i've finished one of my big november editing projects, and the other one is delayed because of a problem with some of the code. so i had a bit of free time today, and decided to spend some of it databending nudes, which i hadn't done since september.

i have two new sets of nudebending: this set, including the photo shown here, and this set, which is probably not safe for work.

once again, i searched through flickr for appropriate cc-licensed photos to bend. this not only protects me legally, but it rewards those brave photographers who use creative commons licensing on their work. or at least, i'd like to think it rewards them. surely some people wouldn't like what i'm doing to their photos, but ioerror said he liked what i did last time, so that's promising.

of all the photographers who have cc-licensed nudes on flickr, ioerror has the most, and is probably the most consistent. i definitely intend to glitch more of his work in the future, but this time around i wanted to "reward" some other photographers. as paul said, it "really takes balls to post your nude photos online with a cc license" so give a big hand to Oneras and notarivs for their lovely source photos.¶

Labels: databending

preacher, one of my favorite comics of all time, is being developed into a series for hbo. fans have long heard rumors of preacher adaptations, but they always fell through. this could be the one... and judging from the quality of hbo's other programming, i believe they can do it right.

The pay cable network is developing a one-hour series based on the popular 1990s Vertigo comics series. Mark Steven Johnson, the writer-director behind comic adaptations "Daredevil" and the upcoming "Ghost Rider," is writing the pilot, while Howard Deutch is attached to direct. Johnson and Deutch will executive produce along with Michael De Luca, George Agusto, Chris Bender and JC Spink.

"Preacher," which ran from 1995-2000, told the story of a down-and-out Texas preacher possessed by Genesis, a supernatural entity conceived by the unnatural coupling of an angel and a demon. Given immense powers, the preacher teamed with an old girlfriend and a hard-drinking Irish vampire and set out on a journey across America to find God -- who apparently had abandoned his duties in heaven -- and hold him accountable for his negligence.

The series was created by Irish-born writer Garth Ennis and British artist Steve Dillon, who will serve as co-executive producers. Ken F. Levin, who reps the duo, also will serve as co-exec producer.

if you're not up on your "who's who in hollywood", i've linked to imdb profiles for all involved who have them. (i can't find a thing on george agusto, whoever that is.) some of the producers have their names attached to some pretty good movies, and howard deutch, of course, is best known for directing pretty in pink. i'm a bit skeptical about mark steven johnson, but i'm willing to suspend my disbelief for the time being.¶

what the hell is wrong with orson scott card? i legitimately liked ender's game, but lately he's degenerated into a right-wing wacko (and virulent homophobe).

and remember, not that long ago, when the only time you'd ever see the words "britney's crotch shots" was when you were cleaning out your email spam folder? who'da thunk that this phrase would turn up in an indy star headline? considering the events of the past couple years, i guess it's not all that surprising that britney is running around with no undies on, but it is a bit odd that i would learn about such things from the indy star website. of course, the star doesn't actually link to the photos; that would be a bit too much (see here and especially here for the extremely not-work-safe photos, if you dare).¶

the coolest thing borat has done is not a prank, not a publicity stunt, though there were feelings hurt.

according to the new york post, pamela anderson and kid rock are getting divorced because of the borat movie.

"Ron Meyer held a screening of 'Borat' at his house for a bunch of people, including Pam and Bob," says an Anderson pal. "It was the first time Bob had seen the movie, and, well, he didn't like it."

The hugely popular film shows Sasha Baron Cohen - in character as Borat Sagdiyev - falling in love with Anderson after seeing her in a "Baywatch" rerun, then driving across America in order to propose marriage to her.

Her friend tells Page Six, "Bob started screaming at Pam, saying she had humiliated herself and telling her, 'You're nothing but a whore! You're a slut! How could you do that movie?' - in front of everyone. It was very embarrassing.

"Pam thought he could have a sense of humor about the movie. She was in on the gag from the very beginning and loved doing the movie. And on the eve of what was supposed to be a very positive thing, he made it an awful night.

"Ever since that night, it has been icicles between them," the friend relates. "Bob is just a very unhappy and angry man. Pam is very disenchanted and sad. You know, there are reasons why she never married him before. Those reasons disappeared while they were together on a boat in St. Tropez, but she knows now that they never went away. The reality is he is an insecure, angry man."

this is fantastic... not because i particularly like pam anderson, but because i despise kid rock. anything that makes him miserable makes me happy.¶

it's a national holiday, and while later this afternoon/evening virago and i both have lots of work to do, right now, i'm relaxing.

in the spirit of the holiday, i went to flickr, found this beautiful CC-licensed photo of turkey feathers, and glitched it all up.

have a happy holiday, be safe, don't drink and drive, and all that stuff.

update: view the whole set (currently 7 photos) here.¶

the indy star reports:

The woman at the center of the battle over adult businesses here says her newly opened store is simply a lingerie shop.

Michelle Kuntz, 36, Greenwood, said her store, XO Paradise, in Old Towne Greenwood will comply with a new city ordinance regulating the sale of sex toys, maintaining the controversy about her business was overblown from the start.

"This is not an adult entertainment business," she said. "It has been misrepresented. No one was interested in clearing up any misunderstanding. It's just wrong how this was handled."

in case you were wondering whether greenwood passed that ordinance outlawing the sale of sex toys within such-and-such distance from churches and schools, they did. but michelle kuntz is opening her store anyway. (insert obligatory joke about michelle's name here.) apparently, nobody thought to ask her whether she actually, y'know, planned to sell sex toys at the shop.

Kuntz criticized the city and others for not discussing with her what she intended to sell.

"Not one person came to me," Kuntz said.

and no story about this topic would be complete without a patronizing quote from greenwood mayor charles henderson:

While some council members at their meeting wished Kuntz good luck with her new store, Henderson did not.

"It is not the kind of business we want, and I hope you are offended enough not to open," Henderson told Kuntz. "I don't think the intention is to sell lingerie."

i don't know if michelle k is offended, but i sure am. then again, this is the same henderson who said earlier this month that "if we step on their rights, I don't think I'll even apologize for that."

in other words, don't go to greenwood if you want to exercise your rights. they don't care about that kind of stuff in greenwood.¶

bad boys, what you gonna do when jason "wee man" acuña comes for you?

Celebrities will become Muncie police officers this winter for a CBS reality show, Mayor Dan Canan confirmed Tuesday.

"It's kind of ironic that Muncie gets zeroed in on for two entirely different reality TV shows," Canan said.

The celebrities will carry guns but will not answer emergency calls on their own, Muncie Police Chief Joe Winkle said.

They must first pass the same standards as any other reserve officer, Winkle said. Those standards include psychological and physical examinations and 40 hours of basic training in firearms and defensive tactics and other subjects, Winkle said. Each star will be paired with a training officer during the entirety of filming, which is expected to begin in the next few weeks and last about a month, Winkle said.

Sources have said former television cop Erik Estrada, Jack Osbourne (son of rock star Ozzy Osbourne), former pro-wrestler Trish Stratus, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura and Jackass dwarf star Jason "Wee Man" Acuña are in the running for spots.

ponch, two former wrestlers (no matter how they list jesse ventura), the dwarf from jackass, and f'n jack osbourne, running around muncie with guns. this should be absolutely awful... but i still might have to set the dvr.

the reference to "two reality shows" alludes to the fact that central high school was in the running to host the second season of mtv's two-a-days, which would have centered around the high school's football team. in the end, it was the high school that decided not to go through with that show (which i would not have been interested in watching), showing the kind of good judgement that mayor dan canan apparently lacks.¶

in other news...

• groundbreaking maverick director robert altman has passed away at age 81. i've only seen a handful of his many films (my favorite of the ones i've seen is the player), but fortunately, the cable premium channels will surely now be in a rush to collect and air all the altman films they can get their hands on.
• recently, it was announced that OJ simpson had written a book. titled if i did it, the book reportedly details how OJ would have murdered his ex-wife and her lover, if he had actually done so. (nudge nudge, wink wink.) the book was also to be accompanied by a two-part interview on fox television.
  
  everyone with a modicum of taste immediately cried foul. they saw the book and interview as a crass attempt to capitalize on the grisly murder of two innocent people. if OJ truly didn't do it, who cares how he would have if he had? and if he did, what kind of people would let him cash in on his crimes?
  
  now, courtesy shakespeare's sister, i see that news corp has given in to the public pressure: both the book and the interview have been cancelled.
• the california supreme court has ruled that "internet publishers" cannot be held liable for libelous commenters posted by third parties. in other words, if some troll comes here to my blog and posts nasty comments, i can't be held responsible. while it would be possible to abuse this ruling (e.g. setting up a hate site but depending on your commenters to post all the hateful content), it's a welcome ruling that allows the internet to remain an open forum for discussion.
• a new study shows that chimpanzee males are more attracted to older females.
• tom noe, an ohio fundraiser whose name has become synonymous with the word "coingate", is the latest republican to go to jail: he was sentenced to 18 years.

¶

the other day, michael richards—best known as "kramer" on tv's seinfeld, though his role in the movie uhf is dear to me—was doing stand-up at the laugh factory in LA when he was heckled by some blacks in the audience.

heckling is one of the dangers of live performance, especially stand-up. i myself have been heckled before as a musician, and it's hard to deal with. the best stand-up comedians are able to turn it around and hilariously make fun of the hecklers. michael richards didn't respond so well.

instead, richards flew off the handle, declaring that "fifty years ago, we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass!" and before eventually screaming the N-word over and over like a petulant child. some audience members yelled back that his comments were uncalled for, and he argued with them before angrily walking off stage.

even worse for richards, the tirade was captured on tape. the recording is shameful and shocking to watch. (you can watch it here, but be warned that the video features an angry white man screaming racial slurs... in other words, it's extremely not-work-safe.)

last night, richards went on the late show with david letterman (via satellite) to apologize, insisting that he is not racist, but was only very, very angry. you can watch that segment here. in the segment, richards is clearly upset, and seems to be sincere. but, as shakespeare's sister says, the idea that he's categorically "not racist" is hard to swallow. there are a million ways to insult someone who's pissed you off. why jump immediately to lynching references and screaming racial slurs?

still, he is to be commended for taking responsibility (at least partially) for his actions, and not blaming it all on substance abuse like mel gibson did. ¶

when i was still working for my former employer, late october and november was always the worst part of the year. the reason for this is that management would make a promise to upper management that we would publish x number of books that year. however, books would always slide further and further down the schedule, and by 4th quarter, it would always be a struggle to hit that number (sometimes it would be a struggle to even get close). consequently, every year we would end up in a mad dash to push as many titles out the door as possible before year-end. because of the nature of the schedule, this inevitably meant my department would be working long hours in october and november. (other departments would feel the crunch earlier or later, depending on their place in the workflow.)

now that i'm freelance, and am not currently doing any work for that company, i didn't figure i would be hit by the big november crunch this year. yet, here i find myself working on two assignments for two different publishers, and both are quite adamant that it all must be finished by the end of the month. for one of these assignments, i know the timing is a coincidence: the product just came out, and they need the book on the shelves ASAP. for the other assignment, i don't really know why it must be completed in such a hurry, but i suspect it's a scheduling and budgeting issue, because there's nothing remotely time-sensitive about the subject matter. (in other words, i think i got stuck in some other company's crunch.)

what this all means is that over the next couple weeks, i'm going to be busting my ass trying to get all my editing done. yes, i'll even be working furiously over the thanksgiving holiday weekend. getting it all done in time is an achievable goal—otherwise i wouldn't have agreed to take both assignments—but it does mean i won't have a lot of spare time until december.

as such, i'll probably be neglecting this blog somewhat over the next couple weeks, though i'll try to at least pop regularly. on the plus side, however, i'll have a lot of money in my checking account come december.¶

will borat's "victims" ever figure out that the more they complain about borat, the more buzz they generate, and thus the more money the movie will make? just when you think the borat hype is starting to die down, another story like this hits the wires:

The owner of an etiquette business who was handed a plastic bag supposedly containing feces in the hit movie "Borat" says she was told the filming would be used for a documentary in Belarus.

Cindy Streit said she filed a complaint Thursday with California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, requesting an investigation into possible violations of the California Unfair Trade Practices Act.

fox couldn't ask for better publicity than a stream of news articles that start off with phrases like "the owner of an etiquette business who was handed a plastic bag supposedly containing feces". as bob somerby would say, that passage is just sublime.

A spokesman for 20th Century Fox, which distributed the film, said Allred's contentions are "nonsense."

"Cindy Streit signed written agreements with the production, which clearly stated that a movie was being filmed and that the movie could be distributed worldwide. Her fee was negotiated and paid," said studio spokesman Gregg Brilliant.

Several weeks after filming completed, Brilliant said, Streit asked for and received additional payment for her etiquette training service and she signed an additional release. He said he didn't have immediate details on how much she received.

Streit, 59, said she requested an investigation by the attorney general instead of filing a lawsuit in hopes of setting a precedent that will make movie studios think twice before using other ordinary citizens for "reality movies." However, she said she wouldn't rule out a lawsuit.

on the contrary, streit, you aren't making the studios think twice. you're making them think, "what a brilliant idea! first we dupe people into appearing on camera, and then the steady stream of news articles complaining about it will drive millions of people to the theatres!"¶

an astonishingly bad idea from the weinsteins:

Blockbuster Inc. said Wednesday that it had reached a deal for exclusive United States rental rights to movies from the Weinstein Company, whose founders created the Miramax studio and sold it to Disney.

The deal will keep all movies from Bob and Harvey Weinstein's new production company out of the hands of Netflix, the online service that competes with Blockbuster, the nation's largest movie-rental chain.

The Weinsteins said Netflix had talked to them about a deal. But the brothers, whose Miramax credits include "Chicago" and "Shakespeare in Love," picked Blockbuster because of its combination of stores and online rentals.

who on earth convinced the weinsteins this was a good idea? it ensures that fewer people will see their movies. the only way this could possibly benefit the weinstein company is if blockbuster is paying the studio an outrageous amount of money, and even then, that would only be good for the bottom line, financially speaking. it would still be a big blow to the fundamental mission of movie studios, which is to make quality movies and then have them seen by the most people possible.

this is definitely a coup for blockbuster, as it will most likely increase blockbuster rentals on weinstein titles. but this is bad for consumers, and i can't for the life of me see how it's good for the weinstein company, either.¶

i don't think i own any colts clothing, but if i did, you'd better believe i'd be wearing it to steak n shake on sunday. because i don't really care about the indianapolis colts, but i loves me some steak n shake. (though my father and sister both own colts gear that i might be able to borrow.)

from the indy star:

Thousands of Indianapolis residents will doubtlessly do a double-take when they open the mail this week and find out that Indianapolis-based Steak n Shake restaurant is "a proud sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys."

The restaurant chain said it inadvertently sent a mailer promoting its Cowboys blue-and-white, side-by-side milkshake to more than 600,000 residents in Indianapolis. The mailer was intended for the Dallas market only. Hundreds of thousands also were mailed to residents in Chicago and St. Louis.

The Colts play the Cowboys in Dallas on Sunday. Steak n Shake, which is a sponsor of the Colts and the Cowboys, apologized in a news release on Wednesday. It said the mistake was a result of human error with its mailing vendor, ADVO.

To try to make the best of the situation, Steak n Shake is offering dine-in customers who are wearing Colts caps or clothing a free milkshake of any flavor -- including the Colts Blue and White Side-by-Side Shake, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday.

note that this offer is probably not good outside of central indiana. sorry, auslanders. (and if you're unfortunate enough to live in an area where there are no steak n shakes, i'm really sorry.)

incidentally, i've had one of the colts side-by-side shakes, and it was pretty tasty. it's basically a chocolate shake, but only half as chocolatey. our waitress made a couple references to my tongue turning blue. whether it did, i don't know; i never got to look. but assuming it did, that's not all that turned blue. how do i put this gently? let's just say that my body didn't digest all the food coloring, so i was in for a surprise after a trip to the bathroom that evening. ¶

the vote counting ain't over till it's over:

Democratic incumbent Ed Mahern will lose his re-election run for the Indiana House to Republican challenger Jon Elrod based on uncertified election results, Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler said Tuesday.

Democrats, however, disputed whether the vote total -- which has Elrod ahead by five votes in District 97 -- was final, and Marion County election officials expect a recount in such a tight race.

five votes is a razor-thin lead, one that could be overturned easily by a recount. but that's not all; it could be even tighter:

The official tally shows Mahern received 4,438 votes to Elrod's 4,443. All ballots have been counted, Sadler said, except for four provisional ballots. Those four voters didn't have appropriate identification to vote and have until Friday to appear at the Election Board office and prove their identities.

voter id strikes again! clearly, no matter what todd rokita says, indiana's voter id law (the strictest in the nation) had an impact on the election. voters who showed up at the polls without proper id were given provisional ballots, but those ballots are not counted unless the voters show up at their county clerk's office with the correct id within a two-week window... an even bigger hurdle than getting the id in the first place.

but wait, there's more!

Plus, three absentee ballots cast before Election Day will not be counted, Sadler said. State law required that the ballots be counted at the polling place on Election Day, but the Election Board was unable to get them there on time.

That means the ballots can't be included in the tally, Sadler said, adding that some ballots are discarded each year because of that problem.

you read that right: sadler doesn't want to count those ballots, not because the voters did anything wrong, but because the election board screwed up. if i'd voted absentee in that precinct, i'd be furious. however, state democratic party chairman ed treacy is demanding that those ballots be counted, saying "If they don't count them, I'll guarantee it will go to court."

if you think this race is absurdly close, you probably didn't hear about the the clerk race in posey county:

Election officials in southern Indiana's Posey County were looking for one voter to decide the outcome of the tied county clerk's race.

Republican Donna "Mouse" Curtis and Democrat Donna Butler each received 4,896 votes in the Nov. 7 election. A single provisional ballot remains to be counted, if the person who cast it presents identification by Friday so it can be authenticated.
Election board members thought they had the deciding vote Monday when they opened an absentee ballot cast by a military service member.

"We thought, 'Well we've got the deciding vote right here,' but he did not vote for either candidate," election board member Ron Bennett said. "He voted for some of the other races but not this one."

it's down to one vote. and worse yet, if not for the voter id law, we would know who won this race.¶

via tdw, i see that wish-tv's jim shella is now saying what i've been saying since wednesday: that dickerson supporters are sore losers. in fact, shella goes a step further and crowns them "the sorest losers of 2006".

shella's blog doesn't have permalinks to individual posts, so i can't link to the entry itself. so i'll be a bastard and repost the whole entry.

A week has gone by since the election and we still don't have the ballots counted in Marion County. Outraged Democrats repeatedly suggest that Iraqi elections were more efficient than the one conducted here, and they may have a point.

One of the things we don't know is the final margin in the 7th District Congressional race between Democrat Julia Carson and Republican Eric Dickerson. It looks, however, like Carson will gather the same 54% of the vote she took in two years ago.

Nevertheless, based on talkradio and my e-mail inbox, the supporters of Dickerson deserve recognition for being sore losers, the sorest losers of 2006. They blame the Republican Party for a lack of support and the media for accurately predicting that Carson would win. They can't understand why anyone would vote for Julia Carson. (Please note that the candidate has not been heard from.)

They ignore the fact that the 7th is largely Democrat, that Carson has a long history of service, and her turnout operation may be unmatched in Indiana. The Congresswoman may be old, ill, and sometimes less than articulate.

But they held an election and she won, fair and square.

i'm reading that parenthetical note (that "the candidate has not been heard from") as an indication that, a week after election day, dickerson has still not conceded the election, despite the fact that it's been obvious since 10pm election night that he had lost. tdw agrees. it seems that inability to admit a mistake (or worse yet, defeat) is a trait dickerson shares with his supporters.¶

yesterday, california police announced that they had arrested a suspected domestic terrorist:

A man suspected of mailing more than a dozen threatening letters containing white powder to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Jon Stewart and other high-profile figures was in custody and awaiting a court appearance.

Prosecutors were expected to file a criminal complaint against Chad Conrad Castagana, 39, in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday. He was arrested Saturday for allegedly conveying false information and sending threats by U.S. mail.

Preliminary tests showed the white powder was not hazardous, officials said.

The letters, which had fake return addresses, were received by Pelosi, a California Democrat who is in line to become speaker of the House; comedians Stewart and David Letterman; Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York; and MSNBC host Keith Olberman.

note that this guy didn't actually mail anthrax to people; he only wanted them to think he'd mailed them anthrax. he terrorized people he perceived as liberals by sending them envelopes filled with an innocuous white powder. and apparently he wasn't too smart about it, either:

The FBI said federal agents watched Castagana, of Los Angeles, walk from his home to a public mailbox Thursday and deposit several letters. One was allegedly addressed to someone previously targeted and contained the white powder

diligent bloggers immediately began googling the suspect's name—chad castagana—and turned up some intriguing results. results like castagana's appreciation of various busty b-move actresses as well as the busty politician katherine harris (who, you'll recall, was florida's secretary of state in 2000, and converted her popularity from certifying bush's "win" to a successful run for congress, before suffering a humiliating loss when she tried to run for senate this year).

but that was nothing. a blogger at democratic underground unearthed a bizarre screed castagana had written about the science fiction show lexx, which included nonsense like "The future is not with the Liberals, not with the Multiculturalists (both hate America)". the blogger also found a virtually identical posting at free republic, a virulent right-wing blog.

in other words: the suspected terrorist who allegedly tried to terrorize jon stewart, keith olberman, and nancy pelosi was a regular commenter at free republic and other right-wing blogs (using the name marc costanzo).

others at DU and dkos started digging through "marc costanzo's" postings and profile. there they found that he believes "Ann Coulter is a Goddess" and "worship[s] Laura Ingraham and Michele Malkin".

most surprisingly (assuming he is guilty), he repeatedly posted about his own crimes, yukking it up about how someone had sent prank anthrax letters to all those awful liberals.

naturally, professional haters like coulter and malkin have been silent about the actions of this crazed man who worshipped them, and who took their vile rhetoric to heart.¶

i sent my funny photos to boingboing and they were included in a post update. the links point directly to flickr, but at least a few people are stopping by here as well. so hey there!

boingboingers might be interested in my mp3s (i make collage music and other experimental noises); music by my band animals within animals; my databent image gallery (lots more on flickr); or my videos on youtube.¶

now that the election is over, i'd been hoping advance indiana's gary welsh would chill out a bit so i could stop writing about him. alas, i got an email yesterday from wilson allen (former julia carson staffer and volunteer, as mentioned previously) noting that gary welsh had banned him from advance indiana because of comments he'd made on this post. my first reaction was surprise—not because i didn't think gary would do such a thing, but because i didn't know one could do such a thing using blogger and blogspot. the only way i know of to "ban" a commenter using blogger would be to turn on comment moderation and reject all that person's comments. technically, that would do the trick, but it seems like a lot of work just to spite one person. (and gary hasn't turned on comment moderation that i can see, either.)

after i got over my confusion, i took a closer look. in the post in question, gary links to a column by amos brown as proof that the infamous anti-dickerson mailers were targeted at white voters. of course, the column itself doesn't say that. gary's evidence is at best circumstancial; it surely doesn't prove his point. but anyway...

in the comments under that post, known homophobe jocelyn-tandy adande called wilson "punk46201". wilson objected, because "'punk' is a well-known offensive term used against gay males", and repeated the allegation (which he's made several times before) that jocelyn recently "screamed FAGGOT at me after a political event!"

a regular commenter called indyernie responded that wilson should get over it because "I'm sure Jocelyn isn't the first to call you a faggot." then gary responded, denying that punk is an antigay slur and threatening, "Keep it up and you will be barred from commenting further on this site." so whether gary actually did (or even can) ban wilson, he definitely threatened to do so.

so i went to urban dictionary, perhaps the best site on the net for looking up slang. there are currently 145 definitions up for "punk", the majority of which are white kids discussing "punk rock" and arguing whether bands like green day and good charlotte are "punk" or not. these definitions, taken as a whole, are an unintentionally hilarious peek into music snobbery, as various people try to prove that they're better (or at least "more punk") than the other posters. but i think we can all agree that jocelyn wasn't saying that wilson is a punk-rocker, so let's ignore all that silliness.

scroll down to definition #8 and we find this:

Originally, jail lingo for a subservient, cuckolded inmate indebted to another for protection and in return obliged to perform favors both of a sexual nature and otherwise.

i'm not sure this person knows what "cuckold" means, but that does sound like an antigay slur to me. moving on to page 2 of definitions, #s 15 and 18 have antigay connotations. on page 3, #s 21, 23, 24, 27, and 30 all list antigay connotations. and so on. in summary, "punk" is disparaging prison slang for a "bottom": the catcher, not the pitcher.

i posted a comment pointing this out, and gary replied that "It's quite a stretch when you have to look that deep into an obscure dictionary to get that kind of a meaning out of the word." (which is humorous considering how much he had to stretch for in his post.) so i looked it up on merriam webster. look at definition 3c: "slang : a young man used as a homosexual partner especially in a prison". encarta, too, and also dictionary.com.

clearly, no matter what gary says, "punk" is an antigay slur (when not referring to punk rock or those who listen to it), and given what we know about jocelyn-tandy's views on homosexuality, that is obviously what she meant. it's not surprising that commenters on a right-wing blog would gay-bash like that, but considering that gary himself is gay (and a big supporter of lgbt issues) it's disappointing to say the least that it goes on at advance indiana... and that gary is apparently now more likely to side with the gay-bashers than against them, to the point that he would threaten someone with banishment for even bringing it up.

as for whether gary actually has banned wilson, or whether he is even capable of doing so, i don't know. (i'm inclined to believe that he can't really ban anyone per se, though if he wanted to be really anal about it [excuse the pun], he could manually delete any of wilson's comments as soon as he discovers them.) ¶

but i made it teh funny. (original photo here, by some australian dood.) ¶

my lame contribution to the meme. for funnier versions, see here and here¶

their frat has turned against them. they come off looking like racist, sexist jackasses in the hottest movie of the season. now two of the frat boys featured in the hilarious borat movie have filed suit.

according to the lawsuit, a production crew took them to a bar to get them drunk before filming. i'm skeptical, but even if it's true, the boys are claiming the mel gibson defense: i'm not really a bigoted chauvinistic asshole! i only said that stuff because i was drunk!

i don't know what they're trying to prove. the public didn't accept that excuse from gibson, a popular movie star, and they sure won't accept it from a bunch of south carolina frat boys.

in a way, i feel for them. they're probably the laughing stocks of their school, their frat is likely to discipline them (if not kick them out altogether), and after admitting on camera that they have no respect for women, they're unlikely to get laid anytime soon. but this is all their own fault. they knew they were being filmed, and still they made a slew of offensive comments about women and minorities. borat tricked them into letting their guard down, into showing their true faces to the world. borat didn't make them look bad; they did that to themselves. sucks to be them.

furthermore, their lawsuit only helps to further publicize the movie, generating still more buzz and assuring that even more people will go see the film this weekend. smart move, guys. ¶

mitch daniels clearly loves 'em. but does anyone else?

today, the governor proposed a new "commerce connector" toll road, a sort of second loop 20 miles outside 465, except it's only half a loop and you'd have to pay to get on it.

the poorly edited indy star story has quotes from mitch and local mayors saying how awesome it would be if new economic development sprung up around this new toll road. but it strikes me an one enormous if. the question nobody at the star seems to be asking is who in their right mind is going to choose a toll road when there are free interstates not far away? it's a beautiful fantasy to imagine all those semis completely circumventing indianapolis, clearing up congestion on 465, i69 northbound, and so on... but it's a fantasy. trucking companies are not going to want to pay the tolls.

and let's not forget the enormous toll such construction would have on the environment. or how angry all those farmers would be about giving up their land for a new "road to nowhere". or the fact that anger over the last toll road debacle was likely one of the factors that led to democrats retaking the indiana house this year.

am i way off base here, or is this plan ridiculously naïve? ¶

it was only a matter of time. per msnbc:

Democrats wrested control of the Senate from Republicans Wednesday with an upset victory in Virginia, giving the party complete domination of Capitol Hill for the first time since 1994, as NBC News reported that Democrat Jim Webb was the apparent winner.

Webb’s apparent squeaker win over incumbent Sen. George Allen effectively gave Democrats their 51st seat in the Senate, an astonishing turnabout at the hands of voters unhappy with Republican scandal and unabated violence in Iraq. Allen was the sixth Republican incumbent senator defeated in Tuesday’s elections.¶

a king kong parody from an old cartoon called touché turtle & dum-dum. do you think the double meaning was intentional?¶

here's something a bit more light-hearted¶

from the indy star:

Secretary of State Todd Rokita today backed off his prediction of midterm voter turnout exceeding the 38 percent of 2002, but said he thinks the numbers were solid and that most people adjusted well to a new law requiring photo identification at the polls.

"We saw no problems at all," Rokita said of the law, which was in force for the first time in a general election Tuesday. "I said before the election that it would be one of Indiana's finest hours, and it was. We did everything humanly possible to prepare in light of all the changes."

one of indiana's finest hours? we made national news because our voting machines were so f'ed up. the machines in delaware county were so fubar that we won't get final results for two weeks.

now, i agree in one sense that yesterday was one of indiana's finest hours, because we voted to kick out three republican congressmen. in this supposed "red state", our delegation in the US house will now have more democrats than republicans. that's awesome. but i'm pretty sure that's not what rokita meant.

as for the quote about how they saw "no election problems at all"... the headline suggests he was referring to voter id problems, not problems in general. still, that's demonstrably false. we already know that voter id did cause problems in indiana, and rokita surely knows it, too. if he wants to play up how few complaints he received, fine, but when says there were none at all, he's just lying.

this will probably be my last election post for awhile. i'll likely post again when it's confirmed that democrats have taken the senate (which they almost assuredly have; the only race that's still contested is virginia, and allen would be a fool to demand a recount), but beyond that, people are tired after the harsh election season, so let's move on to other topics.¶

i had a feeling this would happen.

a few days ago, i profiled one of the most hateful, libelous bloggers in all of indiana: sir hailstone. using lots of examples, i documented that hailstone was a volunteer for the dickerson campaign who was spreading lies and hate-filled rhetoric directed against julia carson. we'll probably never know whether he was operating with dickerson's approval, though i have my suspicions.

i wondered what would happen to his blog after dickerson lost the election, since its only real purpose seemed to be libeling julia carson and other democrats. it turns out my suspicions were correct: he has effectively deleted his blog. all his old posts are gone, replaced by the equivalent of a "goodbye cruel world" post, blasting the country and the state for voting democrat. he's also disabled comments.

you can still see some of the blog in the google cache, but only the front page. if the archive pages are cached, i'm not sure how to locate them. (any tips would be appreciated.)

hailstone has turned up a couple times today in comments at advance indiana, but i have a feeling he won't be sticking around there for long, considering that he felt he had to "hold his nose" through all of gary's "gay rhetoric". does this mean we won't have sir hailstone to kick around anymore?

it would be nice to think that my exposé had something to do with hailstone's disappearance, but it probably didn't. he most likely would've deleted it regardless. after all, dickerson can't keep on pretending that he ran a clean race with all that evidence lying around...¶

here's an unusual headline from the star: Bird alert: Starling explosions begin. my goodness, does this mean that starlings are going to start exploding? watch out!

no, the truth isn't quite that weird:

Federal bird experts today begin using pyrotechnics, lasers and recorded distress calls to rid Monument Circle of troublesome starlings.

Uniformed employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture will work in the four-block area around Monument Circle, the first block of South Meridian Street and near the Statehouse during winter evenings, according to a news release from Indianapolis Downtown Inc.

what a great lesson: if you don't like animals, just shoot fireworks at 'em. that'll teach them!

"Starlings are non-native, alien and invasive birds that drive out the native species and compete for nesting space with songbirds," the agency said.

"In addition, starlings pose potential health risks and sanitation issues to humans and animals and cause significant damage and expense to public spaces, memorials and private property."

okay, that much i can probably agree with. but forgive me for thinking that the plan is more than a bit silly. lasers? pyrotechnics? distress calls? maybe those could work in keeping the starlings away, but at what cost? if i spent a lot of time downtown, i don't think i would want to hear a bunch of explosions, or see people shooting off what look like starter pistols all over the place. in fact, i think it would freak me out. and what about pets? it'll be like the fourth of july every day. and if you've ever had a nervous dog, you know upset they get on independence day. (or, after the recent change to indiana's fireworks laws, the period of a couple weeks before and after the fourth.)

furthermore, even if this works and scares the starlings away, they're just going to go somewhere else. this doesn't really solve any starling problems; it just moves our starling problem (if you agree we even had one) somewhere else. how does that help? and who does it help? ¶

could this day get any better? yes, it's really true: donald rumsfeld, possibly the worst secretary of defense ever in the history of ever, is stepping down.

President Bush announced Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down from his post.

"The timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon," Bush said at the White House Wednesday afternoon.

translation: republicans were humiliated in yesterday's election, so i might as well fire the guy everyone has been begging me to fire for years.

or, as josh marshall puts it, bush was "for Rumsfeld before he was against him". ¶

we still don't know for sure how many seats the dems will pick up overall in the US house, and while it still looks likely that they'll retake the senate, too, it's theoretically possible they won't. (it all comes down to virginia and montana; dems have small leads in both races.)

here's what we do know for sure:

it's a bad day to be a republican. a terrible day, even. what do republicans have to feel good about? not much. propositions banning same-sex marriage passed in several states, and that's just about all they have on a national level. locally, they won the marion county prosecutor race (but only by a hair; they had expected to win by a large margin) and several statewide races, but still that's not much to crow about.

no matter how adamantly people like rishawn insist that there were no "overriding themes" for the election, this was a clear repudiation of george bush and his enablers in the GOP. the country is fed up with bush and fed up with the war in iraq. (and it would seem the rest of the star ed board disagrees with him, judging from today's star editorial.)

it's a great day to be a democrat. 'nuff said.

voting machines are messed up. new voting machines caused all sorts of problems, not just throughout indiana (where they created an enormous mess in delaware county that will take weeks to sort out), but nationwide.

indiana's voter id law still sucks. conservatives (once they get over their shell-shock) will loudly proclaim that the small number of voter id complaints received last night proves that the voter id law is good. of course, lack of evidence is not proof. the state was saturated with info about the law, so voters knew that id would be required. perhaps not too many people were turned away at the polls (although some were for sure), but how many people simply didn't bother going to the polls because they knew they couldn't get a satisfactory id?

dickerson and his supporters are sore losers. to the best of my knowledge, eric dickerson has still not conceded his defeat, even though it was apparent by 10pm last night that he would lose. c'mon eric, act like the big man you pretended to be during the campagin and conceded already.

his supporters and surrogates are worse. the best evidence of this is the comments for matt tully's column today. tully writes as much as he likes julia carson, he thinks this should be her last term, due to her health problems. but he writes: "Don't for one second mistake that for the typical anti-Julia sentiment that flows to my e-mail inbox so often. The hardest thing about saying it's time for Carson to start wrapping things up is the guaranteed "attaboys" that message will bring from knuckleheads who punctuate their criticism of Carson with talk of her race."

as if on cue, the comments are a chorus of attaboys and irrational "i hate teh julia" screeds. meanwhile, over at advance indiana, gary grabs on to that column as well as julia's acceptance speech (in which she made the shockingly true claims that dickerson is a "used car salesman" and that he lies regularly) to rage, rage against the dying of the right. gary has proven repeatedly that he is incapable of referring to julia or the race in the 7th without making some sort of petty dig, and today was no exception. hopefully, now that the election is over, gary will finally chill out a bit. what happened to gary's blog over the past few months has been a tragedy, as once upon a time he used to be a republican that liberals like me could respect. here's hoping he regains his sanity soon.

update: i've been scanning google news for some indication, some hint that eric dickerson has at least acknowledged that he lost (if not make a concession speech, which is probably too much to hope for). the closest i've found is this wthr story, which suggests that maybe he kinda did. but if you watch the video (complete with dickerson doing a "victory dance" with his overwhelmingly white supporters), it's clear that he has not.

anyway, can anyone tell me what this sentence from the wthr story is supposed to mean? "Still, Dickerson performed a victory for newfound respect."¶

(rather than multiple new posts as i hear new facts, i'll update this entry as i hear more)

projected winner names in bold

in indiana:
for the US house:
joe donnelly (D) has defeated incumbent chris "the count" chocola
john ellsworth (D) has apparently crushed incumbent john hostettler
mark souder (R) has bested tom hayshurst, keeping his seat
the indy star is projecting that baron hill (D) has defeated mike sodrel
cnn is projecting that julia carson (D) has kept her seat, defeating eric dickerson
and unsurprisingly, pete visclosky (D), steve buyer (R), dan burton (R), and mike pence (R) have retained their seats.

this means that of the three most-closely-watched house races in indiana, democrats have picked up all three seats. the fourth most-closely-watched was souder/hayshurst, which was considered a longshot, but hayshurst put on a very strong showing (around 46%). before this election, the indiana delegation was 7 republicans and 2 democrats. now it will be 5 democrats and 4 republicans. boo-ya!

dems appear ready to retake the indiana house. however, they also appear to have lost seats in the indiana senate. notably, greg "the flogger" walker (R) appears to have won in district 41.

in the marion county prosecutor race, carl brizzi (R) seems to have squeaked by melina kennedy. frank anderson (D) handily defeated steve davis for sheriff.

todd "captain election" rokita (R) has defeated joe pearson for secretary of state.

nationally:
in the senate:
bob casey (D) has vanquished rick santorum in PA
sheldon whitehouse (D) has defeated lincoln chafee in RI
sherrod brown (D) has defeated mike dewine in OH
ben cardin (D) has defeated michael steele in MD
joe lieberman (non-democrat from the joe lieberman party) has apparently kept his seat in CT
amy klobuchar (D) has won it in MN
hillary clinton (D) has regained her seat in NY

at this point (2am), it looks likely that democrats will take enough seats to regain the US senate.

democrats are definitely going to retake the US house. as of 2am, they've already picked up 26. msnbc is currently predicting a gain of 39.¶

the indy star reports:

A programming mistake in Marion County voting machines has slowed the collection of results to a crawl, election officials say.

The machines have been set to shut down at 8 p.m., two hours after polls actually closed, said Doris Anne Sadler, Marion County election clerk.

That means that each one must be shut down through a laborious procedure pollworkers have not been trained to perform. The problem should not affect results but will delay gathering them. Sadler said about 50 technicians are in the field helping, and the county now has about a dozen workers using phones to help inspectors at the county's 914 precincts complete the proper steps.

"We don't have direct phone lines for them, so they're calling in on cell phones," she said, "and there are only so many people who can answer them."

The programmer for Election Systems and Software who worked on the Marion County machines also programmed machines in Pennsylvania, Sadler said, where the polls close at 8 p.m.

if this isn't clear enough, i'll rephrase it: the people who programmed the machines got confused. they were also programming machines for pennsylvania, where polls close at 8, so the indiana machines also don't want to close until 8, and poll workers are being forced to jump through hoops just to get the machines to shut down.¶

not that i doubt visclosky will win it, but it looks like someone is asleep at the switcher...¶

gary at advance indiana found this troubling quote on the indy star website:

Marion County officials are facing widespread problems bringing new electronic voting machines online this morning.

County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler said the problems involve about half of the county's 914 precincts. The problem, she said, is that poll workers have forgotten how to start and run the machines.

Paper ballots are being used where machines are not working, the clerk said. She said 50 technicians are going from precinct to precinct to get the machines working. That process, she said, will take several hours to complete.

Sadler said she expected some problems and does not see serious issues at this point because people can still vote.

strangely, the story he linked to not only doesn't include this passage, but it doesn't include anything even remotely similar. did he just get the link wrong, or did that information vanish from the site?

the story does, however, have this (new since my last post):

Marion County Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy blasted Republican election officials for what he declared was the "criminal" way in which they are running today's election.

Providing lists to reporters to back up his assertions,Treacy said 20 Republican-appointed precinct inspectors failed to show up to open polls this morning and machine problems were reported in 173 precincts.

"As we predicted, it was utter chaos this morning and we're furious," he told reporters outside the Marion County Election Board office. "People were turned away. I was telling everyone this was going to happen, and everyone thinks I'm living in some fantasyland. There is criminal intent in doing this stuff."

He said Democratic attorneys were determining how the party would respond. In addition, Treacy said Democrats are poring over lists of poll workers to identify those who are not registered to vote in Marion County. He will ask that they be prosecuted.

update: the older bits of the star story are back up, after having disappeared for a few hours. according to the star, as of 9am "Only about 90 "problem polls" remained on the Marion County repair list". (originally, there were problems with "about half of the county's 914 precincts", which is somewhere about 460 polling places (!).¶

when i woke up, i had an email alerting me to this c&l post:

CNN has just reported that about 70 polling places in Indiana did not open this morning. They are saying it was a problem with the machines with the software not being loaded right and right now about half those polling places are open. They are also going to court to get the polling places opened longer. Funny how when you hear people like Ken Blackwell talk, they say there is no problem with the machines - that it is always with the poll workers. Well right next door, we see a problem with the MACHINES!.

i stopped by cnn.com to find a bit more information:

Glitches delayed voters in dozens of Indiana and Ohio precincts. In Delaware County, Indiana, officials planned to seek a court order to extend voting after an apparent computer error prevented voters from casting ballots in 75 precincts.

i went to the indy star website, hoping for more details, but the only blurb i could find was a couple sentences in this story, which is annoying titled "Election Day Report: Few reports of ID problems":

Indiana's new Voter ID law, used for the first time in this general election, was raising few issues more than four hours after polls opened.

"So far today, we've not received any calls about Voter ID," said Jen Fanger, a spokeswoman for Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who oversees elections.
She said Rokita, a Republican, was monitoring the situation in Delaware County, where some voting machines were not functioning for two hours or more.

Rokita issued the following statement: "We have put several contingency plans into Indiana law so that voters may continue to vote with confidence. Just one example is that the counties are to supply every precinct in Indiana with back-up (paper) ballots for such situations."

Kip Tew, an Indianapolis attorney coordinating Democrats' statewide efforts to monitor the votes, asserted Voter ID had caused problems during the early voting hours, and that the situation in the Muncie area was the worst confirmed voting problem. Indiana law allows poll workers to keep the polls open past the usual 6 p.m. closing time if extenuating circumstances arise.

Tew said Democrats were seeking to keep the Delaware County polls open until 9 p.m.

Marion County Democrats scheduled a news conference at the City-County Building to complain about problems Republican Clerk Doris Anne Sadler was having this morning administering elections in which several key offices were in play, including a potentially close race involving U.S. Rep. Julia Carson and Republican Eric Dickerson.

matt tully is live-blogging the election, but there's nothing about the voting machine problem on his blog so far.

fortunately, the muncie star press comes to the rescue.

Polling sites in Delaware County will remain open until 8:40 p.m. today to make up for voting time lost this morning when machines didn't work.

County Clerk Karen Wenger reported that blue cards used to activate the voting machines were programmed incorrectly. MicroVote reprogrammed the cards and the machines were working by around 8:30 a.m. Officials did not know yet why the cards had been programmed wrong.

Lennington criticized MicroVote during the hearing, saying the company had let down the voters of Delaware County.

During an election board meeting before the court hearing, board members expressed concerns that poll workers might leave at 6 p.m., and said they would work to make sure polls were staffed until 8:40 p.m.

During the hearing, Lennington said "Some big wheels from Indianapolis called saying you can't do this (extend voting time). Well, I have an answer for that; I'm the judge and I can do whatever I want."

hmmm... i wonder who those "big wheels from indianapolis" were.¶

man, that indiana law barring robo-calls has sure been getting a lot of republicans in trouble. now we learn that the indiana gop has fired conquest communications group for making automated calls on behalf of carl brizzi:

Marion County Democrats had accused the Republicans of placing "robo-calls" after two voters provided voice mail messages asking them to vote for Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi in today's election. One complaint was filed Friday with Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter, a Republican.

State GOP spokesman Robert Vane said Monday that Virginia-based Conquest Communications Group used recorded messages in calls for Brizzi and several candidates around Indiana.

"That is not what we contracted for," Vane said, so the party fired Conquest and is refusing to pay the company. Vane declined to say how much the party still owes.

The Republicans intended for all campaign calls to be conducted "100 percent live," Vane said, but instead Conquest used a live introduction followed by a recording.

Under Indiana law, a recorded message can be delivered over the phone only if it is first introduced by a person who seeks and gets permission to play it.

no matter what vane says, the calls were most certainly illegal. democrats have recordings that prove it. check out this hilarious distortion of logic, where vane tries to explain why the calls didn't break the law:

Marion County Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy said the telephone recordings show that there was no live introduction in the Brizzi calls, and only one voice could be heard. He said permission to play a recorded message was not requested in the calls.

Treacy said the calls clearly violated the law, but Vane said the Republicans' legal staff disagreed. If a voice mailbox asks the caller to leave a message, Vane said, that should meet the consent requirement.

these calls were blatantly illegal under indiana law. but they're pretty innocuous compared to other robo-calls made by conquest communications. their latest schtick is making harrassing "false-flag" calls. it goes something like this:

you get a phone call from someone who says something like "hi, i'm calling with information about [democratic candidate]." if you hang up, they'll call you back. repeatedly. like 8 or 10 times. if you aren't paying attention, you might believe that the calls are actually coming from the democratic candidate's campaign, and (hopefully) you'll get so pissed off about the calls that you'll decide to vote against the democrat. of course, the calls are not coming from the democrats, but from the NRCC. (if you don't hang up, you'll eventually be rewarded with an anti-democrat message.)

these false-flag calls, which are not only unethical but illegal under FCC regulations, are being made in 20 districts nationwide. none are in indiana, but there are plenty in neighboring states: two in illinois, two in kentucky, one in wisconsin, and one in iowa.¶

tomorrow is election day, so get out there and do your part to stop the insanity by helping the democrats retake congress. i won't bother with the usual wankery of making predictions about who will win and how many seats the dems will gain. instead, here are some other interesting stories, some political, some not.

• perhaps the funniest story of the election season: because automated political calls are illegal in indiana, the NRCC had to hire actual flesh-and-blood people to make calls attacking tom hayshurst's position on immigration. unfortunately, the firm they hired used call centers overseas, and "the messages were delivered by voices with Indian or Hispanic accents". the calls were in support of republican mark souder... if you could decipher what they were talking about. and unfortunately for souder, because the calls were an independent expenditure (just like the anti-dickerson mailers sent out by the DCCC), souder can't do a thing to stop them. this would be amusing no matter what the calls were about, but the fact that they were about immigration makes it that much more hilarious.
• megapastor and indianan ted haggard has been permanently fired by his chuch after stories surfaced that he enjoys meth-fuled monthly sexcapades with gay prostitutes. last week, he tried to claim that he had only gone to the hooker for a massage, and that he had indeed bought hundreds of dollars worth of meth, but didn't use it. now he has confessed to "sexual immorality".
• the borat movie was #1 at the box office this weekend, despite being on only 1/3 as many screens as the competition. in fact, it "broke the box-office record for a movie opening at fewer than 1,000 locations. It bested Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which opened at $23.9 million in 2004." when we saw it on saturday, the theatre was packed.
• boingboing reports that a new gaming shop called "games to die for" is opening on indy's far west side. the hideous website states that the store specializes "in card games, miniature games, roleplaying games, and board games!" the shop also has 1,000 square feet of open gaming space. on saturday, they'll host a star wars tournament to benefit riley hospital. good news for local gamers, but seriously, the shop's website is god-awful... the worst i've seen in weeks.
• and finally, saddam hussein was sentenced to death by hanging over the weekend, but the verdict was curiously incomplete. as nbc's richard engel explains:

In less than 10 minutes, Saddam Hussein was told he was guilty of crimes against humanity, but never exactly how or why.

The full verdict, a document of several hundred pages, explaining how and why today’s judgment was reached was not released. U.S. officials said it should be ready by Thursday. So why issue the verdict today? U.S. court advisors told reporters today it was delayed mainly for technical reasons. All insist the verdict was not politically timed and that it was an Iraqi decision; there is no reason to doubt their word.

there's "no reason to doubt their word"... except that it defies common sense. of course the verdict was politically timed. and they found out that they couldn't actually complete the verdict in time, so they announced the sentence this weekend and will get around to figuring out the reasoning sometime this week. ¶

i've been seeing a lot of comments online about what a clean race eric dickerson has been running. of course, this couldn't be further from the truth. the dickerson campaign has been remarkably filthy, but dickerson has done a slightly better job than julia carson of hiding behind his surrogates.

i've blogged previously about how someone called "someonewhowouldknow" used to regularly post anti-julia pro-dickerson comments on TDW, until TDW mentioned to dickerson that the comments were traceable back to his buick dealership, at which point the flood of comments mysteriously stopped. today i will discuss someone else connected to the dickerson campaign who regularly posts outlandish diatribes against julia carson, stuff even worse than what gary welsh at advance indiana has been spewing: a blogger who calls himself sir hailstone.

hailstone is a regular commenter at AI and other right-wing blogs, so i was well familiar with his rhetoric, which is so over-the-top that i never took him seriously. i just assumed he was a random right-winger, but the other day, i was scanning through google blog search and discovered that he is in fact a volunteer for the dickerson campaign.

julia haters love to talk smack about wilson allen, a long-time carson associate and current volunteer for her campaign who comments here and at other blogs using the handle Wilson46201. they delight in calling him julia's chief dirt-digger and other names, and accuse him of committing all sorts of voter fraud. i've never met wilson, so i can't vouch for his character IRL, but comparing online personas, wilson is an absolute saint compared to hailstone, whose loathing of julia carson (and democrats in general) seemingly knows no bounds.

(hailstone's pet name for wilson is tokyo rose, a two-pronged slur that not only suggests wilson is treasonous but also mocks his masculinity. (wilson is openly gay.) he also routinely says things to wilson like this: "Go get a shower you smell of dumpsters Tokyo Rose. You been diving in them again looking for a good meal, or are you sleeping in one these days?")

hailstone proudly confesses to being a dickerson volunteer on free republic, one of the most rabid right-wing sites on the net. (curiously, he never mentions it on his own blog.) in the FR post, he also calls julia an "ultra-extreme-liberal", claims she supports "allowing full term babies that were supposed to be aborted, to die after birth", and ends his post by saying "She must be neutralized! We CANNOT let the liberals take charge."

but my favorite part of the post is what he has to say about advance indiana: AI "is a pro-gay site but if you can hold your nose past the gay rhetoric he is very much an Eric Dickerson supporter". i get the feeling that, come wednesday, hailstone isn't going to be popping up on AI's comment threads quite so often.

let's take a look at some of the greatest hits from sir hailstone's blog:

here he uses guilt by association to call julia a "socialist", ending his post with "Lenin would be so proud of Julia Carson." in extra-large letters for extra emphasis.

here he posts a ridiculous graphic suggesting that if democrats take over congress, the terrorists will win... and kill all americans.

here he complains that julia got campaign contributions from "corrupt labor unions" as well as "$4100 from the gays".

i don't even know what to say about this post other than to point out that he gleefully and uncritically reprints an anonymous letter from someone who says "Most Jews in Indianapolis are not real Jews." i'm not sure what makes one a "real jew"... presumably voting republican does.

here he talks of getting together with police to tail and photograph democratic voter vans (GOTV vans that drive people without cars, especially senior citizens, to the polls). he concludes, "With Voter ID it'll keep a lot of these old time Dem shenanigans to a minimum but you never know what them sneaky bastards have up their sleeve."

here he claims that the only reason julia won the past five elections is "because the dead voters come to life." (not the first time he made that claim.)

here he refers to jen wagner as "The dumb bitch that runs TDW". (in another post, he says to jen, "based upon your photo posted at HPR, looking at your face is downright painful!")

here he asks "how many Dems are out there with NAMBLA membership cards tucked away in their wallets?"

he also loves to sling mud at democratic sheriff frank anderson. he gets extra irony points for this remark: "How does a car dealer consider himself qualified to provide meals to inmates?? File that under "W" for WHAT THE F***?!?!" (eric dickerson, of course, is best known for being a buick dealer. apparently car dealers aren't qualified to prepare food, but they are qualified for congress.)

here he eagerly reprints a screed from certifiable wingnut jocelyn-tandy adande (who i've blogged about before) that's full of allegations of ballot box stuffing and other illegalities.

here he posts a ridiculous graphic suggesting that melina kennedy is a communist.

sound like a mudslinger to you? these are just highlights; his entire blog is like that. and these are only selections from his own blog! i didn't even bother to start rifling through all the comments he's left at other blogs like AI. he's surely posted stuff that's equally if not more outlandish on other blogs; i just don't have the time tonight to go looking.

note to the dickerson campaign: if you're going to try to claim the moral high ground and insist that you're running a clean campaign, you might want to keep a close eye on what your campaign staff is saying on your behalf on the blogs. or, at least, make sure they aren't traceable back to your campaign. i thought you had learned that lesson already, but apparently not.

update 11/08/06: predictably, on the day after dickerson lost the election, hailstone has effectively taken down his blog, leaving only one entry, a new one whining that we are now doomed to eternal torment because of democratic electoral victories. you can still see some of the old blog in the google cache, but much of the older material seems to be lost to the ether. natually, none of the links above work anymore.¶

today, we went to the 4:20 matinee of borat: cultural learnings of america for make benefit glorious nation of kazazhstan. the theatre was packed, though i'm not sure how many of the people there really knew what they were in for.

the movie was everything i hoped it would be. as fans of da ali g show know, the genius of borat is not in the horribly racist, sexist, and anti-semitic things he says, but the way that people react to him. most of the people in this movie are not actors: they are real, "normal" americans who take borat at face value, not realizing he's just a character. they react to borat in fascinating (and sometimes horrifying) ways: some react with hostility, some just smile and try to ignore his bigotry, and some—shockingly—agree with him, proving themselves as ignorant and bigoted as borat himself. kazakhs are not the ones who come off like the biggest fools in this movie: the americans are.

this style of street comedy seems pretty popular these days, at least on cable networks. but nobody does it as well as sacha baron cohen, and borat is his most effective character. most people aren't willing to take much guff from an annoying puppet, but they'll take a surprising amount from someone they think is a foreigner from a backward country.

anyway, this was the funniest movie i'd seen in ages. i can't recommend it highly enough. and for those of you who'd never heard of borat before the movie hype, hbo will be airing an ali g marathon monday and tuesday night, featuring all 12 episodes of the US version of the show. it's a great opportunity for old and new fans alike, or just something to flip over to if you just get tired of watching election returns tuesday night.¶

the city of greenwood hates sex:

Although it currently exists only in cyberspace, Mayor Charles Henderson launched a pre-emptive strike Friday afternoon against a business he says would sell sex toys in the heart of downtown.

A hastily called news conference at the Greenwood City Building set the stage for a showdown Monday night, when the City Council will attempt to further tighten an adult entertainment ordinance adopted in 1994.

At the heart of the debate is a Greenwood-based Web site called Me Yummy's that sells sexual toys and novelties.

Henderson said he is concerned that the company could open a shop in a vacant store on Main Street in Olde Town Greenwood -- the city's historic shopping district near several churches and a middle school.

"vacant" being the key word: downtown greenwood is struggling, but instead of welcoming new businesses that might bring in more revenue, the mayor wants to change the law to keep a new business out.

"We're not stepping on rights," Henderson said of his desire to keep the business from opening. "Let them go somewhere else. Our society has deteriorated enough. If we step on their rights, I don't think I'll even apologize for that."

first, henderson tries to deny that he's "stepping on rights". then he apparently realizes that everyone will know this is nonsense, and changes his statement to say that he doesn't care that he's infringing on their rights! nice mayor you've got there, greenwood.

in case you actually believe what they were saying yesterday, that the concern about this new shop is only because it is downtown, near churches and schools, the chief of police wants to set you straight:

Adult businesses must get a $500 adult business permit. Police Chief Joe Pitcher said no permits have been issued for such a business on Main Street.

"This is not just for this one location," Pitcher said. "We do not want them anywhere."

greenwood does not want your sex. of course, there's already at least one or two sex shops in greenwood—priscilla's and tasty's—and the rule change won't affect them. so, in light of chief pitcher's view that sex shops don't belong anywhere in greenwood, is the city going after them next? ¶

pastor ted, who resigned yesterday after allegations of meth use and a long-standing affair with a gay escort, is apparently an "indianan":

Pastor Ted, who talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday, is a handsome forty-eight-year-old Indianan, most comfortable in denim. He likes to say that his only disagreement with the President is automotive; Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas Pastor Ted loves his Chevy. In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation's most powerful religious lobbying group, and also over a smaller network of his own creation, the Association of Life-Giving Churches, 300 or so congregations modeled on New Life's "free market" approach to the divine.

yes, an indianan. presumably this means he is a hoosier; a person born in indiana. i could go on a rant about the non-word "indianan" and its misuse by the media, but i'll spare you that. (zach wendling already did that rant at in the agora in march.)

the harpers article doesn't say anything more about that, but now that i know what to search for, let's do some more digging.

pastor ted wrote a book titled the life giving church. amazon tells us that the book's first sentence is "Delphi United Presbyterian Church is where Mom and Dad took me and my three older brothers to church while growing up on a farm in Indiana."

searching for "Delphi United Presbyterian Church" (in quotes) only turns up hits relating to ted haggard. so does that mean the church is no longer around? that it has no web presence (not even a phone book entry or a blog posting by a churchgoer)? or maybe he got the name wrong, and he meant the first presbyterian church in delphi, indiana? ¶

julia carson today released the following statement condemning the negative mailers that were sent out by the DCCC:

I have run for office in Indianapolis for over 30 years and clean campaigns have been something Hoosiers not only have seen from me but something they expect. Not once have I sent out a negative mailer to my friends, neighbors and constituents in the 7th District while representing them. I am outraged by the negative mailers sent out by the DCCC and completely denounce them. Under the new campaign finance laws the DCCC can make an independent expenditure that the candidate has no knowledge of, input in or control over. That is why I am calling upon the DCCC and any group making independent expenditures to cease and desist in these attacks. The closing days of a political campaign are crazy and I favor sanity, I hope the remaining days of this campaign signal a return to sanity and the issues.

i'm sure this won't appease the rabid julia haters on the right, but then, there's nothing she could possibly do to appease those folks.¶

oops!

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to "leverage the Internet" to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq's secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended "pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing."

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

The government had received earlier warnings about the contents of the Web site. Last spring, after the site began posting old Iraqi documents about chemical weapons, United Nations arms-control officials in New York won the withdrawal of a report that gave information on how to make tabun and sarin, nerve agents that kill by causing respiratory failure.

the most embarrassingly ironic part of this story was that the website was set up on the insistence of right-wingers who were looking for dirt on saddam, in order to retroactively find some kind of justification for the iraq war, now that all the original war rationales have fallen apart:

The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative publications and politicians, who said that the nation’s spy agencies had failed adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the March 2003 invasion. With the public increasingly skeptical about the rationale and conduct of the war, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees argued that wide analysis and translation of the documents — most of them in Arabic — would reinvigorate the search for clues that Mr. Hussein had resumed his unconventional arms programs in the years before the invasion. American search teams never found such evidence.

now, the right-wingers, perhaps incapable of grasping that they are directly responsible for the release of this sensitive information, are trying to claim that this story proves saddam was trying to build nukes. but of course, it doesn't, because the documents in question are from before the first gulf war in 1991:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said yesterday that it shut down a public Web site after complaints from U.N. weapons inspectors that the site included sensitive details about constructing nuclear and chemical weapons. The documents were collected in Iraq after the March 2003 invasion but predate the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

way to go, guys. in your zeal to prove that you were right about iraq, you've endangered us all by releasing detailed instructions for building a nuke, conveniently written in arabic.

atrios dug up this sadly no post from march, when the website was first created. it's an informative review, and also demonstrates the story's indiana connection: mike pence was one of the people screaming for the documents' release:

On February 16, President George W. Bush assembled a small group of congressional Republicans for a briefing on Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley were there, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad participated via teleconference from Baghdad. As the meeting was beginning, Mike Pence spoke up. The Indiana Republican, a leader of conservatives in the House, was seated next to Bush.

"Yesterday, Mr. President, the war had its best night on the network news since the war ended," Pence said.

"Is this the tapes thing?" Bush asked, referring to two ABC News reports that included excerpts of recordings Saddam Hussein made of meetings with his war cabinet in the years before the U.S. invasion. Bush had not seen the newscasts but had been briefed on them.

Pence framed his response as a question, quoting Abraham Lincoln: "One of your Republican predecessors said, 'Give the people the facts and the Republic will be saved.' There are 3,000 hours of Saddam tapes and millions of pages of other documents that we captured after the war. When will the American public get to see this information?"

Bush told Hadley to expedite the release of the Iraq documents. "This stuff ought to be out. Put this stuff out." The president would reiterate this point before the meeting adjourned. And as the briefing ended, he approached Pence, poked a finger in the congressman's chest, and thanked him for raising the issue. When Pence began to restate his view that the documents should be released, Bush put his hand up, as if to say, "I hear you. It will be taken care of."

nice one. unfortunately, it looks like we'll continue to be stuck with pence after the election: his seat is considered "safe" this year. his opponent, barry welsh, has been active in the blogosphere (he and his wife have been regular posters at dailykos). but i haven't been able to find any actual scientific polls from the 6th district. anybody know of one?

update: apparently even condi has been trying to spread the lie that this story proves saddam was working on a nuclear weapons program before the 2003 invasion. shameless... ¶

megachurch pastor ted haggard, one of the nation's most influential evangelical christians, has resigned his post as president of the national association of evangelicals after allegations surfaced that he had a three-year affair with a gay prostitute. he will also be stepping down (temporarily, he says) from his megapulpit:

Facing shocking allegations that he paid a gay prostitute for sex, prominent Colorado Springs pastor Ted Haggard placed himself on administrative leave Thursday from his church position and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a platform that made him a rising star in conservative politics.

Haggard, 50, said in a statement released by his 14,000- member New Life Church that he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations made on Denver talk radio this morning."

In interviews over the past two days with KHOW talk radio, 9News and The Denver Post, 49-year-old Michael Forest Jones of Denver alleges he had sex on a monthly basis with Haggard over three years. Jones claimed Haggard used the name "Art," admitted he was married and used methamphetamine before the two had sex.

mike jones (not the rapper) also claims he has physical evidence: a personal letter haggard sent him as well as two voice mails:

The voice mails for from a man who calls himself "Art."

It should be noted Haggard's middle name is Arthur.

The first voice message, left on August 4 at 2:18 p.m., says:

"Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply. And I could pick it up really anytime I could get it tomorrow or we could wait till next week sometime and so I also wanted to get your address. I could send you some money for inventory but that's probably not working, so if you have it then go ahead and get what you can and I may buzz up there later today, but I doubt your schedule would allow that unless you have some in the house. Okay, I'll check in with you later. Thanks a lot, bye."

The second voice message, left on August 4 at 5:10 p.m., says:

"Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever. I will call though you early next week to see what's most convenient for you. Okay? Thanks a lot, bye."

Jones claims Art is referring to methamphetamine in the messages.

9NEWS had a nationally known voice recognition expert, Richard Sanders, listen to the voice mails to determine if it is Haggard. Sanders has previously worked on such high profile cases as the Oklahoma City bombing trial, the Columbine High School shootings, the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation, and the Kobe Bryant case.

"This certainly sounds like the same person," said Sanders, after listening to the voice mails.

In his final report, Sanders found that of 12 single words that were the same on both recordings, nine of those words were perfect matches. He also found that the entire phrase, "I don't know," was also a precise match.

haggard's buddy james dobson (president of focus on the family) complained that the media "would report a rumor like this based on nothing but one man's accusation", and of course he's right... for once. the charges have not proven (yet?). but haggard's sudden resignation as soon as the allegations came out are extremely suspicious. even if he's innocent, he sure as sin looks guilty. if there were no substance to the story, why not just deny it, say jones is crazy, and move on?

assuming he's as guilty as he looks, what is he actually guilty of? being gay or bi: so what? there's nothing wrong with that, though his followers might disagree with me. cheating on his wife: sure, but that's not illegal. sex with a prostitute: yes, and that's illegal but i personally don't have a problem with that. of course, his biggest crime is not against the law: rank hypocrisy of the highest order.

update: haggard has apparently partially confessed:

Haggard, who has publicly denied the accusation, also temporarily stepped down as senior pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

But the acting senior pastor at New Life Church, Ross Parsley, told Colorado Springs-based KKTV late on Thursday that Haggard had admitted to some of the allegations.

"There has been some admission of indiscretion, not admission to all of the material that has been discussed, but there is an admission of some guilt," Parsley said.

2nd update: most unconvincing denial ever:

The Rev. Ted Haggard, who resigned as one of the nation's top evangelical leaders, admitted Friday he had contacted male prostitute Mike Jones "for a massage" and bought drugs from him.

Haggard said he never had sex with Jones and never used the methamphetamine drug he bought.

Haggard told CNN affiliate KUSA-TV Friday that he received Jones' name as "a referral" from a hotel where he was staying in Denver.

He did not name the hotel. "I did call him," Haggard said. "I called him to buy some meth, but I threw it away."

"I was buying it for me but I never used it. I was tempted, I bought it, but I never used it."

"He told me about it. I went there for a massage."¶

a lot of people are talking about this mailer, but few seem to have actually seen the thing, so i figured i should post it... as a public service, of course. i don't have a flatbed scanner, so i had to take photos of the mailer and crop them, but these should be sufficient. (if you can't read everything, try viewing large.)


note the factual error in the wthr story: the mailer was sent out by the DCCC, not the DNC. and while both the wthr story and the indy star blurb quote julia's statement that she didn't have anything to do with the mailer, neither story mentions the important fact that it would be a violation of federal law if she had. thus, when dickerson and his supporters insist that julia knew about this mailer in advance, they're basically accusing her of a felony. ¶

i got a nasty mailer in my mailbox today. it's all about eric dickerson's domestic violence arrest, full of juicy quotes from the indy star about the accusations (that dickerson beat his wife, threatening to kill her, and that he also bit his daughter) and how his "contention that police officers grossly misreported domestic violence case strains credibility." [sic] at the bottom of the mailer, it clearly states "Paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.... Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee"

predictably, advance indiana's gary welsh has gone absolutely apoplectic about the mailer. and unsurprisingly, his post is completely misguided and misinformed.

the post is titled "Carson Plays Race Card To Destroy Dickerson". here's the lead sentence:

In a cheap, ugly display of blatant racism against her African-American opponent Eric Dickerson, Rep. Julia Carson (D) drops a negative attack ad in the mailboxes of white voters to scare them away from voting for Dickerson, playing on white people's worst stereotypes of black men.

carson and dickerson are, of course, both black. gary then goes on to conclude

If you folks aren't convinced that Carson is the dirtiest politician in the history of the state of Indiana, you should be now.

there's only one problem: carson had absolutely nothing to do with the ad. the DCCC sent out the mailer, not carson. gary even blockquotes from a post by matt tully that states in the first sentence that the mailer was sent out by the DCCC.

in the comments to that post, various anonymous commenters insist that julia must have known about the mailer and its content, even if she didn't send it herself.

but there's a problem with that idea, too. it's illegal. DCCC ads and mailers are "independent expenditures", and under federal law, independent expenditures cannot be coordinated with campaigns. the DCCC can dump money into julia's campaign, or they can run ads and send out mailers endorsing her, but they can't coordinate with her about the contents of the mailers they send out.

the obvious rabid-julia-hater response would be "then julia broke the law!" i can't really argue with that... because it's completely stupid and irrational. no matter what you might think of julia, the DCCC isn't so stupid as to flagrantly break the law.

i can't deny that the mailer is brutal. i'm not surprised that republicans are freaking out about it. but if you want to complain, at least make sure you're blaming the right person first. it's a well-known fact that independent expenditures can't legally be coordinated with individual campaigns. so is gary being intentionally deceitful when he tries to blame carson for the DCCC mailer? or is he just ignorant, and too busy looking up the IP addresses of his commenters to research the basic facts before he posts?

update: just as i predicted, gary's response is "big hat tip for calling attention to the obvious federal election law violation". he is totally incapable of admitting when he's wrong. it's kind of sad. also, he tries to "out" me by posting my "real name"... but he got my name wrong.¶

this story is funny, yes. and kind of cute... that too. but newsworthy?

White Castle honors Indy man's story
Star report
An Indianapolis man has been inducted into White Castle's Cravers Hall of Fame.

Thomas Walter of Indianapolis was one of 13 new members inducted earlier this month during a celebration at the hamburger chain's Cincinnati headquarters. The Hall of Fame was established in 2001 to single out and honor the most loyal White Castle customers who submit the best "crave stories".

Walter said when his granddaughter Kris'tianna was just two months old he discovered that the smell of White Castle hamburgers provided a sense of comfort and calmed her when she was upset. He tested his theory by taking the bag out of the room to see if she would cry, which she did every time.

Nearly 300 entries were considered for this year's contest.

White Castle owns and operates nearly 400 restaurants in the Midwest and Northeast.

my favorite part (other than the absurdity of this appearing in the paper at all) is how it says "earlier this month", yet the story is dated 11am this morning, november first. ¶

like a lot of people, i am totally geeking out about the borat movie. i've been a fan of da ali g show for a couple years, and borat is possibly sasha baron-cohen's best character. originally i wanted to see the movie on opening night, but virago has other obligations friday evening, so we'll probably have to wait until saturday or sunday.

the borat movie isn't going to be another snakes on a plane, with tons of internet hype but poor box office returns and worse reviews. keep in mind: the people who are hyping the borat movie have actually seen the film.

but i'm also psyched about darren aronofsky's the fountain... i've been waiting years for the fountain and a scanner darkly to come out. scanner was finally released this summer, and now i learn that the fountain is due out nov. 22!

wired has an interesting article about aronofsky's quest to make "a film that would reinvent space without using CGI" and the monumental challenges he faced. reading about the technique they used instead of cgi—image quest 3-d's microphotography—has only gotten me more excited.

the only problem is... once i've seen these movies, what will i have to look forward to? other than new episodes of serialized tv dramas, that is. (my favorites this season are battlestar galactica and heroes. it's a good year to be a science fiction fan... unless you're a conservative looking to battlestar to reinforce your worldview, in which case you're probably feeling disillusioned.) ¶