Strange Search Terms

I have an rss feed of my site log so I can see the activity people are doing on my site, and it sometimes shows some strange search terms people run through site’s search function. Sometimes it’s obvious people have confused my site with google (although I can’t imagine why) and sometimes it’s just plain odd. Here are some from the last month:

iknoles – no clue what this is supposed to be.

dubai news

Kiran Times

melissa

why is the ocean blue

define: Fanny

facts about underarmour – I’m afraid to google that.

Abdul Hakim-Shabazz – I haven’t blogged about that guy in a while, but he runs an ego search on my site regularly. Don’t work, Abdul, I still think you’re a dickhead, but you’re just not important enough to write about except to make fun of your ego-searching

Continue ReadingStrange Search Terms

Hoosier Political Report

Taking Down Words was one of my favorite local political blogs for a long time, and I really miss it. Since Jennifer Wagner switched over to a new URL and format — Hoosier Political Report — things just haven’t been the same, and sadly, it’s going to get booted from my feed reader soon.

Rather than the astute and funny local political commentary contained on the old blog, the new one is composed almost completely of press releases from political candidates (YAWN), videos of recent campaign commercials (I fast forward through them on TV, so why would I waste my time on the internet?) and collected links from local newspapers (I get the headlines from the papers I care about in my feed reader already, so this is just redundant.)

The one thing I thought would be even mildly interesting – The Capitol Report – (where Jennifer sits down in a political pundit style video format with opposing viewpoint radio guy and erstwhile blogger Abdul Hakim Shabazz) just sets my teeth on edge the two times I’ve tried to watch it. Jennifer seems to be trying to remake her image from “witty political gadfly” into “sober political commentator” and the transition just doesn’t sit well with me – mainly because sober political commentators in Indiana are a boring dime a dozen, but witty political gadflies are a rare and desirable creature.

And it’s no secret that I can’t stand Abdul. Given his dubious past running the libelous and in one case criminal Indy Undercover blog (he compromised an arson investigation and endangered the life a police informant by posting her name on the blog) I have trouble with the idea of lending him a sheen of respectability that he just doesn’t merit.

Continue ReadingHoosier Political Report

It’ ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.

Over there at stAllio!’s digs, he’s been keeping a good hand in at critiquing the local political situation.

Just to sum things up a bit for you out-of-towners – Indianapolis has a bunch of dirty cops; after a string of high-profile drug shootings, Mayor Ballard frantically tries to keep it together; and Jon Elrod quit his District 7 race like a little girl and went running back to District 97.

ANYWAYS, stAllio! had a particularly insightful take down of radio personality Abdul Hakim-Shabazz’s recent major public malfunction: “what this town needs are a couple good police beatings.”

Abdul apparently didn’t have any adequate defense to stAllio’s post, so he shot back with this:

Steph,
Go get a drink and relax. You are way too uptight. I thought you would have mellowed out after getting married.

To which I pop my head up from gardening the front flower beds and pronounce a particularly insightful: “What? WTF is he on about?”
I guess he thinks Ben Berg and I are the same person? I kinda wish, actually. He’s a better writer than I am, and a cool local artist. I do have a lovely piece of his art in my home:

Evil Fever by StAllio!

Abdul, perhaps you should lay off the coke a bit.

Continue ReadingIt’ ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.

The Ripple Effect: How my post on Jon Elrod has spread

I presumed yesterday’s post on the special election would cause some consternation, but it’s always interesting to see how these things play out. Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project asked me to cross post my entry there, which I though would be fun.

From there, Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, radio personality and erstwhile former blogger at IndyUndercover got all up about it on his “I’ll admit this blog is mine” blog Indiana Barrister, and apparently has asked Jon Elrod if he’s gay on his radio show.

I’m presuming the answer he gave is no — I don’t listen to the show and haven’t heard one way or another what he actually said.

It’s really cute that in his blog post Abdul says “As one of the premiere bloggers in this state…” Aw. I’ll bet your mom calls you every morning to tell you how handsome you are, too, Abdul. That doesn’t mean it’s true, except in the “state of confusion in Abdul’s head.” Good grief.

Then Gary Welsh at Advance Indiana got all on the case about Abdul even mentioning it either place, referring to my blog post as “a baseless rumor the campaign of Andre Carson has been spreading about Republican Jon Elrod for the past two months.”

Dunno where that description comes from, as I haven’t heard a word about Elrod’s sexual orientation from the Carson campaign. I’m certainly not from the Carson campaign — I’m voting for him against my preferred wishes, and I only posted the entry yesterday morning. But it’s convenient for Gary to reassign the issue to Carson, since he can then claim it’s based in homophobia, as Welsh’s commenters immediately do on his post.

It’s a lot harder for Gary claim my motivation as homophobia – especially when he has a moratorium on talking about me on his blog. I believe I’m one of the people he refused to mention.

Whether any of this changes what I think about voting Elrod — I’ll have to get audio of Elrod’s answer and see what I think about it, and whether I believe his answer. I’m glad that he’s at least been asked publicly a question that half a dozen people emailed me to mention they wondered themselves. If the question is in that many people’s minds, it should be addressed.

Continue ReadingThe Ripple Effect: How my post on Jon Elrod has spread

I got called the D-Word

No, no, not “difficult.” The other D-Word. The one that’s the equivalent of the N-word. You know… the one that if you had the balls to say it to my face, you’d be riding to the hospital in an ambulance. Yeah. THAT D-word.

And who busted out this lovely phrase? Only our Indianapolis’ Finest — [link redacted because Abdul hid the blog when he got in trouble with the law] our esteemed law enforcement officers at IndyUndercover.

Gee, I wonder why homicides are at a record high, petty theft is up 50% and we’ve got a major drug war on our hands? Could it be because our police force are sitting at home with their penises in one hand, typing furiously at the computer with the other, trying to intimidate Indy residents out of speaking their minds, and at the same time libeling every elected official in city government? I feel so safe with these guys “serving” and “protecting” me.

Okay, really, I do realize that IndyUndercover isn’t actually law enforcement — it’s a right wing hit site set up to try to influence the local elections (witness the date it was set up, the topics of conversation). Still, you’d think that actual law enforcement would be offended that these fakers and propagandists are out there defaming their name.

Bite Me

2019 Update: It turned out that the libelous IndyUndercover blog site was run by malicious Indianapolis blogger, public nuisance and noted homophobe Abdul Hakim-Shabazz. He got outed by the police when he revealed the name of a confidential informant who was working with arson investigators and she almost got killed.
Continue ReadingI got called the D-Word

Indy Undercover

I mentioned Indy Undercover on IndyScribe, but I’ve now read several of the posts, and want to comment here on it separately.
Indy Undercover a site about law enforcement issues in Indianapolis, purportedly written by an law enforcement officer. It’s getting lots of traffic and comments from other people who claim to be law enforcement officers in the city, and the tone of the site is hyper right-wing and very, very anti Democrat.
There are a couple of blog comments that reference this past year’s Human Rights Ordinance — specifically that officers felt the ordinance trumped their concerns about the consoliation of the IPD and the Sheriff’s Department. But the comments are virulently homophobic, which is really alarming. These are the people who are supposed to serve and protect us? Yikes, yikes, and double f*&king yikes.
UPDATE: After the 2006 November election, it was revealed that the Indy Undercover website was not run by anyone from the Indianapolis Police Department, but rather by Indianapolis radio personality Abdul Hakim-Shabazz.

Continue ReadingIndy Undercover