The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog: Horrors

I Shouldn't Do This...

Dan Savage — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:32:01 -0700

...but sometimes I can't help myself. An ongoing email exchange:

Hope you get AIDS Fagget

It's "faggot."—Dan

LOL commie

LOL illiteratie.—Dan

Best illiterate than a cock sucker with AID. Hope you get AID fag.

Let me help you with that: "Better illiterate than a cocksucker [one word!] with AIDS. Hope you get AIDS, fag."—Dan

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

'Mother in UK Forced 14-Year-Old to Get Pregnant'

Grant Brissey — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:00:31 -0700

Good god:

An American mom in Britain, prevented from adopting a fourth child, forced her eldest adopted daughter to impregnate herself with syringes of sperm bought on the Internet.

The daughter was forced to artificially inseminate herself seven times over a period of two years. When she was 16, she became pregnant and gave birth when she was 17. Caregivers became suspicious of the child-adopter/life-ruiner sociopath "because she was trying to prevent her daughter from bonding with the new baby."

We don't want any of that attachment thing," the mother said when a midwife suggested that the girl might want to breastfeed. After several such incidents the midwives alerted social services and police got involved in July 2011.

And just to cap off this most fucked-up tale, the child-adopter/life-ruiner wanted the unborn child to be a girl, and therefore subjected the adopted daughter/surrogate mother to "acid douches containing vinegar or lemon juice in the belief that this would influence an unborn child's gender."

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

This Is Everywhere...

David Schmader — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:12:11 -0700

...and now it's here on Slog: The stomach-churning NYT op-ed written by the hunger-striking Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a Yemen man who's been locked up in Guantanamo for the past eleven years.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

This Is Beyond Categories

Chicago Fan — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 17:41:06 -0700

So, three people were found shot to death in Idaho at a location that is both a pit bull breeding/sales location and a pot grow site. Children who survived the shootings were alone for a day. Beyond my ability to get my head around.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Obama Again Officially Declares April National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month

Anna Minard — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:02:56 -0700

Just in case you missed it:

Sexual violence is an affront to human dignity and a crime no matter where it occurs. While rape and sexual assault affect all communities, those at the greatest risk are children, teens, and young women. Nearly one in five women will be a victim of sexual assault during college. For some groups, the rates of violence are even higher—Native American women are more than twice as likely to experience sexual assault as the general population. Moreover, we know rape and sexual assault are consistently underreported, and that the physical and emotional trauma they leave behind can last for years...

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 2013 as National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

He celebrates the recently renewed Violence Against Women Act*, specifically calls out rape in the military, and he aaaaalmost says "rape culture" (well, not really, but "All Americans can play a role in changing the culture that enables sexual violence" is pretty close). Fun fact: Obama is the first president to issue an official proclamation of April's rape-awareness-month status, which he's done since 2009.

*Which House Republicans nearly succeeded in watering down like the empathy-devoid shitbags they are because they wanted to avoid protecting immigrants, Native Americans, and gays, then was successfully passed, and now faces sequester-related funding issues.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

If We Legalize Same-Sex Marriage Then Straight People Will Commit Fraud

Dan Savage — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 08:02:00 -0700

TPM:

A top Republican in Georgia has sounded an ominous warning that legalization of same-sex marriage may also lead to fraud. Sue Everhart, chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, told the Marietta Daily Journal in a story published Saturday that once gay nuptials are legally permitted, there will be nothing to stop a straight person from exploiting the system in order to claim marital benefits. “You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits?"

This nightmare scenario—straight people getting married (or staying married) for the benefits!—happens all the time. If Ms. Everhart wants to prevent straight people from marrying other straight people for their "wonderful health plans," as opposed to their awesome oral/anal/bondage skills, she should support a single-payer health-care plan. If the United States had a health-care system like Canada does, no one would marry—no one would have to marry—to obtain benefits. Linking health care to marriage is 1. unfair to single people and 2. tempts gay and straight to marry for the all the wrong reasons. Not for love, not for life, but for Aetna.

As for this...

Everhart also expressed a distaste for homosexuality, which she argued is unnatural. “Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” Everhart said. “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

After screaming and yelling for years—for centuries—about the evils, the dangers, the health risks, the immorality, the irresistible allure, etc., of all the hot and sweaty buttsecks the gays were having, the haters are now suddenly claiming that we can't have sex at all. We shouldn't be allowed to marry, says Chicago's Cardinal George, because gay people can't consummate our marriages. We don't have the equipment to have a sexual relationship, says the chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, so we shouldn't be allowed to marry. I don't know how we went from gay sex being sick and sinful and irresistible—they used to argue that gay sex had to be illegal and gay people oppressed because otherwise everyone would turn gay and the human race would go extinct—to gay sex being impossible. But here we are.

In a related development...

Terry and I did the impossible last night. So we're not just gay guys anymore. We're superheroes. Or something. Because we do the impossible! All the time!

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Donny & Marie & Steely Dan

David Schmader — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:16:22 -0700

This started making the rounds a couple days ago and rightly so, for it is tremendous. (Ice-skating kick line! Severely attenuated "comedy"!)

(Thank you, Slog tipper Mindy, and whoever alerted Mindy to it...)

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Researchers Discover Thousands More Nazi Ghettos and Camps Than Previously Thought

Christopher Frizzelle — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:54:01 -0800

The headline in today's New York Times Sunday Review section: "The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking." Researchers have now "cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe," whereas previous estimates were as low as 7,000.

The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington.

In unrelated Holocaust news, Jen Graves was on public radio's Studio 360 two days ago discussing Charles Krafft. If you somehow missed the Krafft story the first time around, Jen's original piece is right here.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Chinese Water Torture for Your Ears

David Schmader — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:57:24 -0800

This just in from Last Days' Hot tipper ArmadilloMeat:

Please allow me to take the horror of your public grooming stories to the next level: I was in a busy Capitol Hill salon, getting my hair done. This business has been a long-lived independent presence in the Broadway community, and given your popularity one would think that the world had been appropriately shamed into NOT CLIPPING YOUR GODDAM NAILS IN PUBLIC. But no: Every stylist in the house was busy save for one, who was sitting in the dryer chairs directly next to the front door clip-clip-clipping away, much to the chagrin of every customer, other stylist, and in particular the poor receptionist who looked like she wanted to die from a combination of repulsion and mortification.

Finally, another stylist went over and told her to stop. My point, though, being: who are these people? Who are not only these people who don't know it's inappropriate to clip your nails in public? I know you've been off the public grooming beat for a bit, but I would urge you to pleasepleaseplease, for humanity, call this woman out. I fear the forces of darkness will prevail if you don't.

Dear ArmadilloMeat: Your wish is my command.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Chris Brown Is Not a Rapper...

David Schmader — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 09:14:28 -0800

...a fact which doesn't bode well for the latest provocation by Camille Paglia, the world's preeminent chronicler of the importance of Madonna's 1984-1991 output. Paglia begins her 2,000-word Sunday Times think piece "Why Rihanna Is the New Diana" with the above mischaracterization of one of her main characters, and hopes sentences like "Diana and Rihanna began as sensitive, wounded, but appealingly bubbly and good-natured provincial girls who slowly discovered their own photogenic virtuosity and began to conceptualize themselves as living sculpture for the lens..." will inspire readers to purchase the full story.

Read the free-and-worth-every-penny excerpt here.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Senate Filibuster, Minimum Wage Hike, War in Syria, Gay Marriage... AND THIS!

Dominic Holden — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:26:10 -0800

The Carnival cruise ship Triumph—Triumph!—which has been adrift after an engine fire in the Gulf of Mexico, its thousands of voyagers sweltering with limited electricity, huffing the fetid scent of sewage and building a shanty town on the decks with sheets and mattresses taken from their dank quarters, finally saw the terminal of the misery as tug boats pulled them to Alabama.

And then this happened:

A tow line being used to pull the Carnival Triumph snapped this afternoon, setting back the efforts to bring the damaged cruise ship and its 3,143 passengers to port in Mobile, Alabama. Coast Guard Petty Officer William Colclough told the AP the ship is "dead in the water and when they reconnect safely, they then proceed on their way."

Oh, man. Those poor people. What hell for them all. But still... everyone loves a luxury-resort-turned-gulag-of-the-sea story.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

In Which Thousands of Spiders Hang from Utility Wires Over Brazilian Town

Grant Brissey — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:13:21 -0800

Via Wired:

Cornell University arachnologist Linda Rayor and Aviles also agree that what’s probably being filmed is a massive P. bistriata colony. That species lives in South American savannas and spins colonial webs. A bit of good news is that their venom is not believed to be harmful to humans, Uetz said.

Basically, they're hunting, and they do this in large-ass groups on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure that's why I've been having the same dream for the last 467 nights in a row. Only in my dream, these plump little gobbets of terror are coming down from my bedroom ceiling and then crawling under my covers and then under my skin. And then I realize I'm actually awake and on a public transit bus. Is that normal?

Sorry, Dominic.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Child-Molesting Catholic Church May Launch Public Fundraiser

Cienna Madrid — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:39:00 -0800

The LA Archdiocese is a little strapped for cash because, it turns out, paying restitution to 562 underage victims who were molested by priests and other church personnel gets expensive. The diocese is now $80 million in debt, God's conveniently not intervening, and so the church is contemplating a bold move: Appealing to the public with a massive, $200 million fundraising campaign.

The non-profit Guidance in Giving lists the Los Angeles-area Catholic Church among its "diocesan accounts" and says it is exploring a campaign to raise $200 million for the diocese to meet "a variety of needs," including "priests' retirement, seminarian education, Catholic schools, Catholic Charities and parish needs."

In my opinion, it seems a little soon to be soliciting money from the public when you're still in court, seemingly fighting to conceal the names of people involved in molestation scandals and the subsequent cover-ups (the NYTimes reports that many released church files are incomplete and many names have been erroneously redacted).

Maybe they start smaller with their asks, and actually provide a little incentive for the public to throw money their way. Like maybe with a bake sale?

Curtsies to mr. herriman

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Juice Fast, Day Four: I'm Still Here!

Anna Minard — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 11:23:25 -0800

ANNA MINARD
Produce! It's what's for dinner.

Good morning: I DIDN'T DRINK THE GIN! I just said no, like Nancy Reagan taught me. It was damn close—I was hanging out with friends, and the gin and tonics were flowing, and I mean, there's a whole song about gin and juice... but it just didn't seem worth it, and I have a lot of future gin days ahead of me.

I'd made dinner plans for this week, and when I admitted I could only drink juice because I was on a juice fast, my friend Micah said we should have a juice feast. So with a crew of friends and a lot of produce, we set out to juice. Except we didn't have a juicer, so it was more of a blend feast. And the concoctions were pretty gross. Very colorful, but gross. It was then that I started to appreciate the premade juices, strange as they sometimes are, for at least being well thought-out. For example, last night we made a "juice" with all the orange things—oranges, orange bell peppers, and carrots. Not tasty. Also, carrot chunks. (They said it was better with gin.) But it was still a rad party, and everyone tried eating raw foods. Until they gave up and made an ovenful of naan, and then they started one of those multiple-drinks-in parties where you pull out everything in the fridge for toppings—first hummus, then salami, then smoked salmon, then... I have to stop typing delicious words. I munched on bell peppers and strawberries, like a pet rabbit.

I only have two days left to go. I hate to admit it, but it's getting way easier and it really isn't freaking me out anymore. Who knew eating solid food was something you could have a willpower fight with? The only worrisome thing is that everyone I talk to says I look like a crazy person. But that's not really unusual.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Juice Fast, Day Three: A Single Avocado

Anna Minard — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:44:19 -0800

I'm about halfway through this goddamn juice fast. If I had opted for one that lasted three days, it would almost be time for that free cheeseburger from Cienna. As it is, I'm going till Friday. DUMB IDEA, ME.

ANNA MINARD
AMAZING.

They said if I "absolutely need to eat," I should "try raw food" because something something enzymes. So last night I had an avocado. It was beautiful! I have never appreciated an avocado more. If nothing else, this not eating is making me love food so much more than ever before, which I didn't think was possible. So that's good. (Right? Wait, what? No. I don't know. JOOOOSE BRAIN.) Yesterday, I tried to get someone at my house to make a fresh pot of coffee just so I could smell it.

I'm trying to ration better for daytime, so I saved half of last night's juice dinner for this morning. And Kelly O gave me some barley tea that tastes like crackers—it's like a snack! Whenever I talk about having a tea snack, Cienna almost cries. And then she eats something.

Yesterday, as I was losing the will to live, I went to Strawberry Moon Juice's website. I was looking for some sparkling copy telling me what, exactly, the point of all this was, which I realized I'd forgotten to think about in the first place. I wanted to believe, even if it was through a juice-haze. There was NOTHING. There's a blog that mentions studies or articles on fasting, but I guess I wanted the full Gwyneth, something dazzling about cleansing and freshness and how it will prevent cancer and make me smarter/better. Nope!

Instead, I feel alternately poetic (lines from Sylvia Plath poems about sickness and injury keep running through my head) and desolate. I am cold and tired all the time. I have a headache. I have to walk past two pizza restaurants on my route home.

I'm going to go drink some lunch.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Juice Fast, Day Two: Only Losers Chew

Anna Minard — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:16:21 -0800

ANNA MINARD
The wreckage.

This morning, when I walked in to work carrying a bottle of what looked like the Jolly Green Giant's diarrhea sample—and feeling pretty okay about it—Cienna took one guilty look at me and said, "Um... I owe you a hamburger." WHAT THE FUCK? As she told you all already, she has fallen off the juice-fast wagon in less than one goddamn day.

I am still going strong! Yesterday was okay. By the time I got home, I was kind of done with juice. But I had one left, and so I drank it, and it was weird (kale + celery + parsely + dandelion + ginger + lime). It tasted like, oh, I don't know, if your front lawn came to life and you gave it a BJ, and then you found out it had grass STIs. You know how if you eat tons of celery, it'll sort of start burning your mouth? My mouth felt like that for an hour.

When I woke up, I was hungry. I had a juice. It was orange + almond + alfalfa. It tasted like a watered-down Creamsicle that came from a farm. I was still hungry. Everyone keeps asking me how I feel, but the answer is just hungry and ennui-ridden. Yesterday, I got really sad and emotional about what is the point of life, anyway? I'm pretty sure it was juice-related.

Now I am two juices into the day, and I have two juices to go. I'm so hungry I want to drink both of them immediately, but I have to ration, because holy shit, that is all I have left to "eat" for the rest of the day. I miss chewing, and I miss coffee.

I'm going to start eating on Friday night, and I can't wait. I also can't wait to have the alcohol tolerance of a toddler. It's gonna be great!

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

My Actual Hippie Juice Fast vs. Cienna Madrid's QFC Juice Cleanse™

Anna Minard — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 11:59:33 -0800

ANNA MINARD
Happy Monday! This is my breakfast. My entire breakfast.

A few weeks ago, a local juice company called Strawberry Moon Juice offered us a free juice fast. When you work in print journalism, if someone offers you free food, you don't question it. You say, "WHERE? WHEN?" So after a quick game of rock, paper, scissors, I won/lost the opportunity to cut solid food out of my diet for five days and drink whatever got delivered to the office in reusable glass bottles from the hippie factory.

I am a comfort animal—a devoted hedonist, a coffee addict, a person who many weekday mornings sits down to a full breakfast of sausage and eggs. My friends do not seem confident about the juice thing. This is, after all, a juice fast whose instructions read, in part: "If you absolutely need to eat, first try raw food because that keeps the enzymes from moving back into your digestion. But the food desire is more of a head game. You can easily survive 30 days without food." EASILY! Really. WHO KNEW. When I told my friend it meant I couldn't drink coffee, she laughed so hard she hit her head on a table.

The company representative said I could choose a three-day fast, but "many people say they start to feel really good on the third day and wished they had gone for the five-day instead." So I went for it. It consists of four 16-ounce juices a day. "Once your juice arrives, remove solid foods from your diet, flood the body with healthy nutrient-dense and enzyme-packed juice," warble the instructions.

ANNA MINARD
This is three days' worth of "food." I mean juice. I mean, oh, good lord.

The juice arrived this morning. But because we are nothing if not vigorously scientific here on Slog, Cienna has decided to go on her own QFC Juice Cleanse™, where she just makes up her own liquid diet based on whatever's on sale at the grocery store. Whose juice fast will be faster and juicier? We'll see. Might Cienna die? Eh, probably not. Does wine count as juice? YES.

In the time it took to write this post, I drank my first green-brown juice. It made my mouth tingle with fennel. I feel cleansed-er already. And hungry as fuck.

Meanwhile, Megan Seling just sent an officewide e-mail with a picture of the four different kinds of her fucking amazing cupcakes she just brought in for everybody. She says: "I even brought my culinary torch for the brulee!" I AM NOT KIDDING.

We shall see, Slog. We shall see.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Nightclub Fires Don't Kill People, People Kill People

Goldy — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 11:16:23 -0800

At least 232 people have died in a fire that swept through a nightclub in Santa Maria, a university town in southern Brazil. Many of the victims succumbed to the toxic fumes, or were crushed to death in the crowd's panicked efforts to escape. The fire reportedly started when a band set off fireworks.

It's a horrible tragedy, and the focus for the moment should be on comforting the grieving. But...

The priority for the authorities is now to identify the dead with many distressed relatives arriving at the scene, but in the hours ahead the focus will turn to the cause of this accident and safety procedures at the club, the BBC's Gary Duffy reports from Sao Paulo.

The strict fire codes we have—capacity limits, emergency exits, sprinkler systems, bans on certain activities, etc.—came in the wake of similar tragedies. Because, you know, the gun nuts are kinda metaphorically right when they say that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." The same is true of nightclubs. So we regulate the people running these night clubs in an effort to avoid preventable tragedies like that which just happened in Brazil. If the authorities find the fire codes weren't up to best practices, one hopes they'll tighten them. If they find that the night club owners violated existing codes, they'll presumedly be prosecuted, and local authorities will hopefully redouble their efforts to enforce the regulations already in place.

Likewise, when we talk of gun control, we're not really talking about regulating guns, but rather, regulating the people who use guns. Our nation is suffering an epidemic of gun violence totally disproportionate to that being suffered anywhere in the world that isn't in the midst of a bloody civil war. Clearly, there are regulations that might lessen this ongoing American tragedy. Perhaps, for example, keeping guns out of the hands of felons and the mentally ill via mandatory background checks on all private gun sales.

So yeah, guns on their own don't kill people. But then, neither do nightclubs. Our goal as a nation should be to find the proper regulatory balance between the benefits of gun ownership, both individual and societal, and the cost. And given our annual gun carnage, it is currently reasonable to argue that this balance is tragically out of whack.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Zombie Apocalypse Hints: Go to this Ace Hardware!

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:14:23 -0800

Maybe you're no longer worried about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse—but it could still happen! And if it does, you're gonna want to run straight to the Ace Hardware. And not just any Ace Hardware but the one featured in this 10 minute, award-winning documentary short that is currently a Sundance fave, "When the Zombies Come."

Actual, bored Ace Hardware employees dream up a incredibly intricate plan to ward off a zombie invasion and the results are pretty goddamn HILARIOUS. (Plus this mini-movie really pissed off the Ace Hardware executives who are trying to get the film eradicated from the universe. Good luck, jerks!) WATCH IT!

via

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

So Blurb Me Maybe?

Dan Savage — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:22:51 -0800

This book threatens to take the very fabric of society and turn it into a pair of sensible, but stylish trousers or hot pants #blurbsavage
— you can call me Al (@lovelysqualor) January 10, 2013

I haaaaaaate writing blurbs for books—I hate being asked to write blurbs—so I'm not asking any writers I know to blurb my new book. (You can preorder that shit now.) I've decided to be the change I want to see in the publishing world while we still have a publishing world to change. But when I tweeted that I wasn't asking for blurbs—because I can't bring myself to do it—my followers started blurbing my new book anyway. Without reading it first. Now, most people who blurb books have the decency to read the book; failing that, most have the decency to at least pretend that they've read the book. But there have been times when writers have blurbed books they didn't even read.

Not me, of course, because I'm too Catholic for that shit. Also, what if you blurb a book you didn't read and the author announces in the last chapter that he's a white supremacist or something?

But now I'm thinking about using blurbs for my new book—available for preorder now—from people who haven't read it. So blurb my new book, Sloggers, in the comments or blurb me on Twitter using the #blurbsavage hashtag. Maybe your blurb will wind up on my dust jacket—you too, "Danny" troll!

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Today in GAAAHH!!! GIANT SQUID!!

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:28:44 -0800

This super rare footage of a giant squid was captured by Japanese documentarians who spent hundreds of hours trolling 630 meters beneath the Pacific Ocean—and it was totally freaking me out until the douchebag ABC News correspondent ruined the moment with his stupid "That ruins my dip in the Miami Beach waters" quip. YOU GODDAMN IDIOT, you just said the squid was 630 meters under the sea!! ATTACK, my minion from the deep! ATTAAAAACKK!!!

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Let's Not Pretend That Trapping Mexicans with Tacos Isn't Racist

Cienna Madrid — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:35:27 -0800

Sigh:

A restaurant in South Carolina has been criticised for printing and selling T-shirts with the slogan "How to catch an illegal immigrant" accompanied by a cartoon drawing of two tacos placed beneath a box trap.

Taco Cid, in West Columbia, insists the T-shirts are a "witty and comical statement" about undocumented migration in the US, but the Mexican restaurant has been accused of racism.

...Taco Cid responded to criticism this week with a statement on its website. The writer used capital letters for emphasis.

"Our T-shirts were created as a witty and comical statement regarding ILLEGAL immigrants," the statement said. "There are NO racial nor hate remarks towards any specific ethnic group."

Dear Taco Cid,

Make your shirts, wear your shirts, sell your shirts—I say good on you for being brave enough to advertise your bigotry. It's offensive, sure, but it makes you easy to avoid.

However, please don't try and pretend that joking about trapping Mexicans with your delicious tacos, Looney Toons style, is anything other than a play on tired, racist stereotypes. You're smart enough to know that, right? Because if you're not smart enough to realize the inherent racism in trapping Mexicans with tacos, then I have to assume it's because generations of hillbilly inbreeding have rendered you incapable of little more than fucking your sister-cousin, stuffin' delicious tacos, and using them to set up elaborate traps, Looney Toons style, to catch Mexicans on the weekends.

And that would be a shame.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Are You in the Psychopath Profession? Let's Find Out!

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:13:34 -0800

In Kevin Dutton's book The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, he presents the following side-by-side list of occupations that have the most psychopaths (CEOs) and the least (Care Aides).

Umm... nobody look at #6. And as a reminder, here's the definition of "psychopath."

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions (in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial character, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality.

Yep, that sounds about right.

(via Eric Barker)

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Reality Stars Sing "We Ruined the World"

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:15:48 -0800

Happy Mayan Apocalypse Day, everybody! Before we sign off forever, it's time for all of us... in particular, me... to make amends and apologize for all the crappy things we've done while on this planet.

[Pause]
[Pause]
[Pause]
I got nothing.

HOWEVER! A bunch of reality-TV stars got together under the baton of The Soup's Joel McHale to sing this stirring apology ballad entitled "We Ruined the World" because... well, they kinda did. (How many of these reality stars can you recognize?)

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Look for the Helpers

Jonathan Golob — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 21:48:14 -0800

Fred Rogers sums up a good way for adults and kids to process this sort of week:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.

My heart goes out to the teachers, the first responders, and the parents in Newton Connecticut—the helpers in this tragedy. The bravest Americans are those who face disasters and, unarmed, find courage to care for others even to their own ends. It's this courage—not the risible fantasy of elementary school teachers packing concealed weapons—that gives me hope.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Gun Control Is Not an Issue Facing the Nation, According to the White House's Website

Christopher Frizzelle — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:02:44 -0800

After watching the president's remarks, in which he said the thing to do in response to horrors like today's shootings is to hug your kids (um, that's it?), I went to the White House issues page just to see whatever generic stuff they have up there about gun control. But they don't have anything generic up about gun control. They don't have anything about gun control, period. I clicked on Homeland Security, I clicked on Defense, I clicked on Ethics, I clicked on Civil Rights, I clicked on Urban Issues, I clicked on Rural, I clicked on Veterans…

Nada. It's not an issue, apparently.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Fire at the Tazreen Fashions Garment Factory in Bangladesh

Christopher Frizzelle — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 11:07:14 -0800

Did you read the two-part investigation in the New York Times on Friday and Saturday? Do you ever buy shorts at Walmart? Do you ever buy lingerie at Sears? You have to read this.

ASHULIA, Bangladesh — The fire alarm shattered the monotony of the Tazreen Fashions factory. Hundreds of seamstresses looked up from their machines, startled. On the third floor, Shima Akhter Pakhi had been stitching hoods onto fleece jackets. Now she ran to a staircase.

But two managers were blocking the way. Ignore the alarm, they ordered. It was just a test. Back to work. A few women laughed nervously. Ms. Pakhi and other workers returned to their sewing tables. She could stitch a hood to a jacket in about 90 seconds. She arranged the fabric under her machine. Ninety seconds. Again. Ninety more seconds. She sewed six pieces, maybe seven.

Then she looked up.

Smoke was filtering up through the three staircases. Screams rose from below. The two managers had vanished. Power suddenly went out throughout the eight-story building. There was nowhere to escape. The staircases led down into the fire. Iron grilles blocked the windows. A man cowering in a fifth-floor bathroom called his mother to tell her he was about to die.

Click here to keep reading. (A word of warning: It's horrifying.) And after you read that, here's part two of the series, about flaws in factory monitoring.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

When the Metal Ones Decide To Come For You... And They Will...

Mary Traverse — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:15:30 -0800

We needn't fear: scientists are studying the risk of a robot uprising. Cambridge philosophy professor Huw Price explains how The Cambridge Project for Existential Risk aims to assess the threat:

"It tends to be regarded as a flakey concern, but given that we don't know how serious the risks are, that we don't know the time scale, dismissing the concerns is dangerous. What we're trying to do is to push it forward in the respectable scientific community," he said.

While Price said the exact nature of the risks is difficult to predict, he said that advanced technology could be a threat when computers start to direct resources towards their own goals, at the expense of human concerns like environmental sustainability.

Read more about the project on their website, and in the meantime you might want to start preparing for the inevitable.

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Today in Horrifying Elevator Pranks

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:17:28 -0800

Check out this clip from the Brazilian variety show Programa Silvio Santos, in which unsuspecting elevator riders pick up an absolutely terrifying hitchhiker along the way. (Pro Tip: Hey Brazilians! If you hate children so much... STOP HAVING THEM.)

via

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Friday Photo Fun: This Is What A Casino Thanksgiving Looks Like

Kelly O — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 12:37:13 -0800

No cookies in your pockets!

All the food ~~porn~~ carnage after the jump!

I put some of these in my purse anyway. Photos of large, post-dinner donations, into casino slots, not included.

All photos Kelly O

[ Comment on this story ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]