Month: February 2013

(And yes, the title of this post is a reference to Cory’s first book.)

J. Todd Kincannon is an attorney in South Carolina who “primarily handles campaign and election cases, constitutional litigation, complex civil litigation, and appeals,” according to his bio page on his firm’s site. “He also enjoys cases that have underlying scientific or technical issues,” it continues, and if you read on, you’ll see that as an undergrad, he triple-majored in chemistry, mathematics and physics and as a lawyer, he enjoys working on “High profile cases, particularly those involving politics” and “the difficult task of finding solutions that work both politically and legally”.

So far, he sounds all right.

The warning signs start with the paragraph that begins “Todd has served as General Counsel and Executive Director of the South Carolina Republican Party…”, and if you do a search on his name, you’ll find that he’s also behind the Twitter Gulag Defense Network. There’s nothing really wrong with the former, and the TGDN’s stated purpose is to help fight the practice of left-leaning people on Twitter flagging conservative tweets as spam, which is fair ball in my books.

Where you’ll find the dickery is on his Twitter feed, especially yesterday:

This Super Bowl sucks more dick than adult Trayvon Martin would have for drug money.
— Todd Kincannon (@ToddKincannon) February 4, 2013

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s the Wikipedia page on the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, which took place nearly a year ago today.

Not satisfied with how low he stooped, he really sells it with this later tweet:

.@dawncatherine I appreciate you! I agree that Trayvon Martin was a dangerous thug who needed to be put down like a rabid dog.
— Todd Kincannon (@ToddKincannon) February 4, 2013

This is an echo of conservative talking points made on sites like Daily Caller and Michelle Malkin’s blog shortly after the story broke, in which they took great pains to paint Trayvon as a thug, or when Geraldo Rivera said referred to the hoodie that Trayvon was wearing as “gangsta clothing”, despite the fact that it ain’t necessarily so.

And after being confronted with “frown power”, he tries a little misdirection:

So here’s what I just learned. Because Trayvon Martin was black, I can’t tell a joke about how he was an admitted drug user. Interesting!
— Todd Kincannon (@ToddKincannon) February 4, 2013

If there’s a Republican strategy to win back the public by being more welcoming to women and minorities, it clearly hasn’t been sent to Kincannon. Of course, all this nasty tweeting may be part of his strategy to get people to forget the accusations of him sending pictures of his penis to women who are not his fiancee. (And oddly enough, it’s a fellow conservative who went after him: the entertaining-because-he’s-insane Brooks Bayne.)

He later appeared in a phone interview with Huffington Post, in which he defends himself and the right to say what’s on one’s mind and be a troll:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And he’s right in that one has the freedom to be an asshole. It just shouldn’t be something to strive for.

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The tweets above come straight from Twitter, which means that if Kincannon decides to take them down, you’ll see blank spaces above. In the interest of preserving the historical record, I took screen captures and posted them below:

With all the stuff that Qasim Virjee  does, the question isn’t “What does Qasim do?”, but “What doesn’t Qasim do?”

He’s into technology and hobnobs with the tech and social media scene here in Accordion City. Look at all the stuff he does:

• Design Guru, his digital communication agency for online communities
• GetFilmi, the premier site for watching Indian cinema online
• The Masala Chai Company, the place to get masala chai blends
• Indian Electronica and Globetronica: the former is an organization showcasing South Asian electronic music; the latter is a magazine that showcases music from all over the globe

…and he’s got a great new series called Motion on his podcast, Eclectic Aural Adventures with Qasim featuring his DJ mixes.

I’ve been enjoying the January edition of Motion at work — I find the smooth 4/4 groove keeps me going, even through the afternoon doldrums, and his selections are impeccably good. Here’s a track listing:

1. Aviator (Album Mix)    – Photek
2. Relapse (Original Mix) – OVERWERK
3. Blue Bell Knoll (Nick Warren Bootleg) – The Cocteau Twins
4. Out Of Reach (Andre Sobota Remix) –    Jody Wisternoff, Jonathan Mendelsohn
5. Don’t Take Your Love Away (92 mix) – Groove Armada
6. Another Night – Claptone
7. Tobago (Original Mix) – Jonas Rathsman
8. What It’s Like (Daniel Wanrooy & Mark Green Remix) – Andain
9. The Healing (Clubroot Remix) – James Zabiela
10. What the Water Gave Me (Dibby Dougherty & David Young’s ‘DhARMA Edit’) – Florence & The Machine
11. Daydream (Andrea Roma Remix) – Moonbeam

Best of all, it’s free! You can either listen to it online (just click on the player on that page) or grab it via iTunes (it’s free there too).

…and if you do this with a raincoat, you can eat cereal.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

Misery loves company, but misery loves getting a thousand bucks even more! These posters have been all over Accordion City’s subways, promoting Virgin Radio’s “Bad Boyfriend Poker” call-in contest. Players are supposed to call in with not one but three stories about a bad boyfriend they had — what they call a “hand”, with the best story being the “ace” — and the caller with the “best” hand (that is, worst stories) — wins $1000, which presumably will be spent on therapy.

Of all the example bad boyfriend stories that they’ve posted, this one’s my favourite. I have just one question: which version of God Save the Queen? The British national anthem, or the Sex Pistols song?

I saw this and ROR’d.