BARBARians Go Beserkely

Thirsty anyone? 

It's that time again for Bay Area Resident Bloggers and Readers to eat drink and make merry. The Jupiter in Berkeley is across the street from the central Berkeley BART station.

I'm thinking Wednesday, April 13, at 6pm would be a good time to meet (it leaves enough time for those who wait to the last minute to do their taxes).

I't more of a beer church than a full service bar, so what do you think?

That'll Teach Franken to Mess With Horowitz

Because he's mad at Al Franken for "gratuitously" referring to him as a racist, David Horowitz is posting Franken's picture on the home page of FrontPageMag.com with the word "Racist" printed across his face until Franken publicly apologizes to Horowitz for this characterization. I've got other beefs with Horowitz and haven't given much thought to whether he's a racist or not, but I've got to wonder at how successful this little snit of his will be in eliciting an apology from Franken. Except for those of us who, like school children on an outing to the zoo, wander over from World o' Crap to view the wingnuts in their pens, I can't imagine there are too many people who visit FPM who don't already share Horowitz's opinion of Franken. Does Horowitz think Franken is going to feel shame that these mouth breathers think (used very loosely in this context) poorly of him?

Wendy's Chili Con Carne Humano

You have probably already heard this about the Human Finger Found in Fast Food Chili

A woman who ordered chili at a San Jose Wendy's Restaurant found a cooked human finger in her bowl.

The Wendy's on Monterey Highway was still open Thursday while the Santa Clara County Health Department investigated. But officials there said it was definitely a human finger -- complete with a long manicured fingernail -- and it probably did not come from a Bay Area Wendy's employee.

Well that's a relief, for Wendy's employees. You gotta' hand it them that no one got nailed.

We have no evidence of any accident within the employees at the facility itself," said Ben Gale of the Santa Clara County Health Department. "We've asked everybody to show us they have ten fingers and everything is OK there."

The incident came to light about 7:20pm Wednesday, when the woman called 911.

"Initially she did put this object in her mouth and did bite down on it," said Dr. Marty Fensterscheib of the Santa Clara County Health Department. "Initially, she was a bit grossed out ... and vomited a number of times.

Well, of course she vomited. After all, she just stuck a finger down her throat.

The fingerprint is mutilated, but officials believe there might be enough there to run the print through a national computer to try to find the owner. The finger has jagged edges, which means it was likely lacerated by a machine -- possibly a meat grinder.

I hope they use a digital computer and consult experts in the digital sector. They may also want to check with the meat grinding packing companies that supply Wendy's. However, matching the finger print could be difficult if the person is not a criminal or not an immigrant who got their finger scanned recently at the airport. It's just a thought, but, maybe they should be searching for a missing person.

I hope this woman's lawsuit makes it to court before Tort Reform is passed because, otherwise, Wendy's could just give her the finger...

Tornados in the Bay Area?

The local news is reporting that a tornado possibly touched down in South San Franciso. The reason the say possibly is they need to investigate if there are swirl marks on the ground. Weird!?!

Now if had hit a trailer park there would be no doubt...

Barbarian Librarian

I think the world needs to see more of the Barbarian Librarian. Whaddya' think?

BARBARian Makes the WaPo

BARBARian John, of Blogenlust received a mention in Howard Kurtz's Washington Post Media Matters column this morning:

The creatively named Blogenlust scoffs at the recent Condi speculation:

"Despite the anticipatory exuberance of Matt Drudge, et. al., the talk about Rice's political career is not only premature, but also fantasy. Leaving aside for a moment the numerous examples of her incompetence , the cold, hard fact of the matter is that Rice is unmarried, and in today's political climate, that will not fly for a Republican candidate for President. I can already hear the whisper campaign coming out of her more conservative primary opponents: 'Psst . . . you know why Rice is unmarried, right?' Should it matter that Rice has never married? Of course not. Would it matter? You bet.

"However, this does bring up a more important point about the early reality of the 2008 campaign: The Republicans do not have an heir apparent to run. This could be a big vulnerability for the Democrats to exploit since the Republicans will have to spend a lot of money and energy beating each other up, particularly if the conservative wing goes to war with the moderate wing (which I suspect it will).

"For better or for worse, the Democrats have two or three 'heir apparents' in Kerry, Edwards, and Clinton."

Check it out, then check out John's site (with the fetching new banner graphic!). It's one of my daily stops and always worth the time.

Stop Fake News!

Here's a site that needs to be publicized: Stop Fake News. What with the continued churning out of propaganda by the White House -- not to mention the whole Guckert-Gannon fiasco -- and now White House lawyers advising the Bush administration to ignore Governement Accountability Office memos citing the practice as illegal, it's time for someone to put the hammer to these arrogant bastards and let them know that just because they say it's okay doesn't mean that it really is okay.

Hey, and while they're at it, why don't they do something about the other illegal practices this administration is engaged in, like torture and extraordinary rendition, lying in order to go to war, lowering the standards for cleaning up pollution while claiming to "upgrade" the environment, and so on and so on and so on...?

That Explains It

Possibly the reason Roger Ailes (not the evil one) doesn't attend BARBARian gatherings: "...meeting people from the internet is a good way to get yourself skinned and hung from the rafters of an abandoned farmhouse."

I don't suppose our collective name does much to allay that fear.

At the Gates

Barbarbian Bashlet Report

Last Thursday evening the weather was stunning, so we sat outside and quaffed quantities of beer at the Pacific Brewwing Co. in Oakland. We had a few new faces and and few no-shows. Go read the account by Generik who was live-blogging the evening.

Also, see what Paperwight and Hal at Hellblazer had to say about the night.

I think our next meetup should be in Berkeley in a place with a full-service bar. Anyone got a suggestion???

It's Time To Act Like We Give a Damn

In a very brief post in my own blog the other day, I wrote:

The wankers at Powerline, addressing the Supreme Court's Roper v Simmons decision, write, their words dripping with angst, "Maybe the offending Justices don't really care about whether the Court is perceived as legitimate."

Like that's a new problem.

In the comments to that post, Karl Maher wrote,

“ I agree. Us wankers should stop complaining and impeach Justice Kennedy.”

Mr. Maher links to other blogs and websites that agree with him.

While I am happy with the outcome of the Roper decision, a narrowing of the circumstances under which the death penalty can be imposed, I agree that it’s kind of sloppy. I don’t think that even in conjunction with other decisions it would merit impeachment of Justice Kennedy, but I can understand that people might view that as an appropriate response. It's an overreaction on their part, but not hysterically so. It’s an acceptable, though extreme, view to take in various debates, including the role of Supreme Court Justices in our government, lifetime tenure of Federal Judges, and the role of the court in our society.

I bring this up here at all only because in my original post I linked to the court’s Bush v Gore decision, a decision with far more profound consequences than Roper and far less legitimate legal underpinnings. Though defended by some Republican partisans, it was widely, and rightfully so, decried as the worst piece of partisan hackery to ever spew forth from the court’s chambers. Vincent Bugliosi, as well as others, went so far as to call it a treasonous coup. And yet, unless I missed it, there was no widespread cry to impeach Scalia, Rehnquist, et al. Why do you suppose that is?

Is it because we didn’t think the gravity of the miscarriage of justice great enough to justify impeachment? I don’t think that’s it; few of the Court’s decisions have had or could have a more profound result. Did those of us who disagreed with it believe it was a bad decision, but not a deliberately bad one? Oh my gosh, no. It was pretty clear that even the majority knew how bad the decision was, going so far as to attempt to keep it from being cited as a precedent.

Is it because we knew that an impeachment attempt would fail? Probably that had something to do with it, and such an attempt most certainly would have failed, but so what? Pursuing an impeachment attempt would have allowed us a chance to air our grievances.

It’s seems to me that the main reason there wasn’t a greater, more prolonged outcry against the decision was because the Democrats didn’t want to be viewed as whiners, at least not more than we already were being viewed as such. The Republicans and conservative pundits shook their head and clucked their tongues and told us to get over it and we went home and kicked the dog and pretended to get over it, letting the Republicans steal the White House. This works against us almost every time. The Republicans have all the power now and still cry about being an oppressed minority, with no ill effect on them in the public’s perception and no worry that it will, but the Democrats, who really are in the minority and out of power constantly fret about this. We worry about being too strident or too plaintive, always trying to achieve just the right balance between dignity and indignation in our tone. Whenever we hear that a Dean, or a Pelosi, or a Boxer is being too strident, the rest of our party “leaders” run for cover, out of fear that the whole party will be seen as extreme, leaving the individuals who spoke out exposed. We can’t do that anymore. When someone like Boxer speaks out against nominations like Rice and Gonzales the rest of the party and the pundits need to provide her with cover. When we get mad, we need to respond like we’re mad. When we get kicked to the curb, we need to come up swinging.

There’s been a lot of soul searching since the election about what the Democrats want to be seen as standing for. Deciding whatever that is (and it would be nice if we resolve this some time soon) will only be half the battle. We also have to show that we actually care about, that we are passionate about those things we stand for. We don’t have to be Zell-Miller-bat-shit-crazy passionate, but we need to abandon the desire to be seen as moderate and even-tempered. That just isn’t getting us anywhere.