Technorati.  I used to know how to guage the changes of my supposed “Authority” with technorati.  A fall in numbers from, say 16 down to 12, meant that the year had lapsed since the British Telegraph linked to a blog post here about how John Edwards was kind of a fraud as a way of buttressing the contention that John Edwards was a total fraud.  A rise upward from there to 20 was a demonstration that a batch of spam blogs, splogs, had swallowed up a link to here.  A fall downward a bit later meant that technorati had gotten around to weeding those splots out.

They’ve revamped their “authority” numbers — I think twice since.  The current configuration — I don’t get.  I’ve been watching my number.  It’s fallen one day by a single point.  Then it’s risen the next by a single point.  And that has been the pattern.  Based on what linkage, based on what minute trafficking, based on what factors — I do not know.  Maybe it comes from simply my patterns in looking my site up at technorati — I don’t know.  Consult this, and all what I know is I’m down there — as is to be expected, not lighting it up at the 1000 maximum range.

Not that I care all that much.  It’s just a curiosity.

Beats the Hell out of me.

In the poll, 59 percent say they now support allowing “homosexuals” to serve in the U.S. military, including 34 percent who say they strongly favor that. Ten percent say they somewhat oppose it and 19 percent say they strongly oppose it.

But the numbers differ when the question is changed to whether Americans support “gay men and lesbians” serving in the military. When the question is asked that way, 70 percent of Americans say they support gay men and lesbians serving in the military, including 19 percent who say they somewhat favor it. Seven percent somewhat oppose it, and 12 percent strongly oppose it.

We’re okay with gay and lesbian people, just not homosexual people.
Are people reading odd quirks and qualities of “fey”ness and “queens” into the word “homosexual” where we aren’t “gay and lesbian”?

Okay, I turn to this history lesson for answers.

Generally, the terms ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ are seen as being less laden with negative implications than ‘homosexual’. The term ‘gay’ is used to describe both homosexual men and lesbian women but has become particularly associated with homosexual men. Its derivation is unclear but may come from the nineteenth century French slang for a homosexual man ‘gaie’. Throughout the last century it has been used as a sort of code word between homosexual men.

However, in the late fifties and sixties it came into everyday use in association with the struggle for gay rights. In this context the word ‘gay’ came to represent, as it does now, a word with no negative connotations but associated with a positive and proud sense of identity. Nowadays, the term ‘lesbian’ is used in relation to homosexual women and is derived from Lesbos, the name of the Greek island on which the lesbian poet Sappho lived in antiquity. In the past homosexual women have been called ‘Sapphist’ (again after Sappho).³ ‘Straight’ is used to describe heterosexual people and is an equivalent term to ‘gay’.⁴

Hm.  So some people might think of “gay” people as actually being unironically happy in disposition — no thoughts on sexual orientation.   Can we get this thing cut into age groups to see if the variance amongst older age groups is greater than the variance within younger age groups?

And so.  Apparently Conan’s contract did indeed stipulate 11:30 (or 11:35, rather) slot.

There have been arguments for and against, but a revelation from The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Conan O’Brien’s contract for ‘The Tonight Show’ did specify the 11:35 time slot. It’s good to know that Conan did, in fact, learn from David Letterman’s mistakes.  The only leg NBC had to stand on was the belief that Conan’s contract did not specify the time. It didn’t, but only in a 2004 amendment to an original 2002 contract (which makes it a seven year wait, not five). It was assumed by all parties that the amendment supporting the wording in the original article. NBC, being evil, tried to take advantage of this. Truth was the first casualty of the Second Late Night War.

All this time we’d heard that the network would not be punished for a 12:00 slot, supposedly stuck in the slot to work around the occasional sports events.  But this all explains why Conan walked away with roughly the amount his contract obligated him in the event that the network canned him.  The great mysteries of the “Late Night War 2010″… solved.

Meanwhile, “The Tonight Show with Conan O’brien” has been utterly scrubbed from the Internet.  Now I was expecting this from NBC’s website and hulu, but I am a bit taken aback from the clips removal from youtube.  Old Late Night clips remain on youtube.  Apparently not for that long, though — I see notes that NBC is planning on scrubbing those stray Late Night clips — more concerted than Letterman.
Pretty soon, the 16 and a half year NBC career of Conan O’brien will be a strange underground sensation.  Or, maybe as the years go by NBC will let up — I have to wonder if the Internet were as it is now back in 1993 if they’d take the same scapel they are to Conan but aren’t to Letterman and take a hardline against Letterman.

Interesting to note Letterman appears to be ready to bear, I guess feeling a competitive desire to beat Leno in his second chance.

Letterman’s bookers have put out the call, celebrities, if you sit down with Leno, don’t call us, we’ll call you.  Right now  it’s off limits to any cross over  guest for the Late SHOW with David Letterman.

This may be good news for the viewers, these shows have turned into late night info commercials ,  guests promoting their books ,films or any other  services  they are pitching. […]

The same actors and actress just doing the rounds, the networks are giving us nothing in return, maybe this will force David and Jay to retrench and get with it, and now for something completely different.  […]

Oh, for the love of lard…
Actually hereabouts you get to a crux of a matter with these late night talk shows.  One advantage the 12:30 programs have over the 11:30 programs is a generally more interesting guest list.  Ed Koch, a default regular guest-list of the early Conan years, is a more interesting personality than, say, Harrison Ford.  And these days, Letterman has guarded himself completely from the possibility of another Madonna interview.  His formula has been winded down to the pre-pared “Anecdote #1, Anecdote #2, Anecdote #3, plug your project.”  Oh, for More interesting guests.

Nonetheless, Dave is cleaning up in the ratings.  In the absence of any competition.  Looks like he’ll rise again.

About a week ago, I watched the two shows — Dave and Conan, clicking back between the two.  Conan’s was, of course, a rerun — from just after the NBA Championship — Kobe Bryant was a guest.  The post-monolouge bit was nothing particularly outstanding — a mildly amusing example of what you get in this format of “grind something out 5 episodes a week; go to whatever well you can find” — he ran out to the studio back lot and set up  a giant discarded statue on the stage.  The strange tenants of late night — the show is the show, you’re filling a schedule.  Before NBC scrubbed all presence of Conan from hulu, I picked about and shifted through the seven months of material.  There was Pee Wee Herman.  Norm Macdonald was worth his few interviews — apparently Macdonald was ready to serve as a go-to-guest.  But I’m tending to stray toward the comedy bits in these things.

Hey!  Tonight is the final broadcast of such a thing as “The Tonight Show with Conan O’brien”.  I remain convinced that as we become more fractured in terms of entertainment options, in the years ahead, the networks will look back at Conan’s disappointing ratings as high ratings.

After talking to the gathering that was “more John Birch than John Adams“…

… Notes scribbled on hand…

… at both the “Tea Party Gathering” and the exclusive interview on Fox News — facilitated in part, I guess, because she is employeed by Fox News…

… just like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee — two other candidates floating about the Republican presidential nomination fight…

… after making a ruckus about Rahm Emanuel’s private use of the word “retard”…

… and it doesn’t take too long to roll through the debris of her political allies on talk radio to find prominent voices using the word “retard”…

… Defend it as she shall because Limbaugh is a “satirist”…

… unlike David Letterman, when he said the same stupid joke as Jay Leno had about another member of her family…

… the daughter who is, voluntarily, a public figure, unlike the unvoluntary public figure special needs child — who’d most certainly be better off outside the spotlight…

… I suppose Don Imus counts as a “satirist” as well, asking if the Fox News interview would take place with Sarah Palin in his “lap”…

… the hand written notes defendedby Fox News as a sign of “folksiness”…

… We don’t need those fancy 4 by 5 note-cards…

… likewise, the odd politically correct “retard” reference double standard accepted…

… the actual noteworthy sound-byte coming out of Ms. Palin is the phrase “hopesy changey stuff”…

… which I take to mean that there’s a contingent of her electorate who knows what this confusing sign is getting at, and can answer it with “yes”…

… I see that the mystery of the sign has been answered.  It’s “pro” Bushies.  Though, the message remains that rorschach test… which, I don’t think quite works in their favor…

… Did Palin break any new ground in terms of policy?…

… waiting for Emanuel’s apology to his erstwhile political allies…

Looking over the coverage of the new controversy over a negative allusion to “Tea Party Protests” being in Captain America…

… the focal point from your “newsbusters” and such seem to hit around wondering why Captain America isn’t fighting the Nazis anymore?

One striking point.

In issue No. 602 of Captain America, “Two Americas, Part One,” the title hero and The Falcon, a black superhero from New York City, stumble upon a protest rally in Boise, Idaho. They see scores of protesters carrying signs that say “Stop the Socialists!” and “Tea Bag The Libs Before They Tea Bag YOU!”

Captain America says the protest appears to be an “anti-tax thing,” and The Falcon jokes that he likely would not be welcomed into the crowd of “angry white folks.” […]

He also disputed the insinuation that the growing movement lacks diversity.

“The Tea Party movement has been very reflective of broad concerns of all Americans,” Johns said. “Membership is across ethnic, religious and even political lines.”

Let’s… um… be real.  Running over to this recent image of a Tea Party demonstration, I don’t see one single black person!

I’m mildly annoyed by the controversy that focuses on the “Tea BagThe Libs before they Tea Bag You” sign when maybe the “No Govt In My Medicare” sign makes them look worse for wear.  Anyway, I’m pretty sure the “Tea Bag the Libs” sign is an act of agent provacateuring, and not an actual protester.  That’s part of the story, right?

The look at the “Local Color” of Boise, Idaho being featured is the more interesting bit of commentary.

But, Captain America has falling, and is calling for your help.  Then again, that one suffers from the same anti-patriotitism — anti-American Exceptionalism –, and would get the same aggrivation.

I’m just waiting for Captain America to meet up with his new arch nemesis: Orly Taitz.

If you consider that Madison Avenue buys our hopes and dreams at a low price and sells them back to us at an inflated price…

… or, I guess, the Superbowl ads tell us about our culture’s psyche, perhaps.

We like to hit to the ground older women.  Betty White goes down.  That college football star’s mom goes down.
Men can’t find their pants.  Also we’re desperate for various consumer products to compensate for a deflated sense of self.
The Green Police are coming.  Also, building houses out of beer cans somehow makes sense in an environmental sustainable way.
We will make babies into adults, and have teddy bears partying down in Vegas.

All righty then.

Focus on the Family released that humdrum ad, sticking close to CBS network guidelines.  The odd focus by some conservative commentary and polical cartoonists misses the point of the ire.  Shocked by this display of Focus on the Family vaguely alluding to an anti-abortion advocacy — what after seeing the latest tedious godaddy ad that invites everyone to their website for what they seem to suggest will be some soft core porn displays.  Actually the controversy of issue advocacy stems from past nays– a year or two ago the Church of Christ offered up an ad promoting their “inclusiveness” suggesting that they accept the gays.  This year, the comparison gets to be the gay dating site which was shot down…

… though weirdly enough, the allusion to the gays came in to that ad.
So it’s Meghan Fox wondering if sending a photograph of herself and a lot of her skin — in a bubble bath — over the Inter tubes would cause any effect.  I suppose I should mention that if you google image “Meghan Fox”, you will find more risque images than that offered with this ad.  Forgetting that, and supposing for a moment a spanking new image of Meghan Fox will — say– distract a heterosexual guy holding a ladder for someone, and cause a great crash…

… Why does this cause a commotion between the gay couple?  Is this another male fantasy, akin to the idea that all women have great Lesbian desires (see, clips from the Meghan Fox movie “Jennifer’s Body”) — that all gay men are secretly heterosexual?  If so, what does that bring us? — the former fantasy at least brings us something.

In short, the Superbowl ads show that we are a sad, sick culture, and the male demographic age 18 through … 45, let’s say … is lost somewhere.

Maybe the Letterman – Leno ad shows us something about our desire for Reconciliation.  But even that is a false message — looking through the comments section in the media pieces about that ad, I see references to “Now if only the Democrats and Republicans were paying attention” — an incoherent sentiment never really rewarded which tends to get parties rolled.

The Simpsons had a topical enough ad.  Too bad I can’t really remember what the ad was for.

And congratulations to the team that won the game.  My interest in sports is waning — not quite where I was at the age of, oh say 12, but…

It is that time of year when I see a number of odd self-congratulatory pieces about not watching The Big Game.

Most people on the globe aren’t watching the Big Game.  It doesn’t really make you special.  Nor, really, is there that much pressure on the watching of the Big Game.

Mike Dice is leading an effort to get people not to watch the Big Game.  Instead, he wants everyone to read his reading list of Bilderburg Group books and watch Alex Jones films on the Internet.

I don’t think his effort is going to get too far.  Even people who want to read Bilderburg Group books and watch Alex Jones films on the internet would be doing so sometime or other.

I was not going to watch the Superbowl, until I learned that the league was going to mix things up a bit.  This year, they’re going to randomly shift around the teams, just to get it back to the Backyard Playground Basics of football.  So it will be a match-up between the Caints and the Solts.  My money was on the Caints — Peyton Manning plays for the Caints and he’s awesome — until I learned that this will be a “Skins” versus “Shirts” game, and that the Solts will be running around with all the protected uniform while the Caints won’t be wearing anything above their waist.  I expect the Caints to have a long list of injuries before the first quarter is up.

From comments section of a page I link below.
Isn’t LaRouche dead yet? — Posted by You Look Like I Need A Drink!
And yet.  Here I am again.  Indefatiguable.  Looking at the Pechenuks, the Howie Gs.  Sorting through the margin.  Searching for meaning where there just might be no meaning.

Item the First.  Some chaos in Illinois.  The Democratic Gubernatorial candidate finds himself with an unwelcome lieutenant gubernatorial candidate.

This, I think, is a serious flaw in the Illinois electoral system.  Fluke and unwelcome nominations happen all the time in these United States — i’s just that they’re disregarded relatively easily, even if they screw up one or the other party’s plans.  I can point to two examples in 2008 of state wide nominations for the US Senate.  Perennial hobby candidate Bob Kelleher won the Republican Senate nomination in Montana, meaning the fifteenth time was the charm after a bi-annual placing on the ballot as Democrat and Green.  To believe his selection was not a fluke is to believe Montana Republicans cottoned to his platform of socialized health care, a European parliamentary system, and banning Abortion.  In reality, his nomination was basically about the same as the 1986 Illinois Democratic nominations of two nutcase Larouchies for State Treasurer and Lieutenant Governor — the two state legislators vying for the nomination (and popping up on the NRSC website) had low name recognition, and to the extent that they were known had high disapprovals within a low impact election — Kelleher, meanwhile, had developed an unconcious name familiarity from his frequent appearance on the ballot (the “Smooth names” of 1986’s Illinois duo).  The Republicans weren’t investing anything into anyone’s win, and Kelleher never made an appearance on the NRSC website.
Meanwhile, in South Carolina a man who just attached himself to the letter “D” and was keen on Ron Paul was nominated the Democrats’ candidate for the US Senate.  This race was somewhat interesting to note, because he showed up in the polls within 8 and 9 points — he of a $300 warchest against Lindsey Graham‘s entrenched millions.  He ended with a fairly predictable 15 percent margin, and I am one to believe no amount of money would have changed that result.

Meanwhile, Illinois has set up a system where a man who ekes through in a crowded field off has to run with the legitimate pol.  Perhaps this is divine retribution due to the corrupt nature of said “legitimate pol”s — the indicted  George Ryan, the indicted Governor Rod Blagojevich.

So, the reprise of 1986.

Former U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson — who formed a third party to run for governor in 1986 rather than share the same ticket as two disciples of Lyndon H. LaRouche — said Gov. Quinn faces the same political reality in dealing with running mate Scott Lee Cohen.

“It would be very difficult for Pat Quinn, in good conscience, to run for governor with this fellow tied to him as if they’re joined at the hip,” Stevenson told the Sun-Times today.

“One answer is to do what I did, namely to resign the nomination and run as an independent with a different lieutenant governor candidate,” he said. “Of course, they can try to talk [Cohen] out of it, but I’m skeptical as to whether that would work.”

Stevenson, who won the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1986, formed the Solidarity Party rather than run with a LaRouche-backed lieutenant governor candidate, Mark Fairchild.

Stevenson wound up losing the general election to Republican Gov. James Thompson, who got 1.65 million votes to the 1.25 million that went to Stevenson and his Solidarity Party candidacy. Another 208,830 votes were cast for the Democratic governor’s slot that Stevenson vacated.

Of course, Adlai Stevenson III went on to lose that race.  (And really — isn’t there something about considering here “Adlai Stevenson III” somehow show the problem and indictment of how large numbers of someones might roll past the establishment picks and settle for the protest candidate they’ve never heard of?)  But, I guess Stevenson lost with integrity instead of losing with a cult.

Let’s now turn to Gerald Pechenuk’s alternative universe of events — and I would like to know on what planet does he spend his days?

Just think.  One departure was missed in parallel universes of how Larouche might have been brought to power, but for the exacting influence of Paul Simon and his British legions!  (But.  Wait.  Didn’t he have oh so much influence in the Clinton administration?)  OR… To rebut on the main thrust of his suggestion, turn to the Stevenson comment story.

Item the Second.

I may as well mention there that I was going to pull out David Duke’s two Republican nominations in Louisiana in the early 1990s as an example for Item the First, but upon consideration, I have to conclude that sadly those weren’t really “flukes”.  The electorate that selected Duke knew roughly what they were doing.

Meanwhile, the Tea Party Convention started with this throw-back to the days of Jim Crow.

Item the Third.  Digging through the comments relating to Henry Gasparian , the 70+ year old who slapped some Larouche members upset at their Hitler signs…

… I’m mostly unimpressed.  But it’s worth pointing at for Pechenuk, who seems to think Larouche is making strides with the youth (You might actually have to read some of Mr. Larouche and actually think, for a change, and then SEE what world leaders, including people in the US, SEE in Larouche, and SEE what the young people SEE in LaRouche, because your old SORE ASS smart aleck bullshit don’t count for a nickel, any more…..), the comments and poll at the Stranger.  Beyond that generic mention, I throw out this comment.

Basically, but not entirely.  I’ve seen that sentiment expressed in that way, have posted it before.  There’s slightly more, of course — wade through the anti-semitism ( “Hey!  Isn’t Jeffry Steinberg Jewish?”) — and I’d be remiss if I didn’t go ahead and link to  Dennis King linking to “earnest one” on his brother’s — Jonathan Tennenbaum – culpability in covering up on the death of Jeremiah Duggan.

Down a ways, I see the more partisan hackery and shallow mention of “inconvenient truth to the ‘Leftists’!  Larouche is a DEM!”  Bleh.  I suppose I should mention I sliced off the last sentence of the “marketing scam” comment to evade the stink bomb throwing.
[(Good luck to these people.  They’re wasting their time.]
It appears from this LPAC release that the Larouche org is poised to make hay, for internal consumption, a rallying arouallying with the Republican Party to defeat “Obama Corruption”…. see the final paragraph, which quotes the RNC.

Item the Fourth.  The Seattle Times article comments include a couple of youtube videos — one of the SNL skit and the other a 1980 anti-environmentalist ad.    LINKS here  and here.  I high-light a few interesting and bemusing comments.  And you can play along at home with the game “Larouche Zombie, actively anti-Larouche, or amused passively anti-Larouche?)

plasticman1973  LOL, it’s funny and it sounds outrageous for those who don’t know the facts. I like the queen preparing the heroine though. Kissinger a homo? lol.

azezel2311  He does like to ramble. Scary thing is we seem to be on the same mindset. Minus the british empire. The brits could actually drive positive change if they wanted to. You just have to give them something new to go after. Something that they would have to build others up for in order to stand on them and get there…. Have we found that planet that is half gold and half diamond yet?

kappy0405 yup – kissinger and david rockefeller are just a few of the people who speak OPENLY about pop reduction. Leave it to SNL to ignore facts and cater to the Fox News/CNN mindset. :rolleyes:
Oh well, people ARE finally are waking up. 😉 (… And it only took 24 years…)

kanalje  this is amazing in a weird way. It’s like they are doing his bidding with this parody. It is not unlike the parody style of larouchies.
unityrover  Come for the Larouche, stay for the DANZA!!!

Trapster99 Well, I believed in all the lies said about Larouch, until I did a little research and found this great man’s mind.
He is a modern day Ben Franklin.
Want to solve most of America’s problems, right now?
Build 100 brand new, state of the art, high temprature Pebble Bed nuclear reactors (2 in each state).
That will employ 2 million people directly and indirectly. It will solve a host of environmental problems and it will make energy cheep across the land.
3 Mi Island was sabotaged.

terpis Hard to figure why a slick ad like that didn’t do the trick.

ITEM THE FIFTH.  Call me crazy, but I tend to think Obama will likely win a second term.  If you’re wondering about the qualifiers, it’s because I’m not setting such a prediction in stone.  Also his party will suffer significant losses in the mid-term elections.  That is the norm, the electorate that voted in the candidate falls back as somehow the magic pixie dust doesn’t alleviate all that ails them, and the electorate that voted against them steps forward and entrenches themselves.  There are things the in-party can do to shrink their losses, and things they can do to increase their losses — the Democrats appear to have gone the latter route.  I could go on and explain some things about the purely politikal plusses and minuses of Republican positioning, but this is losing focus.

Now, I’m reading through this sort of predictable and cyclical mess from LPAC and associates to… what? End the Obama Presidency somehow or other?  A few asides tossed in, and I thought I saw a floating of the “British may axe him” thing.

I caught ol Rush Limbaugh muttering about Hillary Clinton shifting up a run against this oh-so-wholly broken Obama Administration.  It’s an item mostly pulled out his arsh, but it’s a meme that I  see floated about every so often.   Being make-believe Clintonistas, I expect to see LPAC releases to that effect sooner or later, based on supposed insider information.

But it also occurs to me, recalling the 2008 nominating fight, fully behind Clinton was the Larouche organization.  The nominating battle fell to this stasis where every single state contest result was easily forecasted right through the end.  And it was there that LPAC commented on the results of Oregon and Wast Virginia, incongruently (go down the batch of Larouche PUMA material in the comments section here).

Despite the desperate assertions and wishful thinking of the pundits, as well as of the Obama campaign, that the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination is all but over, voters in both Kentucky and Oregon turned out to vote in large numbers on May 20, delivering another landslide victory for Hillary Clinton in Kentucky. In Oregon, although Barack Obama won (as expected), he did so with a far narrower gap between himself and Mrs. Clinton than had been projected.

Steam-rolling ahead, I guess, somewhere beyond Hillary’s talking points.  This made no sense — the totals were roughly what was expected.
This wraps back around to the 2010 mid-term elections, which Larouche Inc is gearing up with as part of a “mass strike”, because their post-election release won’t differ much whether the Democrats lose 2 Senate Seats and 2 House Seats, or lose 10 Senate Seats and 50 House seats.

 Incidentally, as I see Larouche drop a pile on Obama’s NASA mission plans — I guess in concert with the election campaign of Keesha Rogers– I note that Buzz Aldrin has his back.

Also, they’re scouting out for Gold Bugs here.