Another Case of SWORS

Mike Huckabee on Obama's new Supreme Court nominee:

The appointment of Maria Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is the clearest indication yet that President Obama's campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bipartisan way were mere rhetoric. Sotomayor comes from the far left and will likely leave us with something akin to the "Extreme Court" that could mark a major shift.

Huckabee's criticism might be taken a little more seriously if the nominees' first name was actually Maria. It's Sonia Sotomayor.

If he hasn't taken the time to actually get the candidates' NAME right. how are we to believe he's actually familiar with anything Judge Sotomayor stands for?

Another case of Spasmodic Wingnut Outrage Syndrome in full bloom.

I Only Steal FromThe Best

Since we're seeing a return of my least favorite kind of comment, to wit: the "why are you talking about that, why aren't you talking about this?" I thought it might behoove us all if I gave a quick and clear statement of policies and procedures here. And since I'm basically lazy, I stole this one from John Scalzi's excellent blog, Whatever:

Everything on the site is my opinion (except comments written by others, which are their opinions). I have strong opinions. At times, you may not agree with these opinions, or how I choose to express them. This is not my problem.

I make no claims as toward being even-handed, fair, or nice. I write what I want here. Your being offended is not a reason for me to stop writing as I choose.

I run this site as I please. You do not get a vote. If you try to suggest that you do, I may be rude to you.

I prefer to take a light hand at comment moderation, and thanks to excellent commenters, I am usually able to do just that.

That said, I reserve the right to edit all comments, and to moderate all comment threads, as I see fit. Your comment is more likely to be edited, moderated or deleted if it contains phobic content (based on race, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, etc), is a personal attack or threat toward another commenter, is entirely unrelated to the entry topic, features more than a “fair use” amount of someone else’s copyrighted work, has such poor grammar and spelling that it annoys me, is an obvious piece of trollage, or if I find it or you obnoxious and decide I’ve had enough. Don’t like it? Don’t comment. Simple.

I participate in comment threads. Fire away at me. You need to be aware that I respond to tone as well as content. If you’re polite, I’ll be polite. If you’re a jackass, I’ll be a jackass back. If you argue poorly, I may correct you. If you want to gauge my levels of
tolerance, watch how others comment to me and triangulate accordingly.

Hard to improve on that, so I won't try.

Those are the rules, such as they are. Learn them. Live them. Love them. This blog is not a democracy, although as stated above, I don't delete or ban lightly.

But if you're being tiresome and, in my opinion, driving others away from the site, you're gone.

Dear Carrie

Latest Newspaper column:

An open letter to Miss California, Carrie Prejean:

Dear Carrie:
First off, congratulations on keeping your title as Miss California, despite all the brouhaha over allegedly "racy" pictures and your, uh, surgical enhancements. I've seen those pictures online, and they seem pretty vanilla, at least compared to some of the other things I've seen online, but hey, let's not go into that.

As for the other thing: Hey, it's California, right? I thought implants were more or less mandatory out there. And it's a good thing to have Donald Trump behind you. Just don't let him get too close behind you, if you know what I mean. The guy's reportedly a major hound.

Frankly, Carrie, I've been pretty uninterested in the whole kerfluffle surrounding your not getting the Miss USA title. And since a girl from my home state of North Carolina took home the crown, I'm pleased, to the extent that I care at all, which is not much.

But I do feel like I need to address one thing you said in public. Apparently you're unhappy with what happened when you answered a ­question about gay marriage by stating you felt marriage was only between a man and a woman. Your words were, I believe:

"On April 19th, on that stage, I exercised my freedom of speech and I
was punished for doing so. This should not happen in America. It
­undermines the constitutional rights which my grandfather fought for."

When I heard that, I felt I really needed to speak up. Because, see, I'm a major, major fan of the First Amendment. I'm talking pre-teen-girl-crush-on-the Jonas-brothers level of fan. I don't actually write "Dusty + First Amendment" inside a great big heart on the cover of my notebooks, at least not anymore, but still. Big, big fan. So when I heard your complaint that your First Amendment rights were being violated, I felt I had to speak up.

Carrie, you're very pretty, and you seem like a sweet girl. But here's the thing, darlin', and I say this with all due respect: You're ignorant. Now, I could be a jerk and call you dumb, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, because I'm ­awesome like that. I'll attribute this boneheaded statement to your never having been taught right, rather than any kind of mental defect.

I'll just assume that while you were learning ­little beauty pageant tricks like putting Vaseline on your teeth to make your smile wider that no one ever taught you what the First Amendment really says. But unlike stupidity, ignorance can be cured. And Carrie, I'm here to help. Because I'm a giver. I give. It's what I do.

Now, on to the First Amendment. It says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an ­establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Get that first part? Congress shall make no law. Now, if Congress was trying to pass a law to shut you up, I'd be hollering as loud as anyone. But they're not.
You got criticized. People said nasty things about you. One of them was the contest judge to whom you addressed your comments, a bitchy Internet gossip columnist who's about as far out of the closet as you can get.

And you ­didn't win. But imagine if you'd been in Alabama, and the judge was the head of the local Baptist church. And imagine if you'd made the comment that you were all for gay marriage. You probably wouldn't have won that one either, and the same people who are shedding tears for you now would be applauding the judge who voted against you.

But none of that has anything to do with the First Amendment. The First Amendment doesn't mean no one can disagree with you, or even that they have to be sweet to you when they do. It doesn't mean you can insult a contest judge and still win.

So, and again, I say this with respect: Come down off the cross, honey. We need the wood.

UNCAGE ME!

Just got a look at the final version of UNCAGE ME, the new anthology from Bleak House Books, edited by the amazing Jen Jordan.

My short story "Players" is in there, alongside works by such talents as Scott Phillips, Allan Guthrie, Christa Faust, Victor Gischler, J.A. Konrath, Declan Burke, Brian Azzarello, Steven Torres, Stewart Macbride, Simon Kernick, Patrick Shawn Bagley, Greg Bardsley, Stephen Blackmore, Tim Maleeny, Nick Stone, Martyn Waites, Talia Berliner, Maxim Jakubowski, Gregg Hurwitz, Blake Crouch, and more!

It's a true honor to make the cut with that kind of company. And the stories I've read so far are killer.

UNCAGE ME releases in July. Thanks to Jen for all her hard work, and, as always to Ben and Alison at Bleak House for theirs. You guys rule.

It's Time For Harry Reid to Step Down

He's spent most of his career as leader of the Senate Democrats knuckling under to the Republicans. Now, it appears that he's gone senile as well, as shown by this excerpt from his press conference in which he demanded that Guantanamo Detainees Not Be Moved to U.S. Prisons:

REID: I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear.

QUESTION: No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.

QUESTION: Sir, are you going to clarify that a little bit? …

REID: I can’t make it any more clear than the statement I have given to you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.

WTF? "You can't put them in prison unless you release them"?

No one's talking about letting them loose, you old fool. We've already got dozens of terror suspects and convicted terrorists, as well as other extremely dangerous criminals, in American prisons.

It makes no logical sense to say, as Reid does, that Gitmo has made us less safe and needs to be closed, and then to turn around and say "we can't move detainees even to maximum security US prisons". Where the hell does he think we're going to send them, the fucking Death Star?

Enough is enough. Reid needs to go. It's bad enough that the Republicans are fearmongering and lying through their teeth about this, but when the Democratic Majority Leader starts parroting the RNC party line as if he's ripping and reading off Rush Limbaugh's fax machine, it's time for him to go. Replace him with somebody who remembers that the Democrats won the goddamn election.

Will They Never Learn?

The story made short: wingnut columnist Andrew Breitbart was having a cocktail with the missus at "an elegant, white-veneered hotel along the ritzy Santa Monica shoreline" when he saw a protest that triggered his Spasmodic Wingnut Outrage Reflex. Assuming that it was a protest against all things good and true and American, and that the "anti-warriors were trying to destroy the peaceful seaside vibe and our pleasant Jose Cuervo buzz," Breitbart proceeded to make a colossal ass of himself as only someone in the throes of Spasmodic Wingnut Outrage can do:

I jumped from my seat and bolted to the center of the balcony, where the American flag waved furiously in a now-harsh wind. Positioned next to Old Glory, I countered the young punk and reached out my right arm directing my middle finger in his direction.


Yeah, that'll learn 'em.

Later, however, he found out the protest was against the enslavement and use of children as soldiers in Uganda and the Congo. To Breitbart's credit, he's actually against that. And he admits he was a jerk: "OK, fine. I messed up."

Yep. He did. And Breitbart is to be commended for admitting it.

But the problem is, this is the sort of shit that wingnuts pull all the time. Whether it's a conniption over Rachael Ray's scarf, or a freakout about Obama allegedly flying someone across the country to make him pizza, or some hoax about Michelle Obama ordering lobster and caviar from room service on the campaign trail, these idiots never stop to think or check their facts they throw one of their little tantrums.

Will this be an object lesson to the wingnuttosphere? Will they start thinking or getting facts straight before letting the Spasmodic Wingnut Outrage Reflex take over their frontal lobes?

Well, in the words of the website where I first saw this story: Sadly, No!