptable - nowadays however that term refers mostly to my work deadlines rather than my appropriate choice of fashion, sadly.


We asked Charmaine Roos, from Gauteng-based paranormal activities group Phoenix Paranormal South Africa (PPSA), to give us a list of the most haunted buildings the group has investigated.
She came back with five buildings which PPSA believes is haunted.
Look no further than the haunted attic of the Melrose House Museum, a three-storey Victorian mansion in Pretoria, for an out of body experience.
The PPSA team claim they have been touched, pinched, pushed and experienced burning sensations down their backs there.
"The ghosts in the attic seemed the most hostile towards our investigators," said Roos. She claims they captured EVPs [electronic voice phenomena, sounds found on electronic recordings that are interpreted as spirit voices] of several "entities" in their initial investigation four years ago.
The 136-year-old mansion is layered in history, being the former home of George Heys, who made a fortune from a coach transporting business during the diamond rush in Kimberly.
It was also the headquarters of British soldiers, during the Anglo-Boer War. The Peace Treaty of Vereeniging, that ended the war, was signed on its dining room table.
"This house never disappoints," said Roos.
The Chimes Hotel was a popular drinking and gambling place for miners during Johannesburg's gold rush. The site was part of a prospecting claim until in 1889, when its owner George William Eaton, decided to build the hotel.
The grounds contain salvaged relics from the time it was used as camp during the Anglo-Boer war. One of its creepier fables is that the trees in the grounds surrounding were used to hang prisoners.
Visitors have reported ghostly sightings upstairs.
The PPSA investigated these claims by locking themselves in the building overnight. They claim to have picked up curious ghostly voices, including sounds of chanting in the dead of night.
In Auckland Park, lies the Lindfield Victorian House. The house is a living monument to Johannesburg's high societal Victorian life presided over by Katherine Love, who has spent a lifetime collecting everyday objects from the era.
"We can confirm that this house is highly active, and claims of activity vary from loud, audible growls, to being touched and scratched, feelings of becoming ill (nausea, dizziness, headaches) to name but a few," said Roos.
It is important to note, feeling nauseous and dizzy can be caused by exposure to electromagnetic waves from old electricity cables common in Victorian houses. The team investigated and found this was not the case.
According to the PPSA, these antiques can contribute to paranormal activity.
The Ou Raadsaal building is apparently rich with paranormal activity. It is claimed that Paul Kruger haunts this building along with his wife Gezina, often seen at her balcony.
"Strange voices and footsteps can also be heard in the prison cells below, shadow people are seen, and people have often reported being pushed and touched in the hallways. Guards also have plenty of stories to tell about their encounters with the ghosts here whilst they are doing the graveyard shifts. Allegedly the head railings move on their own, the cast-iron knights rattle and ghosts often descends the majestic stair case," said Roos.
The building according to the team, holds an 'oppressive atmosphere' in the holding cells below, and the occasional moaning can be heard.
"One of our investigators was also once attacked by a growling, negative unseen force in the hallway, which left a rancid smell in the room and held him paralysed for a few minutes," said Roos.
It was established as a German club, but the building was then taken over by Emily Hobhouse to create a weaving and craft school. It was turned into a temporary hospital to assist those affected by the tragic flu epidemic of 1918.
Eventually the Breytenbach Theatre was established, which staged its first production in 1958.
Today the actors reportedly share the stage with a more ephemeral figure - a nurse named Heather.
The cellar below the stage once housed the bodies of those who succumbed to the flu in 1918. It is said that Heather oversaw the children who were admitted, eventually succumbing to the disease herself. After her death, it is said she never left her post, patiently waiting to care for any sick child that needs her.
PPSA claim that they captured heavy poltergeist activity with object manipulation; the sounds of a ghostly piano playing; children laughing and crying; and even the apparitions of little children running around the stage.
This included a EVP of a voice saying "help me", growling sounds, and experienced feelings of being nauseous and ill. Some of the investigators have been scratched and felt like they were being followed.


This disapproving impression sustained me for almost a decade, during which time I steered our winter family vacations far away from the sunshine state and toward my favorite winter alpine pastimes.
My two daughters, however, are tiring of ski trips, and greet my enthusiastic suggestions for new destinations with a disturbing ennui. They envy their friends, who return with invariably glowing reviews of warm sunshine, Caribbean hair braids, and beach vacations. Their demands for a trip south can no longer be dismissed.
My wife, whose passion for alpine vacations had mysteriously disappeared soon after our marriage, welcomed their revolt, and lent them her support.
Thus outnumbered, I surrendered. The price of defeat -- almost two weeks at grandma's house in Florida, was sweetened by my wife's promise that we would leave the kids for one or two nights -- our first time alone since the birth of our third child two long years ago.
In the months before our departure, I did my best to prepare myself to make the most of our upcoming holiday. I learned how to scuba dive and scouted out the myriad opportunities for dives along the coast north of Miami. Even more important, I approached this trip, not simply as a visit to the in-laws as I had in the past, but as another travel adventure. I checked out the area's offerings on the internet, bought a couple of guide books, and phoned the local chambers of commerce for their information packets.
This change in attitude, my newly acquired underwater skills, and days of uninterrupted Florida sunshine convinced me of the error of my former ways. At the risk of endangering another family ski vacation, I'm not the least embarrassed to admit that we had a lot of fun in Florida.
For our honeymoon, my wife and I spent an idyllic ten days on Florida's Dry Tortugas, swimming with the barracudas, sleeping in a tent, eating whatever food we were able to deny the islands impetuous rodents and wandering around Fort Jefferson National Monument.
The base camp of our latest Florida trip offered less of nature's ambiance, but more in the way of late twentieth century facilities. The condo pool -- usually empty during my early morning visits, was wonderfully sited along the inland waterway and surrounded by swaying palm trees. By late morning the families, including my own, began to arrive, each claiming its share of pool-side lounge chairs. The kids were happy to spend the entire day at the pool, and I, having already claimed my hour of solitary swim time, was content to let them.
Although the beach is barely a mile from the pool, we had never ventured there before this trip. This was a mistake that we'll never repeat.
There's nothing like a good ocean beach for hours of family entertainment. Almost anywhere along the famed Route A1A north of Miami it is possible to find a beach with the ingredients necessary for a good time. The winter water temperature compares favorably with that during the summer in my hometown north of Boston. The beaches are clean, the sand is perfect for castle-making, and the surf is kid-friendly [even if the occasional stinging jelly fish are not]. Lifeguards are plentiful. Lounge chairs can be rented for a nominal sum, as can sailing catamarans [for far larger amounts], and food and drink are never far away.
In the evening, we often ventured just north of Hallendale to the Hollywood boardwalk in the evening. Instead of the infamous early bird specials, the girls would play a round of miniature golf before checking out the offerings at the numerous pizza parlors, small restaurants, and tee shirt and ice cream shops burrowed into seaworn buildings along the funky boardwalk.
Large contingents of French Canadians have patronized this part of the coast for decades. Most are solidly middle class, and the ambiance of the boardwalk reflects their unadorned pursuit of value for money.
We enjoyed a couple of delicious Turkish dinners at Hollywood's Istanbul restaurant. We had the good fortune of sitting at the one table on the boardwalk. After the kids finished their kabobs, they crossed the boardwalk to the beach's moonlit sandy expanse and played while we ate baclawa and sipped Turkish coffee.
"At the risk of endangering another family ski vacation, I'm not the least embarrassed to admit that we had a lot of fun in Florida"
The Hollywood boardwalk harks back to a less prosperous and ostentatious past. The one in Ft. Lauderdale, which follows the beach on one side and a mile of so of new commercial development on the other, is a more accurate reflection of contemporary American tastes. The restaurants and bars are larger and more expensive and the boardwalk is laced with a fast-paced neon. Our one night away from the kids was spent in Ft. Lauderdale, at the Radisson Bahia Mar Beach Resort. Our accommodations were gratis after my wife suggested that management owed us for moving us at midnight from our room, which boasted a bed with a mysteriously wet mattress. No matter, the diving trip organized by ProDive, located right on the hotel's premises, more than made up for the minor inconvenience. The stunning coral reef in thirty feet of water just off the coast offered a poignant reminder of the beauty that still coexists, often precariously, in such close proximity to the Miami megalopolis.
The Sawgrass State Park, just west of Ft. Lauderdale, is another such place. Once an air boat was the only way to reach Ft. Lauderdale, which was surrounded by sawgrass. For decades, the prairie-like expanse of swamp has been fighting a losing battle against development. Today the little state park opens a window on Florida's disappearing ecological and historical heritage. The park is a low budget affair with a tolerable number of visitors on the day we were there. The "Indian village" is probably an accurate reflection of how tenuous were the efforts of native Americans to insulate themselves from their natural surroundings. A variety of alligators and snakes languish in primitive, ill kept enclosures.
The kids loved it. The ride in an ear splitting air boat [ear plugs provided] to search for alligator [we found one!] in the still lovely sawgrass was matched by the fun of caressing an alligator -- its snout securely taped shut -- and gazing at a panther. The place reminded me of the forlorn bears on display at New Hampshire's Clark's Trading Post. Most of these slightly out of time, politically incorrect attractions have been replaced by more modern, antiseptic family entertainment. Too bad, because my kids can't get enough of them year after year.
I asked my girls aged 7 and 11 to pick out of a guide book one place they wanted to visit. Their unanimous, unlikely choice -- the American Police Hall of Fame on Maimi's Biscayne Boulevard. The reason: not only does the museum have old police cars and retired Harley Davison motorcycles for hands-on display, it also has realistic mock ups of an electric chair, a gas chamber, guillotine, jail and isolation cells, and all too-realistic models of the awesome effects of firepower on the human head. We passed quickly through the somber memorial to police officers killed in the line of duty to the more macabre exhibits. The museum was not one of my favorites, but like the trip as a whole, it helped me to see a family vacation to the Miami area in a new and far more positive light.
Miami International Airport is located just west of the city in an unincorporated suburban area. It's an important hub for traffic between Europe, North America and Latin America.
Fort Lauderdale International Airport is 25-40 minutes north of Miami proper, depending on traffic, and does not have nearly as many international routes. It only offers a small variety.
By trainAmtrak's Silver Service operates two trains daily to Miami from New York City, Washington, D.C. and other cities along the Eastern Seaboard.
By carThere are three main highways coming into Miami. I-95 runs along the Atlantic coast of the United States and terminates in Miami. I-75 comes in from the midwestern United States and runs through Atlanta and Tampa before terminating in Miami. Florida's Turnpike is a toll road mainly useful for those driving in from Orlando. The only southbound route from Miami is U.S. Highway 1, which runs through the Florida Keys all the way to Key West.
By busThere are 5-10 major companies operating to Miami.
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