Teen Girl Squad # 5

Right here.

Raznor grad school update

So far I've been rejected by MIT and UCLA and still haven't heard back from Berkeley. Oh well, there's still hope.

Update: Also rejected from University of Chicago.

You know the funny thing is when I was applying to colleges, I was rejected from all but my top choice (and NAU, which was my backup). Maybe at the very least history will repeat itself here. Or if not that, hopefully I'll at least get into UCSD.

Still waiting.

Somewhat disappointing update: Well, it's not going to be Berkeley. Oh well, I should have known. The letter I got said they had to cut admissions down to 60% due to budget constraints, and had over 400 applicants for 25 graduate positions. C'est la vie, right? So I don't take it personally, and my fairly mediocre GRE Subject test didn't help much either.

There's still UC San Diego. And three other schools.

Yay, I'm fluffy and considerably disturbing

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Via S-Train.

Plagues Update

Done with the draft. I think it went well. I got Barry Bonds, Bartolo Colon, Miguel Tejada and many others. I got Adam Dunn in the last draft pick, which is how being a sabermetric fan gives me an advantage, as I have a strategy for the late draft picks which most people pick at random.

Anyway, the first team we're playing is walmartsux. Sadly very few original teamnames in my league this year, the Plagues is probably the most clever. There's a team called "nyc_AROD" and "a rod sucks", which should prove to be an interesting rivalry. But as we say, everyone dies of the Plagues.

Sorry couldn't think of a better team chant.

Shorter Tom Friedman

Americans who lose their jobs because greedy corporate executives are outsourcing to India need not worry, since those same executives make even more money from Indian companies purchasing American goods.

(link via Tom Tomorrow)

Go Plagues!!!

I've just created a fantasy baseball team at Yahoo!. We're called the Plagues. I'll keep my readers posted as to the goings on. It's a head-to-head league, and the draft is this Saturday.

Last season I had a Yahoo head-to-head team called the Burninators. We came in first for the season then lost the Championship Series. Damn you, head-to-head playoffs.

But here's wishing the Plagues good luck this season. Go Plagues!

Adventure of You

I've been meaning to link to this choose your own adventure game but never got around to it. It is quite funny, where a wrong answer will get you hypnotized to death by Josef Stalin and homophobia is punished by being crushed to death by the pride rainbow.

Have fun.

Soo busy

I've spent a while on my thesis tonight and finally getting to my reading for my Third Reich class.

The book we're reading now is Final Solution: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews.

Yay, humanity.

Good Tom Toles Toon

Update: trackback

I now have trackback ping on my blog. Now the multiblog discussions can begin.

Yep.

Any time now.

Clarity in a time of confusion

Another good cartoon by Mikhaela.

Thoughts on 24

I'm hooked on 24, even though there are some twists that kinda stretch a bit. But I'm noticing. The first episode or two was thiller style virus threat. Then a bunch of stuff happened and tonight, back to the thriller style virus threat. So in the whole underlying plot, tonight's was kind of like the second episode of the season, with 12 hours of filler thrown in.

Doesn't mean I won't keep watching the remainder of the season. Just sayin' is all.

The face of eeeeeeeeeeeevil



That's Alex Rodriguez on the right. With new teammate Bernie Williams.

Andrew Sullivan finally gets it

Good post here:

WAR IS DECLARED: The president launched a war today against the civil rights of gay citizens and their families. And just as importantly, he launched a war to defile the most sacred document in the land. Rather than allow the contentious and difficult issue of equal marriage rights to be fought over in the states, rather than let politics and the law take their course, rather than keep the Constitution out of the culture wars, this president wants to drag the very founding document into his re-election campaign. He is proposing to remove civil rights from one group of American citizens - and do so in the Constitution itself. The message could not be plainer: these citizens do not fully belong in America. Their relationships must be stigmatized in the very Constitution itself. The document that should be uniting the country will now be used to divide it, to single out a group of people for discrimination itself, and to do so for narrow electoral purposes. Not since the horrifying legacy of Constitutional racial discrimination in this country has such a goal been even thought of, let alone pursued. Those of us who supported this president in 2000, who have backed him whole-heartedly during the war, who have endured scorn from our peers as a result, who trusted that this president was indeed a uniter rather than a divider, now know the truth.

Update: In the comments, Kristjan Wagner links to this post in which the fabulous David E gives Sully a good old fashioned fisking.

The dangers of the Christian Coalition

It is a bizarre and paradoxical state of Democracy that leads to anti-Democratic political movements that work within its respective system. This happens all the time in European parliamentary systems. Usually though, this is kept in check by the fact that anti-Democratic political power is evenly distributed among opposite ends of the political spectrum. So while the Fascists and Marxists dislike Democracy, they hate each other even more, and prefer Democracy to being ruled by the opposite extreme.

However, right now in America we have a very dangerous group of anti-Democratic activists gaining political power with no opposite extremist group to counter them. Namely the Religious Right.

Many rational Republicans tend to ignore the growing power the religious right has on their party. They do so at their peril. The President is a staunch and unapologetic leader of the Religious Right, he shows this in his undemocratic and underhanded recess appointments of Pickering and Pryor as well as his speeches which are latent with references to the Book of Revelation. Over at the american street David Neiwert explains how the religious right is attempting to quietly pass laws in order to further their power.

To put the issue facing us bluntly, the Republican Party has strong control over the federal government, and the Religious Right is a strong and growing force within the Republican Party.

So why should we be concerned? Because the Religious Right supports an anti-Democratic platform. They hold a view of what America should be that is entirely contradictory to the Constitution and the fundamental pluralism that is essential in a modern Republican government. (side note: I really don't know how to get past the ambiguity of dealing with Democratic and Republican Parties and discussing our government system that they compose, which is by definition both Doemocratic and Republican. Oh well, damn these dual meanings)

Of course it's a given that people have a right to believe whatever they want to believe, and a fundamental component of a Democracy is to allow all people to have a voice, even those who would undo that Democracy. But when an anti-Democratic organization begins taking a monopoly of power within a Democratic government, that is what the Historians like to call "not a good sign." And America's bipartisan political system makes the growing power of the Religious Right very hard to counter.

So what can be done? I hold onto the belief and hope that American Democracy is made of tougher stuff than any anti-Democratic political organization can deal with, but it takes an unfettered activism on the part of citizens. This involves everyone, even Republicans, recognize the powerful position of the Religious Right, and act accordingly.

Yankee or Dixie

Via Oliver Willis here's a quiz that tells you how Yankee or Dixie you are. I got 58% Dixie, which surprised me (was expecting less) but makes sense considering I'm from Arizona.

Happy week after Valentine's Day

Looks like New Mexico has already issued licenses to same-sex couples.

And since he'll write annoying comments here no matter what I say, I'll just say - Suck it Bill, you foolish troll you. Suck it long. Suck it hard.

Encyclopedia Bush is on the case!

Maddux's new look

I just thought this was kinda cool:

Raznor troll update

If you've been checking out the comments, it seems that bill is trying to annoy me into submission and get me to hate gays. He does this by quoting random Bible passages and pretending he is the authority on what God thinks.

Well, for Bill's benefit, I will leave you with this passage from The Book of Bokonon:

I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.

And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."

"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."

She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he can see what God is Doing

Some humor for your Friday

Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday this week is on political cartoons, and is quite funny. Here's my favorites, but check out the rest.

It's been a while since I posted

And it'll be a while before I get on a schedule. Working through thesis and classes and so on. And still have a bit of grad school related stuff to do yet. Bwah.

In other news, I've been listening to Elliott Smith's second album a lot lately, as I go to sleep. There's a song on there, "St. Ides Heaven" which I figured was probaby some sort of sweet love song. Earlier today I read the lyrics and realized that it's a song about drug addiction. This was quite a shock, and it's just made me love that song even more.

Anyway, I'm going to get back to work.

Keith Knight is awesome!

Such a scandal! I didn't even know Bush had a tattoo!

Tom Tomorrow has uncovered the latest incriminating photo of Bush. Since our media is so consistent, I'm sure this will make front page fare in major newspapers this week.

Recent blog discovery (for me)

I've been meaning to mention The S-Train Canvass here for sometime, and when I do finally get to adding my blogroll here, this will definitely be on it. Especially now, I made the happy discovery that I've been added to the blogroll there. Go Raznor, Go Raznor!

Anyway, S-Train and his co-blogger T-Steel are progressive thugs, which is described in depth by S-Train's bio:

I'm a 32-year old black male, married, with three progeny. I lived more than 30 years in the degrading city of Detroit, Michigan (no I'm not saying anything positive about it). I'm a former gang member (my teens) that found the light after almost bleeding to death from a stab wound. Sociology is my first love followed by basketball (football a close third). The key to a better America isn't through the EXECUTIVE, LEGISLATIVE, or JUDICIAL BRANCHES. It's through the collective changing of flawed mindsets. I've kicked alot of ass and taken some good ones also. PROGRESSIVE THUGGERY = Positive change through controlled unruliness.

For the uninducted, I recommend this post with S-Train's response to Kim DuToit's rather ridiculous "Pussification of modern men" piece. Then just head over to the main page and spend some time there.

Tolerance and ownership

Bill, aka the first official Raznor Troll, wrote this in my comments to this post which insulted him, quite cleverly I might add.

I realze that you are much smarter than me because I grew up on a plantation in Mississippi and didn't have the opportunity to finish high school

Also because I'm the man. I thought this was already clearly established.

but using normal logic I am able to see the things that you haven't had time to learn about life.

"Normal logic" ain't no different than logic in general. It's all limited by what premises and axioms you start out with. But still, I don't hold your lack of education against you. Frankly you were the one who brought it up. But you should learn that the main quality of intellectuals is an understanding of the limits of intellect. You don't need a college education to bring important topics to the table.

By being brain washed by the liberal college and news media you haven't had time to think for your self. It is easy to follow others but when you are able to think for yourself you can then learn what life is all about.

So I'm only a product of brainwashing. But wait for it, the punchline is coming up:

Calling people names because they don't believe like you do is a real sign of "intolorence", the word you like to use when you speak of right wingers. or people that know there is a right and a wrong but some things are wrong and you have to accept that.

Right, after claiming that all my opinions are due to being brainwashed and thus being unable to think for myself, he calls me "intolerant" for not accepting his beliefs, which include, though not in so many words, that God hates fags.

So please be a little tolerent of someone who is not as "smart" as you but has the audacity to think for himself.

Thanks, Wild Bill

But you see, you are smart, or at least clever. You know to use that old Achilles' heel of liberalism, accusations of intolerance, against the liberals. But let me be perfectly clear.

a) People who make bigoted statements are not allowed to make claims of "intolerance". Having the gall to call two elderly women who adore each other "perverse" and "the reason God destroyed Sodom" means you're not allowed to accuse your gentle host of being intolerant, or even "intolorent".

b) I do tolerate you, Bill. But as Mr. Garrison says, "You have to tolerate it, not like it. If you had to like it it would be called acceptance." If I didn't tolerate you, I'd delete your posts or ban you. It is, after all, my blog, which brings me to my final point:

c) You're in Raznor country now, bitch! If I met you on the streets, and you made bigoted statements that I felt could be attributed to gross ignorance, I'd let you go your merry way, and hope you one day learn better. But this is my blog, and we play by my rules here. If you post a comment that merits mocking, you better believe I reserve the right to mock it. You don't like it? Get your own blog and mock the fuck out of me as much as you like. I won't complain, and blogs are totally free and easy to maintain. You might not get the mighty readership of Raznor's Rants (by my estimates, maybe 20-30 people) but you'd be free to do as you please.

But feel free to keep posting here. And your posts will continue to be tolerated. Even if they're mocked.

Who hates the Yankees?

They now have A-Rod. Holy fuck.

My question though is what will become of Jeter? There's still a month and a half before the season starts, so we'll just have to see.

4 days until pitchers and catchers report . . .

Update: Duh, A-Rod's going to play 3rd base and Jeter stays put. But who will the Yankees get for 2nd? We shall see.

David Horowitz, complete asshole

Not that this is a shock, but it turns out all that Horowitz cares about in his "Academic Bill of Rights" is the ability to blacklist left-wing individuals so that right-wingers can take control of anything.

RMPN has more.

Yay a quiz

Brought to you by Echidne.

Check it out!

I am now officially the man!

I'm reporting that Raznor's Rants has finally attracted to the comments section it's first non-sequitur writing right-wing idiots!!! Go Raznor! Go Raznor!

The first is a few posts down, where bill writes:

Clinton never revealed his medical records He was also a draft dodger but he was a demicrat that makes a difference

And yes bill. The fact that Clinton was a demicrat did make a difference. Since you call Clinton "He" I'm assuming that "demicrat" is some sort of deity-politician, which means making him reveal medical records would be a mistake, 'cause you don't wanna go pissin' off no deities.

bill also proves he requires a bitch-slapping by posting a semi-litereate homophobic rant on the post about the marriage of Phyllis Martin and Del Lyon. He's seconded by Karl Marcks (which is such a clever name, since it resembles the name of Karl Marx, who is a somewhat well-known historical figure):

Amen I'm glad that the right wing extremist have been defeated. Now maybe I can marry my brother without any backlash. We don't need the government telling how to live and who we should be able to marry. If you love somebody that is all that matters.

Damn straight! As a liberal I'm all about the incest and bestiality. And the idea that incest would obviously follow from Same Sex Marriage is a no-brainer. Please interpret that as you see fit.

Anyway, thank you bill and karl, truly now, Raznor's Rants has arrived!

Update: Of course I'm nothing compared to Kevin Drum. He did a post about 24 and a ton of freepers go into the comments section talking about Kerry having sex with an intern and how Kevin is losing credibility for posting about Bush's AWOL record. Right-wing idiots. Where would we be without them?

Valentine's day thoughts

Well, I had plans tonight, but my ride bailed out. (you know who you are, grrr) Anyway, still have hope to do something tonight. In the meanwhile, I'm working on my thesis, and that's okay, because it's due in just over two months and all and need to get work done.

But I just received an e-mail from someone named Cigdem Alley, which I'm a bit ambivalent about responding to in e-mail, and I assume was sent by following the link at this blog, wishing me well, what with being single on valentine's day. So I thought I'd send out my reply in this more open forum and say, thank you Cigdem. You have officially just made my night.

And besides, how can I stay cynical or sad when looking at all the love in the photos in the post below.

Anyway, back to work. I'll hopefully be doing something fun soon.

A truly happy Valentine's day

Sorry, even being perpetually single, I can't stay cynical when I read something like this. It truly is all about the love.

The Greatest Janet Jackson analogy ever made by a human being

My god, Ruben Bolling rocks!

Sometimes traditional politics can be pretty insightful

DNC Kicking Ass has a point about Bush that is so perfect, I'm posting it here in its entirety:

If Bush were a woman, what would Ashcroft make him do?

OK, let's see if we have this straight. Women should give their medical records to John Ashcroft. But reporters can't take President Bush's medical records out of the Roosevelt Room.

George Bush: Giving himself special treatment that isn't extended to American women.

Cause for celebration and goodwill

Over at Alas, A Blog, Bean (and now Amp filling in for her for the time being) have been doing a daily "This Day in history . . ." series highlighting important points in women's history. And today's post has this happy highlight:

2004: (A first) City officials in San Francisco issued a license and performed a wedding ceremony for a lesbian couple. This appears to be the first legal same-sex wedding in the United States. The couple, Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, are longtime lesbian-rights activists, who have been together for over half a century.

This is a double great thing. Besides the swelling of joy I feel that these two were finally allowed to tie the knot, there's the undeniable schadenfreude that comes from saying, "Choke on that, Bush Administration!"

Update: Atrios also links to the article and posts this picture of the happy couple:



Isn't that happy?

Any assholes who say these two are endangering marriage should be slapped into submission. But then it's against Raznor policy to advocate violence of any kind, so I don't recommend anyone do the slapping. Only that said slapping would benefit all of humanity.

Update: Here's another picture of the happy couple. This picture made me cry when I saw it.



Via Body and Soul where Jeanne adds:

If you can look at this picture of two elderly women who clearly adore each other and have waited five decades to declare that love to the world, and not share their joy, I don't think I want to know you.

All I can say to that is "amen".

Shocking revelations: the sky is blue . . .

And Ann Coulter is a disgustingly grotesque human being. Tbogg has the details.

Gay Marriage Drove us to Divorce!

Great new cartoon by Mikhaela.

Opinion polls are depressing

Majority Of Americans Thought We Already Had
A Moon Base
WASHINGTON, DC—A NASA poll conducted to gauge support for President Bush's space-exploration initiative revealed that a depressing 57 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. already has a research base on the moon. "We put that international space-station thing up there in the '60s," phone-poll respondent Randy Snow said. "It might be on Mars, but I think it's the moon—wherever they have the golf course that President Kennedy played on. Remember, the Cubans tried to take it over?" NASA officials said they hope someday to make Americans' perception a reality.

Interesting

In my recent google search on Jhonen Vasquez, I uncovered this really good interview with him that is totally worth checking out. Especially for you Zim/JTHM fans.

But the weird thing? This is done by Suicide Girls, a softcore porn site that is well-known on Reed Campus because a number of the models are current and former Reedies.

And they have one hell of an impressive archive of interviews. Besides Jhonen Vasquez, they have interviews with Benicio Del Toro, Pete Yorn, David Rees, William H Macy and many more. It kind of reminds me of what Playboy was in the '50s except for not as popular.

And not to mention naked Reedies. But then that's not at all unusual.

What the FUCK!!!!?????

Mikhaela linked to this comic in a recent cartoon roundup.



I'd comment on the idiocy of this and all, but my head just exploded.

Disadvantages of same-sex marriage

Over at Something Awful, Lowtax has a post on gay marriages, and offers the following possible disadvantages to SSM:

1) According to many religious people, God does not approve of two homosexuals marrying each other. These people also believe that God honestly wants them to own a lot of firearms, have gigantic hair, and vote for George W. "H" Bush Jr. III.

2) The legalization of gay marriage leads to a very slippery slope. Once the United States Court approves it, what's to stop people from legalizing marriages between a pet cat and a pet dog? Or a pirate and a ghost? Or a Scientologist and a human being?

3) I saw a movie where two people were married and one of them killed the other one, so this might be unfair for homosexuals who don't want to be murdered, which I assume is a good majority of them.

The passion of a schismatic anti-Catholic

Orcinus has a pretty good post on Mel Gibson's The Passion that's definitely worth a read.

Yeah, I FEEL GREAT

Via Prometheus 6 this has to be the funniest ad of all time.

Yay, a quiz

Which dysfunctional carebear are you?


Hooligan Bear


Which Dysfunctional Care Bear Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Important blog post title

So, I'm totally about to embark in what may very well be the most important Raznor Rant in the history of Raznor Rant. Let me just loosen up my typing fingers [snap, ooh] and away we . . .

[suddenly we hear "Here comes the Thnikkaman!!!]

Whoops, gotta go. It's the Thnikkaman!

Politics continues to make me cynical

So Al Sharpton, you know, the guy I voted for, turns out to have been sleeping with the GOP. Or at least a few pretty icky Republican partisans.

The Black Commentator goes into the details:

The growing storm over his covert alliance with rightwing Republicans probably came too late to have any measurable impact on Tuesday’s elections, but the revelations are a deathblow to his actual goal: to become the recognized leader of African Americans. Although the story has been framed in terms of treachery to the Democratic Party, or as evidence of Sharpton’s visceral disdain for white “liberals,” the tale will resonate somewhat differently among African Americans. Sharpton comes across as a hapless stooge of the worst elements of the GOP.

Roger Stone, a millionaire political consultant who began his career as a 19-year-old Watergate dirty trickster, virtually took over the Sharpton campaign in the last quarter of 2003, according to reports in the New York Times (January 25), Salon.com (”A GOP Trickster Rents Sharpton,” February 3) and New York’s Village Voice (“Sleeping with the GOP,” February 3). Stone and Sharpton were introduced two years ago by Donald Trump, the celebrity millionaire, said the Times. Stone brought in Charles Halloran to replace Sharpton campaign manager Frank Watkins, a longtime advisor to the Jesse Jacksons, Junior and Senior, who resigned in late September. (In the Village Voice article, Sharpton says Watkins was fired.) Halloran previously managed the New York gubernatorial campaign of far-right billionaire Tom Golisano, on the Independence Party line. He also managed a mostly white, conservative party’s attempt to unseat the first Black-led government of Bermuda.

Stone provides “ideas and direction, while Mr. Halloran…does the front-line work,” said the Times. “In the attacks on Dr. Dean, Mr. Stone helped set the tone and direction while Mr. Halloran did the research. Mr. Halloran came up with Dr. Dean's hiring record as governor, for example, aides to Mr. Sharpton said.”

There's more, oh how there's more.

I didn't comment on this earlier, because, frankly, I've been in denial. I gave my heart and vote to Sharpton, and he goes on sleeping with partisan Republicans behind my back. I been burned too many times by these politicians.

I guess what I learned is someone can have one hell of an appealing platform and be one hell of a great speaker and still be an asshole. And as the black commentator goes on, some good still came out of Sharpton's candidacy:

“Big Al” was truly large on the stage, a daunting deterrent to the intrusion of the usual coded racial rhetoric into the Democratic debates or on the stump: Don’t even think about it, said Al, without having to move his lips. Sharpton gave voice – at times, brilliantly – to the core progressive principles of the Black political consensus, causing big-footed white men to step lightly and in the right general direction.

Sharpton’s candidacy has had a magical effect on the racial chemistry of the Democratic dialogue, in starkest contrast to the White Citizens Council-type language of the GOP. He caused the white candidates to repeatedly demonstrate, through their words and campaign schedules, that they valued Black voters.

Well, there's always November. But I ain't fallin' love with any other Democrat any time soon.

(Link via Ampersand)

A Sunday brunch of cynicism

Here's the last line of a post by Atrios:

As for the Democrats - sure they need to convince the world they're "strong on foreign policy." But, don't bother releasing a 300 page manifesto. Come up with the bumper sticker.

As we bloggers are wont to say, read the whole thing.

Further evidence that Jhonen Vasquez rocks your world

There used to be something here then the image changed, so I took it out. Never mind

Small world

Apparently in Houston, people are planning on picketing a Margaret Cho act which in no way would draw even more people to see her. Nope. I just love this though:

The Houston club where Margaret is working out material for her new show this weekend (Feb. 6-7) has been asked to fire her or expect pickets to take place outside the club. Here is the letter the club in Houston received:

daniel vela [texasrepublicangop@yahoo.com] wrote:
Hello,

The Young Conservatives of Texas* and the Houston Young Republicans Committee would like you to remove Margaret Cho from this Friday and Saturdays show. We along with many Americans feel she made unnecessary and vulgar comments about the United States and our president during a speech for Moveon.org. We would like you to consider theses wishes. We have 75 people Friday and 93 people Saturday who will be there at the Improv to either enjoy the replacement for Margaret or Picketing her show in front of the Improv. Please contact if you can accommodate our wishes,

Daniel Riley
Young Conservatives of Texas

* We got a letter from a Howard A. Hickman, who says he is an attorney for The Young Conservatives of Texas, stating that Daniel Riley does NOT represent them nor is he a member. He said that Daniel Riley has been sent a cease and desist letter.


Here is the letter Margaret previously received from this same person which is posted along with other racist and homophobic emails here:

----- Original Message -----
From: daniel vela [texasrepublicangop@yahoo.com]
To: karen@margaretcho.com
Cc: margaret@margaretcho.com
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 6:43 AM
Subject: wang chung


Please forward to Margaret


Dear chung lee,
Please go back where you came from. We don't need anymore people like you in this country. I hope you have aids and pass it to all your liberal commie homo friends. Your a slut and a lard ass. Please take Rosie O'donnel back home with u, I'm sure yall will have a lot of fun together eating sushi and having dildo fights. Stupid ninja

Aids Cures Gays

Not the most polite of people, is he, this Daniel Vela.

Anyway, Margaret writes more on it here.

Angry, if belated, open letter to the NFL

Why won't you think of the children?

The beer commercials, the gratuitous shots of cheerleaders every few seconds was enough, but the sort of filth we had to sit through at the halftime show was crossing a line. There were no warnings, no cautions for parents whose children's minds are still developing to guard their eyes from this piece of filth. Not to mention the damage to the country as a whole.

I mean, we're still as a society trying to come to terms with hip hop's influence on the musical world and you give us P. Diddy? The man's not going to go away if he keeps getting to do these special appearances. Haven't we suffered enough?

Please have some decent musicians next year, for Christ's sake.

Raznor

[minor edit]

Brilliant



Via Calpundit.

Good post by Bill Maher

It's been a while since I've checked Bill Maher's blog, but this post on Michael Moore's "deserter" comment is excellent:

I hear the press saying "reckless", I don't see a lot of digging into the story (except the Boston Globe a little bit).

Why is it murky? This isn't something that happened in the 16th century. The Gospels that give the 411 on Jesus were written forty to sixty years after his death. Why is this one too hard to sniff out, when any sort of gossipy lead prompts the media to dig up everybody related - aunts, uncles, cousins, co-workers come out of the woodwork. We can't get some guys who served with Bush, or were at the bases he was supposed to be at, to go on Dateline? I know Scott Peterson's important, but why is this so inscrutable?

More galling about this for me is the Affirmative Action angle - a president who's against Affirmative Action for getting into colleges because no one, even one who's race was denied basic rights and opportunities for so long, should have one iota of favoritism for any reason -

(in Michigan, he fretted blacks got 20 out of 150 points just for being black, "not for some achievement", spoken like a true clueless white boy who never got it that for lots of poor people in the U.S., just getting out of the neighborhood alive is an achievement, let alone going on to college)

- as if just any soldier could get a transfer to another base to work on a political campaign - "Sure soldier, just fill out requisition T-93dash08..."

I think for a lot of us who are not real big Bush fans, it was running for president on the idea that your life had been defined by honor and integrity that got us on the wrong foot with this man.

College legacy, getting out of going to Viet Nam, special favors and oily, corrupt crony connections all along the way - not a monster, George Bush, but equally far from a life defined by honor and integrity.

If you look at the facts, that is. But Republicans are, above all else, loyal. Unfortunately, that's nowadays more to people than principles.

(so refreshing to see a libertarian with an actual understanding of Affirmative Action)

In the meanwhile, don't forget to vote on the Raznor Awesome List. Now, I have a problem set to do.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Be adding a blogroll soon. Just so you all know. Raznor's Rants is still in it's ongoing process of awesomizing.

An interesting day

So on Monday, I woke up late as usual. I don't have class until 2:00 on Mondays, and I stayed up late working, so I finally left my dorm at a bit after 1:00 to head to have my lunch/breakfast, and I saw that my path was blocked by this:



The mighty oak had fallen. You can read about it here. No one was hurt when it fell, fortunately, and they've almost completely removed it by now. But that's quite an interesting way to start a week, don't you think?

Edited to correct a gaping error

The first ever Raznor Awesome List

I don't feel like finding links, but I'm sure a number of my readers remember when a bunch of conservative bloggers submitted suggestions for a "Greatest Americans of all time" and a "Worst Americans of all time" list. The lists were ridiculous, of course, besides the problem I had which is always "Greatest at what? Being American? Existing?" the people submitting were conservative wingnuts, so Reagan is up there with the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Clinton is worse than Jeffrey Dahmer.

But it got me thinking, there should be a better list where we specify something, "Greatest [blank] of all time", only be specific, something where the nominees are a little more specific than "the Greatest Person to Ever Live Award" or "Best film by a human being". And I'd keep a record of them as official Raznor Awesome Lists.

So, the first Raznor Awesome List will be a listing of the Greatest Anti-Vietnam Songs of all Time (all time, in this case, being 1965-1975). Why, because Vietnam inspired some of the greatest songs ever written, and we're just barely seeing the beginning of music nearly that good involving Iraq.

Criteria is that the songs have to be written while America was in Vietnam with the purpose of saying we shouldn't be there. This means while songs like "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield and "The Feels Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" by Country Joe and the Fish qualify, retrospective Vietnam songs, like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" don't qualify. And songs like "Fuck Her Gently" by Tenacious D are just way out there. Why you even askin' that? Vote by using the comments section of this post.

And to other bloggers who are reading this, I would so appreciate a link to this post for others to vote. If this is successful look for more Raznor Awesome Lists in the future.

Update: For clarification, any song that's anti-war and written during the Vietnam War, like "War What is it Good For?" qualify. Keep on a-votin'.

Update 2: In the comments, Xboy suggests "Billie Don't Be a Hero". Only problem, though, the song came out in 1974, which is after the US pulled out of Vietnam, but before the actual war ended. So the question for further voting is this: do we allow, as a rule, songs from 1974 or don't we? Well, don't just sit there reading this. Vote!

Update 3: Not getting very many new votes here. I'll start taking a look at what we got here and come up with a list of songs that can be more specifically voted on as to whether they should be on the list. Look for more on Monday.

As true today as it was when it was written

The Breast

Echidne makes a good point regarding the breast in the superbowl halftime show last night, that you're not really hearing from anyone, unfortunately:

Lots of apologies, none of them directed at Janet Jackson. So either she was in on the stunt or everybody involved suffers from the idea that the dangers in baring The Breast are all to do with its sudden and devastating impact on the viewers, not on the woman whose body part it happens to be. Even if the whole thing was preplanned, an appearance of sincerity in the apologies would have required that at least one of them be directed to the woman who was most affected by this exposure.

In the meanwhile, August Pollak offers this this little synopsis of the big game:

Violence, violence, violence, aggression, coach mouthing obscenity, beer commercial, cheerleader, cheerleader, beer commercial, violence, aggression, commercial with horse igniting woman with its fart, violence, cheerleader, beer commercial, DIRTY FILTHY TITTY MY GOD WHO WILL THINK OF THE CHILDREN, violence, aggression, beer commercial.

And the commercials sucked ass. Fortunately it was probably the most exciting Superbowl in recent memory. And the Pats won, which is the least you could do for those poor New England sports fans after the horrendously disappointing ALCS last season.

And this concludes the Raznor Superbowl Summary. Tune in next year when I'll likely be discussing another boring 45- -3 contest.

Wingnut logic: "The CIA sold Bush a bill of goods when pushed to the ground"

Go read this post by Josh Marshall.