What the USA could learn from ECW.

There's a chant that is well known in professional wrestling today. It started in many of the underground matches and came into the common lexicon with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in the mid 1990's. The chant is simple but direct in its message, "You fucked up". The chant typically rose through a crowed anytime a wrestler botched a move, or when the choreographed dance of the match was unintentionally broken. Lose your footing while attempting to climb to the top rope? You fucked up. Throw a punch that didn't actually land, but your opponent still "sold" it? You fucked up. Try to suplex your opponent but you slip and he flips over anyway? You fucked up.

It's a bit of a crude delivery system but the message is clear nonetheless, "You made a mistake, we saw it, we recognize it and don't even try to play it off" and you know what? It works! Never after matches to wrestlers say that a mistake is intentional. They don't try to play it off or correct it post match. They know what happens, the fans know what happened and most importantly they know that the fans know. It's a very no frills way to instant feed back (the wrestlers web2.0 if you will).

This is a tactic that could very well benefit Cambridge Police and President Obama. First, with the police and their handeling of Henry Louis Gates Jr. You arrest someone in their own house after you get called about them breaking into their own house? You fucked up. Hands down, that's it. No excuses. No explanations. You fucked up. Not to mention Gates was released and all charges were dropped 24 hours later. Pretend this is any other office on earth. You turn in a report to your boss and 24 hours later your boss explains, "This report is unusable and I'm throwing it away". Would you say you did you're job? No, you fucked up. And for police to play it off like this isn't a mistake in any way is foolish and stubborn and shows them to be more apt to demonstrate a gang like mentality than serve their public.

Now, to President Obama. You get up in a national press conference and use an adverb like, "stupidly" to describe a police action? You fucked up. It doesn't matter if I agree. It doesn't even matter if you're found to be correct. You are elected to be a representative of the people, all people, and when you get up there and single out a specific population (one with a very powerful union and lobby mind you) and describe anything they do as stupid, you better be prepared to feel some national outrage. Even if you feel they acted "stupidly" you're the president elected to lead them and no one wants to be called out by the commander and chief on national TV.

So in the grand scheme of things you have simple fuck up that escalated because both parties refused to acknowledge that the crowd has caught on and is fully aware of what's going on. Both believe they can somehow convince the audience that they're right and everything is going to plan if they just stay the course and refuse to acknowledge what everyone already knows, "you fucked up".

There certainly is a double standard.

One of the many stories reporting on this

In case you've been living under a rock and haven't heard, the lovely Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, recently took her family on down to New York city. This is a special occasion because not only does it allow the Palin the opportunity to crawl outside of her hate cave and bask in the sun, it also allows for her to get some much needed media attention. See, Palin isn't a "real" political figure. She's not someone like Nancy Pelosi where the media constantly ask her opinion on issues occurring in congress or just in general (I don't mean to imply that Pelosi is a "better" representative, simply that the media and people and general seek her out for comment). No, Palin is very much a political figure in the Anne Coulter model, where she's basically off the news and off peoples radar unless she's saying something that is A) Inflammatory B) Hateful C) Mindblowingly stupid D) All of the above. Only during these times of fervor does anyone even know she exists, and Palin wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to make New York one of those times.

But how? How do you manage to make news out of nothing? For you or I it may seem impossible but not for someone with handlers as talented as Mrs. Palin. A comment made by David Letterman of "David Letterman's increasingly unfunny show" was the key. During his standard monologue Letterman talked about the trip and the family attending a Yankee's game noting, "There was one awkward moment during the seventh inning stretch. Her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez". Any rational human being would figure he must be talking about Bristol Palin, Sarah's 18 year old daughter, gangster partier and unwed mother. But not Sarah Palin! Oh no, she saw right through that obvious joke about her knocked up and unwed daughter and clearly found Letterman's intended target, her 14 year old daughter Willow!

Again, you or I may sit back and go, "why on earth would you assume Letterman was talking about her 14 year old daughter and not her 18 year old daughter who's already been pregnant?" Well, because making something inflammatory is one of Palin's four ways of getting news and boy, she was in rare form about it. Palin claimed that Letterman's comments caused everything from teen image problems (I'm sure a ton of teens have gone, "I'm too fat, if I don't lose weight A-Rod is gonna knock me up!") to statutory rape. Palin says Letterman should be ashamed and that this is an example of the double standard set by media.

Palin wants to claim when Obama said, "leave my family out of this" everyone bowed to his will, but they surely couldn't do that to the republican's. Yeah, the evil media knocked your daughter up, drug her baby's dad (and then fiance) to the Republican National Convention, then made him not marry her and then made Bristol come out and say abstinence may not work (side note: DUH!). What exactly would the media have done if they went after the Obama family? His kids aren't even both teenagers yet. You'd look like a hell of a crack reporter hanging out by an elementary school, seeing how many milks a kid drank.

While we're on the topic of the "double standard" let's talk about Palin's comment that, "It would be wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman". This could be read several ways, however, when Palin was on the Today Show and that comment was read, she delivered what can only be called "The Palin Smirk". I'm sure you've seen it. It's not her "smile for the camera" face. It's the "I just said something that my writers told me was really witty and I feel so smart" face. Here's a couple of examples (1) (2) (3). Those aren't the best but pretty much watch anytime she's on TV it'll happen at least once and it's usually after something that's A) insulting B) Super Folksy C)Really awkward out of her mouth D) All of those. Anyhow, that little smirk made the intention perfectly clear and that was, "I just made a joke about David Letterman trying to rape my daughter, tee-he". Not only does this CONTINUE her misunderstanding of the original joke, but it also makes her just as bad (if not worse) than she claims David Letterman is. So, it's wrong for someone to make a joke about your 18 year old, daughter who has a kid but it's okay for you to insinuate that a 62 year old married man with a son, is a statutory rapist?

Double standard ineed.

Newt should know better....

Some original content

So, if you haven't heard by now, at some point, at some time Supreme Court Justice nominee (and god willing appointee [omg, I'm biased!]) Sonia Sotomayor said something along the lines of, "I feel my experience as a Latino Woman, can lead to me being a better judge than a white male". I'm sure she had no idea the shit storm that would ensue after that.

Everyone with an ounce of pull in that old, bitter, republican corpse jumped to life and screamed that this woman must be racist. Well...Everyone who didn't have an elected position. Newt Gingrich (former speaker of the House and all around douche) offered this insight, "Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' Wouldn't they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism". Yes Newt, let's imagine. Let's imagine a world where for years and years the decisions impacting peoples everyday lives were left to white males. A situation where white males decided on racial discrimination, immigration, abortion and a number of other issues they've never dealt with first hand. Oh wait, that's a majority of America's Supreme Court for the entirety of its existence.

Old, white males are the ones who seem to believe they know the most about abortion, gay rights, even immigration. Until recently, old, white, men were also our only presidents. White guys had/have a monopoly on our laws, our elections and our judicial process. By refusing anyone else the right to take place in that process you're basically saying, "a white guy knows best". Maybe, Newt and Rush and all those other dicks are too scared to say it but by bringing up such a petty quote by Sotomayor highlights that you got nothing else to cling to but your petty racist ideals. For decades the practice has been "whitey knows best" now someone even proposes the theory that someone might know better than a white male and they're called a racist.

But then again, maybe I'm misreading it. I mean, if whitey knows best, they don't come any more white, male or scared to death of minorities than Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh...They must be like the all knowing gods of their world.

It may be separate, but it's equal...right?

The original release

In a move that should surprise nobody, the California Supreme Court pulled what can only go down in history as "the ultimate bitch move". The court managed to fail both supporters of proposition 8 and rational, logical people who don't feed on hate. The court decided to uphold Prop. 8 (basically saying that a good 52% of the California population are smart enough to make laws) and allow the gay marriages that took place before the passing of Prop. 8 to stand (basically saying, "it's cool to be gay, as long as you act swiftly").

But saying, "gay marriage isn't okay, but it is," is really only the beginning of this cop out. In the offical release regarding the decision the court noted , "that the scope of Proposition 8 is narrow, limited solely to restricting the use of the term “marriage” to opposite-sex couples, while not otherwise affecting the fundamental constitutional rights of same-sex couples described in its earlier opinion in In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757." Hey Brown, listen, this is just education we're talking about. It's one aspect of your life, it's not the whole thing. Besides you got this whole separate, but equal school over here that you can go to.

Apparently, the California Supreme Court feels that it's okay to discriminate against a minority group, as long as a majority of the population feels the same way. However, both sides swear this is not the end of their war and promise to meet their ultimate goal of either eliminating segregation or "killing all them thar queers". In the meantime, thank god that we have a bevy of 50/50 successful straight marriages to fall back on.

If I get shot in a park, I'm blaming this fucker.

Bit of the original story

When was the last time you've been in a national park and thought, "man, my credit card rate is insane AND I wish I could carry a loaded Desert Eagle in my waistband..right now!" Unless you bank at that backwater shit shed featured in Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine, probably never. However, that's exactly what Senator Tom Coburn must have been thinking when he championed tying a bill that allows the carrying of a loaded and concealed weapon inside of U.S. National parks to the amazingly popular credit card reform measure.

Just so you're clear, one piece panders to gun lobbyist (one of the oldest and scariest lobbies) and one panders to many American's who have had their rates unfairly raised by credit card companies. One, "forbids rate increases on existing balances unless consumers are at least 60 days late paying their bill or the initial rate was a promotional rate that has expired, and requires 45 days' notice to raise rates". The other, allows you to take your Glock into Jellystone incase anyone fucks with your pick'a'nic basket.
While they were voted on separately in the senate both were bound together when they were put before President Obama, who has already said he'll sign the credit card bill with the attached gun measure. While this is a huge disappointment for a candidate who ran on gun reform, it's also an understandable political move. If he refused to sign the bill because of the gun provision, Obama would be stalling an action that many Americans are looking for. Even people who support gun control would probably press the issue, simply because the credit card bill is so central right now.

Of course, all this leaves those of us with good credit and a fear of getting shot by a hillbilly river rafter, out in the cold.

At least there wasn't any swearing.

The original story

Apparently, it's a great time to live in the US. In a time of great economic prosperity, a surplus of funding for our public schools and health care so comprehensive every single citizen of the United States is covered for life, the Republican part has little more to pass petty, partisan resolutions regarding their opposing parties moniker. There is so little to actually do, that it seems like a good idea to actively peruse a resolution changing the name of the Democratic Party to the "Democrat Socialist Party".

That's right people. In a party that has stalled out on momentum and is currently residing on the sloth and short sightedness of it's far right base, it seems like a good idea to waste valuable time and energy trying to implement a scare tacit on the dominant party's name. Imagine the outrage that would have spurred up if even 4 years ago it was suggest we change the name to "The Republican Fascist Party" (even though imprisoning people for undetermined lengths for undefined crimes, warrant less wiretapping and baseless wars bordering on genocide are more in keeping with fascism than feeding and clothing your population are with socialism). Is this the "change" Michael Steele dared bolster and gloat about? Is this the Republican Party that's going to redefine politics and motivate America?

We're in the grips of one of the worst economic recessions in history with unemployment over 11% in some areas and all you can do is get together and go, "Those Democrats are stinky ol' socialists. We should change their name to the Democratic Socialist Party"? While you're at it, make sure to push Nancy Pelosi off the swings and throw James Clyburn's sandwich in the tanbark.


P.S. Oh, in the same meeting they decided to honor someone who helped start Reganomics and help spread the broad deregulation that got us in this economic shit sandwich. Way to go!

Obama's sweeping abortion reform

After facing many hostile pro-lifer's at his recent commencement speech for Notre Dame, President Obama has seen the light. In what Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is calling, "the most sweeping reform since Roe v. Wade", President Obama has devised a plan this is sure to "meet the moral demands of all those who respect the rights of America's unborn". Gibbs explained, "After seeing the passion and compassion demonstrated by the protesters, the President realized how much this issue meant to them and thus, decided to make a law that would meet all of their demands, in a way that would directly impact their constituency".

That's why the President is swiftly passing an executive order making it illegal for white males to obtain abortions. "We believe that if they feel so strongly about this issue, the government has no place to stand in their way, " Gibbs explained, "and hopefully this will put all those elderly, white men at ease".

However, the White House isn't foolhardy enough to forget about female pro-lifers, such as right wing support Ann Coulter. This has lead to the push of a future initiative that would also ban abortions for all women who are well past the age of menopause. Gibbs touched on the matter noting, "Hey, if a woman who physically can't get pregnant doesn't want to have the option of an abortion, why should we force it down' her throat?"

There is currently no word yet on plans to limit abortions for people who are unable to get pregnant due to sex changes or for people who are too unattractive to conceive.