HERE

Update: Read Congressman Weiner’s related op-ed in the New York Times.

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is the new breed of progressive. Much like Alan Grayson, he’s principled, media savvy, and courageous. Contemporary Democrats are famous for running scared even though the other side is repeatedly shown to be bluffing about everything under the sun — their supposed intellectual prowess, their supposed political acumen, their supposedly innocent motivations.

What I’m about to say is very nearly true: Republicans lie and front about everything. They adopt double-standards as a matter of momentary political convenience everyday. As Congressman Weiner rails against in the above video, Republicans demand and receive concession after concession, and then they vote no anyway. In the Senate, Republicans have broken all filibuster records by a longshot, to the point where the media literally say, without explanation or further comment, that bills require 60 votes to pass in the Senate. (They don’t!) Naturally, in 2005, when Democrats filibustered a small percentage of Douche-In-Chief George W. Bush’s pernicious and insidious lifetime nominations of federal judicial appointees, Republicans waged a media war painting Democrats as “obstructionist,” and that was just the nicest thing they said.

Ironically, all it takes is a little courage and principle to win elections. Democrats have recently gotten by on the increasingly obvious ineptitude of Republicans. But that tactic doesn’t win large-enough majorities to steamroll the habitual filibuster of the unity-at-all-costs Senate GOP, and it doesn’t get the right kinds of Democrats in office. Meanwhile, it depresses their voter base, which is forced to infer that Democrats will never enact uncompromising progressive (read: effective, nuanced, realistic, and compassionate) policies, even though that is exactly what our country- and world-in-crisis require. And that depressive effect on Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters is exactly the GOP’s mission!

So I say: Fuck yes, Mr. Weiner. Keep it up.

dashedlines: Arrested Development Action Trailer HD TV

“I’m going to war!”

Flying Lotus in MmmHmm, featuring Thundercat. Directed by Special Problems. Commissioned by Warp Films. Track taken from the album ‘Cosmogramma’, out now.

This is an incredible music video. I usually find “psychedelic” to be a disappointing term, because nothing ever seems to live up to the promise of a mind blown. But I think the term applies here.

Still think dairy farms are all pastoral fields and quaint farmhouses? Think again.

In this just-released video, Mercy for Animals (MFA) investigates and exposes the brutally sadistic practices within an Ohio-based dairy farm — stomping, kicking, punching, throwing, beating (with crowbars), stabbing (with pitchforks), bone-breaking, and even eyeball-torturing. Unfortunately, investigation after investigation shows that these are not isolated practices.

This is painful and infuriating to watch, but, as I’ve said before, it’s our duty not to look away — at least not until we really understand what is happening to these abused animals. In addition to giving up dairy, please donate today to Mercy for Animals so that MFA can continue to do vital work like this. I just donated 25 bucks myself.

Finally, Ohioans, this November you could have a chance to spare farmed animals from the most fundamental sufferings of life on a factory farm by lending your support to an important ballot initiative. Check out Ohio Humane for easy ways to initiate the beginning of the end for the most basic factory farm abuses in Ohio.

—Dan

Paul Rudd is the best.

Update: The Discerning Brute picked this up. Check it out :-)

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Come for the fun verbal spaghetti, stay for the unintended implications.

The National Milk Producers Federation is appealing to the FDA to require that plant-based milk producers — those who make what is currently known as soy milk, rice milk, and almond milk — be disallowed from calling their products “milk.” They claim that only “mammalian lacteal secretions” should be called “milk.”

In the above video, the female anchor discussing this story verbally… ejaculates… that plant-based milk producers should use the word “jism” instead of “milk.” That’s pretty funny.

What’s even funnier is that mammalian lacteal secretions are no more appetizing than jism. Bodily fluids — yummy! Even better when they don’t come from our own species.

One can only hope that the NMPF continues to be honest about its product by continuing to use the term “mammalian lacteal secretions.” Soy/rice/almond milk producers, you now have your comeback.

—Dan

Want to see cows in a new, more accurate light? Watch this video, which is brimming with cuteness and kindness.

Farm Sanctuary — an abolitionist organization that provides a home and life of peace to abused, abandoned, and/or escaped farm animals — recently rescued 6 calves that had been tied to a tractor and left to die. They do amazing work like this everyday, funded by compassionate individuals like you. Click here to donate.

—Dan

Fantastic subway music in New York. Check out the bass solo at 2:32 — HOLY SHIT! Whole band is great.

Late Update: The band’s name is Yaz Band. Check ‘em out!

What do you get when you mix men-children, war game fantasies, Christian fanaticism, delusions of grandeur, Anti-Christ paranoia, and terrible homemade Gothic music?

Hutaree, that’s what. Throw in a video camera and it’s pure gold. By the way, some stuff happened over the weekend to propel these guys from the back woods to the front pages.

—Dan

rubenfeld:

Local TV News is a fraud, according to a study of 11,000 TV stories in LA.

h/t @jayrosen_nyu

This is fantastic, a must-watch. Concluding quote:

“The other day the head of a station group told the FCC that there’s no such thing as the public interest. ‘There’s your public interest, my public interest.’ And he said, ‘We broadcasters, as content creators, monitor what the public wants on a daily basis.’ What the public wants? Well, I want ice cream. I need a well balanced meal. Apparently, the people of Los Angeles want 22 seconds about their local government. Maybe if they got more of that, they’d want more of that.”

inky: The Mouth Licking What You’ve Bled, by Meshuggah (from the new DVD Alive).

A kangaroo, “Killer Willard,” beats the crap out of his “handlers,” seemingly because he is annoyed with them for tugging on the rope around his neck.

But it’s okay, they “know Willard was just acting instinctively.”

papayaaaa: Cats massaging cats

As always, the lesson I take from this kind of thing is that other animals feel pleasure and pain that is very similar to ours. It is not enough to recognize this and go back to business as usual, where other sensitive animals are tortured and killed for profit — 50 billion of them annually, in fact.

Of course, it’s pretty darn obvious anyway that other animals’ pleasure/pain sensations are very real and intense, just from interacting with them. But here’s one for all the pseudo-intellectuals and “reality-based” thinkers who yet find a way to rationalize their chauvinism when it comes to assessing the interests and lives of non-human creatures: the single binding theory of all modern biology, evolution, entails that (a) we are very similar to non-human animals, and (b) other animals must have extremely sophisticated sensory systems to survive in nature. Meanwhile, targeted biological study confirms what should be obvious: other animals have neural systems that are more than sophisticated enough to process deep sensations and emotions, and hey, they just so happen to approximate the human pleasure/pain/emotional (fear, delight, anxiety) apparatus.

Humans have a little thing called the pre-frontal cortex which, as far as I can tell, most consequentially allows us to hold all sorts of false and vile beliefs. Newsflash: that doesn’t make us better than other animals.

deepwithfuture: rats “laugh” when tickled. thanks alphabetasoup!