Just so you know, Pat Robertson says it’s okay that Petraeus banged Paula Broadwell because

she’s an extremely good-looking woman…The man’s off in a foreign land and he’s lonely and here’s a good-looking lady throwing herself at him. He’s a man.

(But of course the four-star crossed lovers didn’t make the beast with two backs until after he joined the CIA. Because adultery in the military is a crime.)

PROPINQUITY! Your Pat Robertson word of the day.

Oh what fools these mortals be! First off, let’s just say there is a tried and true history of men having mistresses, even married mistresses; but nowadays a married mistress can be a bit messy, unless the man practices “catch and release,” the woman has more to loose than he, and she isn’t batshit, bughouse looney. And not to pillory my gender, but a lot of women, pabulumized on bad television movies and chick-lit seriously believe the hype of an affair. Plus, there’s the whole removal of the love-object concept which takes away the source of endorphins, oxytocin, and drama, leaving an hysterical, heaving mass plotting revenge. Oh honey, just get a voodoo doll and keep your piehole shut.

I’m still trying to parse the timeline of  Petraeus, Paula Broadwell, Jill Kelley, Allen and Shirtless FBI Guy.  Here’s what I’ve got:

DATE UNKNOWN:  Jill Kelley received email pictures of Shirtless FBI Guy.

POST-APRIL 2011: Petraeus and Broadwell–which falls into the category of nomenclature is destiny with bush-league, wanna-be Bond-girl name–began their physical affair two months or so after he was made head of CIA. Because adultery in the military is a crime.

APPROXIMATELY MAY 2012:  The Wall Street Journal reports that around May, Kelley began receiving nastygrams. She contacted her friend, Shirtless FBI Guy who initiated an investigation, which eventually exposed the Petraeus/Broadwell liaisons. And 20,000-30,000 pages of emails to Gen. Allen (which may or may not be about the anonymous, allegedly threatening, emails from Broadwell). But he never touched that woman. Because adultery in the military is a crime.

JUNE/JULY 2012, Petraeus ended his relationship with Broadwell. They had used super bad spycraft to correspond, which is really embarrassing considering he was like head of the CIA and she’s a West Point graduate. Supposedly she was getting possessive and/or he was not amused by the emails sent to Kelley (which may or may not have been sent from the Gmail accounts they shared).

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012: General Allen writes letters to support Jill Kelley’s sister in a custody battle.  Somewhere along the way, Gen. Allen receives an anonymous email from someone later learned to be Broadwell making comments about Jill Kelley; and according to CNN, Allen alerted Kelley and may have contacted the FBI himself.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012: Attack on U.S. Embassy in Benghazi.

OCTOBER 26: Broadwell talks about stuff that’s not vetted regarding Benghazi. Was she telling the truth or making stuff up? We’ll never know. But hell hath no fury…

LATE OCTOBER: Out of the loop,  Shirtless FBI Guy drops a dime and blows it open, contacting a member of Congress, Republican David Reichert, who contacted Eric Cantor.

NOVEMBER: Apres l’election, le deluge.

And what a dump! It just keeps flowing like the Augean stables. And this is just the seksy stuff. Let’s look at this from the spai who  loved me perspective. (And few have done worse than Petraeus and Broadwell). Pick any of these:

1. Broadwell is a spy/plant/honey pot/firewalls/shiny object to distract from deeper Benghazi issues and of say, arm sales to Syrian mercenary insurgents in Syria, etc.

2. Broadwell is a spai who was supposed to learn stuff from Petraeus and tell her Nefarious Masters.

3. Broadwell’s sesky email account may have been known about and compromised, and used to send emails to Kelley to start this. And Broadwell’s seksy email account may have been used to send the email to Gen. Allen making comments about Jill Kelley. All of which means some long term planning. (cue James Bond theme)

4. Broadwell is a sloppy mistress (indiscreet and possessive), and Jill Kelley is a drama queen.

5. Promotional stunt for Skyfall.

6. Giant, flesh-eating, shape-shifting reptiles.

HT: Newsvandal, Teddy Partridge, and Dr. fFawkes for data, encouragement, spai stuff, and hand-holding.

For five zany days, thousands head to Cave in Rock, Illinois for the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, where they chug Faygo, dance to bands (including of course Insane Clown Posse, Master P and the world’s most famous Michael Jackson impersonator), fornicate, ride Ferris wheels, and worry about infiltration by law enforcement. Which considering the amount of firepower shown in this year’s Gathering of the Juggalos’ informercial, might be a valid concern. Oh Cheech and Chong will be there, along with Bobcat Goldthwait. And wrestling. And unsanctioned mixed martial arts fighting. Plus something called “Bloody Mania.” And a noontime barbecue in case you get tired of grilling pop tarts on a Hibachi.

I wonder if there will be voter registration teams on hand?

This will not end well.

Paying cash for that long-awaited tattoo of  Derpy Hooves or Rainbow Dash holding a PBR could get you questioned by the FBI, especially if you and your Bronies all go for My Little Ponies inked  on your inner calves.

Publicintelligence.com has compiled a collection of Communities Against Terrorism fliers created by the FBI and Bureau of Justice Assistance and

distributed to local businesses in a variety of industries to promote suspicious activity reporting. The flyers are not released publicly, though several have been published in the past by news media and various law enforcement agencies around the country.

The fliers all warn against people who

Insist on paying with cash or uses credit card(s) in different name(s)

[sic] Damn, that phrase’s grammar is fail!  And it’s on several of their fliers! Anyway…

The flier entitled “Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Tattoo Shops” presents some real issues for tattoo shop owners (who actually prefer cash), since most of the indicators of a “terrorist” actually match demographic subsets of the larger Hipster Community:

•    Significantly alters appearance from visit to visit (shaving beard,
changing hair color, style of dress, etc) [Hipster]
•    Have missing hand/fingers, chemical burns, strange odors or bright colored stains on clothing [Hipster/artist/Burning Man attendee/trustafarian on an experimental psychotropic binge]
•   Make suspicious comments regarding anti-US, radical theology, vague or cryptic warnings that suggest or appear to endorse the use of violence in support of a cause. [Hipster who has read too much poli sci and Robert Anton Wilson, or falls asleep listening to Coast to Coast/trustafarian on an experimental psychotropic binge]

The tattoo shop flier also alerts staff to be wary of groups who

Make repeated returns with multiple individuals requesting identical tattoos.

You know, like rock bands and their girlfriends, frat boys. And Bronies.

(The FBI already considers the Jugalos, followers of the band Insane Clown Posse to be a gang, though the pierced, tattooed and heavy made up clan of thousands who gather annually at Hogrock Campgrounds in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois maintain:

Juggalos are NOT a gang [W]e are family whoop whoop.

I think the FBI sending a a team to infiltrate Gathering of the Juggalos is the premise for a really bad movie. But think of the soundtrack possibilities!)

Despite this hysterical headline:

FBI Says Paying for Your Morning Coffee with Cash a Potential Terrorist activity, Urges Coffee Shop Owners to Report Cash-Paying Customers to Authorities

there is nothing in the CAT program about using cash at Intelligentsia (or heavens forfend if you’re in the ‘burbs, at a Starbies), though proprietors of “internet cafes” (do those even exist anymore with so many places WiFi-ed?) should be wary of those who

•    Are overly concerned about privacy, attempts to shield the screen from view of others
•    Always pay cash or use credit card(s) in different name(s)
•    Apparently use tradecraft: lookout, blocker or someone to distract employees
•    Act nervous or suspicious behavior inconsistent with activities
•    Are observed switching SIM cards in cell phone or use of multiple cell phones
•    Travel illogical distance to use Internet Café
Activities on Computer indicate:
•    Evidence of a residential based internet provider (signs on to Comcast, AOL, etc.)
•    Use of anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address
•    Suspicious or coded writings, use of code word sheets, cryptic ledgers, etc.
•    Encryption or use of software to hide encrypted data in digital photos, etc.
•    Suspicious communications using VOIP or communicating through a PC game

Though really any combination of those could indicate a screenwriter, gamer, cheating spouse, or  the blogger whose home computer crashed…

[H/T: Natural News]

[Photo and tattoo artwork: Broken Art Tattoo in Silver Lake, CA;  via creative commons]

Today a really sweet story popped up in my in email box about a brave Catholic school girl who was running a banned book library out of her school locker. It’s being re-blogged faster than a cute kitten video. It could be a Lifetime movie! Squeee!

The story, which has been breathlessly making blog rounds over the past week, was based on a Yahoo!Answers post which was put up slightly edited.

But something about the original post seemed off–the writer’s tone, her question about if what she was doing was wrong, the back story about how students’ parents would not let them buy books and kids were too afraid to check out books from the town library, oh and using an occupied locker next to hers. The whole set up smelled, especially coming right before Banned Books Week (September 24-October 1) so I used Teh Googles, and discovered the original post was from 2006, with lots of comments about how dreadful it is  that books are banned in schools and libraries. The OP still doesn’t feel right to me, it feels even wronger and reads like astroturf, but  for a good cause.

Banning books is bad, very bad. Especially great literature, titles of which were on the list Nekochan claims her school had forbidden. Books have been banned for all sorts of reasons:  Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl because it was a downer and explicit. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Tom’s Cabin because of racist language and themes. Well, the point of reading is to learn stuff and develop critical thinking skills.

So it’s also really bad when  journalists/bloggers don’t bother to look a little further and check on things they are reposting, and instead swallow and recycle each others’ posts in a huge ouriborosian gulp. And it’s really bad to  create such a whopper, even for a good cause. Anyone can write a Yahoo!Answers post, all you need is an account (hullo, sock puppet) to use Yahoo!Answers and make a point, troll or ask for a good waffles recipe.

It only takes a couple minutes to check your sources. Yahoo!Answers, not so reliable.

Speaking of checking sources: If the FBI Behavioral Science Unit is copypasting Wikipedia for research, man, we as a nation are in trouble and the tewwowists have won.  Don’t fall for this. The “report” quoted by Tech Herald could be invented and logos shooped on in under thirty minutes.  Like Nekochan and her banned book library, it doesn’t pass the sniff test. And shame on Tech Herald–which discredits the document–for going with an inflammatory title and art work, which they then refute in the first paragraph.

While truth is often stranger than fiction, if a story sounds so utterly amazingly fabulous take a minute and ask yourself if you would believe it coming from Rush Limbaugh or Michele Bachmann.

Jude Law as Hamlet: "Alas, poor Rupert, I knew him well...where your your jibes now?"

Acting on a lawsuit filed by actor Jude Law and his assistant Ben Jackson claiming their phones were hacked in New York by reporters working for  News of the World, the FBI plans to contact the actor, according an official who spoke with the BBC.

NOTW’s story, publish in September 2003 detailed conversations between the actor and Jackson which the suit claims  could only have been obtained by listening in on the pair’s phone messages. Since the messages were relayed through United States carriers, the suit opens the door to charges under US laws.

Additionally, Law has filed another suit against another of Murdoch’s paper, The Sun, alleging his messages were hacked by reporters in 2005 and 2006, resulting in four stories.

News International, the UK branch of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp said in a statement to the BBC:

We believe this is a deeply cynical and deliberately mischievous attempt to draw the Sun into the phone-hacking issue. The allegations have been carefully investigated by our lawyers and the evidence shows they have no foundation whatsoever.

Rupert Murdoch’s son, James may have proven even more ineffective at dodging the truth than his father at dodging pies. According to the BBC, the younger Murdoch who is the chairman of News International told:

the media committee on Tuesday he had not been “aware” of an email suggesting the practice went wider than a “rogue” News of the World reporter.

But ex-NoW editor Colin Myler and ex-NI legal manager Tom Crone have now said they “did inform” him of the email.

Mr Murdoch later said he “stands by his testimony”.

In 2008 NOTW settled a phone hacking claim against them brought by Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association; thesettlement payment was £600,000 (appr0x $967,000). In January of this year Bloomberg reported:

At least seven pending lawsuits from celebrities allege their phone voicemails were hacked into by News of the World.

Actress Sienna Miller received an apology and a settlement of £100,00 ($164,000) for legal costs and personal damages after filing suit against NOTW for phone hacks that occurred in the mid 2000. Miller was Jude Law’s girl friend from 2004 to 2006. They reunited three years later, but ended the relationship this February. Law and his relationships have long been tabloid fodder, but nothing justifies phone hacking.