Hi ho, hi ho...

Posting will be light lighter than usual, as I have to go out of town for a few days. I will leave you with this thought about the upcoming election:

I worry that the Democrats will take back the House, and possibly the Senate, and things will get worse. Iraq will further quagmireify. There will be another possible terrorist attack in this country. Then, come 2008, the Republicans will sweep the House, Senate, and Presidency again.

David is less optimistic, thinking that this will be another 2004. Things will be very close, but the Republicans will eke out another win. Boy, are we in for it then.

Remember, these people vote

There is, apparently, a actual discussion going on over at Christian Forums about whether Barack Obama is the Antichrist. Not a tongue-in-cheek discussion. Not sarcasm. Actual discussion about whether a U.S. Senator is a demon from hell sent by Satan. I can't get to the discussion yet, because registrations at that forum require administrator approval. But here are some tidbits over at apostropher.net,Cynical-C Blog, and kynns LiveJournal page:

While I was watching him, the VERY FIRST thought that came to my mind was asking the Lord if I was looking at the AC. I don't have a big opinion either way, but man, that was pretty scary. Even my life is good and no where neare to over husband was transfixed. I turned off the tv, it was just too much. This in not paranoia, it's actively waiting for prophecy to be fulfilled.

No, crazy lady, that is paranoia.

This is just the type of person that the antichrist is.......A BIG DECEIVER!!!!!!! Do you expect the antichrist to come on the scene and be the biggest jerk imaginable, and immediately order everyone to take the mark? Half the world would tell him "where to get off"!!!! The AC has to be the kindest person in the world in the beginning, so he can draw people into his web of deceit. I already know that there are going to be tons of people who are going to fall right into his trap, just by reading the type of replies on this topic. I find THAT a tragic worldview.

Hey, it could be worse. He could be perceived as an aw-shucks, God-fearing, down-to-earth Texas boy that then demands laws that allow him to imprison and torture people without cause, warrant, or oversight. But, naw, that would never happen.

I just found a post on Obamas website from a Jewish girl. Barak (different spelling) means "lightening" in Hebrew. Luke 10:18 ~ And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

Good God! Conclusive proof!

The scary part is that this really isn't unreasonable, given the apocalyptic nature of fundamentalist Christianity. They truly believe the world is going to end within their lifetimes, and that a great evil force will bring it about. So discussing who and who is not demon-spawn is predictable.

Now many of these good Christians are not absolutely convinced that he is the Antichrist, just that there is clearly something demonic about him. Perhaps we should try to come up with some sort of test to determine who has been seduced by the Devil and who has not. I have no doubt they would be difficult to perform, so they should probably be done only by trained professionals. And, if they do manage to find the Evil Ones among us, the souls corrupted by the Beast should be dealt with by those who are right with the Lord. I hear that fire is very cleansing.

I do love a cowboy...

Americablog was having a fund drive for Scott Kleeb, a candidate for a Congressional spot in Nebraska. After looking over his website, I figure it will be a good thing if he wins, not just because he seems like a sane person, but becuase he is smokin' hot. The one picture of him with his horse is so Brokeback Mountain, it isn't funny. Unfortunately, he's wasted on Nebraska.

OK, so I'm shallow. Sue me.

The "moral values" voter?

I've just had three people in the past two days come to my site after Googling for "studds the fag death", "fag-hag by proxy to Elizabeth Taylor", and "gerry studds fag". I just thought y'all should know.

Go, Wayne

Wayne Besen, author of Anything but Straight, has been named the Sexy Gay Blogger of the Day. Congratulations to Wayne. And with that picture, I can see why.

(OK, it was Sexy Gay Blogger of the Day, September 29th. Sue me, I'm a little behind on my sexy gay bloggers.)

I am not a "moral floor"

John Emerson has a post over at Seeing the Forest (it's short so I'm just going to steal the whole thing:

The big reason for the anti-gay fervor within the hard right is that it puts down a moral floor. Normal sleazy backsliding Christians can always say "I'm a sinner, I've succumbed to temptation many times and I probably will do so again -- but I've never done anything as disgusting as that. And I never will."

Sleazy Christians think of Jesus the way they think of their connection at the county courthouse -- a get-out-of-hell-free card. "I may not seem like a believer, but Jesus is there when I need him", one scuzzbag told me.

One day the real Christians (wrong-headed as they are in some respects) are going to understand how badly they've been used, and how their combination of self-righteousness, ignorance, and political cynicism (politics is the fallen world, so anything goes there) has caused them to become evil.

Christians will be judged too.

I think he's got a good point, and I'd never thought of the anti-gay platform that way before. It has occurred to me that the lifelong celibacy they're always trying to push on anyone not like them must always sound so easy when it's someone else that has to do it.

My worry is that this day of reckoning, when Christians discover what patsies they have been, and how they have been used by the Republicans to gain power will only push them to become more extreme, to become more doctrinaire, and things will just get worse.

Pardon my language

You may wish to remove small children, your grandmother, and potted plants from the room before continuing.

Monday, on MSNBC's Scarborough Country Pat Buchanan said this:

Look, Kolbe is gay. He is an out-of-the-closet gay. Foley was gay. The House clerk who was in charge of the pages was gay. Foley's administrative assistant, Mr. Fordham, The New York Times tell us, was gay. You hear about a lot of others. What's going on here, Joe, is basically these, this little mafia in there looked upon the pages, I guess, as their -- sort of their personal preserve. And it stinks to high heaven what was done. And it stinks to high heaven that it was not exposed and these types of people, thrown out by the Republican Party

This is not a statement deserving of a calm, rational, and well-researched refutation. Here is what it is deserving of:

Fuck you, Mr. Buchanan.

Fuck your insinuation that being an "out-of-the-closet gay" is something to be ashamed of.

Fuck your idiotic and paranoid claims of a secretive gay cabal lurking in the corners of Washington D.C.

Fuck you for saying "these types of people" should be thrown of of the Republican Party. How do you even throw someone out of the Republican Party, anyway? Stop them from ever voting?

But most of all: fuck your dirty and vile insinuation that gay men are sexual predators of children. Fuck that disgusting lie that you and your cohorts in the Christian Right have been spreading for years, backed up by no evidence, and contradicted by mountains of it.

You are a man without honor, Mr. Buchanan.

Fuck you.

Ice spikes

Ever open your freezer to get some ice out, only to find your ice cube trays have strange spikes of ice sticking up from them? I've finally found an explanation of why those things occur.

Materials science at work, in your freezer.

Who they're not talking about

The Foley scandal continues to dominate the media. The right-wing response has been simultaneously dismissive of it and misleading about it, as expected. All facilitated by the "liberal media." Matt Drudge and the revolting Michael Savage have started the meme that the sexually charged IMs were a "prank" perpetrated by these boys. It's now being repeated by none other than James Dobson. Hastert and the White House are pushing the idea that Hastert forced Foley to resign, which is a flat-out lie. Foley resigned before the IMs were made public, and Hastert has said he found out about them was in the press. Truly laughable is the idea being put forth by many Republicans that there was a Democratic plot to hold the information back until it was convenient to release it. Yeah, that's why CREW sent the emails to the FBI in July.

There's a more disturbing trend, as well. Since Foley sent the emails and IMs to young men, his behavior is being blamed on the fact that Foley is gay, and that's what queers do. Predictable for the Right, it's still despicable.

Lou Shelden of the Traditional Values Coalition:

To understand Rep. Mark Foley's attraction to teenage boys, one must realize that pederasty, the act of a homosexual to engage in sex with a teenage male is part of the overall homosexual lifestyle... Foley's attraction to teenage boys is not considered abnormal within the homosexual activist community.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council:

it appears clear that Foley is a homosexual with a particular attraction to underage boys. While pro-homosexual activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two.

I will assume that it is unnecessary for me to find the citations on the web that show Perkins' statements aren't based in fact, just his own bigotry. (Why is it that any organization with "family" in its name is so disgusting?)

Porno Pete of American for Truth (now there's irony):

[B]ut even his homosexuality, as we know Martha -- we want these guys to get out of this lifestyle. It's not a healthy lifestyle. It does tend toward promiscuity. There is a higher element of this...the word is "pederasty," which is adult...ah...sexual contact, or wanting of these...ah...adolescent male boys. We've...we've seen this throughout the world of homosexuality

But I'm getting off-topic, the whole point of this post is that numerous people are talking about the Foley scandal, and citing the Gerry Studds scandal from 1983 to show how out of control these evil homosexuals are and how they can't be trusted around young boys. Ann Coulter did it on Bill O'Reilly's show last week, and again in her column last week, and Charles Krauthammer did it in a column this week. Both Coulter and Krauthammer say that the fact that Foley (Republican) resigned and Studds (Democrat) didn't is proof that Republicans are honorable and do the right thing, and Democrats don't. But there's something that they're both not saying, and it's significant because they both leave it out.

Yes, in 1983 Gerry Studds was censured by Congress because he had had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male page ten years earlier. Studds was about 35 during the relationship. (Mind you, having sex with anyone 16 years or older was legal in D.C. then and remains legal to this day.)

What both Coulter and Krauthammer don't mention is that on the very same day that Studds was censured for his relationship with a male page, Dan Crane, a Republican, was censured for having sex with a female 17-year-old page. Not only was Crane having sex with this 17-year-old, he was having adulterous sex with the 17-year-old, since he had a wife. (Studds was unmarried.) Yet Coulter and Krauthammer both say that this shows the hypocrisy of the "left." Crane did not resign, but did not win reelection the following year.

I suspect that they are both ignoring the Crane affair largely because it was (a) heterosexual and (b) because it involved a Republican and so wouldn't allow them to sound quite as holier-than-thou. But it is disturbing that two different right-wing columnists are able to distort the situation without any response from anyone. (Other than over at CounterCoulter.org, of course.)

Some other Republican sex scandals that did not result in the resignation of the Republican:

• Don Sherwood is accused of trying to strangle his mistress. He has since been reelected.
• Henry Hyde carries on a four-year, adulterous affair. He dismissed the affair, which began when he was 41, as a "youthful indiscretion." Hyde is currently chairman of the House International Relations Committee
• Newt Gingrich carries on an adulterous, three-to-five year affair with a House aide twenty-three years younger than himself. He was cheating on his second wife.

For some reason I don't understand, both Coulter and Krauthammer also make the claim that Studds "turned his back" on the other House members when the censure was read. This is also false. Studds walked to the front of the room and faced the Speaker who was reading the censure resolution. See "House censures Crane and Studds for sexual relations with pages." New York Times. July 21, 1983.

Welcome to the b-sphere

Possibly because all the cool kids are doing it, Dr. Manya has decided to join us in the blogosphere. So every one skooch over and make room. Her blog, Sing a Song of Sixpence has been added to the blogroll over on the right. I'm guessing the design is a template (?) but it looks really nice. I especially like the little icon-things that may have a significance I'm unaware of. Even with getting married, and being an ER resident, she's already out-blogging me. It's just not fair.

It's the first blog over at Livejournal I've blogrolled, or even read regularly. I feel so ... dirty. But, you know, in the good way.

How not to design a website

The other day, I was listening to random music I've burned to my computer, and a Monte Montgomery track came up. He's a fairly unknown artist from Austin, but I think a remarkably talented one. I realized that the two albums I had by him were rather old, so I went to his website to see if there were any new ones.

So this is a guy that makes his living (presumably) making and selling music. He's apparently quite popular on the Austin live music scene, and has won a few awards. Yet on his website, there's no discography! There's no way to find out what albums he's put out. You can find mention of a few spread in various pages over the site, but there's no central location. For the website of a professional musician, that's inexcusable.

There's a little information about him and his music, and even a small gallery of photos. The largest of which is 100 by 70 pixels. It's not even a clickable thumbnail. (And he doesn't seem hard on the eyes at all.) Again, for a performer, for whom presentation to the public is vital, this is a bad idea.

I won't even discuss the (shudder) text crawl that's on the main page that goes by so fast it's nearly unreadable. Hint to the web designer: when you are displaying a single line of text, you don't need to have it scroll on and off the screen. Especially when it's a mention of how to buy your product.

Oh great, and now I found out he was just playing in Champaign a few weeks ago.

A minor point on Foleygate

Glenn Greenwald brings up an interesting point. What Foley did is creepy in the extreme, but what he's accused of is just talking. I'm aware of no allegations that Foley actually did anything with these pages, just that he talked about doing stuff over IM and through email. That's illegal because of a law Congress passed recently. But had he actually gotten together with the page, and fucked around? That's probably legal.

[Greenwald] argued that the "pedophile" rhetoric being righteously hurled at Mark Foley was not really appropriate, given that many (if not most) Americans live in states where it is perfectly legal for an adult of any age to have sex with a 16-year-old. The notion that an adult who has sex with a 16-year-old is a "pedophile freak" who deserves to be imprisoned with the key thrown away is (independent of whether it's right or wrong) inconsistent with the values enshrined in the laws of many (if not most) states, which provide that 16-year-olds are capable of consenting to sex (and even getting married).

I didn't see the pun in the title of this post until just now, honestly. But I'm leaving it in place.

UPDATE (2006-10-05): In the comments, MFN points out that (a) the timing is questionable and (b) because of the age difference, any relationship between Foley and the pages might still be illegal.

First, this is a story that seems to have been building for some time. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) received some of the emails in question back in July, and forwarded them on to the FBI, where they were ignored. CREW is now calling for an investigation into why. The FBI's reponses have been contradictory.

Second, the age of consent in DC appears to be 16. According to the District of Columbia Criminal Code (isn't the Internet great?), child sexual abuse has to be between a child and someone at least 4 years older. However, the code defines "child" to be "person who has not yet attained the age of 16 years." There doesn't appear to be any other relevant statute. So the Republicans have made it illegal to talk about something that it's perfectly legal (if unethical and creepy in the extreme) to do.

I need more hours in the day

Ugh. There's a half dozen or so things I want to blog about. I just don't have time to sit down and write. Then my Internet connection goes down for a day. Argh. I just need, say, a 28 hour day. Is that so much to ask?

Shiny!

Via David:

You scored as Kaylee (Kaywinnet Lee) Frye. The Mechanic. You are a natural mechanic, and you are far too sweet and cheerful to live out here. How you can see the good in everyone around you boggles the mind occasionally. Still you don't seem to be any crazier than that, and it is a nice kinda crazy. Kaylee (Kaywinnet Lee) Frye 75% Simon Tam 63% Shepherd Derrial Book 56% River Tam 50% The Operative 50% Hoban 'Wash' Washburne 44% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 44% Inara Serra 38% Capt. Mal Reynolds 38% Jayne Cobb 31% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

If you read this, you will burn in hell

Austin Cline at About.com has made a series World-War-II-like propaganda posters for the Christian Right. They're actually pretty funny in a "wow, that's really creepy" sort of way. This one is my favorite. This one is great, not only because it mocks Ann Coulter, but because it points out the violent threats thinly veiled under a lot of what the right wing does. See, for example the intimidation and actual death threats a group of college undergraduates got after Michelle Malkin posted their personal information to her blog, and her minions reacted to it.

UPDATE: Cline is guest posting over at Jesus' General, and has a new one up. Boy, is it wrong, wrong, wrong. But oh so funny!