Gayroomie spammer

This is interesting. I blogged some months ago about the gayroomie spammer in the local gay.com chatroom. The whois info for them now reads:

Organization:
MoveOn Media. LLC
Domain Admin
PO Box 1825
Denver, CO 80203
US
Phone: 505-238-1234
Email: admin@gayroomie.com

Previously, it had read a different Colorado address, and not a post office box. But that phone number is a New Mexico number, not Colorado. Maybe poor Toby Benjamin went off to college. Let's hope he's found some action at last.

But there's more! Checking with the Colorado Secretary of State shows that MoveOn Media had its incorporated status dissolved after neglecting to file an annual report. I don't think that's a particularly big deal, though. The SoS lists the address for MoveOn Media as 1825 Logan St., Ste. 305. Interesting to note that the suite number wasn't in the original whois information for this domain.

HotmilitarystudGate on CNN

Anderson Cooper just interviewed Gannon on CNN. In that interview, and in other places, he's said it's fine that he's a partisan agent for a news organization with a conservative bent. In another CNN interview, he said, "Call me partisan, fine, but don't let my colleagues off the hook. They're partisan too, but they don't admit it." I guess that's the "but they started it" defense.

The problem with his claim is that Talon News, his former employer claims not to be partisan. From their web page:

Talon News is your source for unbiased news coverage and no-spin reporting. If you want the facts without all the slant, Talon News is the place to go for political, national, and international news.

So which is it? Are they deliberately partisan or unbiased and "no-spin?" Conservatives like to bitch and moan about the "liberal media," but even the media they're always complaining about isn't trying to deliberatly foster a political agenda, while claiming impartiality. Talon News is.

That's the problem. It's not the bias, it's the deception. They're trying to claim they're not doing something, while they are underhandedly doing that exact thing.

Dean

It looks like Dean is a lock for the head of the DNC. But I just saw on CNN yet again the famous footage of the Dean Scream, as they're doing a bit of a story on him. I mean, really, are we ever going to be shown Dean on the news without a clip of that? The guy mobilized Democrats in a way not really ever seen before, and was one of the first people to effectively use the Internet to get out his message (a blog) and to rainse funding. And yet all we see is that arm wave and a high pitched, "Yeahhh!" When George Bush I is on TV, we don't get cut-away clips of him vomiting in the Japanese Prime Minister's lap, the pretzel jokes about Bush II stopped fairly quickly, and Bob Dole fell off a fucking stage. How come we don't see the clip of that anymore?

Liberal media, my big fat ass.

HotmilitarystudGate hits the fan

It looks like the allegations about Jeff Gannon, the White House "reporter" of being a hustler, may well be true. Americablog has the scoop. (Link NOT safe for work.) If those pictures aren't the same guy, then this is a case of mistaken identity on a scale not seen since Dickens.

I worry that this will just get shoved under the rug as being his "personal life," something of which I'm sure Monica Lewinsky will find very comforting. The White House Press Secretary says there's nothing wrong with a Republican hack sitting in on the press conferences because, "There are a number of people in the room who express certain points of view and cross the lines of advocacy journalism." He claims that Gannon passed White House security checks under his legal name, but that doesn't explain why McClellan referred to him as "Jeff," his pseudonym. A married woman isn't allowed to use a pseudonym, even if if is her own name.

So either the White House didn't notice that this guy used to be a hustler, suggesting serious inadequacies in the vetting process, or they didn't care. If they didn't daily claim the "moral values" high ground, this wouldn't be nearly the big deal it is. White House interns don't pull a salary. Do you think that if Monica Lewinsky was stripping to make ends meet, we wouldn't have been reminded of it every night?

More gossip

Americablog is promising a big revelation on the Gannon scandal will break tomorrow. He's such a tease. I want to know now!

The sad thing is that I saw the picture from his AOL profile, with him in just the boxers in the dogtags, and thought he was pretty hot.

The Keyes to the bedroom

When Alan Keyes was carpetbagging for the Illinois Senate seat, his daughter Mara was right there beside him for much of the race. Now, Alan Keyes is a rabid "family values" man, and his daughter is a 19-year-old, out lesbian. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, indeed.

Now the story has taken a rather sad turn:

Now Maya Keyes ... finds herself out on her own. She says her parents ... threw her out of their house, refused to pay her college tuition and stopped speaking to her.

She wrote in her blog last fall, "I'm all about working for global justice. THEY don't care about that. THEY only care that I am an evil dyke."

Although I don't agree with a lot of her politics, you have to feel rather bad for Mara Keyes. It must be incredibly difficult to be disowned by your parents a 19 and have them stop speaking to you. And she must be rather conflicted. She is a vocal activist, and her father is a public figure. How much of this should be played out in public? Does she endanger any future relationship with her family by calling them on their shit?

Fortunately, I have no such personal stake in this matter. And from what I've learned about this, two conclusions can be drawn:

1. "Family values" means disowning your children if you don't like their lifestyle.
2. Alan Keyes is a big fat pig.

Entrepreneurship at work

You have been following the Jeff Gannon story, haven't you? If not, naughty, naughty.

I don't know how someone got ahold of his credentials, but you can take a look at, and even bid on, his White House press pass here. Go now, because it ain't gonna be there long!

(Link courtesy of Americablog.)

HotmilitarystudGate

The mainstream media is starting to pick up on the Gannon story. Not entirely unsurprising, they seem to be focusing on whether he was a plant from the Bush administration in the press briefing room and the propaganda angle and largely ignoring what they euphamistically refer to as his "personal life." I'm sorry, but when a conservative, born-again Christian, holier-than-thou guy runs a website called hotmilitaryescortsm4m.com, that's about a bit more than his "personal life."

This was the lead story on Salon today, and Americablog has a good summary of the media links.

Not just politics, but juicy gossip!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Bunny payback is a bitch

PBS's Lesbo Bunnygate is just another example of this administration trying to force it's religion down the throats of the rest of America. The completely harmless episode focused on a kid being raised by lesbian mothers. At no point in the episode is their sexual orientation discussed.

It's not like the show took an informative segment on maple sugar making and turned it into a lesbian infomercial. The whole point of Postcards is to introduce kids to cultural diversity. This Boston Globe editorial remarks on how unoffensive the episode actually is. But it's unoffensiveness isn't the point is it? From the point of Christian extremists, PBS had the unmitigated gall to portray lesbians at all. From the BG editorial:

Against the pastoral glories of Vermont, with maple trees dripping and cows in need of milking, the lesbian families are almost Waltonesque in their rural charm. For those who'd rather pathologize and exclude same-sex couples and their children, that normalcy must spark a lot of anguish. To them, showing and telling about lesbian families is the same as promoting... Buster's parents are divorced, although I don't think the show is promoting marital breakup.

David posted an editorial from the Portsmoth Herald asking PBS stations to have the intestinal fortitude to air the episode anyway.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen in most markets. Retaliations against PBS by the Department of Education have begun. The executive producer of the Postcards from Buster show has been disinvited from a children's television conference cosponsored by the Department of Education and PBS. I'm sure it was just a coincidence that Margaret Spellings, the same public "servant" that objected to the show in the first place, now runs the Department of Education. If such retaliation is expected from the government, it could have a chilling effect throughout all of media.

The GLADD Executive Director commented that Spellings is trying to enforce an official policy of invisibility on gay and lesbian families. And that's exactly what they're trying to do.

The State of the (other) Union

There has been a bit of a silence from the left about the Iraq elections. I guess maybe because if you aren't a hawk, being happy about them makes you seem a bit as if you are. While the President gave a very self-congratulatory State of the Union, and Republican lawmakers pointed purple fingers around, as if they had done something heroic themselves, actual Iraqi voters risked death in their first elections. (I think this last particularly arrogant. See: You Do Not Own Their Courage.) It just reeks of some powerful imperial force civilizing the savage natives, and patting themselves on the back for their moral superiority.

But I've heard no one doubt that elections in Iraq are unequivocally a good thing. For the first time, a nation of people gets to control their own destiny. Unfortunatly, it doesn't look like it's the sort of destiny Americans probably want for them. The majority Shiites seem to be flexing their new political muscle. And conservative Islamic clerics seems to be a very powerful force in that movement. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a Shiite cleric,and those like him may be very influential when writing the Iraqi constitution. They are trying to get Shariah law enshrined as the law of the land in the dawn of this new nation.

From the linked NY Times article:

The clerics generally agree that the constitution must ensure that no laws passed by the state contradict a basic understanding of Shariah as laid out in the Koran. Women should not be treated as the equals of men in matters of marriage, divorce and family inheritance, they say. Nor should men be prevented from having multiple wives, they add...

"We don't want to see equality between men and women because according to Islamic law, men should have double of women," said Muhammad Kuraidy, a spokesman for Ayatollah Yacoubi. "This is written in the Koran and according to God."

Remember Shariah law is what Muslims invoke when they require women to move about dressed in black burkahs (Afghanistan) or stone adulterous women to death (Nigeria). Women in Basra (second largest city in Iraq) are already being pressured to wear the burkhas in public. I haven't read anything about it, but something tells me it won't be particularly safe for me to visit the New Iraq.

It's great that Iraqis are finally electing their own government. But what will we do if they decide to elect another Taliban?

Geez

From the State of the Union

It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, that rejects amnesty, that tells us who is entering and leaving our country, and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists.

We might as well call it it the migrant farm worker bill. It's not that there are jobs that no American will do, it's just that American's won't do them for $3 an hour with no medical insurance.

I don't get it, when we're talking something like health care, the market is all-powerful. When we're talking cleaning bathrooms and picking cabbage, we have to import workers because snotty Americans are too good for those jobs. Why not just let the market decide?

And now the lies about Social Security begin:

And instead of 16 workers paying in for every beneficiary, right now it's only about three workers - and over the next few decades, that number will fall to just two workers per beneficiary. With each passing year, fewer workers are paying ever-higher benefits to an ever-larger number of retirees.

The scary ratio of workers to retirees is often thrown around as a sign SS is in imminent danger of failure. But it's not. Consider that workers in the future are expected to have fewer dependent children, even as they support more elderly. So if these balance out, it doesn't matter. Here is a better summary of this.

If you are a younger worker, I believe you should be able to set aside part of that money in your own retirement account, so you can build a nest egg for your own future.

We have that. It's called an IRA. It allows you to plan for your retirement by putting money away tax-free for the future (in the case of a traditional IRA). You can put it in just about any investment that you want, from stocks to mutual funds to bonds. Social Security is the back up plan in case you're one of the many people that doesn't make good investment choices. By eliminating Social Security and replacing it with an IRA-like scheme -- and make no mistake, that's exactly what we're talking here -- we'd be eliminating that backup, and putting all our eggs in one basket.

Your money will grow, over time, at a greater rate than anything the current system can deliver - and your account will provide money for retirement over and above the check you will receive from Social Security.

Ah, there's the rub. What happens when (not if) it doesn't? Another economic slowdown at some point in the future is inevitable. And since Social Security won't be funded as much as it has been in the past, it won't be able to make up the shortfall.

...raising the yearly limits on contributions over time, eventually permitting all workers to set aside four percentage points of their payroll taxes in their accounts.

Something tells me this is wrong. He probably means four percent of income, not four percent of payroll taxes. For a worker making $50,000, 4% of that 6% would be $120 a year. Hardly enough to support a retirement. So that should probably be 4% of a worker's total income.

But hey, 4% isn't a lot, is it? If you're making less than the SS cap (and pretty much everyone does), then about 6% of your income is taken out as Social Security. So he's talking about diverting 4% of income to the SS privatized accounts. That's 66% of the total SS contribution from the worker. (The employer contributes an additional 6%.)

---

Here was the big lie from the SotU:

[Social Security] is headed toward bankruptcy.

I don't use the term "lie" loosely. But I can think of no other appropriate term. From the Center for Economic and Policy Research, "Even after 2042 the program would always be able to pay retirees a higher benefit (in today's dollars) than what current retirees receive." Did you get that? That's even if the trust fund runs out! Paul Krugman agrees, "...even after the trust fund is gone, Social Security revenues will cover 81 percent of the promised benefits." That's a problem, yes, but it's hardly a catastrophic crisis.

---

This isn't a small deal. This is about one political party making radical and drastic changes to a very important program, and justifying it through distortion, half-truths, and spin. They are relying on the American public's poor math skills and general ignorance about Social Security to remake it how they will.

This is important shit. They can't be allowed to get away with it.

This week in stupidity

There simply is nothing so low that the pro "family" organizations will not stoop to it. Last week was No Name Calling Week, basically an anti-bullying project aimed at schoolkids. The Illinois Family Institute is all up in arms becase one of the forty-two sponsoring organizations was GLESN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. This project wasn't targeted at defending gay kids, but anyone bullied, whether for their weight, height, intelligence, and, yes, sexual orientation. Other sponsors of the project include the Anti Defamation League, the Girl Scouts, and National Association of Secondary School Principals, a notoriously well-known terrorist organization.

But no, we can't have that. David Smith, Senior Policy Analyst for the IFI, objects to the Week because "No Name Calling Week targets young impressionable children in fifth through eighth grades with messages that seem harmless enough - 'diversity' and 'tolerance.'" Yeah, we can't have that, can we? "Their main objective is ... part of an overall effort to promote the homosexual agenda to children." Exactly. The radical agenda of not getting the queer kid's ass kicked in gym class.

So I'm now officially proposing February 7-11, 2005 as Call David Smith a Cocksucker Week.

The other Social Security shoe

Here we go. From today's LA Times:

In a significant shift in his rationale for [privatized] accounts, Bush dropped his claim that they would help solve Social Security's fiscal problems — a link he sometimes made during last year's presidential campaign. Instead, he said the individual accounts were desirable because they would be "a better deal," providing workers what he said would be a higher rate of return and "greater security in retirement."

So, apparently, all that stuff about SS being "bankrupt" and too few workers paying in for the number of retirees was just a red herring.

I think what we're seeing here is the beginning of an attempt to reframe perceptions of Social Security from a insurance policy that would protect you you from living out your retirement in poverty to an investment account. Part of that whole "ownership society" nonsense.

So Trident doesn't work too?

Oh, God, I just laughed so hard, I think I swallowed my tongue. You are supposed to chew this stuff, right?

SocSec

I'm sure that Social Security will be a big part of tonight's State of the Union, and so this may be completely moot by the time you read it.

I can't find any good citations on the Web right now, but it seems that the Bush administration is playing three card monte with economic predictions when it comes to Social Security. They seem to be assuming good economic growth when it comes to privatized SS accounts, but poor economic growth when direly predicting the fall and collapse of the SS program in general. You don't get to have it both ways.

This is what steams my potatoes. Look, I'm a scientist, and a fairly rational guy. (Or so I like to think.) I am, as they said when I interviewed at Intel (but didn't get the job), very data-driven. If privatizing Social Security will help it financially, I'd be all for it. Numbers don't lie. Unfortunately, you can lie with numbers.

Yes the governments budget office is making some fairly low numbers when they do their economic forecasts. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's a good idea to make a conservative estimate when you're forecasting something, so if things do a little bit better than that, you have extra to work with. But when they pull a rosy forecast out of their ass when talking about growth of these private accounts?

That's cheating.

The fact that they are making these distortions suggests something else entirely. This isn't about trying to save Social Security. It's about marketing a decision that's already been made. Note how everything used to be about "privatizing" SS, then moved to "private accounts?" Those terms didn't focus test well, and so now it's about "personal accounts." The administration even critisizes those in the press that use the verboten terms, even though they were using them themselves a few weeks ago.

And quibbling about rates of return in SS is a red herring. Social Security isn't a retirement plan. It's insurance against retirement planning. It's a compact between this generation and their parents that they won't be forced into poverty when they retire. It's not supposed to replace sensible retirement savings, it's supposed to protect you if it catastrophically fails. (Just ask Enron employees about how bad stocks can do.) No one thinks of fire insurance as a great investment. It's not there to be collected on eventually;, it's there to stop you from being homeless if your house burns down.

So that's why Lost is a rerun...

I didn't realize it until this morning, but tonight is the State of the Union address. Just as David likes to predict the Oscars, I've been thinking about what's going to be in tonight's speech.

What we will hear: Iraq, democracy, voting, etc.; winning the War on Terror, capturing xx% of Al Qaeda; Social Security and personal accounts; tort reform; tax cuts; and possibly steroids in sports;

What we won't hear: WMDs, civilian casualties in Iraq; war-cause sacrifice by anyone other than the military; Social Security and privatization or private accounts; the profit margins of large insurance and/or drug companies; tax reform

What I'm not sure about yet: a culture of "life"; gay marriage

Hook, line and sinker?

I was reading through Salon today, and noticed that one of the articles starts with:

I like to keep some distance between the doomsday predictions of everyone from Seoul Methodist ministries to the Landover Baptist Church who believes that the tsunami was God's punishment to heathen Indonesia for its disbelief in Jesus.

Do you think someone should tell them that Landover Baptist site is a parody?

Unfortunately, the linked-to Christian creationist Conference is not.

Damn sinful bunnies...

What is it with these faggy cartoon characters these days? First there was Spongebob, trying to lure kids into the evil of treating people with dignity and respect, and now we've got Buster from Postcards from Buster trying to lure them into becoming maple sugaring lesbians.

PBS has decided to bury an episode of the cartoon show because it showed a family where the parents are two women. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said that it wasn't appropriate because many parents would object to their children being shown a family that included lesbians.

Apparently, however, it is perfectly acceptable to show Mormon and other fundamentalist Christians, which the Postcards from Buster show has shown. So it's OK to portray religions that treat women as second-class citizens, but not a "lifestyle" that pisses off the Right?

The whole fucking point of this show is to expose kids to all sorts of people and families. Some like them and some different. Regardless of what the radical Right likes to think, gay people are here to stay, and gay families aren't going anywere. So for a member of the government to try to sweep this uncomfortable fact under the rug because they don't follow conservative Christian theology is abhorrent, to say the least.

I'd like to point out that this was Secretary Spellings second day of work. Really, what with No Child Left Behind massively underfunded, with Alabama keeping segregation era language in their constitution so that they wouldn't have to form a decent public school system, and all the other problems with our education system in this country, you'd think that she could find something better to do than censor a kid's cartoon TV show in her first week on the job.

More SocSec

I saw this and realized it was so important, I'm just going to steal it outright from Talking Points Memo:

A note from TPM reader Paul Krugman ...

Today's WSJ lead editorial is a classic. It's titled "All you need to know", and shows the CBO projection of declining deficits and stable debt. What they either don't know or believe readers don't know is that this is the *baseline* projection, which assumes that the sunset clauses in the tax cuts actually go into effect, with the whole thing expiring at the end of 2010 (which is halfway through fiscal 2011, in their chart.) It also assumes that nothing is done to reform the alternative minimum tax, which amounts to a stealth tax increase. So what they've proved is that the tax cuts are affordable as long as they go away ...

The sunset clause says that the tax cuts Bush implemented will increase until 2010, when they will vanish. Not increase gradually, but ... *poof* ... surprise, taxes again! The problem is that no one seriously thinks that Congress in 2010 will let a big tax increase happen on their watch, and it's generally assumed the tax cuts will be made permanent near then. But the CBO is required by law to make their projections as if they follow the law as it's written now.

<Yellow ribbon here>

No matter what you may think of the Iraq war, one thing I think we can all agree with is that the men and women over there are very brave, sacrificing their own interests for something bigger than they are, and are doing an incredibly difficult job with always-insufficient resources. One thing that really irks me is when neocons and right-wingers say they "support the troops" as if I don't.

There is an excellent New Yorker article on the changing way the military is dealing with fighting an ever-changing war unlike one we've ever fought before. I know it's long, but come on, we're in a war and 1300+ American soldiers have died so far. Think of it as a little bit of sacrifice on your part.

The article does a great job of getting across just how ingenous soldiers have to be just to get their jobs done, and how difficult it is to do them and prevent people from getting hurt. But this quote towards the end, frankly, send chills down my spine:

Thomas White, who was fired from his job as Secretary of the Army in May of 2003 for clashing with Rumsfeld on a number of issues, including how many troops would be needed, told me ... “If I had it to do again, what Shinseki and I should have done is quit, and done so publicly,” he said. White called it a measure of Rumsfeld’s contempt for the Army that he didn’t name a permanent Secretary of the Army to replace him until this past November. “To spend more than a year at war without a Secretary of the Army is unthinkable,” White said. [emphasis mine]

And, considering that many of the soldiers aren't even into their twenties yet, this part at the very end just breaks my heart:

Within the tiny sliver of the war each [officer] sees, examples of brilliance and bravery abound. They’re proud to be a part of “the most beautiful Army in the history of the world,” as one recently returned captain put it ... But they will also tell you that the war is excruciating. Despite their Buck Rogers technology, they are losing friends to weapons made from RadioShack gizmos, and the people they’ve been sent to help seem to hate them more every day.

I was irritated because my cable went out last week. Really puts things in perspective.

Spongebob Queerpants

David forwarded something to me about the recent controversy with James Dobson and his Focus on the Family group and how they're attacking Spongebob Squarepants because he's in a video distributed to schools for teaching tolerance of all people to their kids. There was even a New York Times article on it. The problem being that, since the video doesn't describe gays as evil, vile beings, it's "pro-homosexual." Dobson's assistant said, "We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids." Yeah, brainwashing them to respect and treat people civily, we sure can't have that in the public school system. (Note that the video makes no mention of gays or sexual orientation.)

I won't comment much more on it here, since other's have done so better than I (Kos, James Wolcott)

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine lays into Dobson (here) and follows up in a second post (here). I made a couple of comments in the comments section of the followup, noting that anyone that disagreed with the conservative Christian dogma was called an anti-Christian "bigot." (Down towards the bottom; yes, I know there are 80-some comments on that article.)

How did we get to the point where suggesting that people be treated with respect gets you attacked as a bigot?

Fuck IE

I just finished playing with the template for the blog. You'll notice that there's a little Google ad up in the corner. Yes, I'm a blogwhore. I actually added the Google AdSense thing a few days ago, but it wasn't visible from the top of the page, so I adjusted it this evening.

It really only took me about 20 minutes to get the layout to work right. Then it took me another freaking hour to get the layout to not look like crap in IE. Firefox can handle the CSS just fine. IE? Crap-o-rific. But that's what you get when Microsoft is the primary, the dominant, the monopolistic player in the market. So all I can say is:

Seriously, use it.

SocSec

David sent out a mass email telling people about this FactCheck.org article. It's a bit cryptic to me, but it looks like the Bush administration citations of an $11B shortfall in Social Security is a number based on an infinite projection into the future. In mathematical terms, it sounds like they're integrating from now to inifity. Previously, Social Security only attempted to forecast 75 years into the future.

This is, of course, an outragous attempt at deception. The idea that we can reliably forecast the economic state of our nation 100+ years into the future is ludicrous. The idea that we should basically eliminate the Social Security program in response to this is criminal. That's like expecting an accountant in pre-Great-Depression times to have forecast the Internet boom.

But all this makes no difference. It is taken as axiomatic in the news these days that Social Security is about to collapse under its own weight any day now. As usual, in this administration, the messaging trumps the message. So expect to see this $11B number thrown about a LOT on Fox News.

There is a bit of resistance to this attempt at deception, however. There's the FactCheck article, and now a website dedicated to getting the word out:

More gay.com spambots

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Very bad, indeed

The New York Times had an amusing editorial today talking about the end of Crossfire, and how it and red-faced-screaming-talking-head shows like it have badly influenced the news media. We saw this prominently during the election, when FOX News anchors basically spouted White House talking points left and right. Or should that be right and right?

CNN has stated that they are moving to a more news-oriented programming lineup. Probably to their benefit, now that the election is over.

The editorial ended on a great note, which I just want to share:

And last month, when the tsunami hit Asia, viewers got a chance to notice what they were in danger of losing to talk TV. CNN, with a comparatively large international army of journalists at its disposal, went out and covered the story. Fox News and MSNBC had to depend more on conversationalists in the studio, all of whom agreed that tidal waves were very, very bad.

Gay.com

After hanging out in the gay.com chatroom for a while, I can only wonder what it would be like to be hit on by a man that was (a) under 50, (b) not married, and (c) not looking for "discreet" sex. Yes, I know, I'm a prude.

Vote or die!

If you put their philosophy a certain way, most people would agree with much of the conservative movement. Lower taxes, more individual freedomes, less governmental intrustion into everyday life. So I think it's important to make your voice heard.

Vote in this IllinoisLeader poll:

Gay rights legislation. Do you support the Illinois Legislature's action to make homosexuals a protected class of citizens based on their sexual orientation in the same way that minorities have anti-discriminatory protections based on their race?

Right now, the Yes side is winning, 78% to 21%. Equal rights for all! Isn't it great?

Mmm, tasty

A couple of weeks ago, in a staff meeting, somehow the topic of ginsing came up. It turned out that my boss had some red ginseng chocolates in his office, and he brought them down and offered one to everyone. Being the curious food nerd that I am, I took one, but forgot I had it until today.

I've just eaten what I would swear was slightly chewy, chocolate covered dirt. With a cinnamon aftertaste.

DCVDP

In this post, the Infidel David asked if there really was such a thing as Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. Could I make this stuff up? From their website:

It's all in your point of view

A Muslim shiek has explained the recent tsunami as being God's punishment against those in the afflicted nations for their sins. He specifically cited fornication, homosexuality, usury, and corruption. I guess if God were a cop chasing a suspect through a crowd of people, he'd shoot at him with a flamethrower.

He's only half right, though. Clearly, this disaster was a punishment from God for our sins. But it wasn't these sexual sins. After all, they've been going on in the world since the dawn of time; why would He decide to punish them so much now? No, clearly this tsunami is a punishment for a recent crime against Nature. And as should be clear to even the most unbeheaded of infidels, the abhorrent crime I speak of is the creation of a thing that should not be: Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper. This is simply an unholy combination of things that He never meant to be combined.

So there you have it. Two possible explanations. Now, how shall we decide which one of us is right?

Back from vacation

More on vacation later.

But I've returned to find Fred Phelps rejoycing in the deaths caused by the tsunami. Jesus would be proud. Any possibly that the Phelpsians have even a single shred of human decency among them has been eliminated, however.

Now

I sat down to eat breakfast (or lunch, considering it was about noon) and turned on CNN, to see that Time had named Bush II it's Man of the Year. As it went to commercial the promo made it clear that the Bush story was going to keep going on and on and on. So I flipped over to PBS, to find Now With Bill Moyers on.

Now is a great show and I don't watch it often enough. Of course, no one else does either, because it's more than ten minutes long, contains facts, and no one is shouting at anyone else. This episode was all about the media. Shortly after I came in, it turned it's eye to the right-wing media machine and how it is distorting our perception of the world. Like how the Swift Boat vets can quickly write a book, go on O'Reilly's show, then talk radio, and Drudge will pick up and put it on the net. Moyers had one guest, Richard Viguerie, described as the founding father of the conservative movement, claiming, "That’s what journalism is, Bill. It’s all just opinion. Just opinion."

That's a dangerous suggestion, and I think one that goes to the heart of the media today. Sure, we all have our own personal opinions and biases, but what makes a good journalist and even a good scientist, is the desire and the attempt to set those biases aside and just look at the facts. If all news is opinion, who's opinion isn't news? Then it's ok to create a network and a media movement where everything is slanted in one direction. After all, it's all just one opinion, right?

Moyers then said a short goodbye to the show, since this is his last broadcast on the show. He had a great quote, which I will have to paraphrase here, "News is what powerful people don't want known. Everything else is just publicity." With this White House, and it's obsession with loyalty and security, that's truer than ever.

I, Viewer

I rented I, Robot this evening. It wasn't doing real well in any of the online reviews I could find, but it looked interesting and I was in the mood for something mindless and entertaining. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, and fairly faithful to Asimov's writings. It could have been a lot better, though, and the product placement was a subtle as Mike Tyson.

Then I made the mistake of poking around in the IMDB forums just to see what other people were thinking. I'm amazed at that place. Usenet is about as faceless and consequences-free an environment you can get in terms of communicating with other people, and the flame wars there are nothing in comparison with those forums.

I'm also amazed at the quality of the postings there. It looks like the average person has the writing and spelling skills of a drunk 13-year-old with a concussion. (I don't know, maybe the average person there is a drunk 13-year-old.) I'll admit I'm a bit of a grammar Nazi, but I do realize that blogs and forums and email are not the areas where one will find the most formal and polished writings. But this?

Please dont said, that this is the worst movie, becouse youre not know what are you talking about and maybe youre realy supid, becouse its not right to said anythink like this, becouse aparently you not a kritik and defenitly not a sci-fi entiusiast, becouse if you were, and said this is the wors movie ever, you must be realy sick, becouse this is one of the best movie ever.

I read an article a few days ago about how companies are having to send new employees to remedial classes because the generation that grew up with email, cell phone text messaging, and IM clients is almost functionally illiterate. Or at least ilgrammatic, if you'll permit me to invent a word. Reading those forums, I can believe it.

They hate us because we're "free"

A Cornell University study revealed that a near-majority of Americans want to place restrictions on the civil liberties of American Muslims. Specifically:

• 44% of those surveyed wanted restrictions on the rights of Muslims. (Compared to 48% against)
• 27% wanted Muslims to be required to register with the federal government.

The numbers were highest among those that were particularly religious, and those that got their news primarily from television. Fox News, ya think?

Mind you, this comes three years after the last terrorist attack on our country. God only knows what will happen if there's another one.

How come after Oklahoma City we didn't have a call for white Christians to be registered with the government? Oh, yeah, I forgot. They're not brown-skinned, funny-looking furriners.

Yikes

I've actually been cited (scroll to the bottom). I'm not sure what's worse: that people agree with me, or that they think I know what I'm talking about.

Let there be (a small) light

Just finished changing the light bulb in my oven. Was it absolutely necessary to make it so freaking hard to get to? Three screws, all a bit rusty, holding a fairly rusty metal plate over a glass cover over the bulb. All way in the back, so I basically have to crawl inside the oven to get to it. If anyone had seen, they'd probably think I was trying to do myself in. Although, in an electric stove, it's pretty hard to do that.

TAR

It was sad watching Don and Mary Jean get kicked off The Amazing Race this evening, while watching Jonathan and Victoria take second place even with all their vile bickering and shouting and even one shove from him. Those two couples are like night and day. Don and MJ are class all the way, while Jonathan is just ... repulsive. Repulsive in every way, to be frank.

That's the nature of the Race, I suppose. Winner take all, and nice doesn't mean you get in front.

And it's sad that, as much of an asshat as Jonathan is, he still gets laid more than I do.

My number

I'm not sure I agree with this, but who am I to argue with an internet quiz?

You Are the Peacemaker

9 You are emotionally stable and willing to find common ground with others. Your friends and family often look to you to be the mediator when there is conflict. You are easy going and accepting. You take things as they come. Avoding conflict at all costs, you're content when things are calm.

What number are you?

Found via Reports From the Edge.

They think so we don't have to

It looks like the we-have-more-moral-values-than-you crowd has discovered the Internet. It looks like Boobiegate and Towelgate are the work of a single, right-wing group that thinks their judgment should supersede everyone else's.

Mediaweek reports that the FTC is receiving many more reports than in previous years. In fact, 2003 saw twenty times more complaints than 2002. Not because TV is becoming more indecent, but because of the Parents Television Council. In fact, of the 240,000 complaints received in 2003, 99.8% of them were from the PTC.

Ninety nine point eight percent.

It looks even more ridiculous in graphical form:

This is getting fucking absurd. One right-wing organization shouldn't be able to dictate to the rest of the country what is acceptable on television. The FCC is supposed to regulate decency based on "community standards." That community is supposed to be the country as a whole, not what's acceptable for a kindergarten classroom.

One amusing thing to note: in an era when the MPAA and RIAA are suing 12-year-old girls for piracy of intellectual property, the PTC seems to be doing the same sort of thing on a vastly larger scale. Their own website admits that they have archived 89,000 hours of prime-time television broadcasts. All probably without the consent of the copyright owner. The CEO of Turner Broadcasting claims that fast-forwarding through commercials is stealing. I wonder what filling up 14,000 videotapes counts as?

OK, I promise, no more politics blogging for a full week.

So Alabama really *is* filled in inbred rednecks!

Stunningly, Alabama voters rejected a bill that would have removed the segregation-era language from their state Constitution. Seriously. The overwhelming rejection is supposedly due to some people saying the repeal could lead to higher taxes. Why? Because, in Alabama, public education is a gift of the state, not a right of every child in the state. I guess the population of Alabama realy is made up of a bunch of dumbfucks.

Not to be content with keeping segregation alive, now a state legislator want to ban all books with gay content from public libraries, including university libraries. It only includes books that "promote homosexuality" in order to protect children from the "homosexual agenda." I'm not really sure how many children in Alabama (the few that can actually read, thanks to the public schools) are reading about homosexuality in university libraries.

In the Bible, it's very easy to read David and Jonathan as gay lovers. ("After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself." 1 Sam 18:1) Also, when Jesus heals the servant of a centurion (Matthew 8:5-13), the terms in Greek and Latin used for "servant" both have a sexual conotation. Not only did Jesus heal him, but held up the centurion as an excellent example of faith. That's a pretty strong "promotion" right there. So I guess we'll have to get rid of the Bible, as well.

WNHMAU?

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+.@++]!
|+))%+)

If I were a NetHack monster, I would be a shopkeeper. I'm exceptionally polite and helpful, but get angry when people try to take advantage of my trusting nature.

Which NetHack Monster Are You?

And if I weren't that, I'd be a little dog. Arf.

Please, leave me behind

For a variety of reasons which I won't bore you with, I wound up at Amazon reading the reader reviews for the incredibily popular, Christan porn, Left Behind. This one cracked me up and so I thought I'd share:

Lord Jesus I Sure Hope You Save Us!!!!!

I just dun finished this here book. Now I'll tell all ya fellas that I aint too much on book learnin or readin words but I was goshdanged by this here book. It's just like I always dun knew it was gonna be. The Lord Jesus God gonna come down here on this Earth and be a whuppin up on all those people that aint right like christians. That includes all the dirty muslins and the stoopid aytheists (can't never be spellerin that word correct-like). Anyways I only hope the Lord God Jesus's repersentive on Earth, George W. Bush, can a get this here 'pocalypse a comin soon enough. Theez damn books are a goshdamn sight better than a watchin Jerry Springer or beatin up ma kids like I usually be doin'. One of them stoopid revewers said this here book was a ritten at a sixth grader level. Well thats a bunch of spit and possum vittles. I dint even finish the fourth grade and I'm a readin it just fine. Ima just hopin somebody gonna make nifty cartoon out this here book. YEEEEEHAAAAWWWWW!!!! PRAISE JESUS!!!!!

-- Patrick Burns

The scary thing is that, although it's obviously tongue in cheek, at its heart I think it pretty much sums up the attitude of the people this book appeals to.

Evolution-shmevolution

Things like this make me almost wish I was back in high school.

(Found at Patriotboy's site.)

Thank you for thinking so I don't have to

The Arbiter of All That Is Not Indecent, Michael Powell, wrote an editorial piece in the NY Times defending all his ridiculous actions since Boobiegate. So you can imagine how I find it appropriate that this same day, I read about the US distributor for the Merchant of Venice asking parts of it be modified so that certain parts inappropriate for American viewers were painted over. What were those parts? A 16th century fresco by an acclaimed Viennese master painter was visible. Seriously.

This is part of the chilling effect we're going to be seeing as the conservative movement tries to wrap its claws around the media. Networks and news agencies are already running scared: Saving Private Ryan can't be shown because the network might get a huge FCC fine; churches can't advertise that they welcome gays because the Executive branch of the government opposes gay marriage; and now works of art by the great masters are considered obscene.

On a related note, Jeff Jarvis has a point-by-point (if rather irreverent) response to Powell's editorial.

Just who's in charge here?

You may have heard this before:

Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ... Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

-- Jesus, Matthew 5:38

And then, thanks to a clip from the Daily Show:

blow [the terrorists] all away in the name of the Lord

Rev. Jerry Falwell, CNN, Nov. 11, 2004

Oy, veh.

The DH scandal

There was an interesting editorial by Frank Rich in the New York times yesterday about the Desperate Housewives promo scandal. I think one of the most telling points he makes is that the promo aired Sunday, but complaints did not start coming in to the FCC until Tuesday night and Wedneday. Rush Limbaugh didn't get around to reporting on how "shocked" he was by the promo until Wednesday. I suspect that right wing media machine didn't get around to telling all the "moral values" crowd that they were supposed to be scandalized by the promo until then; that's when the scandal began.

I didn't hear Limbaugh's show where he yapped on about the incident, but Rich points out that Rush claimed the promo showed Nicollette Sheridan's bare butt (which it didn't) and that it reminded him of the Kobe Bryant case. The last is particularly telling. Why would Limbaugh immediately be reminded of an alleged rape scandal by this innocuous promo? Because Terrell Owens is black, and Nicollette Sheridan is white. If she had been jumping into the arms of some white football player, or she wasn't as blonde and white as she is, I doubt we'd be hearing nearly as much about this incident.

On a slightly related note, Rich points out something very interesting about the record $1.2 million fine that was levied by the FCC against FOX's Married by America. I think this is best shown in picture format:

Three complaints. Just so we're clear, that's 0.000001% of the US population. And that was enough to get the FCC to levy the largest indecency fine it ever had. Just imagine if had actually been something scandalous.

A media grump

No, the title to this post does not refer to Ann Coulter; if it did, it would be titled A media skank, which is a horse of a different color. But then again, so is Ann.

Anyway, I was looking online for a copy of the (in)famous Monday Night Football promo that has everyone so up in arms. I wanted to see if it really was as scandalous as the press is making it out to be. So many people are apologizing about this promo, I'm surprised that CBS and NBC haven't apologized for it at this point.

Unfortunately, even with the Internet being the amazing content delivery system that it is, I can't find it anywhere for download. The Dallas Morning News has a version available for streaming, and iFilm may have the same thing, but I can't seem to get anything at their site to play. But neither site will let you download the clip, just stream it in a separate window.

I hate streaming video. Yes, I realize I'm the last person on Earth that uses a modem, but streaming means that the DMN crappy version is a useless slideshow with audio that cuts in and out, even after setting my preferences in WMP to the lowest possible quality. And god forbid you press the pause button. Resuming streamed video from "pause" is a 50/50 proposition at best.

You know, I really don't mind waiting 20 or 30 minutes to download a movie file if I know the quality is going to be better, and that I'll be able to view the whole clip through without getting RealVideo's obscenity-inducing "buffering ... buffering ... buffering" every five seconds. I'll just start the download and go off and do something else for 15 minutes. I do have an attention span longer than a camera flash, really.

OK, I understand that these sites want to make sure that you view the movie clip along with their ads, and links to other locations on their site that I'll never use. That's fine. They have to pay the bills, too. Just embed those in the video, and let me download the freaking thing already.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone

Four-day weekends are nice, except when you have nothing to do. Oh, there's lots of stuff I should do. Updating my resume and laundry come particularly to mind, but I can't seem to work up any enthusiasm for that. I even went out to Blockbuster last night, but couldn't find anything compelling to watch. I was thinking about cooking something, too, but before I knew it, the day was half over already and it was too late to start. So I'm really fucking bored, and almost looking forward to going back to work on Monday.

Who's running this joint?

You've probably heard about the Istook Amendment. That's the name being given to the amendment to the current spending bill that would have let certain certain congressmen, their staffers, and pretty much anyone else they authorize to look at the tax returns of any American for any reason. Like the Democratic prosecutor that's trying to indict Tom Delay for breaking campaign finance laws. Hypothetically.

Talkingpointsmemo.com points out that it's been four days, and still, no one knows how that language got into the bill.

Firefly

Joss says: Serenity delayed five months

Eric says: Waaaaaaaaaah!

To be fair, if it's in the best interest of the movie, I'm all for it. Like, if good movie with a hard-core, yet fairly cult, following opened opposite the third Star Wars prequel, it might be a good idea to delay the release of the former.

Isn't hypocrisy grand?

First the Republicans send out flyers in the south saying that Democrats want to legalize gay marriage [1] and ban the Bible. Then, the Washington Post accepts a 16-page advertising insert saying how evil and horrible gays and lesbians are.

Now, here's a story about a top Republican National Committee staffer advertising online: not for sex; not for casual sex; but for multiple-partner, casual, bareback sex. This is, as you'll recall, the "abstinence-only" party. This is the "recriminalize sodomy" party. [TX GOP Platform, 2004] This is the "family values" and "value voter" party.

Of course, the liberal press has snapped this scandal up and is trumpeting it from the rooftops. Right? Well, no. A quick search of the Lexis-Nexis news database turns up absolutely no hits on Dan Gurley's name.

What is it with Republicans and multiple-partner bareback sex? This is the second in the past few years, what with Andrew Sullivan's bareback.com incident. I realize it's unusual for gay men to actually use condoms, but why is it only Republicans getting embarassed by the scandals?

[1] Of course, no one ever seemed to realize that both the Republican and the Democrat candidates opposed legalizing gay marriage.

Hey, Jude

What is with all the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital commercials on TV lately? I swear I've seen half a dozen in the past few days. And not just the same ad repeated, different ones each time.

Sure, little kids with cancer are a bad thing, but I don't need to be reminded every 2.5 minutes I'm a terrible person because I'm not giving them all my money.

Specter's spectre

There's a big brouhaha growing in DC about Arlen Specter's comments about what will happen when Bush II should nominate a pro-life judge for a federal or even Supreme Court position. He is now being attacked right and left, or rather Right and left, for being "disloyal." This increasing notion that Party loyalty trumps every other consideration is beginning to disturb me.

Arlen Specter wasn't elected by his consituents to do what's best for the Republican Party. He was elected to look after Pennsylvania's best interests. And the idea that he and, presumably, every Republican is expected to rubber stamp any action by the President is dangerous.

It's been said many times that politics is about compromise. Hundreds of Senators and Representatives come together from many different states, with many different competing interests, and try to hammer out aggreements and make laws that are good for the country as a whole. Not to implement Party doctrine. And, lately, it seems that the Republicans are treating this election with the attitude of, "Ha, ha, we can do whatever we want now."

Similarly, the CIA has begun a purge of those similarly "disloyal" to the president. The linked Houston Chronicle article reads in part:

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

Let me make this very clear: it is not the CIA's job to assit the President's agenda. It is the CIA's job to provide intelligence to the government. Period. If the administration can not spin that intelligence to support their policies, that's their problem. They have no business firing people because they might tell the Emperor he has no clothes. Dissent is not disloyalty.

These two things taken together bother me greatly. Now, I don't say this lightly --- I am not a conspiracy theorist and I don't want to sound shrill -- but I think these could be the baby steps toward an authoritarian state. We are seeing one branch of the goverment acting more and more to secure, not the ability to serve the electorate, but it's own power. There is a fine line between no one being able to speak the truth for fear of reprisals to no one being permitted to speak without punishment.

Just a further note about the Specter situation: the right-wing press machine is already starting to spin him as a "liberal," and even an "extreme liberal." He's not. He's a moderate Republican. He is reasonably pro-choice and pro-stem-cell-research. The Christian Coalition gave him an 81% rating in December of 2003.

The Value Voter

Haven't blogged in a while. Been tired lately, so no energy for writing.

This letter from Bob Jones, of Bob Jones University, to Bush II has been floating around the blogosphere, but I thought I'd post the interesting bits anyway.

In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism.

Paganism? Excuse me? Was I napping when the worship of the Earth Mother became our official state religion?

You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ.

Really? Most liberals (like most Americans) are not only religious, but Christian. But the Republicans have managed to frame the debate so, and therefore it is known so.

Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government.

That's funny, last I looked in the Bible, it didn't say much about religious freedom. In fact, "I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no Gods before me," pretty much leaves religious freedom out of the mix entirely. And as for freedom of speech, "The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak" makes it clear that it applies only to some people, anyway. And limited government? The only response to that I can think of is, "What the fuck you talkin' about, Bob?"

Bob, I wonder if Jesus ever made him mind up about a good Christian boy dating one of them colored women? You'd better ban that, just in case. Oh, never mind, too late.

Election results

(I originally wrote this on Wed, and am just getting around to finishing it now. I have some time waiting for this microscope to pump down, and nothing else to do right now.)

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

-- The White Queen, Alice in Wonderland

Unless Kerry gets a big proportion of the provisional ballots in Ohio, it looks like the election is going to Bush II. That's not entirely out of the question, because Gore got a huge fraction of them in the last election, but I'm not holding my breath. I also wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans sued to stop the vote-counting.

But how can so many people vote to reelect a man that has done so much damage to our country's reputation and honor? I think here is one clue:

• 57% of Americans believe that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda before 9/11
• 20% believe that Iraq was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks
• 65% believe most experts say Iraq did have WMDs
• 75% of those said they were going to vote for Bush (pre-election)

The only reason I can think of is cognitive dissonance. Basically, people don't *want* to believe Bush is a bad President, so they don't. I forget where I read it, but someone suggested that people voted their shame. If Bush is a bad President, then the Iraq war is a bad idea, and the deficit is going through the roof for no reason, and even the torture at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo keep us safe.

The problem with this sort of attitude is that it's hard to get through. Logical arguments won't work, because it's an emotional state of mind. The Democrats are going to need to get through somehow, though, or we're up for a long, hard ride.

Election

Well, fuck.

Where is the outrage?

The election is tomorrow, and I will either shut up about politics for a while, or I'll curl up in the fetal position for the next four years. But one thing I just don't seem to get is that the Republican party is mounting what appears to be a coordinated attack on our country and no one is paying attention.

• In Ohio, a swing state (surprise), it took a judge to prohibit Republicans from challenging voter elegibility actually inside the polling locations. They were planning to mount these challenges in primarily minority neighborhoods, which would likely go slanted toward the Democrats.
• In Florida, they are dressing up as gay ACT-UP activists from San Francisco and claiming that a vote for Kerry is a vote for gay marriage and gay adoption.
• In Michigan, Republicans are calling voters and posing as Democrats. The pre-recorded message asks voters to "remember to legalize gay marriage by supporting John Kerry" and that "Gay marriage is a right we all want. It's a basic Democrat principle."
• In a number of swing states, Republican firms have destroyed Democratic voter registration forms.
• In West Virginia, calls to Democrats from the Eastern Panhandle Republican Headquarters falsely told the voters that they were not registered, and would not be able to vote in this election.
• And then in Alabama, there's this:
  

Kos has a great blog post up (the last two came from there) with even more outrageous examples of these nearly-treasonous activities.

And no one is reporting on this! This is a direct attack on our government and our way of life, and it's basically being ignored or treated as business as usual. The level of cynicism and lust for power on the part of the Republican party that it shows is simply astounding.

Fuckwits

I had the pleasure of having this conversation in the Champaign gay.com chatroom the other day:

{Antaeusz}oy erik
{Antaeusz}what maxe you think anyone wantz to hook you up?
{[me]}were you born an asshole, or did you have to take lessons?
{Antaeusz}the latter, definitely
{[me]}your teachers would be proud of you, then
{Antaeusz}lol...hoo ha...you didnt like that, did you
{[me]}not really, i just don't like you in general
{Antaeusz}you don't even know me
{Antaeusz}but U sho is ugly

The sad thing is that it's the first time in I-don't-know-how-many months someone chatted with me that wasn't a man 20 years my senior wanting to hook up. So I've given up and uninstalled the damn chat client so I won't waste any more of my life on there.

This is why I don't date: because other than David, Billy, and Jon, gay men are all assholes.

OK, so I'm really lazy

I just finished balancing my checkbook for the first time in eight months. Oops. Just been letting those statement build up. Do you know how hard it is to figure out what an electronic transfer was for from February? I think there are a couple where I'm still not sure what they were for.

I should learn by now, dont let things like this build up. Fortunately, it also means I'm close to seeing the dining room table again.

Fuck the spambots!

One of the more persitent spam bots in the gay.com chatrooms is one for gayroomie.com. Interestingly, it's always the exact same thing, a bot enters, repeats the ad exactly three times in succession, then leaves. It looks something like:

Devin1011 Entered the chat
«Devin1011» Gay Roommate? http://www.gayroomie.com/
«Devin1011» Gay Roommate? http://www.gayroomie.com/
«Devin1011» Gay Roommate? http://www.gayroomie.com/
Devin1011 Has left

This lovely piece of network abuse has been brought to you at the ethically-challenged bastards at:

MoveOn Media. LLC
Toby Benjamin
1825 Logan St.
Denver, CO 80203
Phone: 303-564-7726
Fax..: 303-861-2427
Email: Chadben024@aol.com

So fee free to drop Chatben024@aol.com and tell him what a parasitic wanker he is. Better yet, drop a line to abuse@qwest.com, who hosts the gayroomie.com website and ask them to stop hosting their spammer.

Now here's the funny part. I can't find anything on this MoveOn Media, LLC, and there's nothing really interesting at the gayroomie.com site itself. However, Googling for the chadben024@aol.com email address gives one hit. A personal ad, and a rather amusing one, at that.

inexperienced seeks experienced
Posted by: toby
February 07, 2004 at 05:30:22

I've only given a BJ so far and i want to try more in the Denver area. 19 years old 155lbs smooth body. Email me at Chadben024@aol.com or call me at 303-861-2427.

The area matches the registration info for gayroomie.com, as well as the email address and the phone number. I guess finding gay roomates isn't good for getting laid.

Someone shut him up...

I caught the last five minutes of the Keyes/Obama debate on WILL tonight. I wish I'd known it was on or I'd have watched more of it. It looks like it would have been rather entertaining. I tuned in just in time to catch Keyes claim the US Constitution applies only to the federal government, so it would be perfectly legal for the individual states to establish an official religion. Something tells me he has a particular religion in mind.

Just another tiny piece of evidence showing that Alan Keyes is a fucking nutjob.

Cats and dogs working together!

It looks like Darby Conley has it right: if we had more wise pets in the world, we'd have a different president today.

The missing explosives

By now, you've almost certainly heard that the Bush administration failed to secure an Iraqi military installation, resulting in the theft of about 380 tons of high explosives. After the invasion of Baghdad, securing the installation wasn't a priority according to Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary. Most of what was stolen was RDX and similar high explosives. Theoretically, this stuff could be used to trigger a nuclear bomb, but that's not particularly a concern. Rather, it makes for excellent conventional bombs. In fact, this cache is likely the source of the explosive used in the recent car bombing attacks in Iraq.

Less than a pound of RDX was used to bring down PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. To put that in perspective, that's about the volume of my coffee mug at work. There were 760,000 coffee mugs of explosive stolen from this weapons cache.

All because protecting it wasn't a priority.

Web stats stuff

To whoever just came to my site from a Google search for "clips of Dick Cheney's daughter having sex", please go the fuck away.

Five word movie review: The Day After Tomorrow

Schlock with great special effects.

(And I haven't even finished the movie!) Come on, when they play the "little orphaned boy with cancer" card, you know it's crap.

Although it might be worth seeing the world destroyed to get to huddle together for warmth with Dash Mihok.

Huh?

There's just something about sports I don't get. This week, it looks like the Yankees were playing the Celtics or Red Socks or something in the World Series. When whichever team won, their fans went wild. One fan was actually killed when struck in the eye by a rubber bullet fired by cops trying to break up rioting fans.

I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the whole idea that a bunch of multi-millionaires vaguely geographically associated with me have beaten some other group of multi-millionaires in a physical contest is cause for celebration. Not just any celebration, mind you, but a "let's go flip some cars over and set them on fire" kind of celebration. Do these people really think that they somehow share in the victory by living in the town associated with the winning team?

I guess the sports gene really is incompatible with the gay gene.

Hi, Bud

E. Bud's sign at 909 W. springfield currently reads:

BUSH, HISTORYS
MAN FOR
OUR TIME

Come November 2, let's all get together and make him history, shall we?

(I'll give E. Bud the benefit of the doubt and assume his sign letter pieces did not include an apostrophe, rather than him being an ingorant twit. Or at least an illiterate ignorant twit.)

You should be watching

If you're not watching Desperate Housewives, you should be. It's smart and clever and funny, which means it probably won't last out the season. Just off the top of my head, there are four good reasons for watching: the hot and hunky next door neighbor, played by Jamie Denton; the cute and horny gardner, who I hope to God is at least 18; one of the husbands is played by the guy that was the cute, yet celibate, Matt from Melrose Place; and Felicity Huffman. That last one was a reason entirely different from the other three.

Lesbogate

Boy, the flannel has hit the fan. Kerry made one reference to Mary Cheney and her being an out lesbian in the debate, and Republicans can't stop crying crocodile tears about it. Kerry's words were really quite benign:

We're all God's children, Bob, and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as.

But Republicans can't denounce it fast enough. Lynne Cheney was quick to come to her daughters "defense" saying that it was a "cheap and tawdry trick" and that Kerry "was not a good man."

It was only a few months ago that Alan Keyes, running for Republican office here in Illinois, called Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist," like all homosexuals. Where was the outrage then? Where was Lynne Cheney's righteous indignation when a member of her own political party was attacking her daughter? All Kerry really did was acknowledge her existence, something her own parents have been loathe to do in this campaign. No, the outrage from the Right is clearly just trying to make a mountain of this molehill. It is all sound and fury, and truly signifies nothing.

I'm reminded of the Republican National Convention a few months ago, the same place Keyes made his repugnant comment. After Cheney's speech or Bush's (I forget) the entire Cheney family got up on stage to give Dad a big hug for the camera and smile and look happy. That is, except for Mary. She was there at the convention; the networks showed cutaways of her sitting in the audience. Ah, but I think I remember that she was sitting with her girlfriend.

Mary has been silent on both these occasions, and has refused to be comment. But the fact that she wasn't up on the stage I find particularly peculiar. It's not like she doesn't support her father in his campaign, in fact, she works for it, as the Director for Vice Presidential Operations. I am strongly suspicious that she didn't go up on stage that day because she wasn't welcome there. Probably not by her father's request -- he's always seemed quite supportive, if quietly supportive -- but there had to be someone on the campaign that realized it would not look real great for the "family values" ticket to have openly queer family members on stage, possibly with their partners along. Possibly even (gasp!) holding hands.

Other people have written about this topic probably better than I have. Read more:

• Reports From the Edge
• Dave Cullen's article at Salon
• Eschaton

One more, then I'll stop. Really, there are better people than I pointing this stuff out. And I didn't plan to write this much this evening; I just can't seem to stop myself.

BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.

Hmm, that's odd:

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you... I truly am not that concerned about him.

-- press conference, March 2003

SCHIEFFER: Both of you are opposed to gay marriage. But to understand how you have come to that conclusion, I want to ask you a more basic question. Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?

You know, Bob, I don't know. I just don't know. I do know that we have a choice to make in America and that is to treat people with tolerance and respect and dignity. It's important that we do that. And I also know in a free society people, consenting adults can live the way they want to live. [blah blah blah sanctity of marriage blah blah defense of marriage blah blah]

I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that Bush thinks "tolerance and respect and dignity" can go hand-in-hand with the Texas sodomy law.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go spit.

Debate *facts*

From the second question in this debate:

SCHIEFFER: Flu kills thousands of people every year. Suddenly we find ourselves with a severe shortage of flu vaccine. How did that happen?

BUSH: Bob, we relied upon a company out of England to provide about half of the flu vaccines for the United States citizen, and it turned out that the vaccine they were producing was contaminated. And so we took the right action and didn't allow contaminated medicine into our country.

OK, that's a great response. Except it's completely wrong. Now it's true that the factory that was producing the vaccine was in the UK, but the company is based in California. So it wasn't really "a company out of England" that was producing the vaccine, but an American one. That's like saying Intel is "a company out of Ireland" because the have a fab in Dublin.

Secondly, Dubya says that "we took action" and "didn't allow contaminated medicine into the country." Again, it wasn't our fearless FDA agents inspecting the factory that came up with the contamination problems that it shut down, it was the Brits! It was Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency of Great Britian to take the action that shut down the factory.

According to the NY Times:

Even though bacterial contamination was first reported more than a month ago at a British flu vaccine factory, the Food and Drug Administration relied solely on the factory's owner for information on whether the problems were being resolved...

So the F.D.A. was caught by surprise when the British agency suspended the factory's license on Oct. 5, depriving the United States of nearly half the 100 million flu shots federal authorities expected to be used this winter.

I don't know why this one is affecting me more than the other three debates, but I'm so mad right now, I could just spit.

Question #3, and we've just had the "Kerry raised taxes 98 times" distortion. I have an idea, let's just start making facts up; it wouldn't make things much worse.

Debate #3

We are on the second question of the debate, and Bush has been less that truthful (or at least just plain wrong) about both the first and second questions. I'm pretty sure that he did say that he wasn't worried about bin Laden, and he's been wrong about the flu vaccine shortage.

And we're not even 15 minutes in.

Ten years

I think it's really an oversimplification to dismiss Dubya as dumb, or simple, or just a plain redneck. Which is why I have never really given much stock to the theory that his deteriorating ability to speak clearly was due to presenile dementia, as one doctor has hypothosized. But this movie, comparing Bush's performance in the recent debates with that from when he was running for governor ten years ago, shows a rather astonishing contrast. It's clearly partisan, and therefore not to be entirely trusted, but it's worth taking a look at, anyway.

Patriotboy

If you have not yet worshipped at the altar of Jesus's General, go. Now. Drop whatever you are doing and click that link. His unwavering support of Our Leader will bring a (manly) tear to any red-blooded heterosexual American's eye.

Cho-cho-cho

I have to keep telling myself that this is just preliminary, and doesn't really mean much yet. From zap2it.com:

NBC Resurrects Pilot From 'Wonderfalls' Co-Creator

Back in 1998, Todd Holland and John Riggi's "Five Houses" was one of FOX's hottest pilot scripts. It didn't make it to the air. Now, years later, "Five Houses" may get a second chance with NBC.

...the original pilot, which looked at a gay couple and the suburban neighborhood into which they move, was viewed by FOX network executives as "a gay show" at a time when such things weren't in vogue. Holland says that the show was never meant to be about sexuality so much as the blending of cultures and a study of communal life.

...It's possible that actors from the original pilot, including Margaret Cho, may be asked back for the second go-round.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

MPAA ratings

I sent this to David, since he's the film nut, and he suggested I post this article on the MMPA and their ratings board here. You know, the people that are responsible for assigning the G, PG, R, NC-17 ratings.

The article points out that NC-17 movies run the risk of being picketed by conservative groups, and not carried by Walmart or Blockbuster. There's no legitimate reason for this, of course. After all, NC-17 just means that it's not suitable for anyone under 17. Are they really suggesting that it's not right to portray some aspect of adult life, to adults, and not market it to children? What's actually wrong with a movie that's targeted to and appropriate for people over 17?

Frankly, I think it's because they have this idea that our society is sinking into depravity and evil, largely because of the 'mo's in Hollywood. They'd picket anything that's at the upper end of the ratings spectrum.

So I propose that we keep the NC-17 rating, as something that's appropriate for adults, and not for children, and create a new rating, NE, not appropriate for everyone. From Justin to Kelly comes to mind.

That way, the conservatives get their rating to boycott, and the adults get their movies. How do you like them apples, Jack Valenti?

The stage isn't even cold yet!

Oh, man, you just can't make this stuff up.

From tonight's debate:

KERRY: The president got $84 from a timber company that owns, and he's counted as a small business...

BUSH: I own a timber company?
(LAUGHTER)
That's news to me.

Then, from factcheck.ORG: (emphasis mine)

President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)

Geez, the man has so much money, he doesn't even know about it all! (Pointed out by Electablog.)

Music #2

(Continuation of this entry.)

I stuck Winamp on shuffle this evening while making dinner, and these both came up. I think the first is my offical theme song for this election season.

Republican is the way you vote
You've got a sticker on your bumper that's how I know ...
Hey, it's Saturday night so go on down the road
I'll cancel you out when I go to the polls
Nanci Griffith, One Blade Shy of a Short Edge

I'd like to dedicate this song to the twits on Springfield that have that constantly-changing Bush/Cheney sign in front of their house. I'll be cancelling at least one of you out come Election Day.

We're living in a time of inconvenience
Compassion fails me with this meanness in the air ...
We're living in the age of communication
Where the only voices heard have money in their hands
Where greed has become a sophistication
And if you ain't got money
You ain't got nothin' in this land
Nanci Griffith, Time of Inconvenience

I think these lines just about sum up the current political climate. And they were written in 1994. I hope they won't hold true forever.

Veep, veep!

Now this is a debate! Distortion ... inaccuracies ... distortion ... inaccuracies!

Gell-O

I just finished making a couple of gel candles (my first, thanks David!), and I have to say that gel wax base is some of the weirdest stuff I've ever touched. Even when melted, it's very viscous -- think extra-thick honey -- and pouring it is an exercise in not making a mess all over the kitchen. I'm not even sure it really hardens from the liquid state; it just seems to slowly, well, gel. It looks really cool, though.

It's sort of like working with Satanic Jell-O.