think on this.

Twitter / Search - rihanna

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:28:00 -0800

Twitter / Search - rihanna:

UGH. please make it stop. please.

eta: alternately, help me stop refreshing it in increasing and overwhelming horror and distress.

perhaps this will soothe the pain you’ll feel on realizing...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:40:30 -0800

perhaps this will soothe the pain you’ll feel on realizing that ‘doolittle’ is 20 years old.

via kanye

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:58:55 -0800

via kanye

it’s your periodic reminder that kelly clarkson is hot.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:44:46 -0800

it’s your periodic reminder that kelly clarkson is hot.

tumblangeles:famouslywildly: How Would Los Angeles Look with...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:44:34 -0800

tumblangeles:famouslywildly:

How Would Los Angeles Look with No Cars?

chuckmore:cameronr:[via]

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:51:27 -0800

chuckmore:cameronr:[via]

me, today. beware.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:33:17 -0800

me, today. beware.

knitted crankypants i would totally be wearing if a) i...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:43:09 -0800

knitted crankypants i would totally be wearing if a) i weren’t at work and b) they made them in adult sizes.

I also like Skylar, but everyone keeps saying that it's a stripper name now

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:41:34 -0800

ohfortheloveofdog:

(via vindicatedcommunications)

It is.

i’ve got my cranky pants on today so take this with a grain of salt, but i really dislike this idea of “stripper names.” it marginalizes sex workers, is often closely tied with class judgments, and removes the idea of free agency from these women’s lives. so sorry to be harsh on a fun post, but i don’t see how reinforcing or advancing this concept serves anyone very well.

(socioimages)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:43:46 -0800

(socioimages)

The military official, who did not have authorization to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:43:44 -0800

The military official, who did not have authorization to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said…

He received a poor performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

A formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.

here’s an idea - STOP TALKING IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AUTHORIZATION TO DISCUSS THE MATTER PUBLICLY. also, DO NOT SHARE CONFIDENTIAL RECORDS WITH THE PRESS. also, maybe, don’t report information like this that encourages people to run their mouths!

fuck.

paper cut maps by studiokmo

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:03:49 -0800

paper cut maps by studiokmo

sacred heart. (wooster)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:03:51 -0800

sacred heart. (wooster)

Another Post-Maine Perspective on Equality

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:02:13 -0800

Another Post-Maine Perspective on Equality:

I read Drew Westen’s book The Political Brain. It’s all about the role of emotion when deciding for whom or what—or against whom or what—voters are going to cast their ballots.

One thing the book makes pretty clear is that there’s only a certain amount of the electorate that’s persuadable. On an issue like marriage equality, there’s likely around 40% who are dead set on supporting it and 40% who are dead set on opposing it—and there’s nothing any campaign can do to change the minds of these voters. That leaves a “mushy middle” audience of persuadables that both campaigns are vying for. That audience of persuadables is likely going to consist of political moderates who don’t have religion-based intolerance of gay people, but probably think less of gay people and hope their children don’t “end up that way.” That seems to me to be a fair middle-of-the-road depiction of the persuadable audience on these things.

Now think about the strategies that equality campaigns and their opponents are using to persuade voters. The anti-equality strategy is very simple: take the supposed worst face of the equality movement, put it front-and-center, and tell these voters that the gay agenda wants to turn their children gay starting from the first grade. Meanwhile, the supporters of marriage equality run a very good, relentlessly positive message featuring gay families—oh, and by the way, that stuff about us indoctrinating your children isn’t true, really.

Between those two, where do you think the persuadable voter is going to turn? Are those persuadable voters going to vote to provide benefits to other people they probably don’t know when they’re being told that rogue elements will seek to indoctrinate their children? Probably not.

Opponents of marriage equality are very good at one thing: making people vote against the other cause. It’s the only thing they’ve got. And what the marriage equality movement in Maine was very good at was motivating people to vote for their cause. But what marriage equality movements have been afraid to do is motivate people to vote against the other cause. Best as I can tell, rarely, if ever, were voters told in a repeated, systematized way that their opponents were so desperate to preserve intolerance that they were willing to lie about schools to get it done. Opponents of marriage equality use fear exceptionally well—and that’s a stronger emotion than the sweetness and light of equality, especially when those voters don’t stand to benefit directly.

One way to counter fear? Anger. Make the voters angry at your opposition. Does that lead to the dark side, as Yoda proclaims? Perhaps. But at 0-31, as someone who wants marriage equality for my LGBT brothers in the coming decade, not in the one after that, I figure it’s worth a shot.

In Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:01:28 -0800

In Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast. (Photo by C-M.)

"To be very clear: it makes no sense to speculate about Hasan’s motivations, and we’ve heard, for the..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:55:42 -0800

“To be very clear: it makes no sense to speculate about Hasan’s motivations, and we’ve heard, for the past 16 hours, no shortage of wild speculation that stigmatizes a lot of people. Hasan is alive. He will be interrogated and tried. We will presumably learn soon why he committed the cowardly actions he committed. Until then, those who speculate only reveal their own prejudices.”

- spencer at windy.

this is what it looks like to get OWNED on television....

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:48:17 -0800

this is what it looks like to get OWNED on television. (@adamserwer)

"An insolent sex party disturbing social peace and stability, encouraging vice and debauchery."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:03:17 -0800

“An insolent sex party disturbing social peace and stability, encouraging vice and debauchery.”

- islamic lawmakers in egypt about beyonce’s upcoming concert there.

suck it, david brooks

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:02:10 -0800

via yglesias: Traditional Somali values on the decline as technology shifts courtship practices:

Somali courtship was different in Hassan Aden’s day. When he was a teenager, you gave the girl’s parents 11 camels and an AK-47 assault rifle as bride price and then waited respectfully.

Now, the 55-year-old said, a mobile phone service that seems to be the only thing working in the failed Horn of Africa state is helping drive a rise in elopements, pregnancies out of marriage and a steady erosion of Somalia’s conservative values.

(here’s why david brooks should suck on this)

good for them

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:01:57 -0800

Rock band No Doubt has filed a real-world lawsuit over its virtual role in the just-released Band Hero edition of the Guitar Hero video game series, claiming that the game has “transformed No Doubt band members into a virtual karaoke circus act,” singing dozens of songs the group neither wrote, popularized nor approved for use in the game.

Specifically, the suit notes that through the game’s Character Manipulation Feature, Stefani’s image can be induced to sing the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women.” “While No Doubt are avid fans of the Rolling Stones and even have performed in concerts with the Rolling Stones,” the complaint states, “the Character Manipulation Feature results in an unauthorized performance by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice boasting about having sex with prostitutes.” (shakes)