pantoum's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PAT�S FATWAH AND CHILDISH GOOGLE HUMOR

(No. 233 � 11 PM � Wednesday � 24 August 2005) LaylaGoddess gave me the idea to type �[your name] is� on Google and see what it produces. So, in no particular order,

Bird is found at the bottom of a staircase.
Bird is an electronic valve-assisted trumpet and stand.
Bird is the type of woman who fakes orgasms. (nuh uh)
Bird is writing her name.
Bird is the embodiment of the Essence woman.
Bird is wearing a slip.
Bird is an angel who�s job it is to hunt various beings of evil.
Bird is the attractive but hard-bitten wife of ageing Mafioso Saro.
Bird is in Ray�s house drinking beer.
Bird is on her way to Seattle and has a 30-minute layover in an unfamiliar airport.
Bird is reading Little House on the Prairie.
Bird is a place you can visit with the family.
Bird is a dude.
Bird is comfortable with her intersex status.
Bird is well aware that she is a man magnet and uses this knowledge to her advantage.
Bird is the kind of movie that certain people don�t want to see.
Bird is the delivery girl who transports the goods across the city.
Bird is currently writing a chapter on hunting.
Bird is a catalyst. A
Bird is one dame you don�t want to mess with.
Bird is lying in bed like a sack of nothing.
Bird is attempting to discover and assert herself.
Bird is a prime example of the huge impact technology can make on one�s career.
Bird is all about comfort.
Bird is a relative new-comer to reincarnation studies, and she does not have a philosophical axe to grind.
Bird is the girl with the pretty red bow in her hair.
Bird is a predictable combination of street tough and waif.
Bird is living with her own sordid past.
Bird is not amused.
Bird is a tad piqued.
Bird is getting grouchy.
Bird is shaken (not stirred), but she grabs her laptop and heads to Mexico.
Bird is, for all intents and purposes, a ghost in the machine.
Bird is carrying a white bottle representing the purity of freedom.
Bird is above all a mystic.
Bird is waterbombed from above.
Bird is now awake.
Bird is a little-bit-older Lolita, a calculating MTV-era honeybunch.
Bird is full of love and has nobody to give it to.
Bird is posting new pix for which she grew her bush.
Bird is a fucking monster.
Bird is subject to discipline [yes, please!]
Bird is the coolest bitch with a knife ever!
Bird is a part of everyone.
Bird is everything.

So my little sister, who is in Charlie Company at boot camp, included her company�s song in a recent letter to me:

40 rounds Dress It Down, Charlie drop the bomb now. Ahh boom, get hot, get hot, woo (females), get hot, get hot (males) aaah, we�re hot. We�re hot, aah, don�t stop, don�t stop. We�re Charlie, as you can see. We come to rock your company. We�re motivated; we�re dedicated; we�re number one. We know you hate it. We�re good as gold �cause Charlie�s bold. We�re down to fight from dawn till night. We�ll hit you once with all our might. Don�t let the silence fool ya �cause Charlie�s gonna school ya!

I find it very scary that people bond by singing such songs, that they equate their �hotness� with the ability to drop a bomb on people and kill them.

(Thursday � 25 August 2005) So I received an e-mail message from Democracy for America this morning. Instead of calling for an FCC investigation or the filing of criminal charges against Pat Robertson, DFA wants to place a �Thou Shalt Not Kill� ad in Pat�s local newspaper. How effective of them. I signed their petition, but wrote this:

The FCC fined CBS $550,000 for accidentally airing Janet Jackson's breast during the Superbowl. Call for the FCC to fine Robertson�s so-called Christian Broadcasting Network for using federally licensed airwaves to call for terrorist homicide.

Call for criminal charges to be filed against him for his fatwah. Insist that he be prosecuted for calling for the murder of a democratically elected head of state.

See US Code, Title 18, Sec 1116, �whoever kills or attempts to kill a foreign official, official guest, or internationally protected person shall be punished� and Sec 878, which makes it a crime to �knowingly and willingly threaten� to commit this crime.

Our government is obligated under international law to prevent and punish acts of terrorism against foreign heads of state when they are conceived of or planned on our soil. See the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, which makes it a crime to commit a �murder, kidnapping, or other attack upon on the liberty of an internationally protected person� [including] a �threat to commit any such attack.�

See also The OAS Convention to Prevent and Punish Acts of Terrorism Taking the Form of Crimes against Persons and Related Extortion That Are of International Significance, of which the US is a signatory. Art 8a obliges �the contracting states undertake to cooperate among themselves by taking all the measures that they may consider effective, under their own laws, and especially those established in this convention, to prevent and punish acts of terrorism, especially kidnaping [sic], murder, and other assaults against the life or physical integrity of those persons to whom the state has the duty according to international law to give special protection, as well as extortion in connection with those crimes.� This convention includes foreign heads of state as internationally protected persons.

( I got most of those statistics from Deborah James�s article on ALTERNET.)

DFA did make a good point though when they wrote in their plea for funds that

Robertson's fatwah, calling for the assassination of the president of Venezuela�in the name of keeping access to a "huge pool of oil," among other excuses�exposed the warped values of many religious radicals with the ear of the president of the United States. From efforts to squelch the teaching of sound science in our schools, to the "Justice Sunday" rallies trying to impose religion on the courts, to the quixotic jihad against SpongeBob SquarePants, fundamentalist power grabs make the news and have a huge impact. But they don't have the teachings of any religion we know of�and they don't have us.

Infuckingdeed.

So my e-book presentation went very well this morning, despite the fact that I had to give it at 8 AM. It was successful, in large part, because of my friend Cybrarian, a forty-year-old (ha! welcome to the old dyke club, grrl) research angel who can find anything on the web. (Bless her.)

I have tons more work to do, including arriving at a pricing structure for electronic versions of our books, which is all but impossible to do accurately, since I have no idea how many of our clients will use them or how many books we will no longer need to print because our clients opt for electronic versions of the books.

So much of this is just guesswork, but I�m trying to at least make educated guesses.... I also have tons to do to get ready for the new production manager�s arrival. Once he�s trained, though, I may actually have time for these big-picture projects again.

And now it is time for the whining portion of today�s entry. We've had a nice and slow-moving summer. There was room in restaurants and movie theatres and traffic was still backed up, but there was some chance of getting from Point A to Point B without filling your car up first. But now all the gawddamn students have returned and it�s impossible to even move! I could barely even pull into my parking deck this AM because they were standing there gabbing in front of the mechanical arm. I mean, you�re in college now; figure out that you shouldn�t stand in the middle of traffic already and MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY.

They officially move into the dorms this weekend, which means I am not going anywhere near campus, which will be an unending line of SUVs pulling U-Haul trailers and stressed out parents and young-uns.

SANG IN SHOWER: �Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville��I have no idea why except I was at a Cuban restaurant last night to celebrate Shamie�s (that�s Sharon and Jamie, as a unit) birthday and considered getting a margarita.

LISTENING TO: Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb by The Pilgrim Travelers

READING: an extremely costly brochure advertising the grand opening season of the university�s newly renovated Memorial Hall. The designer used spot varnish for God�s sake! Spot varnish. With state funds! No wonder those Nanci Griffith tickets are $75.

BEST OF SPAM SUBJECT LINES: No more penis enlarge ripoffs

10:59 a.m. - 2005-08-25

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next