Okay, so, Katy Perry. Kind of hot, and not exactly shy about showing that off.

Used to be a Christian music singer. For real. But then she went mainstream, and by mainstream, we mean contrivedly provocative and slutty. As for contrived provocation, she released two singles in a row, one, "UR So Gay," derided as gay-baiting by gay-sensitive critics as she called out her ex-boyfriend for being gay ("and you don't even like boys/like penis"), and then her next single, "I Kissed a Girl," about some girl-on-girl making-out.

So, like, here's some outrage for the gays, and now, here's some outrage for the social cons.

I guess that's... okay. I don't know. Kind of attention-grabbing though. I understand that kind of shameless spotlight-whoring, mostly, but it still sort of annoys me.

Now we have Lady Gaga. Also contrivedly provocative, except, I would say, in her case, it's only 25% contrivance and 75% authentic, in as much as she's actually a mutant.

In case it matters: Not as cute as Katy Perry. Dog-face but cute butt.

Katy Perry is dissing Lady Gaga for going to the oh-my-God-so-cliched well of subverting Christian imagery for sexual/artistic outrage. "Blasphemous," she says, and "cheap," and certainly, she's right.

"Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke," Perry tweeted Tuesday.

"Alejandro" features Gaga in a latex nun's habit with a cross over her groin. Dressed as a stylish nun, the 24-year-old singer ingests a string of rosary beads and is stripped naked and ravaged by a group of scantily clad men.

It's no surprise that Perry could be taking issue with the video's imagery considering her strict religious upbringing.

Perry's parents are Christian pastors and she first started singing in their church. According to the "I Kissed a Girl" singer, she was not allowed to listen to secular music and grew up on gospel. for parents and grew up listening to gospel music.

Here's that video, once again shocking us with the same-old same-old, with your official moderate content warning.

On the other hand, here's Katy Perry's latest videos, in which she wears a cupcake bra with cherries for, you know, nipples.

Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going on in pop music either. We've got a Christian music singer, and I guess still a religious woman, making the proper case that the six bazillionth reiteration of Ooh-aren't-I-bad Christian bashing is "cheap."

On the other hand, she's running around in a bra made up of cupcakes, and licking lollipops, and a lot of other stuff that basically calls me to my Bunk.

Not exactly absolute moral authority. I'm kind of wondering if Katy Perry is also crazy. Something I kind of wondered from the first time I saw her.

I know people can be complex and have all sorts of contradictory impulses but this seems a little more incongruous than is typical. She's reminding me of Prince, with his alternating lyrics of Praise Christ and Do Me Baby.

I... think I'm with Katy Perry? Kind of?

Before you ask, "Why are you posting this?"

Two words: Cupcake bra. I thought that would be obvious.

Oh, Dearie: I didn't watch the end of that Cupcake Bra video.

They squirt frosting at the end.

I am baffled.

This is the woman who's, like, on our side n' stuff.

Radiohead Frontman: Music Companies "On Verge of Collapse." I'm sure few will shed tears.

The music industry was always considered sleazy and nasty and exploitative and filled with cheaters, chiselers, and thieves -- and it was considered such by the movie industry, which ought to tell you something.

A reader says that producers don't want artists, they want "spectacles," and I guess is therefore saying let the female artists off the hook a little; they're told be be slutty.

Clarification: Dave Clark, who wrote that, is a producer. He's talking about other producers, of course. Major label producers.

A Better Pop Chick: I mean, this chick from the Ting Tings is obviously pretty cute, but... you know, no cupcake bra needed to sell the song. Kind of sells itself.

And as for sex appeal: Yeah, I kind of want to hop on that. But it's not like she's really selling that. It's just... implicit. Obviously I want to hop on that. No need to really push me on that.

Katy Perry is pretty good-looking. It's not as if it would fail to occur to men that She'd probably be a pretty fun romp in the hay if she didn't say so.

Subtext. Look into it.

Posted by: Ace at 03:49 PM | Comments (251)
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Is this real? Or is this their claim, in order to reduce our troops' morale?

And if it's real -- where are they getting hospital needles from, exactly, and how do we kill the people selling them?

British troops risk being infected with HIV as Taliban fighters are hiding contaminated needles with their bombs.

Heroin syringes as well as razor blades are being buried in the ground by insurgents in Afghanistan so that they prick bomb squad experts.

It is believed that the needles, used in Helmand province, are contaminated with hepatitis and HIV as the Taliban use increasingly 'despicable' tactics.

Protective Kevlar gloves have been issued to all Royal Engineer and Royal Logistic Corps bomb search teams.

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former Army officer, exposed the tactic. ‘Are there no depths to which these people will stoop?’ he told the Sun.

‘This is the definition of a dirty war.’

At some point, the nukes are going to fly, and I'm going to be okay with that.

Al Qaeda Hoax? Commenters Ed and old dirty b/tard say the HIV virus is fragile and dies quickly outside a living human host and say there's no way to store it for long periods. Ed says it dies 20 minutes outside the body.

Posted by: Ace at 01:55 PM | Comments (429)
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Salma Hayek is definitely all girl, in case you harbored any doubt.

Based on this video, I can finally finish that Relative Snake-Fearedness of Middle-Tier Hollywood Actresses chart I've been working on for six years. In ascending order of snake-fear:

1. Maya Rudolph

2. Maria Bello

3. Salma Hayek

Finally can check that box. See, Dad?!?! I told you I wasn't just a shiftless dreamer!

This seems so ridiculous I have to cover my ass with the obligatory Might Be Viral Marketing disclaimer. Ass duly covered, I think it's real.

Thanks to kawfytawk.

Corrected: It was Maria Bello, not Mary McCormack... damn those women look so much alike.

She was promoting the new Sandler/Rock/James/Spade/Schneider move Grown Ups.

Oh, and I'm assured it's not viral marketing by a friend of the site connected with the movie.

Video Valium: Since this is a silly video post, here's another one.

This is very relaxing to watch. It's kind of zenishly hypnotic. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (275)
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Sacred honor demands I show you these obscene pictures and inquire if you'd like me to come back to your dorm room.

Oh, and also? I'd like your vote for senator.

So, either naked pictures and I come back to your dorm room and/or you support me for senator.

The choice is clear.

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (155)
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Some damn fine vituperatin' from Dorothy Rabinowitz.

[I]t was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

...

A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.

...

It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.

It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.

...

They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.

The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.

Posted by: Ace at 11:19 AM | Comments (100)
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I did tell you -- they were saving up for a bloodbath. I guess that was obvious, though.

I heard that a guy who reads this site started watching the show based on my thread on it and wound up loving it. Did anyone else check it out?

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (119)
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I think this will be found unconstitutional, but I'm nowhere near informed enough to really have a good idea about that.

The new law is this: There will be an open primary before the election. Everyone can vote in it. And they can vote for any candidate.

The top two vote-getters -- whatever their party-- go on to a two-man general election in the November elections.

What's wrong with that? Well, basically, it outlaws parties, because no candidate now has to win the Republican nomination (or the Democratic one -- Democrats are against it too).

Furthermore, we could -- and would -- wind up with general elections featuring two Democrats, or a Democrat and a Green, or a Democrat and an Independent... if a Republican doesn't make the top two in an open primary, he's not on the ballot for the actual election.

Although the writer of this article says it won't happen, or won't happen often, the new proposition means that it's possible -- and in some years likely -- that there will be no Republican candidate in the general election.

I'm having trouble understanding how this proposition -- or law, I guess, now -- isn't just the majority of the voters deciding to strip the minority of voters of their right to vote for candidates they support.

CA voters want their options back, and last night they passed a proposition that would once again give them the ability to pick and choose their candidates across party lines during partisan primaries.

Despite opposition from party leaders, voters approved Proposition 14 by a 54%-46% margin. The measure would allow voters to pick candidates from any political party during a primary; only the top 2 candidates would advance to a general election, regardless of party.

Supporters of the initiative said it would result in greater voter choice, and that it would lead to more moderate picks for state legislature by bringing independent voters into the primary process. But opponents said the measure would hurt third parties and independent candidates, and that the smaller number of candidates on a general election ballot would end up costing voters a choice.

Now, both parties are lawyering up, openly discussing the prospects of new lawsuits aimed at dismantling the new system before it goes into effect next Jan.
It might seem like a bizarre ploy to elect more Dems -- CA is heavily Dem, and some believe more primaries would result in Dem-versus-Dem general elections. But in fact, it's the latest battle in a decade-long war over the very meaning of political parties.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (215)
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It's the 4th round of sanctions, so I guess we're into 'deep concern' territory. Up next, 'deeply troubled'.

The Obama administration succeeded in securing support for sanctions from the council's major powers, including China and Russia, by ensuring that the measure would not impair their ability to trade with Iran. But the four-year-long campaign faced new challenges from regional powerhouses Brazil and Turkey, which have used the Iran crisis to assert their role on the diplomatic stage.

The 10-page resolution would modestly reinforce a range of economic, high-technology and military sanctions against Iran and target the head of the of Iranian atomic energy agency, Javad Rahiqi, and 40 entities linked to the nation's military elite, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with a travel ban and an asset freeze. Iran has repeatedly rebuffed calls to halt its uranium-enrichment program; Iranian leaders say their efforts are entirely peaceful, but the United States and others say Iran is set on building a bomb.

The resolution falls short of the "crippling sanctions" Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to impose on Iran a year ago. But U.S. officials hailed Wednesday's vote as a show of international resolve in the face of Iran's continued defiance of Security Council resolutions demanding it suspend its uranium-enrichment program and fully cooperate.

Turkey and Brazil voted no. They are probably angry that their deal with Iran was rejected. And as far as Turkey goes, the fact that they are increasingly Islamic leaning and aggressive in asserting themselves in the region obviously is the big factor here.

Lebanon, Iran's puppet via Syria, abstained.

Obama is now going on about how tough these actions are. He keeps talking about how Iran has rights we recognize and how wonderful everything will be when Iran simply acknowledges its responsibilities.

He also just said, "these sanctions do not close the door to diplomacy". Oh good, I was so worried about that.

Iran hasn't responded yet but I'm guessing they won't be saying "sorry, let's go for some ice cream". My money is on bluster from Ahmadinejad and maybe some missile launches.

UPDATE: This piece was written before the vote but it outlines the alleged measures the UN was willing to take today.

The new draft resolution displays in the clearest possible terms the contrast between the administration's boundless faith in international institutions and reality. The White House considers it a major accomplishment that the resolution simply names the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), Iran's principal maritime shipping company. The resolution also includes entities acting on behalf of the IRGC and IRISL, as well as entities that are owned or controlled by them. However, the draft resolution falls short of actually mandating international action against these entities.

The new sanctions will only require countries to block IRGC or IRISL assets if these entities are proven to be engaged in activities that are "proliferation sensitive." In other words, if a country does not catch them red-handed while shipping centrifuges to Iran, it does not have to act.

The same qualification applies to the financial-services sanctions, which include a prohibition on opening new banks, branches of Iranian banks, and correspondent relationships. The sanctions only apply if there are grounds to believe a specific financial transaction relates to proliferation-sensitive activities. The Central Bank of Iran is mentioned only in passing, and the resolution only "encourages" countries to exercise vigilance over its transactions.

And on and on and on. Read the whole sad story for all the details.

No one, least of all anyone in Tehran takes this garbage seriously. Yet, Obama and Hillary will run around proclaiming they have struck a mighty blow against Iran and its weapons programs.

It seems the real target of these so called "sanctions" is Israel. Obama will use this fig leaf to demand that Netanyahu not attack Iran but rather give the sanctions time to work. Naturally, there's always a chance they will work tomorrow, so that time is never ending. When the pressure builds up again from Israrel or because of some gross action by Iran not even Obama can ignore, we'll start the whole process again because the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, next time is the charm!

Posted by: DrewM at 08:53 AM | Comments (165)
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Ben Bernanke, the head of the US Federal Reserve, met with the House Budget Committee and re-iterated his view that the US economy is improving, though slowly. He also pledged to keep interest rates low for the forseeable future. He seems to think that consumer spending (with borrowed money) will somehow pull the economy out of the doldrums. (He also makes a hand-wave at "business investment", but fails to explain how this is going to happen given the current regulatory environment and looming entitlement costs.)

“Achieving long-term fiscal sustainability will be difficult,” Bernanke said today. “But unless we as a nation make a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, in the longer run, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth.”

In short, Bernanke is echoing Augustine of Hippo's famous epigram: "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

Posted by: Monty at 06:40 AM | Comments (228)
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Go on and be your own hero.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:33 AM | Comments (179)
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