Daria Complete Series on DVD [chat]

The Complete Series of Daria is available on DVD.

So, we each have something to buy.

John Stossel: "right to be racist"

Full Transcript

KELLY: But that's not what Rand Paul said. Rand Paul agreed that if it's run by the government, yes intervention is fine. He took issue with the public accommodations, with private businesses being forced to pony up under the discrimination laws.

STOSSEL: And I would go further than he was willing to go, as he just issued the statement, and say it's time now to repeal that part of the law

KELLY: What?

STOSSEL: because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won't won't ever go to a place that's racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist.

----

Megyn Kelly is a fucking moron. This is unfortunate, given that were an intelligent person participating in this segment with Stossel, something interesting could have happened.

Let's grant Stossel's premise: It ought to be your right, as a private business owner, to be racist and so enact racist business practices. Or, to take it further, "In a free country, we consenting adults should be able to do whatever we want with our bodies as long as we don’t hurt anyone else."

You ought to be free to do drugs, to rent your body for sex, to sell your organs, to be a racist. In a free country, in a free society, one ought to have the freedom to do whatever one wants, so long as no one hurts anyone else.

Which is fine, until we think about what "hurt" means...and the fact that we are social, societal creatures reliant upon others for our survival. Given that we all exist within a communal causal nexus what you do impacts me, what I do impacts you.

So, I'll agree with John Stossel that in a free society anyone ought to be able to do anything they want so long as they do not hurt anyone else. The problem being, of course, that as social beings living in a communal causal nexus?

Anything anyone ever does hurts someone else.

Stossel's argument participates in the problem shared by all arguments for freedom and liberty: Freedom and Liberty make sense, until you realize there is causality. Once there is causality no longer is there freedom, and liberty is an impossibility.

So, since we are societal, communally-reliant beings existing within a mutually-shared causal nexus? Whence the problem with passing laws which make it illegal for persons to be fucking assholes? The problem cannot be that such laws limit or stifle freedom, because we never fucking had freedom.

Because causality.

Or, you know, there is no causality...so we have freedom...but we do not have will or volition and rather are naught be random, haphazard randomness randomly randoming unconnectedly from one isolated time point to the next isolated, uncaused time point. And since we don't have will we can't have liberty, either.

Basically, John Stuart Mill was an idiot and a drunk. And John Stossel doesn't understand the meanings of the words he uses.

Thank Christ for Leibniz's solution to the problem.

Maddow v. Rand Paul

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I think we need to be clear. This is not a First Amendment issue.

The Civi Rights Act of 1964 was about ending institutional racism nation wide. But it follows that by breaking down the institutional structures that support racism, we begging to break down the more problematic and more destructive cultural racism.

An Open Letter to Rand Paul

Before we get to this letter, please watch the following video.



Rand. Buddy, how are you doing? I bet the last few days for you have been a blast. You just won the notation to be the Republican candidate in the Kentucky! High Five!

But Rand, sometime you just need to shut the fuck up. Like, big time.

INTERVIEWER: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I’m all in favor of that.

INTERVIEWER: But?

PAUL: You had to ask me the “but.” I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.

See. That is the sort of bullshit that you need to stop. This is not something to laugh off. If you are going to take positions on major policy issues, people are going to ask you to justify those positions. Welcome to politics. You are not an eye doctor any more*.

Saying you are not racist and that you are a fan of MLK in one breath, than in the next breath say that a private business can openly discriminate is complete bullshit. First off, anytime anyone begins by saying they are not a racist, you know they are about the say something super racist. Second, yes, Martin Luther King was a great speaker and true believer in his cause. But fuck Rand. FUCK. Setting aside the 175+ years of social, structural and legal racism, people were brutalized in Selma and Birmingham and rural Mississippi just because they wanted to be treated as humans. In 1963, six hundred students marched through the streets of Birmingham to protest the cities segregation. They were attached by dogs and fire hoses. Rand, I think we can agree that is fucked up.

But sitting in a chair nearly 50 years later you cannot say that Bull Connor had a First Amendment right to do that. That is the dirtiest false-equivocation I have heard in a long time. That "boorish" behavior that you would stand up against now rings hollow in the light of your comments. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was one of many attempts to break the very long very destructive cycle of structural discrimination. The structural discrimination that allowed for a culture in which it was okay to attack people for wanted to eat a fucking grilled cheese.

So Rand. Shut up. We here at EoiaS like it when you rant against the Federal Reserver and promote the gold standard. We eat that shit up. But this bullshit is a bullshit bridge to far.




* Please see vonnegut on why that is a problem.

Glee: Dream On

Epic

Glee: Piano Man

Megan Fox FIRED from Transformers 3

File this under BWAAAAA?!?!?!?!

Source

EXCLUSIVE: I've just learned that Paramount won't be picking up Megan Fox's option on Transformers 3 -- and that it was "ultimately" director Michael Bay's decision. (So he gets his revenge for her remark comparing him to "Hitler".) Right now Bay and writer Ehren Kruger et al are finishing up the script for the threequel and "giving Shia a new love interest makes more sense for the story," an insider tells me. Bay will start casting immediately for the new female co-star.

So, Transformers 3 will not have Megan Fox. But, it will still have LaBoof and Michael Bay's involvement. Does the loss of Megan Fox do enough to change the direction of the franchise? Or are LaBoof and Bay still enough to ensure shittiness?

Indiana Jones Wears a Fedora, Assholes

So, there are some people here with whom I hang out on occasion who don't know shit about shit. Usually this is not a problem, as the conversations in which we engage pertain to topics about which I do not care; I have no stake in their interests. However, on occasion our conversations tread into "_J_ territory" the problem with which is that, again, fuckers don't know shit about shit.

So, this evening we were playing a game called Contact. In this game Player-A thinks of a word, provides the first letter of the word, and others try to guess the word by asking questions. For example, Player-A says "The word starts with 'P'." Another person can say "Is it a kind of farm animal?" If a third person thinks they know the word they say "Contact", count back from 10, and then say the word they think the other is thinking, for example, "pig". If Player-A does not say a word which could answer the question asked before the two other individuals say the word, then Player-A provides another letter to the word which Player-A is thinking.

It's not important that you understand all the nuances of the game, but it helps to have a general idea of the game to understand my story.

So, we're playing this game. We have reached the point at which we know that the letters of the word to guess are F-E-D-O. So, I say "Is it something Indiana Jones wears?" Someone says "Contact" and we count down, then both say "Fedora", to which multiple people say, and I quote: "Indiana Jones does not wear a Fedora!"

Because, again, fuckers don't know shit about shit.

At the time I did not have access to the internet, so it was their ignorance against my basic knowledge of Indiana Jones which any sentient individual ought have. I was unable to persuade any of them that Indiana Jones wears a Fedora because, well, there is something fundamentally wrong with these people. But now that I am home, with access to the internet, I shall amass some proof to prove the self-evident truth that Indiana Jones wears a fucking Fedora.

TheRaider.net articulates the history behind Indiana Jones' Fedora.

Indiana Jones wikipedia page discussing Indiana Jones' Fedora.

IndianaJonesHats.net whereat one can buy Indiana Jones' Fedora.

ThinkGeek.com: Indiana Jones Officially Liscensed Fedora.

Indiana Jones wears a Fedora, god damn it.

I realize that in the scheme of things this is not that big of a deal, that perhaps it is not imperative that persons in their late-20s know that Indiana Jones wears a Fedora. But the thing that fucking gets me is that they had the gall to sit there and tell me I was incorrect. I mean, for fuck's sake; they're a bunch of god damned socialist hipsters and I'm a nerd. It is a question of knowing one's place. My expectation is that persons will play to their strengths, recognize their own limitations, and so act in accord with their character.

So you would think that for the sake of maintaining group cohesion they would not try to correct me about Indiana Jones, just as I do not try to correct them about Vampire Weekend.

But, no, that's asking too much.

Mark Souder, Adultery, and Resignation

Fuck you, Mark Souder.
Fuck you.

Dale Peterson: Alabama Ag Commissioner

So, from the above ad, we have learned that Dale Peterson will "name names and take no prisoners" as he, presumably, shoots illegals and saves family farms. This is interesting, given the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industry Vision Statement:

To provide timely, fair and expert regulatory control over product, business entities, movement, and application of goods and services for which applicable state and federal law exists and strive to protect and provide service to Alabama consumers. Department personnel will actively work to initiate and support economic development activities and promote domestic and international consumption of Alabama products. It is the Department's goal to be recognized for its employee's integrity and professional performance.

I invite you to compare and contrast the message in the above video with the Vision Statement of the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industry. You may recognize some disparity between what Dale Peterson seeks to do and...the job description of the position for which he is seeking nomination.

In addition to his general confusion over what his job would be, we have the issues related to Dale Peterson's Platform:

Every state has its special challenges, and one of Alabama's is agriculture. Agriculture in Alabama is broken. Every day we lose three family farms. Every year, we lose over 1,000 family farms. Why? Because our farmers can't make a living farming. What choice do they have? Sadly, they have no choice but to leave farming and find some other means to support their families.
That is unacceptable.

So, Peterson thinks that in the year 2010 we need to preserve family farming given that the Free Market has made family farming an unviable lifestyle choice. As a Republican it is, of course, sensible for Peterson to seek to counteract the Free Market.

Moreover, Peterson's qualifications could be considered questionable:

Having never held political office or been appointed to any state farm related committees or boards makes me uniquely different from the other candidates seeking Alabama's Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries job in 2010.

So, in the same way that I would be uniquely qualified to be a medical practitioner, Dale Peterson is uniquely qualified to be Alabama Ag Commissioner. His complete lack of experience and knowledge serves as an ideal foundation from which to make decisions related to counteracting the Free Market.

If you read further in Peterson's Platform you will find the three problems upon which Peterson will focus, so utilizing his complete lack of experience or knowhow:

1) Leadership
By utilizing his "drive and grit", Peterson will be a strong leader. Now, he does not indicate to where he would lead anyone. But, rest assured that he would strongly lead into this unknown and unspecified direction.

2) Profitability
Currently, due to the Free Market, agriculture is not a profitable industry in Alabama. Peterson seeks to change this by implimenting a 1, 3, and 5 year plan to increase profits. The plans are not specified on the site, but rest assured that Peterson has plans.

3) Job Creation
"The initiation of stability will begin as farm taxes are reduced or eliminated and longevity of those jobs will, in part, be provided through a proposed tax relief provision for farm-related businesses contained in the Agribusiness Plan. As agribusiness begins to return to profitability, we will see reversal in Alabama agribusiness jobs moving out of State."

If we reduce the taxes on agriculture, then agriculture will be profitable, because the only thing making agriculture unprofitable is taxes. Then there will be jobs, sweet sweet jobs!

You may find it reassuring to know that Peterson is also something of an environmentalist:
"We can also preserve the ecological balance of the environment while simultaneously maintaining substantial agricultural production."

Again, Peterson does not specify how we can do this...but he owns a rifle, so I trust him.

His website also includes a page which articulates the narrative of Joe Legal and Jose Illegal, which respectfully and artifully articulates the problems with illegal immigration. It turns out the problem is that Jose Illegal does not have to pay taxes and receives government handouts, which is why Dale Peterson wants to reduce the taxes on small farms and give them government handouts. Because, you see, tax relief and government handouts are only a problem when they are given to spics.

Schadenfreude?

At work, and unable to watch the video, or get a clear look at this yet.. but.. wanted to put it up somewhere so I'd catch it later at home. I'll come back to this and clean the post up quite a bit post-haste, but until then -

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/rep_souder_and_mistress_recorded_video_on_abstinen.php

Dio is Dead

So let there be rock.

Foghat in Warsaw

In June something time, or something.