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!

Judy Myers is an un-American spammer

I've been on the Internet long enough to remember when spam wasn't a problem. I remember when you could share your email address without fear of having it sold and shared and getting tons of emails for V!agra and Cia!is and Va1uable Mor1gage Offers. The world has changed; I've had to abandon one email account because it was so spammed and my Gmail and Yahoo accounts have a combined 1500 spam emails between them at this very moment.

Yes, I'm very particular about these things, and getting additional spam from supposedly-reputable organizations pisses me off. No, I'm not a BOFH, myself, but I know what responsible list management entails, and it's not that difficult to do.

So this week, you can understand why I was upset to find in my inbox a spam message from Judy Myers, currently running for State Senator.

TRUTH ALERT from Sen. Judy Myers

Hi there!

My name is Judy Myers, and I’m running for the Senate from the 52nd district. During the past year, I’ve been honored to meet many of you, and discuss the issues facing our area.

Blah, blah, blah. So I sent off a complaint via SpamCop, not that I will suspect it will do any good. Then I noticed something odd. Not only is Myers's website not hosted in our very own Champaign-Urbana, or in her home of Danville, or anywhere in the United States at all. It's hosted in Germany. Remarkably hypocritical coming from someone whose website says about jobs:

By raising more than 300 hidden taxes and fees, state government has driven away thousands of high quality jobs to Indiana, Kentucky and other states. I will work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to create an economic climate friendly to small businesses and job creation.

So, apparently Myers objects to driving jobs to neighboring states, but overseas is just fine.

Here's the data, for those of you so technically-minded

judymyers2006.com = 82.165.239.223 (has no rDNS, naturally)

Here's the whois info on that IP address: (edited for space)

whois -h whois.ripe.net 82.165.239.223

inetnum: 82.165.224.0 - 82.165.239.255
netname: SCHLUND-CUSTOMERS
descr: Schlund + Partner AG
remarks: in case of abuse or spam, please mailto: abuse@schlund.de
remarks: For abuse issues, please use only abuse@schlund.com
remarks: For NOC issues, please look at our AS 8560
e-mail: abuse@schlund.com
phone: +49 721 91374 50
fax-no: +49 721 91374 20

And just to be careful, I did a traceroute:

  9    71 ms    75 ms     *     ae-2.ebr2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.132.66]
 10    56 ms    56 ms    62 ms  ae-23-52.car3.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.68.97.50]
 11    67 ms    61 ms    58 ms  level3-up.nyc.schlund.net [4.78.164.2]
 12    58 ms    59 ms    60 ms  217.160.229.106
 13    59 ms    61 ms    56 ms  217.160.229.38
 14    58 ms     *       58 ms  82.165.239.223

There really is no way to tell exactly where a server is located from its IP address, but you can see above that at hop #10, it hits New York, and everything after that is owned by schlund.net or schlund.de. The schlund.net webpage redirects to the schlund.de page, in German.

It's not the message, it's the messaging

Your liberal media at work.

This, too, is a chocolate city

On the way back on this trip, I was keeping track of the train's schedule. As I saw the scheduled times at each stop slip more and more, my "God, I have a four-and-a-half hour layover in Chicago?" gradually turned into, "God, I only have a four-and-a-half hour layover in Chicago?" So, when the train was finally six hours late, you can imagine I was in a bit of a pickle. Not being able to rent a car on such short notice, I took Amtrak up on their lodging and transportation.

Let me tell you, staying with Amtrak when they screw up is much nicer that riding with Amtrak when they screw up. They put me up in a fairly swanky hotel in downtown Chicago for the night, with enough cash for taxis to and fro, and meals. The next train out wasn't until four p.m. the following afternoon, so I took the alternate option of a Greyhound bus home.

I was waiting in the Greyhound terminal at 9:30 the next morning, and looked around to see that I was pretty much the only white guy in the room. Seriously, I'd estimate that the clientele and the staff were 10% white, 10% Asian or Hispanic, and the rest were black. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, of course, but it was simply unusual enough to make me sit up and take notice. It was sort of like a reverse episode of Friends, where every single person in New York City was white. On the bus itself, there's me, one Asian guy, and everyone else was black. It was fairly evenly split between the sexes.

On the train, I didn't notice this. An unusual variety of age, perhaps (see previous entry), but the crowd was pretty racially diverse. I can't help but wonder why this is the case.

The only reason I can think for this is economics. The bus is quite a bit cheaper than the train, I think, let alone flying.

It is, at least, a striking reminder that there does exist a significant class difference in our society. Whether driven by race, economics, education, or some combination of these, that difference exists.

Coming on the one-year anniversary of the Katrina devastation, it seems to be particularly important to remember that class difference. Republican pundits chastised New Orlenian residents for not preparing better and for not evacuating sooner. But it was not a sea of poor white faces at the Superdome. If such a disaster struck Chicago, or Houston, would we see pictures much different on CNN?

(2006-08-28 12:13)

Because everyone else is doing it...

Positively Kafka-esque

There are two AP articles that have got to be some of the most chilling things I've ever read:

From "U.S. War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000":

the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law... Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross... Every U.S. detainee in Iraq "is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for U.S.-led military detainee operations in Iraq... Reports of extreme physical and mental abuse, symbolized by the notorious Abu Ghraib prison photos of 2004, have abated as the Pentagon has rejected torture-like treatment of the inmates. Most recently, on Sept. 6, the Pentagon issued a new interrogation manual banning forced nakedness, hooding, stress positions and other abusive techniques... The new manual banning torture doesn't cover CIA interrogators.

This is the sort of thing we used to hear about the Soviet Union. People picked up in the dead of night, and shipped off somewhere. I had no idea that this number of people were being held. Gitmo is a few hundred prisoners, and the number removed from CIA torture facilities secret prisons is barely over a dozen. But 14,000 people?

If we're detaining "security risks" (and, by the way, exactly what does that term mean?) but getting it wrong 70 to 90% of the time, something is seriously wrong. If we're not getting it wrong that often, why are we releasing these people from detention?

The next story, "U.S. Holds AP Photographer in Iraq 5 Mos," puts a face on one of the 13,000 detainees in Iraq:

The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing... In [the AP photographer's] case, the military has not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations they have raised about him, [[AP executives]] said.

This is an AP photographer that is being detained. One of his photos was part of a group of 20 that won a Pulitzer Prize. If he's a terrorist, fine, detain him. If things are going as well in Iraq as the Bush administration says, fine, give him a trial, show the evidence, and punish him. If all they have are vague accusations, unsupported by evidence, let him go.

We're told that if we give into the terrorists and live in a climate of non-stop fear, then the terrorists will have won. I say, if we give up the very things that make us a civilized nation, then the terrorists will really have won.

UPDATE: On a somewhat related note, Glenn Greenwald responds to a completely lickspittle editorial by John Yoo in today's NY Times. He quotes some little-known "lefty blogger" to explain why the President should not be allowed to break the law, even in the face of the "Islamofascist Nazi" threat. Go read it. I'm seriously starting to think that reading Greenwald's stuff should be a prerequisite to citizenship.

Welcome to the blogosphere

This week brings us two new entries to the sidebar. The first is I Could've Been Clever brought to us by Billy. He also has another blog, Softcore Gaming. I'm not going to blogroll that one, because it's dedicated to console gaming, which I just don't do or even know much about. But if he wishes to discuss Civilization IV or Dungeon Siege 2, I'll be happy to check in more often.

The other is CounterCoulter.org, which, oh, I just happened to come across one day. It's full of brilliant and witty prose and dedicated to stopping Ann Coulter. So tell your friends, and tell your enemies. Help spread the word.

A sad passing

Former Texas governor Ann Richards dies

Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.

It's hard to find the words to express what a shame this is. She was a great woman.

Train scenery

There appear to be largely two groups of people that take the train: old people and hot college boys. OK, there are probably some poor people on board, but nobody really cares about them. There are probably some hot sorority chicks as well, but (a) I am not really qualified to judge who is a "hot" sorority chick, and (b) Pffft, why wold I care about hot chicks anyway?

It really strikes me, though, how bimodal the age distribution is, though. (Yes, I'm a total geek.) There seem to be a large number of seniors, I assume because train tickets are much cheaper than airplane tickets and seniors are more likely to be on a fixed income. Cost is probably a big factor for the younger crowd, as well. There are very few middle-aged people here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the eye candy. I just wish that incredibly hot guy (hot in a cuddly-boyfriend sort of way, not in the underwear-model sort of way) hadn't gotten off at Reno.

(2006-08-27 11:52)

Another Republican Pharisee

I picked up a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle in the train station, since I knew I'd have quite a bit of time on my hands on this trip.

There's an article on page two about some remarks Rep. Katherine Harris made this week about how "God did not intend for the United States to be a nation of 'secular laws' and that a failure to elect Christians to political office will allow lawmaking bodies to 'legislate sin.'" Speaking of sin, there was a time not too long ago that claiming to know the mind of God like that was considered blasphemy, and could get you tied to a big stick and set on fire. Fortunately for Rep. Harris, we now live in a more enlightened time when we (even women!) are allowed to speak our minds on such issues without fear of such retribution. Rep. Harris is even allowed to defy the will of God's chosen representative on Earth (i.e. the Pope).

The full quote from Harris is:

If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.

She went on to say that the doctrine of the separation of church and state is a "lie we have been told" to keep religious people out of politics." Yeah what would those Founding Fathers know about God's intentions for this country? They were probably just a bunch of commies anyway.

Keep religious people out of politics? Harris has apparently been not just been drinking the American Taliban's Kool-Aid, but freebasing it. Did I fall asleep to wake up in a world where Congress is populated primarily by atheists? The actual percentage of Congress that is Christian is 92%, as opposed to 77% of the American populace as a whole. It sounds to me like Christians are already over-represented.

Republicans are fond of saying that America is fighting a "culture war" against Satanic forces of Hollywood, the Homosexual agenda, and the east coast elites. (I prefer to refer to all the above as simply "Americans." It's so much shorter.) It seems that they are the ones trying to start such a war.

Proving that, if there is a God, She has a wicked sense of humor, page seven of the same paper has a story about how Somalia is being taken over by an Islamic militia. The militia is loyal to the Supreme Islamic Courts Council and is "setting up regional courts to rule based on the Muslim holy book, the Quran." Perhaps they could get together with Rep. Harris to compare notes.

(2006-08-26 15:39)

Why America is fat

I haven't been eating in the train's dining car for a number of reasons. It's surprisingly expensive, for one thing. It runs on its own schedule, rather than mine, is another. I try to eat fairly light when traveling, and that's not really conducive to doing so.

Fortunately, the train has a snack car as well, which has drinks, nibbles, and even sandwiches. Surprisingly, the few things I've tried aren't half-bad, considering their prepackaged nature.

Anyway, I stopped down there to get a cup of coffee to, I hope, get rid of this headache I've picked up. There I saw a cinnamon roll that I swear actually called my name. Considering that, since the train is now five fracking hours late, it might be dinner as well, I decided to listen to it's siren call. Briefly checked the back and saw: 240 calories. Not so bad, so I picked it up. It wasn't until I got back to my seat that I also noticed on the package: Servings per container: 3.

This isn't a package of Pop-tarts, that are easily divisible. Nor is it something you're likely to eat part of and share the rest with a friend. This is obviously supposed to be a single-person, eat-in-one-setting sort of snack. It's forty percent of an adult's caloric intake, and sixty percent of an adult's daily fat intake. I'm a reasonable sort of person; I make an effort to read labels, and yet I was still taken in by it.

Just another reason why America is fat.

(2006-08-20 17:11)

Two ships passing in the night

I'm right outside Sparks, NV, waiting for another train to move its butt out of our way, so we can get moving again. The family in the seats in front and in back of mine has been traveling with me since Chicago, and they're about to get off. There's Thomas, about 10 years old, his mother, whose name I haven't caught yet, Grandma, who is rather frail and, I suspect has Alzheimer's, and Uncle Mickey. They were thinking of moving to a sleeping car because sitting this much isn't so good for Grandma's circulation. Thomas needs to sign up for PE for for next year. The Mom is on the phone to Michael, I assume her husband, who is waiting to pick them and drive home, I think in Carson City.

We haven't really spoken a word to each other, you just pick these things up living in close quarters like this where everyone's private spheres overlap.

Now they're going to leave and we will never see each other again. Sometimes I think it's good to be reminded that we all have these little things, relationships, whatever, that are so important to us, but then, so does every one else. I often think the same thing when driving on the freeway, to see some remnant of a house or a barn that has almost completely fallen down. Today, I saw as we went past, just a stone doorway standing out in the brush. No door, no house around it, just a door frame standing in empty space. No idea how old it was. It could have been ten years or a hundred. I can't help but wonder who built it, did they feel some sense of pride in their work, why did they leave it? Not only do I wonder if they are still alive somewhere else, but is there anyone alive that still knows the answer to these questions, or has it been lost forever. How many of the things in my life, in your life, will someone be wondering this about in a few decades?

(2006-08-20 13:39)

Plan B misconceptions

The DI editorial page today incorrectly says -- not once, but twice -- that Plan B causes abortions. I don't have time to write a letter to the editor pointing this out. Anyone else feel like doing it?

Take that Hal Lindsey!

The Israel-Lebanon conflict is settling down to a slow simmer, and doesn't seem to be about to erupt into the multinational, Middle-East-wide, End Times conflagration that the hysterical fundamentalist Christians were predicting.

FOX News had a "Middle East expert" on a few weeks ago. By "experts," of course I mean "people talking about Biblical prophecy of the Last Days." Do you think they will have him back on to say how it looks like the Rapture has been put off until at least next week? Yeah, I don't think so either.

One thing that seems fairly clear is that these sorts of prophets will always have a job. If there isn't a war this week in the Holy Land that shows the end is nigh, then there probably will be one next week.

The suckers always buy into it, and can't be dissuaded from it, no matter how many times they're shown to be wrong, because they have "faith."

Good night and good luck

Blogging will be light nonexistent for the near future as I have to go out of town for a few days.

I leave you with this: A judge has ruled that the Bush warrantless wiretapping is illegal. Finally. Someone with some sense. Let the right-wing shrieking about activist liberal judges that hate America and love terrorists begin ... wait for it ... now.

I'm in the Advocate!

OK, it's completely unattributed, so you just have to take my word for it. This was a few weeks ago, when the Phelps clan's protests of military funerals were getting some press time. Some bills were introduced in some state legislatures to outlaw protests within x yards of a funeral or burial or something. Indiana passed one in March; I think there are a few others now. I guess when they were just protesting the queers, it was OK. Do it to the soldiers, and then people care.

There was a brief moment in the media where there was actually some discussion on whether this was constitutional or not. I just happed to be on the Advocate's website for some reason or another, and saw they were having a poll. So I gave them my 2E-02 dollars. My comment made it into the August 29 edition. Maybe it's not all that big a deal, but doggone it, people like me.

Q: Do you think Fred Phelps's antigay protests at military funerals are protected by the First Amendment.

Me: He is revolting, but the same thing that protects his right to protest is the same thing that allows us to have our pride parades.

There was a great interview with none other than the wife of the Cryptkeeper himself, where the FOX News anchor (of all people) goes fairly ballistic at her.

Nice doggie

After Katrina, and during the cleanup and continued evacuation, I was struck by news reports of people choosing to stay behind in the devastation with their pets. The animals weren't eligible for evacuation, so would have to have been left behind. It seemed to have been elderly people, but they may have just been the ones unable to leave on their own devices before the hurricane struck. I can't imagine how heartbreaking it must have been to have to make that sort of choice.

There is a bill, the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act, which requires "local and state disaster plans to include provisions for household pets and service animals in the event of a major disaster or emergency." It's been passed by both Houses, and is now in committee to work out the differences between the bills.

It's not that I can't see the point behind not letting people take their cats and dogs and birds and ferrets when evacuating, but service animals? You know, the dog that stops you a blind person from walking out into traffic? It's not like people were leaving for a weekend; many still haven't returned to their homes. What's next, some little old lady can't take her cane?

(Via Lycangeek)

Better than coffee

Yes, road construction is a pain. But it has one fringe benefit: hunky construction workers. Sure brightens up my morning commute.

Welcome home

Squire's back. Or, rather, TheSquire's back. Whatever.

Some are just more free than others

Remember back when the terrorists hated us because of our freedom? Matthew links to this story at The Observer:

Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the 'immorals' - homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution...

Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.

Holy fuck. I'm looking online for a copy of the penal code, but can't find it. To be fair, Iraqis probably have more important things on their minds than digitizing law books. (Like the death squads currently roaming the streets.) But Jesus, it's actually legal to kill gays and lesbians? Why, exactly, did we liberate them again. Strike that. Why, exactly, did we liberate some of them again?

Wikipedia says this about the relevant law:

He who discovers his wife, one of his female relatives committing adultery or a male relative engaged in sodomy and kills, wounds or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty.

To add to the feeling of uncleanliness, in searching for the Iraq penal code, I came across articles talking about this same story several times. Some were just news sites, others were blogs. Then I came across the discussion at FreeRepublic.com. Now I need to shower.

From the "Not even literate hate" department:

Since this [article] is unsourced I suspect it more of the usual made nonsense from the Hate American First Leftists

From the "Freedom of speech" department:

Saddam was right about one thing...it takes an SOB to run an islamic country. I believe that homosexuality is a foul sin of perversion but not nearly as bad a perversion as fundamental islam.

From the "Respect for others department:

Of course its a known fact MoMo was a switch hitter himself..
Arafat is/was widely known as a pedophile..
Islam is indeed a mental disease like liberalism...
I guess it depends on the propensitys of the MOBSTER(Mullah) in charge that determines the (local) character of Islam.. Tribal governance is indeed democracy...
in Kuwait queerdom is accepted freely..

From the "Maybe the Nazis were just aiming wrong" department:

Until Iran is "eliminated" by high temperature...Iraq will always be a crap hole. (no pun intended)

From the "My God is bigger than your God" department:

The problem with Iraq.........Islam.

From the "Nope, no racism here" department: (emphasis mine)

Yes, no two ways about it. Why have we let them into the US? They just want to take over. It's a fifth column. They breed like rabbits. We're doomed.

From the "Fred Phelps" department:

but, but, but - Islam is a religion of mercy...

From the "Channeling Ann Coulter" department

Had we utterly destroyed them, especially fallujah, outlawed fundamental Islam and did other drastic things, THEN we could be in a position of strength today.

OK, I just have to stop now, but it goes on. Freepers disgust me. It's like reading Diet Stormfront.

Finally!

The best part about the Lieberman/Lamont election, regardless of it's outcome, is that people will stop talking about stunning it is that Lieberman might not actually get reelected. I'm fed up with it.

It's almost as if people seem to think that Lieberman is somehow entitled to keep his seat in Congress because he's the incumbent.

Conservatives are why we have no serious political discussion anymore

After thinking long and hard about the vileness that is Ann Coulter this week, I'm next confronted with this from Townhall.com:

Why liberals love pedophiles

Liberals love pedophiles, because they must do so to keep their own belief system intact...

Since modern liberalism's true goal is the actual eradication of God, moral values, and the ideas of absolute right vs. wrong, it should surprise no one that not a single leftist politician in America has denounced Distasio. Nor did they denounce Levine. The truth is liberals seek sexual utopia where no rules apply. Restraint has in fact become a dirty word to them. Self control - a thoroughly foreign concept...

For liberals to denounce pedophiles, ultimately they would have to denounce, lesbianism, homsexuality [sic], and their particular favorite - adultery. And that's just no going to happen.

This isn't some little-known extremist website like Stormfront. Technorati rates this website as number twenty-six on the Internet. Bill Bennett and Tony Blankley -- both mainstream conservatives -- also write for this website.

There's a reason that I refer to liberals tongue-in-cheek elsewhere in this blog as "baby-eating liberals:" because pretty soon that's all that's going to be left to call liberals. We're racist (because of affirmative action), we hate our country and love terrorists (because of the war), and we are actively working for the forces of evil (since we're all godless).

You think the idea of a conservative accusing a liberal of baby-eating is ridiculous? Twenty or thirty years ago, it's what people actually used to say about Jews, believe it or not. In this country, even.

If you can dehumanize a political enemy enough, anything is possible. We all know what happened sixty years ago in Europe. Twelve years ago, it happened again in Rwanda. There, newspapers and radio programs called the massacred ethnic group as "subhuman," shortly before the killing started.

There is a rising tide of eliminationism in this country, and it is only coming from the Right. When was the last time you heard a liberal say that conservatives liked raping babies? When they said it was part of the core of their ideology? No, you only hear this stuff coming from the Right. Why? Because other than Nazis (and there aren't really many of them left), child molesters are the closest thing we have in our society to pure, unquestionable evil. It's an intentional gambit intended to get you to stop thinking rationally and start reacting emotionally.

Last week, Deputy Sheriff Guy Adams (of our own Cook County) said that gays having sex with infants is "the new trend."

Expect to see more of this in the future.

(Via Seeing the Forest.)

Remember when they were going to greet us with flowers?

Remember this?

I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

-- Vice President Dick Cheney, Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

Then today, there was this:

Tens of thousands of followers of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr rallied in support of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah on Friday, denouncing Israel and the United States for igniting violence throughout the Middle East...

"Hezbollah, beloved! Hit Tel Aviv! Hit Tel Aviv!" the protesters said. "No, no, no, Israel! No, no, no, America!" they chanted. And, finally, "If Americans are strong enough, they should come face us!"

You know, if I didn't know better, I might think they didn't like us.

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues

Showing possible proof the my life is actually guided by the hand of fate, David brought up John Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience last night. I'd been meaning to blog about a recent posting by Glenn Greenwald over at his blog, "John Dean and Authoritarian Cultism - a Review" for a few days now, but forgot this is the same book he was talking about. Go read Glenn's post. It's written by a lawyer so it's got a lot of words in it, but it's very worthwhile. I'm going to have to pick this book up.

Dean's book is an analysis of the conservative movement, what drives it, and what attracts people to it.

Dean contends, and amply documents, that the "conservative" movement has become, at its core, an authoritarian movement composed of those with a psychological and emotional need to follow a strong authority figure which provides them a sense of moral clarity and a feeling of individual power, the absence of which creates fear and insecurity in the individuals who crave it. By definition, its followers' devotion to authority and the movement's own power is supreme, thereby overriding the consciences of its individual members and removing any intellectual and moral limits on what will be justified in defense of their movement.

I guess I've never really thought about things that way, but it makes sense. In reading this description, I was struck at how well it describes the evangelical Christian movement and why they are so attracted to authoritarian conservative political doctrine.

A major component of premillinenialist Christian doctrine is that, after the Rapture, after the post-Rapture Tribulations, Jesus will return to rule over the world as king. If you really stop and think about that, it's a remarkably medieval notion. Completely undemocratic. Positively un-American.

These Christians don't just look forward to the day that they will have an unquestionable ruler over them with absolute power, they long for it. It's a seductive doctrine, surrendering control over your life to an absolute ruler in which you have faith that he can do no wrong.

It's also an amazingly dangerous idea. It's not like people in our history haven't found what they thought was their Messiah, only to be proved frighteningly wrong. Seventy-six people died at Waco. Nearly a thousand people died at Jonestown.

Getting back to Greenwald's review of Dean's book, this is the part of this movement I think is so dangerous: (emphasis mine)

...those who submit to authority necessarily relinquish their own conscience (in favor of serving the conscience of their leader and/or their movement), those who are part of this movement are capable of acts which a healthy and normal conscience ought to preclude. They can use torture, break laws, wage unnecessary wars based on false pretenses, and attempt to destroy the reputation of plainly patriotic and honest Americans -- provided that they are convinced that doing so advances the interests of the authority they serve and the movement of which they are a part.

The most horrible of acts are never committed in the name of evil, but in the name of good. It is with that very sense of righteousness that we are able to hurt our fellow man so effectively. Any movement that swaddles its followers with that same righteousness is dangerous and one that can be twisted to do evil, even with the best of intentions.

How much more can we take?

This Modern World today is pretty good. Go read.

In looking for a link to that comic, I came across Tom Tomorrow's blog, where he points to a column in the New York Post that just floored me:

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

This is a column in a major American paper wondering if our best interests lie in committing something very akin to genocide. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth
thy little ones against the stones.

-- Psalm 137:9

David Letterman is gay!

David Letterman brought up Ann Coulter's recent accusations against Bill Clinton for being gay. Remember that Letterman has a child with a woman he's not married to. He must be gay, too, then.

In an interview this week on CNBC, conservative pundit Ann Coulter claimed that Bill Clinton is a homosexual. And while the former president admits he once told Coulter that he’s gay, it was simply a polite excuse to explain why he wasn't hitting on her bony ass. Bill Clinton, only gay when it comes to evil, crazy, bitches.

I've never done this before, but here's the clip from You Tube:

What would it take?

I've read on a few blogs (sorry, forget where) the idea that there is nothing a conservative can say that is so over-the-top, so vile, and so outrageous that it will get a conservative pundit kicked off the air. I'm starting to think that's true. Case in point: Ann Coulter

This week, Coulter suggested Bill Clinton was gay. Why? Because he was "promiscuous." So, it seems, having sex with a lot of women means ... you like dick. Setting aside that ludicrous idea, do you think we will see Coulter saying that Newt Gingrich is a screaming queen? After all, for five years, he was screwing an aide twenty-three years younger than himself while he was married to another woman.

It gets worse. Later, she called Al Gore a "fag." That's not my paraphrase. That's what the (arguably) number-one Republican pundit called a former Vice President of the United States on national television. A fag. Can you imagine the uproar if something similar happened to George H. W. Bush? Or if someone called Alberto Gonzalez a "spic?" The right-wing media machine would be calling for the deaths of whoever said it, as well as the deaths of those in charge of the network where it was said. Well, more than they do now, anyway.

This is, of course, the same woman that called the venerable Helen Thomas an "old Arab," and has called for the bombing of the New York Times building. And yet, she's still on the air.

I wonder if we'll be hearing her call Joe Lieberman a "midget kike," next.

Video of Coulter's fag joke and her outing of Clinton is at Crooks and Liars.

The amazing powers of the gay

Continuing the "How is religion different from a delusion" thread from the other week, comes this poll from WorldNutDaily. Apparently a number of Jewish rabbis are saying that the recent Israel-Lebanon conflict is a punishment from G-d because of the World Pride parade scheduled two weeks from now.

It's not like the Mideast hasn't been a pressure cooker for decades. It isn't as if there haven't been, oh, a few wars here and there or anything. It's not like there aren't a couple of wars going on right now in the Middle East. No, the rockets and bombings are the fault of the queers.

Such is the power of teh gay. Know it. Fear it. Wear Ultrasuede.

The nutty part is that the WorldNutDaily-ers go right along with it. Only 30% of them were willing to say in the poll that either the violence is not a punishment from above or that they did not know. The largest grouping, at 30%, said that the violence was definitely due to YHWH being in a pissy mood because of all the rainbows. For fuck's sake, what can you do with these people?

Actually, I think this could be a good thing. Demand money from local government or else we will schedule a Pride parade in your town, bringing down the Wrath of the Almighty™ upon you. We could make a killing.

(Via Pam's House Blend)

Identify this movie!

If I told you I was watching Corwin's Quest: Uncut tonight, what would you think: porn movie or Animal Planet special? Or do I just have a dirty mind?

Copywhich?

(I was originally just going to append this to my previous post, but I think it may wind up being longer than the original, so I'm giving it its own blog post.)

David left a comment below which makes some good points. I'm going to respond here rather than in the comments because I have better control over the formatting.

1. Unskippable ads

I'm only going on what I've read elsewhere here. The EFF has a legal response they presented to the Copyright Office that lists nineteen movies. The text says consumers were unable to "fast-forward" through the ads, but the title of the document is on "unskippable" material. So it's not clear if they mean the chapter skip function also doesn't work. Sixteen Candles apparently has such ads. This article at MyMac.com says the author purchased a DVD and was unable to fast-forward, chapter skip, or main-menu-jump past the four ads on it, but doesn't say what the title was. Finding Neverland apparently has an unskippable Pontiac commercial on it.

I've often wondered if the versions of all the DVDs out there are the same. Whether, say, the editions of a movie sold to Blockbuster for rental have more or different promotional material on them than the ones consumers can buy. That wouldn't be difficult; there are so many collector's editions, special editions, widescreen vs. 4:3 editions, that making another one for commercial applications would be trivially easy.

2. Ownership

I disagree that it's about ownership. Once I buy a DVD it's mine, for me to do with as I see fit. The studio retains no ownership over my DVD. What they do continue to hold is the copyright over it. But I think that if I want to burn the DVD to my hard drive, edit it, and watch an edited version, I should be allowed to do so. Similarly, if I want to tear annoying commercials out of a magazine I buy, cut recipes out of the newspaper, or even read a book backwards, I should be able to do so.

3. Our viewing of Showgirls

David says that our viewing of Showgirls was different than the CleanFlicks case because we wanted a "lighthearted" evening of entertainment. But then, I ask, why shouldn't a Mormon family be able to do the same (though I am loathe to agree with their decisions of what is acceptable)? We were only able to skip the rape scene because people had seen the movie before and knew it was coming up. What if we wouldn't want to have seen it in the first place? Or what if a parent has no problem with his kid seeing the boobs and splasheriffic sex, but thought that the violence of the rape scene was inappropriate for a 17-year-old? (Aside: considering our society's screwed up attitudes towards sex and violence, this seems to me to be a more sensible way of approaching these matters, rather than taking out the sex and leaving the violence.)

What bothers me about this ruling is not that it means fundamentalists will be making decisions for me about what I can and can not see, but that it actually reduces choice. There was no deception involved in the CleanFlicks case. Everyone renting one of these movies (if "renting" is even the right word) knew that they were getting edited movies with bits cut out. They chose to accept the judgment of CleanFlicks of what was and was not appropriate to cut out. But they went into the relationship with eyes wide open.

4. Copyright

The quote of copyright law is a good one. I always forget that part of the derivative works aspect of copyright law is to protect the reputation of the copyright holder. On that basis, the CleanFlicks decision is probably a good one. If anyone is going to edit a movie to take the naughty bits out, the studio should be the one allowed to do so. Which relates to the next point David brought up:

5. Artistic merit

I daresay that just about every movie CleanFlicks edited had already been edited by the studio to bring it down to standards so that it can be shown on TV. So the argument that editing these movies devalues the artistic integrity of the artist doesn't really hold. I don't even know how much input the director even has in such decisions. Two commenters in the second Slashdot article I think put it best:

I understand where the movie companies are coming from in terms of copyright... they don't want people taking a DVD, adding additional clips/features/menus/etc, and selling that for a profit. Then again, I don't really understand why they have an issue with that. They're getting just as much money from each DVD sale, so it's not like they're losing any business. In fact, they're probably gaining business from those people who wouldn't normally buy a certain movie due to violent/sexual/etc content, but will if they get an edited version of the movie.

As for the directors and producers that claim their artistic vision was impeded upon, they sure don't have an issue with those movies being modified in the exact same way for broadcast on network TV. One of the Slashdot posters says:

-- TheFlyingGoat

And another reminds us about this argument ultimately boils down to:

So if we are to argue that, if you bought something you have the legal right to do whatever you want to it (Fast Forward through commercials, play on a Linux box, rip to a hard drive), then you cannot allow Hollywood to start acquiring new rights for their so-called "artistic vision". Otherwise, you will find yourself unable to fast forward through scenes (or commercials) because that would violate the "artistic vision" of Hollywood.

-- Brian_Ellenberger

6. My ultimate point

The point that I'm basically trying to make is that the digital age has fundamentally changed the way that we view and consume media. (Cue mental image of Godzilla eating a library.) It makes things possible that have never been possible before, and makes things feasible that were uneconomical before. Take for example, the recent Internet fads of Google Video and YouTube. Of the twenty YouTube "top rated" videos right now, eighteen are obvious, flat-out copyright violations, one is so avant-garde I can't tell if it's a video or a seizure, and two might be original works. Google Video is a bit better, of the twelve videos they currently have listed as "Popular," five don't seem to be copyright violations, four almost certainly are, and I can't tell about three.

The media world is changing. We need to have a discussion about how our laws and customs will change alongside it. I am of the opinion that copyright law has changed beyond anything the founders of our country ever intended, and that, in some aspects, it no longer serves the public interest. But, unfortunately, that is a discussion that we as a society are not having. And that's the problem.

In looking up some of the links for this post, I came across this blog entry over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, where Scott Lemieux basically says the same thing that I'm trying to, only more succinctly.

Copywhat?

David blogs about the ruling against CleanFlicks, which deals with the legality of sanitizing movies without the blessing of the movie studio. He makes some good points. This was also discussed once on Slashdot, and again. I want to chime in here and explain why I think this ruling is wrong.

OK, maybe not why it's legally wrong, per se, but why it's bad. I'm not going to shed a tear for CleanFlicks. Seeing a self-righteous moralist get his comeuppance is always something that I take a perverse pleasure in (unless it's me). But this wasn't a case of CleanFlicks downloading a movie, editing it to take out the naughty bits, and selling thousands of copies. Rather, they are a Netflix-like service that loans you edited movies to watch. As I understand it, for every copy of a movie that they edited, they bought a legal copy of the movie. The studios weren't deprived of a dime. Piracy really isn't an issue here.

Rather, the whole issue is is about control. Who controls what we can watch, under what circumstances, and what choices we have regarding it.

You see, I've basically done the same thing that CleanFlicks did. When David, Jon, Billy and I saw Showgirls (and much fun was had by all), by general consensus of the group, we decided to skip over one unpleasant scene in the movie. Zip, we basically went by it as if it weren't there. David says, "If they don't want to watch [a movie] as it was released, then they shouldn't watch it at all." Except that's exactly what we did. If we didn't want to watch a movie with a violent rape scene in it, we didn't have to rent one, but we did, and we wanted to watch the movie without that scene. In this case, we were the self-righteous moralists.

There is of course the legal issue that CleanFlicks was a for-profit venture, and that there were copies being made. Nevertheless, I still think that this ruling is bad for consumers, because it allows someone other than me to decide what I may and may not watch. If, instead, we wanted to hire someone to hold the remote control and fast-forward through the unpleasant scenes in the movie, I suggest that would have been our right to do so, as well. There actually is a service that basically does that, albeit through technological means. It's called ClearPlay, and they, too are being sued by Hollywood. (The lawsuit may have been made moot by a 2005 law; I'm not sure.)

If you think fast-forwarding through a movie scene is different from a copy with the scene edited out, and that this will always be possible, you may be wrong. The next generation of DVRs may not be able to fast forward through commercials. Not because they can't, but because you will not be allowed to. Someone else will decide for you what you may and may not skip. It has also been suggested that digital TV users not be allowed to change channels during commercials.

DVDs already have this feature. Frankly, it pisses me off when I watch a DVD and have to sit through the "opinions expressed in the commentary on the disk are not the opinions of the idiot movie studio" warning, then the movie rating screen, then the FBI warning saying they'll come kill my family if I copy the movie, then the Interpol warning saying the same thing, and then the fucking Interpol warning in fucking French. All of these are unskippable. But maybe it's OK because those are legal warning? Well, no. I understand that Disney is fond of putting unskippable advertisements, sometimes ten to fifteen minutes long, in front of a DVD. How long until some studio decides that an obnoxious product placement should be unskippable?

Copyright started out as a way to ensure innovation in creative works. It is not a natural, innate right of a person. It is intended to ultimately benefit society, not the artist. It was limited in scope and in time. You were expected to live out the copyright on your works. Now, copyright has been extended to the point where an artist's children may not live long enough to see his work enter the public domain. It has not changed to keep up with the changing nature of our now-digital world. And I think that's to the detriment of us all.

Zing!

Oh wow, some writer at PlanetOut was really feeling his Wheaties this morning.

"God's Rottweiler" growls at same-sex marriage

Pope Benedict XVI lived up to his "Rottweiler" nickname this weekend when he chewed into same-sex marriage and Spain's Socialist government.

Like the tenacious dog breed he's been equated with, Benedict indicated that having sunk his teeth into Spain's newfound secularism, he's not about to loosen the bite...

He savaged marriage equality before even getting off his papal plane from Rome. Questioned on the role of same-sex marriage in society, the pope told reporters: "According to human nature, it is man and woman who are made for each other and to give humanity a future."

Critics have been swift to point out that an old man who's experienced neither relationships nor much life outside the church is unlikely to be the most qualified adviser on the subject of love and marriage. Regardless of this screaming anomaly, nearly 1.5 million devotees turned out to hear him.

Bitchy queens: 1, Man in a white dress with a funny hat: 0

No, seriously

1. Right-wing, pro-life nutjob finds the Onion.
2. Pro-life nutjob find Onion article, "I'm Totally Psyched About This Abortion!"
3. Pro-life nutjob blogs a response to the fictional author of the Onion piece, not realizing it's satire.

The scariest thing is these people are allowed to raise children.

(Via Curly Tales of War Pigs, via Pharyngula, via ... oh I give up.)

UPDATE: It gets even better.

UPDATE #2: ArchPundit points out in the comments that this guy just keeps digging himself a hole.

UPDATE #3: Bang, bang, bang; he just keeps going! Not only that, apparently, the whole thing was a "joke" from the get-go. I guess the stupid "intellectual left" just couldn't understand his vast , right-wing wit. Also, all the thousands of comments he's been getting for the past few days, from all over the country have now been purged from the site. No sign of them remains.

Snail-eriffic!

I have these little tiny snails in my aquarium. They came free with some of the plants, I think. Buy one red wendtii crypt, get ten million snails free! They're harmless, and may actually help to keep the tank clean, but I still pick them out when I can. I never really knew where they were all coming from until the other day. This explains it.

What makes a delusion?

I don't grok religion. I don't know why, it just slides right off my brain like it was non-stick coated. I don't mean I don't understand certain religious beliefs, I mean I don't understand why anyone has those beliefs. Generally, religious people have the religion they grew up with, which says to me that it's an emotional thing, a comfort thing. In other words, people believe and behave the way that they do because they are used to believing and behaving that way.

I think we can all agree that the Heaven's Gate cultists were nuts. They killed themselves so their souls could go to another planet on board a UFO that was hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet, for crying out loud. But are the Raelians similarly nuts? The head of that religion believes a 25,000 year old alien named Yahweh communicated with him directly in an encounter he had with a UFO in 1973. The beliefs of the Raelians really aren't all that much more outlandish than the beliefs of Scientologists, with their beliefs in extraterrestrial past lives.

As of 1999, 47 % of Americans believed that the Antichrist was already walking the earth (a Jew, of course, according to Jerry Falwell) and 45% believe Jesus will return in their lifetimes. So, basically, half of all Americans think the end of the world is imminent. Are these beliefs really any different from what mainstream fundamentalist Christians believe? The Heaven's Gaters believed that their souls were rising up somewhere to be taken to an extraterrestrial paradise. Falwell's crowd thinks that they will be taken up into a supernatural paradise. What is different between the beliefs of the Gate-ists and the Rapture-ists? Is it just the ubiquitousness of their belief system?

Religion requires belief in shadowy, ill-defined worlds of things that can never seen, never be experienced. Things that aren't actually there. Some of these beliefs, apparently, are things to be respected; some are not. If my friend comes to me and says, "Dude, I totally saw a unicorn last week," I am expected to disbelieve him. If he says, "Dude, Jesus totally rose from the dead two thousand years ago," there are those that say that, if I do disbelieve him, I will be punished for all eternity. Yet, ultimately, why are these two things different? If anything, the latter case is worse. I can judge my friend's character based on how well I know him, and whether he has a tendency to say outrageous things, so I should be able to judge whether it is reasonable or not to believe that he actually did see a unicorn. When he talks of Jesus, he's just repeating something he was told by others. All religion is hearsay.

My sister is finishing up her psych rotation, and told me a story about a woman that is absolutely convinced the voices in her head will not stop unless she returns to the small town of her birth and marries the priest that baptized her. Obviously she belongs in the psych ward. But why don't the majority of Americans that believe in angels belong there right alongside of her? If I told you that there was a leprechaun in my garden, you'd lock me up. If I told you an angel had visited me in my garden, there are a lot of people that would sit down and politely ask what he had to say.

There's a lot more spinning in my head, but I'm going to end this now before I ramble on and bore you, gentle reader (too late). More later.

One is the loneliest number

There's an article in today's NY Times about how the social circles of Americans are shrinking to include family, a spouse, or sometimes no one at all. It says that about 25% of all Americans have no close confidants at all.

The article's pretty short, go read it; it won't take long. But I was interested to see this paragraph:

The study "should provide a wake-up call to our society," said Bill Maier, a vice president and psychologist in residence with Focus on the Family, the evangelical Christian group. "We're missing out on deep, meaningful interpersonal relationships."

Focus on the Family. One of the most virulently anti-gay, not to mention, anti-gay-marriage organizations out there. On one hand complaining about the fact that we aren't forming "deep, meaningful interpersonal relationships," but on the other hand, fighting against the ability of gay Americans to form healthy, stable, and long-term relationships.

There's something ironic in there, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Hey-na, hey-na, David's back!

The blogosphere shed a tear the day David decided to hang up his blogging ... um, beret? Whatever his choice of headgear, he has returned to this virtual Land of the Opinionated, and started blogging again. I give you: reportsfromtheedge.blogspot.com. (Note the new URL.)

I don't really know what to think of this

Angel Maturino Resendiz, aka the "Railroad Killer" was executed Tuesday. I didn't realize that until tonight.

Schadenfreude!

It's so wrong of me, but I couldn't help but chuckle.

Limbaugh Detained At Airport

West Palm Beach Sources have confirmed to CBS4 News that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been detained at Palm Beach International Airport for the possible possession of illegal prescription drugs Monday evening.

Limbaugh was returning on a flight from the Dominican Republic when officials found the drugs, among them Viagra.

I wonder if this, too, is part of the "liberal Hollywood Jewish" conspiracy?

UPDATE: Matthew suggests that this whole incident is sad rather than amusing, and that hopefully Limbaugh will receive more help with his drug addiction problem.

OK, it looks like this was a legal, but possibly-unethically-mislabeled, prescription bottle of Viagra, so this discussion is fairly moot. He was briefly detained at the airport, then released and not charged with anything. That seems fairly reasonable to me for a known drug addict carrying a bottle of prescription medication apparently not prescribed to him.

But, unlike what Matt says, this has nothing to do with his drug addiction. Viagra is not an addictive drug, you can't use it to get high. So, saying that this would have been just another symptom of a disease he should get treatment for is innacurate. Had this been an illegal prescription, it would have been for entirely recreational purposes, not been his stash. Had he been caught with OxyContin, I would agree, this would have been a relapse.

All that being said, what does an unmarried conservative need with Viagra anyway? Surely not for premarital sex?

Can we use their talking points against them?

So, during the past week or so, when Republicans were calling John Murtha a coward, there were accusations of treason, and any discussion that didn't involve "staying the course" in Iraq was, by definition, "cutting and running", it turns out that the Republicans had a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq the whole time.

When Bush was first elected, it was sometimes said that he was going to run the country like our national CEO. I suppose that was to bring up his business background and make him sound actually competent. It never struck me as a good idea, what with him running every country company¹ he's ever been in charge of into the ground. Not to mention the charges of insider trading. But that's a discussion for another day.

My point is that, when you're a CEO, you don't run your company with your gut. You actually look at numbers. You make plans, set goals, and have targets. Why, then, is doing the same thing in Iraq "cutting and running?" No one ever suggested pulling all American troops out next Thursday. But saying that we should have a goal of having X numbers of Iraqis trained by the end of the year, so we can pull out Y number of troops is cowardice?

The Democrats should co-opt the Republican talking points on this one. No Democrat should mention the plan to pull these troops out of Iraq without accusing Bush of "cutting and running." I just doubt that's going to happen.

¹ Interesting typo, no? I swear it wasn't intentional. But it was so Freudian, I decided to leave it in place.

Who is watching?

Yahoo has a Reuters story about terrorist cells inside the United States: (not bothering to link because Yahoo news stories aren't permanent)

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement authorities are discovering new home-grown cells of Islamist radicals in the United States that draw inspiration and moral support from al Qaeda, officials said on Tuesday.

Like local terrorism cells that have recently come to light in Canada and Europe, officials said the groups are comprised of disaffected young men in their teens and 20s who rely on the Internet to try to organize and plan potential attacks on the U.S. homeland.

A few months ago, when the warrantless wiretapping story broke, Republicans staunchly defended the program as necessary to defend us. There were numerous claims that baby-eating liberals "didn't want us to use all the weapons in our arsenal" against the terrorists.

What has never been entirely determined is whether there was a similar program in which the NSA was deliberately wiretapping the entirely domestic communications of US citizens. If there was such a legitimate, legal program (i.e. that complied with FISA), then great. But why couldn't a similar program be used in the case of what we now know were (are?) warrantless wiretapping? And if there was no such program domestically, I can think of only two possiblities:

1. Why was this administration oblivious to a threat in our midst that they had to know was at least feasible?
2. There was (is?) such a program, and it is grossly unconstitutional, and the administration knows it.

Surely I can't be the only one wondering about these questions.

Glenn Greenwald over at Unclaimed Territory is a lawyer that has been following this issue, and writing about it. He's calm, quite reasonable, and offers well-thought-out analysis.

Pharyngayla

Pharyngula has an interesting response to an interview with a biologist about homosexuality and evolution. There's a lot of discussion about where homosexuality comes from. I have my own ideas, and I'm sure we all do, but this bit I found particularly interesting:

Homosexuality is a byproduct. This is my favorite explanation, because ultimately it's about development. Why do men have nipples? Because women need them. Both men and women have the same set of genes (more or less), and follow very similar developmental pathways, and the nipple represents a developmental constraint or byproduct: mutations that knock out the male nipple might also knock out the female nipple, so the structure is retained in both sexes. Male nipples are a byproduct of a function needed by the other sex.

We might also ask, why do some men love other men? The answer: because women need to love men. (We could also propose the complement, that lesbians exist because men need to love women.) If there are pathways that can predispose an individual to find males sexually attractive, the base structure is present in both men and women, and what we have are additional mechanisms to modulate the expression of the trait in men vs. women. Just as we guys have an echo of a female attribute in our nipples, why not assume that we also bear echoes of female mate preferences in our brains—echoes that can't be expunged without also eliminating women's desire for men (and oh, no, we mustn't have that, I know)?

That is one way of looking at it that I had just never considered before.

PGP Key

This is the PGP public key I've generated for this blog's email address. Yes, I'm a big ol' nerd. It really surprises me that we all just send email around in plain text, viewable by anyone with access to a mail server used by the sender, recipient, or anyone in between. I'm not saying that emails should be encrypted to hide something nefarious, just that it's the electronic equivalent of putting your mail in an envelope.

I've switched to Thunderbird for most of my email needs. Enigmail is a Thunderbird plugin that makes encryption pretty hassle-free. It acts as a front end for GnuPG. There are fairly easy-to-follow instructions online for setting these up on Windows or on OS X.

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32) mQGiBESDLaIRBACMT14A0HQoqRdWW3fYcQLdeenMQfNPJ5gmj64ehzynG7Jwp7LN 2HfjZ6LC6D6gAaypzM6lRodBQE8mWyHSHLR8j+Lwimv0W7uA9ItbI5HdBREjohzN zf2R7rQYQny5NUrqk0v8FmqLoXajjp7oJ1FaZQmrRrhdoy7aHhq8wF0wAwCg3iTu Dep51sMdnAPEpnGydZ/Wjg8D/0Xc6AkcncSDhR/Scszvekc9WiAapKtatnvD9VAw ZUHa6RR9o9EroROAuwj5sWh6DfnczDSmkZPa6WS6bCJpD4Csr7YWTpAm7oL7Gvk3 FTFrEPXUO2FD6G0pBkvcoNuogeQjMqAVuLs+W9ZpGWH/zqIIKpq7uwr/hoXyFw+J zcObA/46aGdd1w3S10HbdWVGRzOGRvFIcIrDR3JkiITOwH8Ha+9fEWGcERgGs41C szhm+PmKpDjUem2T7I9iSkiW+p+nVB0TafnPK6ySCliVG/3pHWT12TDL9Sq1IQ+9 fWwjUaSkRpCDpIihd23QwK6gGF+ShCd6OaEyYpDPFheOobj2/bQaTmFyYyA8bmFy Y2libG9nQGdtYWlsLmNvbT6IZgQTEQIAJgUCRIMtogIbIwUJCWYBgAYLCQgHAwIE FQIIAwQWAgMBAh4BAheAAAoJEDb9po9JIW+EvycAoIAFQEapDsS2YOieq2rMYdIO R0KHAKDLCz3rfzt9olDUy1R4rOeDGIXxXLkCDQREgy2lEAgAhk5Rb9/QFKegRXNk x7JXIv/Be7DcphIg9FiOq9lANf1m5K9/SfdtToekmv7DOb/nLjxReQrc2k1hHcpB XyK9h6No0Ci/P6UPgSeg9EQwY5IKlp9xJm3eo7Xi1u+HZ4E0pMaReqvAFHa2NOhd B6RDMIPmw59JPeJl3mwr53CnEjs4JFFiJtYN7IvoP+uOJf28PSJscxhv5I71HqfT ZcQJbb6yjmPppKKly4nznF70N/4pn3PfZf/A7lZgBvQa36oY0LDUwhnmYM/oqKpd b4D50x7fbK19hIdrKEZWiN/RiMDSX1MEIX5NR6fJqz5iRIeD7tTqXszyQ1gSckXf i0TGKwADBQf7BHl349zuLBoFlibxDHjNs0XAUCHvuWPzNf/OFYro6qJEBKVLKalh RJZKZHQJjBaB3tMVZZ0hRNp7MXKrHhSAmvdLkIooc4x9juyvqNqYXsrhukMBBlhp XyYKOYQsF5hD9+uvig4wzIdyKlqdq56R+Bdc6I8Mitisq0yO4wt20LCfySiXlgEX 3PZDzwAJbM9fKzQrirHAFdniKo0CD7WusAiNuAIKqTO68E7LtGmj+kLrmbM6hfpM 6AMXCUTrK1kau009y22bAUXhKgYbISJrG2DVakgJQrReGKFsEsVy3SYdr2ZgDsim 3DPdYzkPYmJM+IdoG3Mx5h0nlBWG9jFR2ohPBBgRAgAPBQJEgy2lAhsMBQkJZgGA AAoJEDb9po9JIW+E9u8An0RnLB1lpN50b5hZC2pD5DYl5H9qAKCjB+ZgncuZ88z0 vRvah70S9Br9BA== =dhem -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

(This is probably a waste of time, since I think I've received something like three emails to this address, but I just think it's neat.

Kinda missing the point

Over at It's Matt's World, Matthew is upset that the Federal Marriage Amendment has again reared its ugly, spite-spewing head. Fortunately, not only did it not pass, but it is losing traction, even among Republicans. Today, he is surprised that "protecting" marriage will be a campaign issue this year.

I would suggest that he is missing the point. In a way, I don't think conservatives actually want the FMA to pass. Without periodic votes on it, you can't call your opponent anti-family or accuse him of being sympathetic to the homosexual agenda. This amendment is an excellent way for Republicans to distract the public from the war, and make it look like they are fighting for truth, justice, and the American way.

This is an incredibly emotional issue. It's not something that is even being discussed in a rational way. Actually, it's not something that's being discussed at all. It's just a hail of buzzwords, soundbites, and talking points. All you hear about is "protecting marriage," but never any explanation of how gays getting marriage damages the institution. What, are we running low on our supply of marriage? Are we in danger of wartime marriage rationing?

No, but this is an issue that is fundamentally grounded in moral values religious doctrine. People like to be on the side of right and goodness. So much so, that they will often behave in ways contrary to their own well being in order to be there. I imagine that it's much like why people enlist in the military. Not because going to Iraq is particularly good for your health, but because you believe in the cause.

Gay marriage is a good way for Republicans to get their base energized. They can show how much they are defending "good, Christian values," which distracts people from their policies that are only in the best interest of the rich and powerful, like the estate tax repeal. People will sacrifice their own welfare to do what is "right."

So don't expect to see the gay marriage issue going away any time soon. The good news is that I don't expect the FMA to pass anytime soon, either.

(Blogger appears to be having a nervous breakdown today, so I'm going to try this post-by-email thing. Here's hoping it works.)

Lemons, garlic, and olive oil

No, this isn't a cooking-related post, although all the things in the title are great. I taped Frontline this week, and am about halfway through it. This four-hour, two-part series is titled "The Age of AIDS," and it's about the dawn of AIDS and its history up to now. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the entire program is available online in your favorite crappy streaming video format. Just as a side, note, this should be what the Internet is. An always-on, accessible-anywhere, comprehensive library.

Anyway, it's just amazing and simultaneously horrifying to realize that this disease has spread to seventy million people, but originated from a single event when it crossed over from apes to humans sometime in the 1930s. The oldest confirmed case of HIV infection dates back to 1959. It really makes you wonder what other nasty little bugs are waiting for us out there, or possibly are already circulating. I wonder if we will be able to cure those, or will religious nutjobs fight their treatment, saying that that would mean slutty women would not die in sufficient numbers from cervical cancer.

I remember back in the 80s, when people were very scared of this disease. There was so much misinformation spreading about the disease and how it was spread. That's probably not too unusual when it comes to things that people are irrationally afraid of.

People like to say that Reagan didn't even mention AIDS until 1987, but that's not strictly true. In 1985, after he was briefed that AIDS could not be spread by casual contact, he gave a press conference saying, in a very wishy-washy fashion, that he would not send his children to a school that had a student with AIDS. This was in response to a memo written by a White House lawyer that said:

There is much to commend the view that we should assume AIDS can be transmitted through casual or routine contact, as is true with many viruses, until it is demonstrated that it cannot be, and no scientist has said AIDS definitely cannot be so transmitted.

That lawyer is now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Coincidentally, the NY Times has two editorials today related to AIDS. One is about how the response to AIDS in the gay community has ultimately led to the current debate on gay marriage. (Today, by the way, in the midst of a war in Afghanistan, a worsening war in Iraq, the President will be focusing on barring same-sex marriage in the Constitution.) The other Times editorial is about how HIV-denialists are hampering efforts to treat and prevent the disease. How people can, in this day and age, deny that HIV causes AIDS simply baffles me. I guess that's "faith-based" medicine for you.

More leaks of classified information

Great. I haven't even recruited enough straight boys into the gay lifestyle deathstyle to get a dollar off my next rental at Blockbuster, let alone the toaster, and now Chris Perardi goes and reveals the entire goddamn homosexual agenda over on his blog.

Ruin it for the rest of us. Thanks a lot.

Free money

No, really, I'm not kidding. I use my Discover credit card for pretty much everything. It's easier than writing a check, and safer than carrying cash. As long as you pay the bill off every month, and electronic bill paying has made that easier than ever, there's no down side. Plus, you get cash back. For Discover, it's 0.25% on your first $1,500 of purchases a year ($4), then 0.5% on your next $1,500 ($8), then 1% after that. Hmm, I actually thought it was more than that.

I just found a much better deal. Chase has Cash Plus Rewards Visa program that offers 1% back on all your purchases, but 5% back on all grocery, drugstore, and gas purchases. It's four times better than Discover right out of the starting gate.

Say you spend $50 a week at the grocery store. With Discover, that means that you're getting back about $9 per year. Not a huge amount, but that's a couple of free movie rentals. With the Chase card, you're getting back $130 a year, which is nothing to laugh at. That means gas is thirteen cents cheaper a gallon. I've heard of people driving across town to save five cents per gallon.

Mind you, you'd better have the financial self-discipline to pay off the bill on time, in full, every month. If not, don't bother. Use cash.

UPDATE 2006-07-31: That link doesn't seem to be working anymore. Try this one instead.

You probably can't get these at Lenscrafters

These are some pretty cool glasses, if a bit on the freaky side.

Whence comes this xenophobia?

In the past few weeks, I've noticed a disturbing amount of what I can only call xenophobia in the press and in political chatter. I just don't understand where it's coming from, and why it's descending on our collective consciousness from all directions simultaneously.

For example, a few weeks ago, a mainstream conservative pundit referred to Muslims as "ragheads." The comment was greeted with wild applause. This wasn't on television on in a newspaper column. This was at one of those most significant conservative events of the year. I guess we'll be hearing "sand nigger" next.

Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, immigration has become a topic of immediate urgency. Not that it's something we need to rationally and reasonably deal with, but something that is suddenly so important, Bush it talking about mobilizing the National Guard and shipping them down to the border. (I guess after they return from Iraq, they don't have enough to do, like living their lives or returning to their jobs.) No one is talking about increasing the strength of the forces of the Border Patrol. The National Guard is to be federalized in times of national emergency, not political expediency. Where is this emergency? What's happening this month that wasn't happening last month, or every month for the previous few decades?

The influx of illegal immigrants to this country is increasingly becoming referred to as an "invasion" by those on the Right. Activating the National Guard is actually an appropriate response to an invasion. But I don't call people coming over to be hired by Americans to clean our toilets and pick our vegetables an actual invasion. Orcinus has an excellent analysis of this and how it's just a repetition of typical anti-immigrant hysteria, previously directed towards the Japanese and Chinese (i.e. the "Yellow Peril").

Don't think that this is about GWOT security, either. No one is talking about building a fence at our northern border. There are no Montana Minutemen. Remember that the Canadian border is the one that actual terrorists have actually crossed illegally.

Coincidentally (snort) Congress is voting on making English our national language. Not "official language," mind you, but "national language." Now, I think it's a good idea for immigrants to have a decent proficiency of English, but the resolution in front of Congress strikes me as mean-spirited, unnecessary, and ineffective.

I'll give you two guesses which language the use of which conservatives are objecting to. It ain't Sumerian. On FOX News a couple of weeks ago, John Gibson chided America, saying "we need to make more babies" so that the majority of the country isn't Hispanic in twenty-five years. "We" of course means "white people," not blondes with bad haircuts.

Rush Limbaugh recently said a letter written by Iran's president contained "liberal Hollywood Jewish people talking points." That's actually rather clever because it manages to conflate the current political bugaboo (Iran) and the traditional nemesis of the Republican party (the evil, liberal, baby-eating -- and now apparently Jewish -- Hollywood elites). Behead two birds with one stone, if you will.

None of this sort of behavior from the Right is new. It's been going on for quite some time. It just seems to be ratcheting up in intensity lately.

Private eyes are watching you

Now that we find out that the Bush administration has been building a database of every phone call made by every American, and possibly retaining the information in perpetuity, I can't help but wonder, what's next? Fortunately, Dubya says that in doing so, our privacy has been "fiercely protected." I'm sorry, but closely recording my communications is not "procecting my privacy" it's "invading my privacy."

So what is next? A lot of cars these days, and I think every car that GM makes from now on, has a GPS chip in it that can report the vehicle's location. A lot of cell phones have similar chips. Why not start tracking that, too? After all, now that the NSA program has been reported on by the treasonous liberal media, Al Queso is aware of the program, and will stop using the telephone. (At least that's the logic conservatives used when the warrantless surveillance program was revealed a few months ago.) They might stop using telephones all together, and start meeting in person. So we need to know where everyone in our country is at all times. You don't want the terrorists to win, do you?

Give me a valid reason

Gay marriage is in the air... Matt has had two recent blog entries about gay marriage and gay rights. It is interesting that the conservatives that showed up in the comments to oppose both these issues never really make a solid argument. There's a lot of vagueness, but never anything based in a solid, rational argument.

In this week's Advocate, there's an article about the scientific research studies going on about gay marriage now that it's been legalized in several countries, and in Massachusetts. From the article:

[Two researchers] found that legal recognition of same-sex marriage has an impact on public health. Countries the recognize same-sex couples have had lower rates of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. "When we asked couples how being married has affected their lives, a common answer was that it made them monogamous."

About another journal article, published in Sexuality Research and Social Policy, a peer-reviewed journal the Advocate article says:

It shows that in spite of their ability to create alternative family structures, gays and lesbians suffer hindered mental health and well-being as a result of being denied the right to marry.

So here we have actual evidence that denying gays their right to marry has actual and tangible harmful effect on their health and mental well-being. This is no longer an abstract argument about "values" and "lifestyles." This is about Republicans pushing policies that will actually harm people's health.

In light of this, the standard conservative anti-gay arguments are no longer adequate. I have never heard a Republican argument against gay rights that had a solid, logical, and rational basis. They're always vague and handwaving about "values" (thank you, but I'm a moral person in my own right) and "protecting marriage" (are we going to run out of it?).

So I'm asking for one. Tell me exactly what is so important that it is more important to deny gays the right to marry that is has to come at the expense of their physical well-being. No emotional arguments. No appeals to the Bible. No handwaving arguments. Spell it out for me, and use small words if you have to. Show me in specific and tangible ways that heterosexual marriage has actually been damaged in Massachusetts and Canada.

This is not just about gay marriage. Remember, that the Republican Party doesn't just want to restrict marriage rights to men and women (and only how they define the terms, mind you). The current state of affairs is only a temporary cease fire. Once they defeat gay marriage, they will start working to criminalize just being gay. Criminalizing sodomy was part of the Texas Republican party platform in 2004.

For when valid intelligence is a nuisance

Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, resigned unexpectedly this week. Reasons haven't been given, but the Washington Post printed speculation that it was because he was incompetent. Because, you know, this administration has been a stickler for putting competent people in charge of federal agencies.

So, who does he get replaced with? Probably Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency. I knew that name was familiar, and now I remember why. I guess it's not important to put someone at the head of a spy agency that understand trivalities like the constitutionality of spying on Americans.

Reuters also has an article up today saying that Republicans, oddly enough, may object to his nomination because they think putting a military general in charge of a civilian spying agency is probably not a good idea.