Romeo and, um, Romeo

A victory for gay rights this week, in Kansas, believe it or not.

One of the most frustrating cases on the gay rights docket has reached a happy conclusion after several years of court losses. Matthew Limon, now 23, will not have to spend 17 years behind bars for a consensual sexual episode that took place a week after his 18th birthday with another male teenager.

Basically, the law that he was prosecuted under gave special consideration to gay people when the age gap was only a few years, but didn't apply to gays. After Lawrence vs. Texas struck down sodomy laws nationwide, the law pretty much has to treat gays and straights equally.

This is one part I found particularly interesting:

The court used the lowest standard of judicial review, giving the state of Kansas every opportunity to come up with a reasonable explanation for the vast discrepancy between its treatment of gay and straight teens. But the state attorneys failed the test.

So it sounds like the judge responded with the legal equivalent of, "You're kidding me, right?"

That's a pretty good way to end the week. Have a good weekend. Blogging will be light for the next week or so, as I will have to travel for work.

Crazy like a FOX

The national nannies at the Parent's Television Council have just came out with their Top 10 Best and Worst shows on TV. After noting that six of the ten are on FOX, Dave over at Davenetics says:

Anyone else see some irony here? The network news brand that makes the most dough off of the outrage over the loosening of American morals is also the the network most responsible for creating that outrage.

They are making money on both ends.

That means two things.

They are really good at what they do.

And they don’t believe a word of the moralistic hogwash on Fox News.

Rupert Murdoch is the Terrell Owens of media moguldom. You may hate some of his qualities, but the guy gets the ball into the friggin endzone.

He reads Left Behind so you don't have to

I've been reading slactivist lately. It's written by a liberal Christian, in what I think is much more the intent of the whole Christian-religion-thing. The whole "help others and don't be judgmental part" that modern religious fundamentalists forget. That's a religion I could really get into if it didn't have all that belief in the supernatural baggage.

The best part about this blog is that he's going through and reading the atrocious Left Behind, and commenting on it on every page. It's a brilliant idea. He's pointing out how terrible the theology is, how unrealistic the characters are, and just how terribly written the book is. The problem is that this is a terribly long way to respond to a book. He's been doing it since 2002, and has only just gotten up to page 156. The good news is that leaves the rest of us with entertaining reading for a while.

This, I think, the post that made it pretty clear I was going to like this blog.

This approach -- judgement for Thee but not for Me -- also helps to account for the current antigay mania of American evangelicalism. In a couple of Paul's other rants, he includes "sodomites" in his bestiaries of badness. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, the dubious assumption that Paul misunderstood the story of Sodom, and therefore used this as a synonym for "homosexuals," it doesn't follow that "homosexuals are bad" is the main lesson that heterosexuals should be gleaning from such passages. But if you read such passages looking for any excuse to exempt yourself from the apostle's condemnation, this offers an ideal escape hatch. Preaching against self-love, ingratitude, love of money or love of pleasure can be a two-edged sword. But if you're heterosexual, and you're preaching against homosexuality, then you're safe. You've found the ideal target for self-exempting, self-justifying self-righteousness.

Judgment is for Other People.

Does that remind you of anyone?

At least there is email

I got my old computer working with my backup hard drive. Windows reinstalled. Windows upgraded. Windows rebooted. I don't have all my files yet, but at least I am not email-less.

You can't make this stuff up

Journalists for a major television news organization are ordered to falsify a story. They refuse. They're fired. They sue. They lose.

During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so.

FOX News. Raise your hand if you're surprised.

Uh oh

Blogging may be sparse for the near future. My computer is refusing to boot, saying some configuration file is corrupted. Nor will it boot from the CD so I can do a repair installation of Windows. I've been thinking of replacing this machine for a while now; this may be the kick in the pants that gets me to actually do it.

Comment spam

I've started getting spam in the comments, so I've had to turn on the Blogger CAPTCHA. Anonymous comments are still allowed, but if it keeps up then I'll have to turn that off too. Fucking parasitic spammers are a blight on society.

These people are fucking nuts

I've previously blogged (1, 2) about religious leaders blaming gays and other sinners for Hurricane Katrina. It seems to be getting worse. Alabama State Senator Hank Erwin is now saying that "gambling, sin and wickedness" was the cause of Hurricane Katrina and it was God's punishment for all that sin. I don't really understand why he mentions gambling twice. Other than riverboat casinos and the state lottery, gambling is basically illegal in Louisiana. But when did facts ever get in the way of bigotry?

I know this will tag me an an evil, baby-eating liberal (in case you hadn't guessed that already) but conservative Christians are fucking nuts. These whackjob, irrational people hold way too much power in our country.

Look, morons, hurricanes happen occasionally. Regularly, even. When they happen, they tend to hit the Gulf Coast. It's not sin. It's not the queers. It's not even those Jew bankers or the porn on TV. If these things caused natural disasters, Las Vegas and San Francisco would both be smoking craters twenty miles in diameter. Katrina is neither the largest or the most lethal hurricane to hit the US. It just happened to hit a densely populated area that had a lot of poor people, and it was big enough to break the levees. That's it. There's no supernatural or mystical component to that.

The fact that Christians don't seem to be able to grasp these basic facts scares the everloving crap out of me. I've said it before: it really is not a big leap from "God is punishing us for the sin in our midst," to "we must purge the sinners from our midst."

(Via Crooks and Liars.)

When the Moon hits your wallet like a big pizza pie

Bob Park [*] has an editorial in Thursdays NY Times about the unnecessary manned space program to re-land on the Moon. I have to agree. Bush proposed this venture as part of his program to get men on Mars, and utterly pointless endevour. Sure, Big Grand Projects capture the imagination and make us, as a nation, feel big and important and manly. But those Big Grand Projects come with a Bigger, Grander Budget, and if we're going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and almost undoubtedly the lives of a few people to send some astronauts to the Moon and to Mars, there had dammned well better be a better reason than it will be a bold vision for our future.

From Park's editorial:

This week NASA described plans to return astronauts to the Moon in 2018 at a cost of $104 billion. That's nine years after President Bush leaves office. Starting from scratch in 1961, President Kennedy's commitment to put a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth was realized in just eight years. What is going on?...

Two mechanical geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, are doing this even now, by searching for evidence of water on opposite sides of Mars. They don't break for lunch or complain about the cold nights, and they live on sunshine. They've been at it for nearly two years, yet their mission costs less than sending a shuttle to the International Space Station. The brains of Spirit and Opportunity are the brains of geologists back on Earth.

I'm no Luddite saying space exploration is a waste of money that could be better spent here on earth; heck, my first post-college job was working to build the International Space Station. But the ISS is now basically without a science mission, and has scaled back due to the inflating budget and the destruction of the Columbia. What little science it does do doesn't require a permanent manned presence in space. Much, if not all, of it could be done just as well in unmanned probes, or perhaps on the remaining Shuttle.

We need a good reason to go there in person first, then we are justified in spending a lot of money.

[*] If you haven't read Park's weekly newsletter What's New, I strongly suggest that you subscribe. It's pretty much always about science, but is accessible to any reader, and written with a dry wit that just cracks me up.

Puck Fanasonic

I previously blogged about my piece of crap Panasonic CT-27HL14 television. Since I posted my review and description of my problem over at Amazon, no fewer than seven people have added reviews. They all describe the exact same problem I had. I think it's pretty clear by now that that model of TV has either a manufacturing or design defect. If so, why hasn't it been recalled? This whole situation just screams class action lawsuit.

Where the evacuees come sweeping down the plain

My sister was set evacuate Houston for Lubbock (How many times do you think you'll hear that in your life?) as of 3:00 am this morning. From what I've seen on the news, I'm not sure she will have made it out of the city limits by now.

The Houston Chronicle has a really good blog about Hurricane Rita and the evacuation of Houston. They report that AAA members of Texas that are evacuating are having to be placed in hotels in Oklahoma. That's like having to flee Champaign to Columbus, Ohio, and then a good bit farther. Geez.

Um, somthin' ain't right here

I just popped over to eBay for a moment. Their front page lists the "Top 10 video games" they're currently selling. The list is:

1. Sony PSP
2. Gran Turisimo 4
3. Playstation 2
4. Halo 2
5. Xbox
6. Resident Evil 4
7. Game Boy Advance
8. GameCube
9. Nintendo DS
10. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Do you think someone should tell them that six out of the ten things on this list aren't video games?

It's like saying that the top DVD is a 30-inch Sony Trinitron.

Maybe it was too much Southern Comfort?

Now that a number of Christian and Jewish and Muslim conservatives have declared Katrina to be a punishment from God for people who are Not Like Us, it really makes me wonder what sin North Carolinans have committed to be punished with Hurricane Ophelia. Or maybe this hurricane is just a weather pattern caused by warm equatorial waters and wasn't sent from on high?

Must ... resist ...

For some time now, I've been thinking of replacing my current computer. There's nothing really wrong with it, but it's starting to show its age, and isn't quite up to snuff for playing most of the games that are coming out these days. I was thinking about just getting one from one of the custom build shops out there. I was, that is, until Jon, as the current incarnation of the Prince of Darkness, suggested building one.

So that set me off on a bunch of reading and window shopping. A few nerdgasms later, I came up with what I think is a pretty decent system:

MSI K8N Neo4-F motherboard
Athlon 64 3000+
1 GB RAM
Leadtek GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB, PCI-Express video card
Hitachi T7K250 160 GB hard drive
Antec SLK 3800B case (black is so slimming, don't you know?)

The only question is whether or not to buy the motherboard and processor as a combo from some place that would ship it already assembled. Now I just need to work up the courage to drop that much money over at Newegg.

Quick reminder

I just wanted to let every one know that The Daily Show is starting their week-long special investigative report, Evolution, Schmevolution tonight. The saddest part is that it will probably be the only media outlet that treats Intelligent Design with the level of respect it deserves.

Update (13 Sept. 05): Naturally, I completely forgot.

Ack!

Most people come to my blog looking for porn. That's largely because I've blogged about the spambots that plague gay.com, and they're searching for one of the domains. I'm used to that.

Nevertheless, this was not the sort of search I usually see in the referrer logs: manya gang bang

Yay, Magic!

Manya asked:

How goes the magicking?
Do you like it when everyone claps when you win?

I finished my league "in the money," which I think is pretty good considering it was my first tournament online or off, and the fact that I haven't played in a few years.

And now I'm about to do it again, with a four-week-long tournament this time. There used to be a theory that Wizards of the Coast put cocaine in the cards, which wore away over time, so you had to keep buying more to get your fix. I don't understand how they do that in the online version, though.

Do not think it can not happen here

Number of Christian groups blaming gays and other sinners for Katrina's devastation: 4

Number of non-wingnut Christian groups calling this shameful: 0

New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion.

-- Rev. Bill Shanks in the American Family Association's AgapePress

"... this act of God destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin.

-- Repent America

God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion.

-- Constitution Party candidate for US Congress Steve Lefemine

America is now experiencing the consequences (curses) of Middle East policies, which have been opposed to God’s Word and to the preservation of His covenant land.

-- Jerusalem Newswire, a Christian website

About three hundred years ago roughly twenty-five people were killed in Salem for being witches. Their trials rested on nothing more than spectral evidence, the notion that the witch's spirit appeared to the tormented Salem girls in a vision.

In the twentieth century, the lynching of blacks in the United States was not uncommon. There were about a hundred and fifty lynchings in the 1930s, and these continued up until a few KKK members lynched a black man in 1981. The witch trials are basically ancient history, but this happened within living memory.

I've now heard two different second hand accounts (about either the coworker or relative of a friend) of people saying how residents of New Orleans are being punished by God and that deserved their fate because they lived in a sinful city. In both cases, the sin that brought on the Wrath of God (now available in chocolate and strawberry) was unnamed, but does it really matter? I've always been under the impression that Christians believed that all people were hell-bound sinners requiring the blood of Jesus Christ to be saved from the terrible fate that awaits the rest of us sinners? I mean, isn't that the central tenet of Christianity? Why are New Orleans sinners so much more despicable than Montana sinners?

Less than a hundred years ago, the rise of a particular political movement in Germany led to the deaths of around ten million "undesirable" people. (You know which one I'm talking about.) The movement is now used in our society as the personification of all things evil. That happened two generations ago, but do not think that can not happen here.

Between 1992 and 1995, about 8000 Bosnian Muslims were killed by agents of their government in an ethnic and religious cleansing. That happened half a world away, but do not think that can not happen here.

In 1994, roughly a million Africans were killed over a period of four months. Mostly by machete. First world nations, fully cognizant of what was going on, stood by and refused to take any action. Again, do not think that can not happen here.

These horrible things did not happen because the people that lived in these places and these times were somehow more genetically predisposed to horrible acts of violence. People are capable of doing the most terrible things to each other given the right philosophical framework in which to do them. Do not think that these things can not or will not ever happen here because we live in a more "civilized" society. Do not think that the people that live around you are incapable of doing them.

I am stressing this so much for a very good reason. Take a look at the quotes above, all made by Christian organizations in the past few days. These people are blaming queers and other sinners not like them for the freakin' weather. Is that really so much different than blaming the witch down the street for your child's mysterious illness? Is that really so much different from blaming the bank's foreclosure on your property on the Jew banker* that lives a few blocks away?

There is a very real and very great danger of an avian flu pandemic breaking out in the next few decades. This is not the coughs and sniffles we're talking about, but a disease that has a 50% fatality rate. Katrina has probably killed a few thousand people, largely concentrated in one geographical area. The CDC says that just a medium-scale flu pandemic in the U.S. may kill upwards of 200,000 people, all over the country.

What do you think the right-wing Christian wingnuts will be saying then?

How long do you think it will be before "God is punishing our country because of all the sinners in our midst" becomes "God wants us to purge our country of the sinner in our midst"?

Do not think it can not happen here.

* "The 'Feed the Jew Banker' way of housing purchase is not the only way to buy a house." From: http://www.stormfront.org/archive/t-101192.html Not linked for obvious reasons.

Just a thought on Roberts

I'd like to point out that Bush has just nominated John Roberts for Chief Justice after the death of Rehnquist. Although he's been a lawyer (possibly a "trial lawyer?") for a while and has argued in front of the Supreme Court, Roberts has had a grand total of two years of experience as a judge.

Are there really no judges in the country that have a more appropriate background for being the head of the most powerful court in the nation? Then again, they probably don't have such strong political ties to the Bush family.

I guess we're lucky that he didn't nominate Justice "Oh, but the state governments can impose a religion on their citizens" Scalia for Chief.

Bush does not want your $1

This is from over at Eschaton. I think it's from today's Meet the Press, but I'm not sure.

The guy who runs this building I'm in. Emergency management. He's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said. Are you coming. Son? Is somebody coming? And he said yeah. Mama. Somebody's coming to get you.. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday. And she drowned Friday night.

If that doesn't just break your heart, you must be a compassionate conservative.

Mr. President, no matter how many times you pat the head of FEMA on the back and tell him how great a job he's doing, someone somewhere in your administration has cocked up on a level never before seen in American history. You tell us that you care for the people killed, hurt, and made homeless by this catastrophe. But we know that you were on vacation when it was clear this hurricane was going to be devastating, and you stayed there after the devestation. You tell us that no one could have predicted the collapse of the levies. But we know that that very situation was predicted by the very people in charge of them. And then you praise the man on whose watch so many people have unnecessarily died.

Tell us President Bush, where exactly does the buck stop in your administration?