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idiocracy
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idiocracy
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idiocracy
crappy hour
Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This But Please God Only Like 200 More Right?
God, where to begin today. Maybe with the fact that while your mortgage payment was tripling, Goldman Sachs's earnings fell a whole entire 11% ?? Or like, while the Justice Department was systematically sacking any and all prosecutors whose decisions on things like habeas corpus and torture and crap fell anywhere to the rational side of "automated Bush surrogate," the Pentagon was firing an official for the grave offense of noticing a billion dollar overage on a KBR invoice? Or how even as the net income necessary to join the Top 400 plutocrats, adjusted for inflation, has tripled since the beginning of the Clinton Administration, the McCain campaign is dissing on Obama's economic policy proposals for their inadequate FAITH IN THE MARKETS??? (Wait, was that a question? I don't even know anymore.) Megan and I babble about who should get taxed more and how — and she nominates Hitchens — after the jump. More »
Meet James Sedlak. He's an asshole. He's also the Vice President of the Virginia-based American Life League who has accused Planned Parenthood of distributing pornography to children because they handed out sex ed materials. This week, though, he's taking credit for something even worse. Planned Parenthood is about to build a new regional headquarters in Sarasota and the city wanted them to build some other buildings on the edge of the property. Rather than selling the land to a developer, they were going to "sell" it to Habitat for Humanity Sarasota for $10 to allow Habitat to build affordable housing on it. Once Sedlak got word of it, he blasted emails and newsletters out to the fundie universe condemning Habitat for helping Planned Parenthood to "build a new killing center" and "open an abortuary." Under pressure by donors, Habitat withdrew from the deal, so Planned Parenthood is going to sell to a developer, Sarasota isn't going to get the affordable housing, and women like us won't be able to get their contraception, reproductive health services, education or perfectly legal and safe first-trimester abortions, the latter of which is the only thing people like Jim-Bob care about anyway. Way to make me proud to be an upstate New Yorker, asswipe. [American Life League, Sarasota Herald Tribune, STOPP International]
rants
Can Sharon Stone Teach The (Idiot) (First) World To Stop Babbling About "Karma" Already?
So, Sharon Stone has blamed "bad karma" for the Chinese earthquake. By that rationale, an earthquake that has killed just under a hundred thousand people in a largely Tibetan province of western China is some sort of punishment for the central government's paranoid repression of its Tibetan population. Now, it goes without saying that Sharon Stone's only discernible quality (not feature) is that she's a fucking idiot. She came around to Tibetan Buddhism via Richard Gere after a supposedly long romance with Scientology. She has lied about everything from belonging to Mensa to the Tanzanian government's dispensing of mosquito nets. Of AIDS, she has said, "AIDS is what happens when you forget to look at the person next to you." But today, I give thanks to Sharon Stone, because perhaps her ignorant, idiotic words will remind all of us how fucking inane it is to invoke "karma" in most conversation, i.e. "Karma is a bitch." KARMA IS NOT A BITCH. Saying "karma is a bitch" to couch in hippie moral superiority a basic conveyance of schadenfreude is highly irritating. For one thing: More »
Have you actually not witnessed the clip of Chris Matthews schooling Kevin James, the conservative talk show host who didn't bother Googling Neville Chamberlain before he went on Hardball to accuse Chamberlain of being Barack Obama's ideological forebear? CLICK THE PIC THEN. Or you'll be condemned to a lifetime of being alarmed by the ignorance of Intelligent. Conservative. Talk Radio. hosts. (Interestingly, if Bush knows anything about Chamberlain it's probably only because historians have likened his own stubbornness to the pre-Churchill British PM's.) (Which would make Obama OUR CHURCHILL, ha ha ha.) Click the pic to watch the clip, read Winston Churchill's 1940 Chamberlain eulogy and discuss how low the dollar would have to get for Obama to say similarly nice things about GWB (perhaps with Dick Cheney as the "wicked man" figure.) And no, it doesn't actually all line up. That is the point.
idiocracy
Are Men Or Women More "Hostile To Knowledge"?
Susan Jacoby says Americans are dumb. Oooooh, bold thesis!! Well but, remember that book Everything Bad Is Good For You about how videogames are actually good for kids' brains? Susan says that guy is full of shit. And it's a message that seems to be striking a chord. A New York Times story about her new book The Age Of American Unreason has been on the site's Most Emailed list for five days now. (Could it beat out What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage? Only time will tell!) I would have just ignored it but then for her column in yesterday's Washington Post, which now sits atop that site's "Most Viewed" list. How'd she decide to do the book? Well, the day was 9/11... Remember that? What year was it again? Anyway, depressed and confused, she found herself in a bar... More »
vagina monoblogs
New Glamour Blogger Amanda Carpenter Is Totes Hasselbeck 2.0
We totally missed the launch of Glamour's awesome political blog "Glamocracy" a few days ago, which is actually okay since I really needed to post something and I'm glad it doesn't have to involve constructing a more complex thought than "yay hate!" You see, they have a multitude of bloggers at Glamocracy, among them a Latina, a black...and a red-haired Hasselbeck! Her name is Amanda Carpenter, and she is not a fan of the poors:Gains among the Gennifer Flowers set aren't surprising—Hillary has doggedly pitched programs (which are obviously unappealing to a conservative like me) such as universal healthcare, universal paid leave, and even $5,000 "baby bonds" to rally the low-income, uneducated women she enjoys strong support from. Her campaign even has a special name for them: "women with needs." Labels like this make me think Hillary is the woman in "need". As in, she "needs" taxpayer money to give to the women she "needs" votes from.Oh, is that how that works? Too bad she never learned from your party how not to be so beholden. More »
idiocracy
Glamour, Cokie Roberts' Daughter Launch 'Glamocracy', A Blog About The Longest Reality Dating Show Ever
Glamour is starting a new blog to cover the 2008 election. And guess what it's called: yeah, Glamocracy. "I wanted to have something that talked about this campaign year from the point of view of young women," says Glamour news director Ellen Kapinsky, who will oversee five writers, enough to generate enough PC/oversafe/naive/cloying/badly-written/plodding text based on false underlying assumptions/ insufficient historical understanding to drown us on our own snark. And I'm not saying that because I think I'm so smart; I'm saying it because it's easier to write a blog pointing out dumb editorial moves like letting Mariane Pearl write a four-page story for your December issue about that Russian ex-spy who was poisoned to death by Vladimir Putin's henchman after he refused to assassinate Boris Berezovsky without ever making mention of, I dunno, the Ukrainian president they did the same exact thing to the year earlier; the horrifyingly dictatorial rule of Vladimir Putin; Putin's increasing influence in China, India, Pakistan, Iran and pretty much everywhere else you'll find nukes; how the current presidential candidates plan to handle all that...um...than...well you get it. More »
idiocracy
Presidential Campaign Continues Ruining Our Law & Order Reruns
Fred Thompson has raised nearly $13 million in campaign contributions, 350 of which came from his fellow actors and actresses, reports the weekend's PARADE magazine in one of the more uplifting things we have read about the political involvement of Hollywood in politics. Think he should put out a feeler to his onetime Law & Order castmate Angie Harmon? Because she's profiled in Sunday's Page Six Magazine, and...I really don't know how I feel about [a woman in the White House]. I see the positive parts of it. But, you know, I think there's something incredible about a First Lady. That, to me, is a woman in the White House. It's sort of like being parents to the United States, and she takes on the role of mother and confidante and care-giver. Standing behind every powerful man, there's a powerful woman...I don't want to say no, because that doesn't sound very open-mined. But do I want it to be Hillary? No, I don't think so.More »
9/11 never forget
Nation's Coeds Dumber Than Your 'Girls Gone' Wildest Dreams
Today a TMZ videographer walked around a college campus documenting the stupidity that TMZ hath wrought. They found six or seven separate San Diego State students who could not tell them the year 9/11 happened. Interestingly, I spent a lot of time in San Diego post 9/11, and I vaguely recalleded some of actual 9/11 hijackers befriending a group of San Diego State students during their time in America...More »
the american titocracy
Miss Teen South Carolina To 'Facebook' Frenemies: Victory Is Myn!
Geopolitics whiz Miss Teen South Carolina has a message for all her jealous Facebook friends and frenemies, one of whom just won the "Most Valuable Tipster" designation here at Jezebel. "I like the attention," she writes on her 'Wall'. Why? Because it provides her with a platform from which to voice her opinions on a variety of worthy causes, namely, how anyone who feels her stupidity was an embarrassment to our country just shouldn't be allowed to procreate.All these girls are grown girls, but they sure dont act like it. They are all imature and need to grow up. I hope yall aren't planning on starting a family, because your kids would grow up in a mean world.Spoken like the leader of the next Khmer Rouge! After the jump, Lauren Caitlin Upton's impassioned defense of her answer to what admittedly, was "not the easiest question", followed by her "Wall of Meanness," a collection of her most hateful emails (and her withering responses), which will stand forever as a testament to her triumph in the face of hate and the time-tested ability, in the face of national disgust, of an overabundance of cleavage and self-esteem to prevail. More »
it's got electrolytes!
Hey, Did You Know? Jennifer Aniston Loves SmartWater!
[Los Angeles, June 14. Image via x17]
More »
rag trade
Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld Is Not At All Pompous
- Karl Lagerfeld has commissioned 15 contemporary artists to create works inspired by his iconic quilted Chanel bag for a two-year touring exhibit. Kind of interesting how iconic handbags are like the Virgin Mary of now. Maybe in twenty years people will be seeing Hermes Birkin bags in their grilled cheese sandwiches and selling them on eBay. [WWD, sub req'd]
- The dress will remain the dominant fashion trend through Spring 2008, according to the owner of luxury retailer Louis Boston, who makes some weird reference to American global hegemony. [WWD, sub req'd]
- Dooney & Bourke releases a line of bags named for Emma Roberts (Julia's niece and current star of "Nancy Drew"), with prices ranging from $210 to $235. Remember how when you were reading Nancy Drew, you thought $215 was like, enough to buy a house? Ah, kids today! [WWD, 1st item]
- It's a boy for supermodel Eva Herzigova and her Italian businessman common law husband. Remember how she did all those Wonderbra ads, haha? Lactation jokes never get old! [Vogue UK]
- Fashion muse Isabella Blow's widower Detmar hopes to create a museum to house his late wife's extensive clothing collection, is "hoping all the people she helped in her life will cough up some money to get this up and running." Ooh, subtle! [Vogue UK]
- Why should European luxury brands expand in China and India when there are still soooo many [brace yourselves! Fave word alert!] aspirational middle Americans stuck with Coach? [Fashion Inc.]
BREAKING: 'Cosmopolitan' Magazine Blogger-For-Print, "K.", Newly Single, Developing Feelings For Brad And...
[Cosmopolitan, July 2007, page 128]
...as it turns out, fictional!
[Cosmopolitan, July 2007, page 128]
...as it turns out, fictional!