New Australian Word: Stoush

Found in this news story:

Former jockey Allan Robinson says he'll do everything he can to ensure John Singleton "won't go down" in the fallout of the stoush between the millionaire racehorse owner and trainer Gai Waterhouse.

 (This is a bis story in Australia right now. I'm not much interested in it—so there you go.)

This site from ABC News Radio (root) says stoush - pronounced "stowsh" - goes back to the late 19th century:

There was a time when “stoush” (meaning “fight”) was a very common piece of Aussie slang.

But does anyone still say "stoush"?

Stoush was both a noun and a verb: to stoush someone was to bash them or fight them, while a fight was called a stoush. It probably had its highest currency in the late 19th early 20th centuries. In typical Aussie fashion the Great War of 1914-18 was called “the big stoush”. The earliest citation is from a report in the Bulletin in 1893. The source of the word remains a mystery, but the English Dialect Dictionary records a somewhat similar word “stashie” meaning “uproar” or “quarrel”. So stoush may have started life as an English dialect word that immigrated, changed, and then lived on here while it died out back in the British Isles. 

Similar: blue - fight or argue ("She was having a blue with her husband.")

Extra: The Scottish word "stooshie," carrying a similar definition, might come from the Aussie "stoush."

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Mr. Bean the Chihuahua

Work is hard:

"Do U-Turn Believe in Miracles?!"

D'oh!

Famed NBC sportscaster Al Michaels' was arrested on drunk-driving allegations after making a U-turn next to a DUI sobriety checkpoint, officials said.

A longtime announcer on NBC's "Sunday Night Football," Michaels was arrested about 10 p.m. Friday in Santa Monica, booked into jail and released on his own recognizance early Saturday.

Michaels is scheduled to appear in L.A. Municipal Court at 8:30 a.m. June 26.

Do you believe...!!!!  (Video.)

Two Shots: On the Veranda; From the Veranda

On the veranda:

From the veranda:

Note: The black and brown things in the first photo are shark eggs.

Glenn Beck Still Pushing Saudi as Boston Bomber

Beck has actually given the U.S. government until Monday to "come clean." "I don't bluff," he says.



People actually listen to and shape their lives around this guy. So hard to comprehend.

More here.

Missing Ive League Student Sunil Tripathi and Boston Events

Update III: And a body found in Providence Harbor has been identified as Sunil Tripathi. Just tragic.

Update II: A message from Sunil's family:

A tremendous and painful amount of attention has been cast on our beloved Sunil Tripathi in the past twelve hours.

We have known unequivocally all along that neither individual suspected as responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings was Sunil.

We are grateful to all of you who have followed us on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit—supporting us over the recent hours.

Now more than ever our greatest strength comes from your enduring support. We thank all of you who have reached out to our family and ask that you continue to raise awareness and to help us find our gentle, loving, and thoughtful Sunil. 

Update: Oy weh. I didn't write a lot, and expressed my doubts it was him, but I am sorry I even began to write anything about this.

The Atlantic: It Wasn't Sunil Tripathi: The Anatomy of a Misinformation Disaster:

In the middle of the last night's nearly unbelievable turn of events, for a few hours, hundreds of thousands of people received a message about the identity of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers that was painfully false. Word got out that the Boston Police Department scanner had declared the names of the two suspects. 

But the names that went out over first social networks and then news blogs and websites were not Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation released early this morning. Instead, two other people wholly unconnected to the case, became, for a while, two of America's most notorious alleged criminals.

This is the story, as best as I can puzzle it out, about how such bad information about this case became widely shared and accepted within the space of a couple of hours before NBC's Pete Williams' sources began telling the real story about the alleged bombers' identities.

******
Original post (pics removed):

Just saw the name Sunil Tripathi go by as one of the suspects in the Boston shootings going on tonight Marathon bombings.

Sunil Tripathi went missing from Brown University in March.

Reddit already on it.

Doesn't really look like him:

Kermit Gosnell is to Abortion as Cecil B. Jacobson is to Fertility Treatments

Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell - who is accused of truly horrific crimes allegedly committed at his abortion clinic - is on trial:

(CBS/AP) PHILADELPHIA - An unlicensed doctor fled out the back of an unorthodox medical clinic the night the FBI raided the facility in 2010, a witness testified Thursday at a murder trial centered on the location.

Abortion provider Kermit Gosnell, 72, is charged with killing a 41-year-old female patient and seven babies allegedly born alive, and with performing illegal, late-term abortions at his thriving inner-city clinic. Co-defendant Eileen O'Neill, 56, of Phoenixville, is charged with billing as a doctor and participating in a corrupt organization.

Eight former employees have pleaded guilty, some to third-degree murder, and have testified this month about bizarre, often-chaotic practices at the clinic.

The Kermit Gosnell story is almost too ugly for words, and it is, not surprisingly, being used by anti-abortion forces as an argument against abortion. But it is not about the rightness or wrongness of abortion - it is about Kermit Gosnell.

Just like Cecil B. Jacobson's story is not about the rightness or wrongess of fertility treatments - it is about  Cecil B. Jacobson:

A Federal jury today convicted an infertility specialist on 52 counts of fraud and perjury for artificially inseminating unwitting patients with his own sperm and for telling them they were pregnant when they were not.

The doctor, Cecil B. Jacobson, who could be sentenced to up to 280 years in prison and fined up to $500,000, sat impassively with his arms crossed when the jury foreman read the guilty verdicts. Sentencing was set for May 8.

After the trial, jurors said that DNA tests indicating that the doctor had fathered 15 children for his patients had convinced them that he lied about the source of the sperm. The prosecutors charged that Dr. Jacobson may have fathered as many as 75 children.

There are horrible people in the world, and some of them are doctors. It doesn't make what they practice wrong - it makes them wrong.

And as is pointed out at Salon - anti-abortion forces are trying to make access to medically safe abortions illegal. That is inarguably the core of their cause. So using Kermit Gosnell's story as an anti-abortion story is ironic in an unintentionally very ugly way.

Shop That Sold Newtown Guns: "Over 500 Violations"

Imagine being one of the parents of one of those 20 shot and killed children—and reading this:

The document states the agency inspected and found violations at Riverview in 2007, 2009, and 2011.

During the one in 2011, "the licensee committed over 500 violations," ATF documents stated.

The ATF inspection in 2011 revealed that Riverview employees:

• Allowed a man who said he was a felon to buy ammo and handle firearms.
• Let someone buy a firearm and didn't do background check until the next day.
• Sold firearms to two people without checking if they were prohibited from buying.

The ATF though did find fault with Riverview Gun Sales Owner David Laguercia, who is the federal firearms license holder.

According to ATF documents, "between September 2004 and January 2010, the licensee received 11 separate instances of instruction from the ATF regarding how to comply with federal firearms laws and regulations."

ATF document (pdf).

Beyond heartbreaking.

USAToday:

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives found more than 500 violations of federal firearms regulations at the Connecticut gun store that sold two guns found at the scene of the Newtown elementary school massacre, but didn't yank the store owner's license until after the massacre, records obtained by The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News show. [...]

The final Dec. 20 revocation notice listed more than 500 violations in all, including that Dibella, the gun store employee, sold ammunition on at least two occasions between January 2010 and July 2011 to Wilfred Hellandbrand, "whom he had reason to believe was a felon."

The Atlantic:" It Took Five Years of Violations Before the Newtown Gun Store Got Shut Down."

You have got to ask youself: How many other gun stores - how many thousands of other gun stores - have similar violation histories?

• The Newtown Action Alliance

I'm So Dumb I...

I'm so dumb I thought the Million Mom March was kind of a big celebration of the previous June.

• This has been another edition of "I'm So Dumb I..." You are welcome.

Rocky Mountain H...

Go. Giants.

Brad Paisley and LL Cool J Explain "Accidental Racist"

Oy to the friggin' weh.

LL Cool J, on the wearing of a Confederatre flag t-shirt:

“(S)ometimes I put a skull and crossbones on and, you know, my wife gets upset with me, but I’m not a pirate.”

There's more. Unfortunately.

 

Here's Ta-Nehisi Coates on this.

And please don't forget my "Live-blogging Listending to "Accidental Racist" Over and Over."

This Post Will Self Destruct in, Well, a While

Regarding this...this:

Update: Cheers, J. Cole!

Update 2: So terrible.

Only "Sodomized" "Religious" "Virgins" Should be Able to Have Abortions

I've just read this (it's a bit over a month old), and have not been able to fully absorb it yet:

During a segment about South Dakota’s bill to ban most abortions, which offers no exceptions for cases of rape or incest unless the pregnant woman’s life is in danger, state Sen. Bill Napoli (R) was asked if he could conceive of a scenario in which the exception might be invoked.

Indeed he could. “A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged,” he said. “The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”

The depth of hatred for women in that statement is almost impossible to grasp.

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Live-blogging Listening to "Accidental Racist" Over and Over

2:42 PM: Holy crap - the video has been pulled from YouTube. (Even Rolling Stone's is "removed by user." -Wednesday: It's been replaced.) See how long this one lasts. (And it's gone. Here's another, from Rolling Stone.)

And how much you wanna bet they're trying ferociously to un-release the album?

  

9:00 AM: "A proud rebel son, with an old can of worms..."

This song just gave my brain herpes.

9:01: Hearing this song means you cannot go to heaven when you die. God does not want any trace of this song in heaven.

9:04: 9 out of 10 dentists would rather smash their teeth out with a hammer than hear this song. (The other dentist listened to it and moved to North Korea. With a suitcase full of American flags.)

9:08: Rolling Stone says "Brad Paisley, LL Cool J's 'Accidental Racist' Song Raises Eyebrows." I say: Brad Paisley, LL Cool J's 'Accidental Racist' song raises the possibility that you will become a serial killer. Soon.

9:26: Sorry, I passed out for several minutes there.

9:28: "The red flag on my chest somehow is like the elephant in the corner of the South."

It's like Faulkner rose from his dusty grave! And poured gasoline on the whole world - and pulled out   his lighter...

9:30: "The red flag on my chest somehow is like the elephant in the corner of the South."

Somebody ACTUALLY THOUGHT THOSE WORDS. AND THEN WROTE THEM DOWN.

9:38: "I'm just a white man coming to you from the South land / trying to understand what it's like not to be. I'm proud of where I'm from, but not everything we've done / and it's not like you and me can rewrite history..."

Recap of song so far: "Hey black guy I'm sorry I wear this Confederate flag t-shirt that I know has racist connotations cuz I just explained that I did and I'm proud of the South but I'm not proud of the stuff that 'we' did BUT IT'S NOT MY FAULT ANYWAY IT ALL HAPPENED A LONG TIME AGO SO SHUT UP! I'm sorry. Or something."

9:46: "They called it Reconstruction, fixed some buildings, dried some tears..."

He did not just say that.

9:48: I cannot believe this song. Honestly. "Cuz I'm a white man, living in the South land..."

This song is actually purporting to speak for and explain the existence of all white men in the South.

You know who else is a "white man living in the South land"? Jimmy Carter. Pretty sure he doesn't wear Confederate flag t-shirts.

9:52: I just bit all my toes off.

9:54: LL Cool J: "Just because my pants are saggin' doesn't mean I'm up to no good."

Cuz sagging pants was once the flag of a nation that enslaved an entire race of people.

Did I get that right?

10:00: What this person said:

MAKING THE WORST FALSE EQUIVALENCIES THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN: The most poisonous of all the song’s rhetorical sins come in the coda, where Paisley and LL Cool J trade lines about making the world a better place. It’s cute, until you realize what they’re saying: “If you won’t judge my do-rag, I won’t judge your red [Confederate] flag.” In other words, LL won’t get mad about Brad sporting a symbol of white supremacy as long as Brad won’t get mad about … a random fashion choice that has nothing to do with him. Later, it gets worse: “If you forget my gold chains, I’ll forget the iron chains.” Is putting people who don’t like slavery on the same moral level as racists really worth that wordplay?

That’s the overwhelming message of the song: Yes, white southerners may have been pretty racist in the past, but as a result of that racism some people have negative feelings about the South—and isn’t that just as bad? If those people could just be less angry and forget about the racism, well then by golly, white southerners might stop being racist! For a guy who just wants to wear his Skynyrd shirt in peace, that’s a post-racial utopia worth singing about.

9:54: Another thing this song gets completely and totally wrong: A whole bunch of people who DON'T live in the South sport Confederate flag shirts and bumperstickers and whatnot. Because it really ain't all about "Southern" pride, know what I mean?

10:33: Oh man. Check this out:

Please note that Paisley, who kicks off the song with an anecdote about wearing a Confederate battle flag t-shirt to a Starbucks and describes himself in the song as "a white man/Living in the southland," is from West Virginia, a state famously birthed by the 41 Virginia counties that did not want to secede from the Union.

Paisley is actually one of the people I talked about in the last update: He's not even from the South. God God.

11:08: Via Jezebel, via Jeff in the comments: Lynyrd Skynyrd dissasociates itself with the Confederate flag.

2:57 PM: Paisley tweets a link to this, where he says, "I'm not proud that people's ancestors were beaten and held in bondage. But I am sure as heck proud of the farm I live on and the Confederate soldier buried there."

I personally don't have a problem with people having something akin to pride regarding their ancestors (although I'm not sure they're really Paisley's ancestors - they might be), even if those ancestors fought on the wrong side of a war—but saying it as a "but" phrase after, "I'm not proud that people's ancestors were beaten and held in bondage..." - is very, very weird.

Newtown Families: 60 Minutes

A whole new meaning for "must see TV":

25-year-old American Anne Smedinghoff Killed in Afghanistan

Just so tragic:

He said his daughter relished the opportunity to work directly with the Afghan people and that she volunteered to go to Kabul because she felt there was "a lot of good she could do there."

This weekend, the 25-year-old was trying to do just that -- delivering books to a school in southern Afghanistan -- when a suicide bomber smashed into her convoy Saturday. She is believed to be the first U.S. diplomat killed since the September attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Republican Utopia Discovered in Offshore Banks

This story is blowing up big:

A New York hedge fund manager allegedly swindles $12 million from a prominent Baltimore family. An Indiana couple is accused of bilking hundreds of customers by charging for free trials of cosmetic products. A financial manager in Texas promises 23-percent returns but absconds with $33.5 million of his investors’ money in a classic Ponzi scheme.

All three cases have one thing in common: money that ended up in offshore accounts and trusts set up in tax havens around the world.

They have more than one thing in common: They all have the American Republican Party written all over them.

Among the 4,000 U.S. individuals listed in the records, at least 30 are American citizens accused in lawsuits or criminal cases of fraud, money laundering or other serious financial misconduct.

This is going to be fun to watch.

JEREMY IRONS RESPONDS [update]

I started a "Jeremy Irons Apology Countdown" the other day, after Irons said something stupid and offensive in an interview with the Huffington Post when asked what he thought about gay marriage:

"It seems to me that now they're fighting for the name, and I worry that it means somehow we debase, or we change, what marriage is. I just worry about that."

But wait—there's more!

"I mean tax-wise is an interesting one because, you see, could a father not marry his son?" 

Irons has now responded—not apologized, but responded—and in what can only be described as an offensive and groveling manner. Which is quite a trick.

The full response, from JeremyIrons.net:

This response is a letter, written by Jeremy Irons, which has appeared in the British press, in response to the live chat with the Huffington Post:

I am deeply concerned that from my on line discussion with the Huffington Post, it has been understood that I hold a position that is anti gay. This is as far from the truth of me as to say that I believe the earth is flat.

I was taking part in a short discussion around the practical meaning of Marriage, and how that institution might be altered by it becoming available to same-sex partners. Perhaps rather too flippantly I flew the kite of an example of the legal quagmire that might occur if same sex marriage entered the statute books, by raising the possibility of future marriage between same sex family members for tax reasons, (incest being illegal primarily in order to prevent inbreeding, and therefore an irrelevance in non reproductive relationships). Clearly this was a mischievous argument, but nonetheless valid.

I am clearly aware that many gay relationships are more long term, responsible and even healthier in their role of raising children, than their hetero equivalents, and that love often creates the desire to mark itself in a formal way, as Marriage would do. Clearly society should find a way of doing this.

I had hoped that even on such a subject as this, where passions run high, the internet was a forum where ideas could be freely discussed without descending into name-calling.

I believe that is what it could be, but it depends on all of us behaving, even behind our aliases, in a humane, intelligent and open way

I'm sorry to say this, it being name-calling and all, but it's hard to not take from this that Jeremy Irons is dumber that a box of wet socks.

 I am deeply concerned that from my on line discussion with the Huffington Post, it has been understood that I hold a position that is anti gay. This is as far from the truth of me as to say that I believe the earth is flat.

Good! We are heartened by this opening!

Perhaps rather too flippantly I flew the kite of an example of the legal quagmire that might occur if same sex marriage entered the statute books, by raising the possibility of future marriage between same sex family members for tax reasons, (incest being illegal primarily in order to prevent inbreeding, and therefore an irrelevance in non reproductive relationships). Clearly this was a mischievous argument, but nonetheless valid.

Oy. It is nothing like "valid" to make that wholly offensive and logically stupid argument. Just for starters, as has been pointed out by me and many others, if your argument made any sense at all we should already be worried about daughters marrying fathers and sons marrying mothers for tax evasion purposes, since herterosexual marriage is in fact already and has been forever legal. (And the incest remark is just completely wrongheaded, and legally wrong, as I pointed out, with sources, for those that need them, in the other post.) That's called "doubling down" in the offensive dumbass business, and it actually make Irons' prior comments worse.

I am clearly aware that many gay relationships are more long term, responsible and even healthier in their role of raising children, than their hetero equivalents, and that love often creates the desire to mark itself in a formal way, as Marriage would do. Clearly society should find a way of doing this.

That's just embarrassing. "Gays are awesome! They're even better that straights! Please don't hurt me!" Can you grovel a little grovelier, Jeremy? (I need to add that that paragraph is at least kind in its intentions. And, well, good on him for saying it.)

I had hoped that even on such a subject as this, where passions run high, the internet was a forum where ideas could be freely discussed without descending into name-calling.

Did Jeremy Irons actually just say he hoped "the internet was a forum where ideas could be freely discussed without descending into name-calling?" Is he the dumbest person on Earth? I ask that sincerely.

I believe that is what it could be, but it depends on all of us behaving, even behind our aliases, in a humane, intelligent and open way.

Hey, my name is Thom Little! That's not an alias! That's my name! And you can go snort drain cleaner from the rim of an active volcano, you condescending, obtuse, and offensive little twit.

We look forward to an actual apology from Jeremy Irons. The countdown clock is still running.

(Note: Just noticed that Irons' post is dated April 5. How has nobody seen it until now? Whatever.)

Update: He responds once again. He's all over the place. "Gay marriage is not something I have any feelings about at all. I'm quite interested in what it does to marriage." What a wanker. And he says he doesn't know if he's a Libertarian because he doesn't what "Libertarian" means. He called himself a "Libertarian" in the original interview.

Again, Irons appears to be someone who thinks of himself as a hip, brave, out-of-the-box thinker—who's just not that bright. Dangerous and annoying combination.

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Young Man 'Freezes to Death' Making Film About Homelessness

Oy weh:

Lee Halpin, 26, was found dead in a disused hostel in Newcastle where overnight temperatures fell below -4C. Local media reported he had likely frozen to death, although the exact cause of death has not yet been determined. [...]

Halpin recorded a video describing his plan to experience street life as part of an application for a journalist position with the UK's Channel 4. 

In the video, Halpin said he hoped his willingness to sleep rough would demonstrate the "fearlessness" required by selectors for the channel's investigative journalism program.

There appears to be some kind of drug link as well. Just terrible.

This is the video he made explaining his decision to spend a week on the streets:



More here.

Two Thumbs Up to The Onion

Onions are supposed to make you tear up, right?

CHICAGO—Calling the overall human experience “poignant,” “thought-provoking,” and a “complete tour de force,” film critic Roger Ebert praised existence Thursday as “an audacious and thrilling triumph.” “While not without its flaws, life, from birth to death, is a masterwork, and an uplifting journey that both touches the heart and challenges the mind,” said Ebert, adding that while the totality of all humankind is sometimes “a mess in places,” it strives to be a magnum opus and, according to Ebert, largely succeeds at this goal.

Image from here.

U.S. Judge Strikes Down Morning-After Pill Restrictions

Good news:

A federal judge ruled Friday that the government must make the most common morning-after pill available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger. In his ruling, he also accused the federal government of “bad faith” in dealing with the requests to make the pill universally available, and said its actions had been politically motivated.

This is opposed by abortion-rights foes as a kind of abortion. It's unfortunate that this still has to be pointed out, but that is not true. A video:



A point about the anti-abortion forces that cannot be made too often: They cannot claim to be about "saving babies" or "protecting the sanctity of life" when they are also against contraception.

If you're against abortion, and you're also against contraception - and that's you, Pope and Catholic Church, as well as a lot of non-Catholic Christians in the anti-abortion forces - then you prove that this is about your religion, not about "babies." You have every right in the world to put up a fight against a woman's right to and access to abortion, however misguided I and others find it, but we should not have to put up with lies about "saving babies" or "protecting the sancity of life," when it is clearly proven by your opposition to contraception that it is not about that. This is about your religious beliefs—and how those beliefs relate to women, and what they're "supposed" to do in this world. If you'd admit that (perhaps to yourself?), we'd all be in a lot better shape.

Update: Oh for - errrg: Obama and his administration are still backing the restrictions! What the hell?

Obama is a very weird dude.

Man Shoots and Kills Chihuahua in "Self Defense"

Wow:

A 14-year-old Detroit girl is mourning the loss of her pet Chihuahua after her neighbor shot and killed it.

The teenage owner had let 1-year-old Jojo outside earlier, and went back to retrieve him when the shooting occurred.

The neighbor is claiming self-defense saying the dog charged him.

The guy was a licensed gun owner. The dog was a 1-year-old Chihuahua. It had to weigh about 5 pounds, maybe less. God almighty. That should bring charges, but it apparently did not:

Rudolph said police responded to the scene but after interviewing both the owner and the neighbor, officers concluded that he was within his right to use his firearm.

Put whatever feelings you have or don't have about the dog aside - how is it legal to discharge a firearm in a crowded neighborhood - to kill a chihuahua? Especially given that the owner was standing right there? Are we supposed to believe the guy actually believed he was in danger - to the point where he needed to defend himself with a firearm?

That is gun culture gone completely, cowardly, nuts.

The Jeremy Irons Apology Countdown [update]

Update: Irons has responded. Not apologized, but responded.

* * *

Hey, who knew, Jeremy Irons is an asshole. When asked about his feelings on gay marriage, Irons answered:

"It seems to me that now they're fighting for the name, and I worry that it means somehow we debase, or we change, what marriage is. I just worry about that."

But wait—there's more!

"I mean tax-wise is an interesting one because, you see, could a father not marry his son?" 

Um, what?

Jeremy Irons, first: In what sensible way does a question about gay marriage lead to a question about sons marrying fathers? The answer is that it makes no good sense, it makes only the obvious bad sense—it is the kind of remark so often used to slur gay people by associating them with things like incest (and bestiality).

Jeremy Irons, second: Even if we did grant you that your question is a fair and sensible one - why wouldn't you ask it about a daughter marrying her father (for tax purposes or any oher) - because heterosexual marriage is legal?

The answer to that question is that you're an asshole. An offensive and dim one, too.

So: The Jeremy Irons Apology Countdown for being a dim, offensive asshole begins right...now.

Sets watch to 10:38 a.m. on March 5, 2013, Sydney, Australia, time. 

Because as dim and offensive a dick as he is, he will of course issue an apology to stave off whatever damage the remarks might do to his repuation and career. (Tomorrow at the very latest is my guess.)

P.S. I am very certain that it is illegal to marry a member of your immediate family in both the UK and the U.S. I'll get the specific text of the specific laws just to be thorough. (Here and here: "Despite his concerns, a 2004 amendment to the Marriage Act 1949 specifically prohibits a father marrying his son and the same sex couples bill will not alter what is already enshrined in law.")

Update: Oh he is getting hammered on FaceBook.

[image]

The video:

Video: Michelle Shocked on Piers Morgan [full video]

This is just the very beginning of the interview (it's all they've put up so far).

Hard to understand why he didn't play what followed immediately after the audio of the Yoshi's show he did play:

If someone would be so gracious as to please tweet out, 'Michelle Shocked just said from stage "God hates faggots".' Would you do it now?

That came right after what Morgan aired. Why not play that?

Anyway, she defends her words by saying the audience "requested reality." As I said here, she has apparently given "reality" a new meaning. And that makes all this the audience's fault.

• More video and commentary here.

Update: Full video:



For what it's worth, her last line, "The apple tree's got some strange fruit Even Adam would not try," is from her own song, "Peachfuzz," which has the line, "...called them fags 'cause that's what they was." I don't know exactly what the song means, just wanted to note that.

Michelle Shocked on Piers Morgan Tonight at 9? [update]

TONIGHT, @mshocked speaks to @piersmorgan in an exclusive interview after her anti-gay remarks sparked nationwide outrage. She explains at 9
— Piers Morgan Live (@PiersMorganLive) April 1, 2013

Don't get your hopes up (if you had any). (She showed! See below.)

Michelle Shocked tour meltdown history:

• The cancelled shows
• Page II
• The statement
• The audio that proves she is not telling the truth in her statement.
• MS vows to show up at cancelled Santa Monica gig (she didn't)

And holy crap, she showed up at her cancelled Santa Cruz gig on Thursday:

“And suddenly she’s coming in the side door, and she’s on stage,” said Vnes. Shocked was wearing a thin white cover-all suit with a head covering, tape over her mouth and sunglasses. “She was waving this tablet around and she wanted to communicate. You could tell she was kind of frustrated.”

Vnes, Moe’s owner Bill Welch and co-producer Michael Horne of Pulse Productions were discussing how they might respond if Shocked showed when she quietly walked in the side.

There's some video of her outside the club:



She is obviously determined to drag this out, isn't she? (And thank you anonymous commenter, for those links.)

Update: Looks like she's there.

• Well, that was weird. She blames her outburst on the fact that the audience asked for "reality." It's worth noting that Shocked appears to have redefined the word "reality" (follow this, if you can) - and blames the audience for not knowing this. Or something.

Video when available. (Got it - new post.)