And of course it’s just more elitist horseshit. When they have a bake sale letting students whose parents were alumni get first pick of the cupcakes, or giving out free glasses of milk to students from privileged backgrounds, get back to me; then they might have a point about how higher education gives more benefits to certain groups. Until then, they’re like a sprinter who says nothing while their opponent has 50-pound weights tied to his ankles, and then throws a hissy fit when to offset the weights he’s given a quarter-second head start.

Certainly, one would expect them to condemn the shooting of people other than Giffords, in much the same way that the military expresses regret when a strike on a military target kills innocent civilians. But why are they condemning his shooting of Giffords? Why aren’t they doing what politicians usually do when something they support comes to pass – rushing in to get a camera-op and claim all the credit, even when nothing they did actually cased the result?

From Sarah Palin’s crosshairs map and urging her supporters to “RELOAD” to Shannon Angle’s suggesting “Second Amendment remedies” to “take Harry Reid out” if she lost the election to Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck openly exhorting people to violence, reactionaries expressed their wish quite clearly, and they got it. Why are they now having second thoughts?

I can think of only two possibilities. Either they were so stupid and immature before (hurr, look how much this upsets the libruls) and never gave a moment’s thought to what would happen if, in fact, some disgruntled nutjob decided to put the “four boxes” into action, as if they were immature teenagers rhapsodizing about the “cool” violence in their favorite video-game shooter suddenly getting a look at real-life violence. If this is what’s going on – they were just so in love with their own imaginary tough-ass self that it didn’t occur to them for a second that, like, shooting at people just because you’re mad at then is bad – then they have no place in public discourse, and need to slither back under their rocks with the rest of the simple, muck-dwelling lifeforms, and leave political interaction to the humans.

The other possibility is that they’re pleased as punch that Giffords was shot; but they know that a lot of people who used to chuckle over their imaginary gun battles are really in group number one there. That is, it’s not a popular viewpoint to say “We deeply regret and condemn the killing of innocents, but as we said before this incident, if Congress continues as it has been, people are going to shoot Democrats, so take Giffords as a warning.” So instead of proudly standing behind a “crosshairs” political map or leaping into the photo-op to prattle about how right-thinking Americans will come out shooting if the wrong Senator gets elected, they trip over each other to pretend they probably never said any of that stuff and certainly never meant it.

Which is to say, they’re wormsucking cowards who care about nothing but their own political and financial futures, and are too craven to take the credit they’re owed. Unsurprising.

There are many subjects on which reasonable, well-meaning people can disagree, often with no clear ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ on either person’s part. Birthright citizenship is not one of those subjects.

So consider this a plea, on behalf of those of us who are sick of all the whining and doubletalk: please grow a pair. When you complain about political correctness, we hear “Man, if only we were still back in the good ol’ days, when I could stomp all over other people with impunity!” That’s what you really mean, so why not just come right out and say it? Own your selfishness and sadism.

And, may I add, stop whining about how other people need to ‘get over it’ and ‘stop being so thin-skinned’, then crying like a bully who just got hit back for the first time when somebody is  mean to you and how awful it is they made you feel guilty.

(h/t unusualmusic)

And damn if the thread doesn’t immediately get clunked on by people who amaze you only by their ability to type with fingers jammed firmly in their ears, going OMFG U CALLED ME AN OPPRESSOR!! and “Racism? That’s so twentieth century, darling” and “But shouldn’t we wait for people of color to come to us before we acknowledge they have a role in SF?”

Oh Internets, just once, I would love you to surprise me.

But when I’m deciding to invest time reading a book, I don’t want to commit to reading (much less buying) multiple books if I don’t know I already like it. It’s a bit like agreeing to a first date and then having the other person ask you what kind of house the two of you should live in and how many kids you want to have; geez, buddy, I’m not ready for that kind of commitment!

And so it really pisses me off to get to the end of a book and only then find out it’s only Book 1 of a trilogy. Because that tells me that not only could you not fit a whole tale in a book-sized package, but you figured you needed to trick me into reading it, and then hope you’d hooked me into shelling out for two more books just to find out what happened next.

Not going to happen, hopeful author. I stopped caring about the characters right there and then.

John Scalzi glees over the fact that Proposition 8, the California initiative to destroy same-sex marriages will, quite accurately, be titled “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry”. Since, you know, it actually takes a right that currently exists and will eliminate it. One of the spokesperson for a group that supports this amendment complains that the language is “inflammatory” and “unduly prejudicial”. (The latter phrase, by the way, is lawyer-speak for “would be bad for me.”) They want something completely uninformative and misleading, like “Marriage” or “Rules Regarding Marriage”, something that suggests a column in Ladies’ Home Journal rather than an effort to forcibly end existing marriages because they involve icky queer people.

If you think this is nuts, remember that the Prop 8 supporters are trying to pretend that kindergartners will have to be told that same-sex marriage is the same as ‘traditional marriage’. I imagine next they’ll argue that if Prop 8 doesn’t pass, it will be legal for gay people to drown adorable kittens.

There is some tedious debate going on in the Scalzi thread from people who insist it’s possible to be against same-sex marriage and not be a bigoted assjack. Well, yes, as lawyers say, anything’s possible. I can think of a couple of non-bigoted explanations: you’re an activist who feels that all marriage is wrong and should be abolished; or, you’re a complete brain-dead moron who hasn’t given enough thought to the issue to understand that bigotry is involved.

Outside of that, yep, you’re a bigoted assjack. No, a visceral reaction to gay anal sex, or the fact that your religion doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, or some blather about “judicial activism” (dogwhistle for “result liberals like”) are not exemptions. Pretty soon, people with those opinions will be regarded the way civilized people regard those who thought of black/white marriages as “miscegenation”. Isn’t that a wonderful legacy?

Although I suppose cockroaches aren’t much concerned about their legacy. Just about getting back under that nice, dark rock.

“Free-marketers” are not really about a free market. That ethos is a tool to excuse the flaws in a system set up by people who are rich or hope to become so, to be quietly set aside when it turns around to bite the wielder–as does from time to time, but we can’t have that, can we? Market corrections are fine when they put blue-collar workers out on the street, but God forbid the executives of an investment firm have a drop in their 401(k) plans.

It’s to be expected, but the real grind-mythago’s-ass feature is the duckspeak they employ to try to pretend they’re doing something other than spending everyone’s money to protect their own. Yes, Henry Paulson, I’m looking at you and your “Recent market conditions are an exception from the norm. At this time, the Federal Reserve’s recent action should be viewed as a precedent only for unusual periods of turmoil” blathering.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if a Paulson-equivalent stood up and said “Jesus, people, we have the power to stop the money bleed; you think we’re going to sit here and let our stock holdings go down the tubes?” At least in public. You know that’s exactly what they tell each other in private.