Waaaaaay back at the beginning of this week it was Monday

But it is never too late for the always entertaining and informative: Top Ten Conservative Idiots

- rob 4:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Company You Keep

More White Supremacists in the Closet

- rob 2:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Not Exactly Happy Meal

This week there was more unpleasantness about the Happy Meal, as nearly 10,000 workers who make the toys in the Vietnamese city of Danang went on strike to protest labor practices, which are said to include routine humiliation and pay cuts for workers who go to the bathroom more than twice in a 12-hour shift, The Associated Press reports.

The strike ended after just two days, though, and the workers, mostly young women, received an increase from 2,500 dong (16 cents) an hour to 2,750 (17.5 cents) an hour, the AP said, citing a labor organizer. The new pact is said also to include more bathroom passes and toilets and a mandate that supervisors improve the overall factory climate.

A McDonald's spokeswoman, Anna Rozenich, commented vaguely to the AP, saying, "All the issues have been resolved, whatever they are." Whatever they are? Perhaps she has no more idea what really goes on in Vietnamese toy factories than, well, I do.

- rob 1:56 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Is are children learning?

How can they - look what they're taught:

Pandagon: News from the world of abstinence-only

The latest news from Feministing doesn't help my paranoia. Apparently, a school in Bozeman, Montana hired a woman from a organization called (I shit you not) True Lies to give a brief presentation and she threatened them with their lives if they dare use contraception.

Wells demanded the school give equal time to rebut the "misinformation" his son heard: that condoms lead to cancer, that birth control pills are only 20 percent effective, that sexually transmitted diseases are spread by skin contact alone, that third-trimester fetuses can be aborted, that video games lead to homicide, that human papilloma virus can be transferred through condoms and that teens can achieve "second virginity" through abstinence.

Actually I think condoms only lead to cancer if you are unmarried. When you get married you are genetically altered by your marriage vows to be resistant to condom causing cancers. Just another one of Gods miracles.

The brave poster at Pandagon sums up the power to go to the True Lies Website, where they learn:

Today's media is lying to your students about sex, violence, drugs, alcohol, and suicide. They tell them premarital sex has no consequences, drugs and alcohol make life more exciting, violence is a way to solve your problems, and suicide is an easy escape.

Now much of what is out there is crap and needlessly violent and slimy (except when it comes to a John Woo Hong Kong flick - that violence needs to be there), but I don't think I've seen the shows she is referring to. Yes Mel Gibson's The Passion was violent and grotesque, promoted the suicide of Judas as an easy escape, and the beatific look of Mary Magdalene despite her past profession could be seen as implying that premarital sex doesn't mess you up that bad; but there was no drug use in that movie. I've never seen Murder She Wrote so it could be happening in that show - I don't know.

- rob 1:50 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Paris vs. George

Funny? Sad? We link - you decide

Collected, Uh, Wisdom

- rob 1:29 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Its a private school - but still an example of the coming Theocracy

School punishes teacher for getting pregnant before married

Christine John is a first-year teacher at the Village Seventh-day Adventist Elementary School. She says school officials asked her why she was four months along in her pregnancy when she had been married just two months.

John says school officials told her that premarital sex is an act strictly forbidden by the school system and the religion. She was told her services were no longer needed and that she will be on paid leave until her contract expires.

Why leap to the conclusion she had premarital sex? Does the term "virgin birth" ring a bell?

- rob 5:42 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Seriously - can Bush nominate anyone appropriate?

And it is now official the first sign of weak moral fiber is declaring yourself an agent of God

Dr. Hager's Family Values

With the autumn sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows, Hager opened his Bible to the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel and looked out into the audience. "I want to share with you some information about how...God has called me to stand in the gap," he declared. "Not only for others, but regarding ethical and moral issues in our country."

For Hager, those moral and ethical issues all appear to revolve around sex: In both his medical practice and his advisory role at the FDA, his ardent evangelical piety anchors his staunch opposition to emergency contraception, abortion and premarital sex. Through his six books--which include such titles as Stress and the Woman's Body and As Jesus Cared for Women, self-help tomes that interweave syrupy Christian spirituality with paternalistic advice on women's health and relationships--he has established himself as a leading conservative Christian voice on women's health and sexuality.

And because of his warm relationship with the Bush Administration, Hager has had the opportunity to see his ideas influence federal policy. In December 2003 the FDA advisory committee of which he is a member was asked to consider whether emergency contraception, known as Plan B, should be made available over the counter. Over Hager's dissent, the committee voted overwhelmingly to approve the change. But the FDA rejected its recommendation, a highly unusual and controversial decision in which Hager, The Nation has learned, played a key role.
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According to Davis [Linda Davis - Hager's former wife], Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."

Not once during the uproar over Hager's FDA appointment did any reporter solicit the opinion of the woman now known as Linda Davis--she remarried in November 2002 to James Davis, a Methodist minister, and relocated to southern Georgia--on her husband's record, even though she contributed to much of his self-help work in the Christian arena (she remains a religious and political conservative). She intermittently thought of telling her story but refrained, she says, out of respect for her adult children. It was Hager's sermon at Asbury last October that finally changed her mind. Davis was there to hear her middle son give a vocal performance; she was prepared to hear her ex-husband inveigh against secular liberals, but she was shocked to hear him speak about their divorce when he took to the pulpit.

"In early 2002," Hager told the churchgoers that day, "my world fell apart.... After thirty-two years of marriage, I was suddenly alone in a new home that we had built as our dream home. Time spent 'doing God's will' had kept me from spending the time I needed to nourish my marriage." Hager noted with pride that in his darkest hour, Focus on the Family estimated that 50 million people worldwide were praying for him.

In his practice Hager refused to give unmarried women scripts for birth control. He said it would encourge pre-marital sex.

No - it would give a woman control of her own body.

Hager and his ilk don't want to give women control of their own bodies... because they feel it isn't the women's to control - it is theirs - it is the husband's right to control.

A face of the coming Theocracy.

- rob 5:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Why is this man smiling? (still)



You would be too if you pulled off the most amazing scam: Getting the United States of America to overthrow a country for you - and get you an out of jail free card.

King of Jordan to pardon Iraq's deputy PM over $300m bank fraud

King Abdullah of Jordan has agreed to pardon Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi political leader, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for fraud after his bank collapsed with $300m (£160m) in missing deposits in 1989.

Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi President, asked the king to resolve the differences between Jordan and Mr Chalabi, now Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, during a visit to Ammanthis week.
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The expected pardon, is the latest twist in the extraordinary career of Mr Chalabi, now again in the ascendant as an important member of the Shia coalition and the new Iraqi government. Only a year ago US soldiers raided his house in Baghdad, put a gun to his head, arrested two of his supporters and seized papers. He was accused of passing intelligence information to Iran.

Previously an ally of the neoconservatives and of the civilians in the Pentagon whom he managed to convince of the need to topple Saddam Hussein, Mr Chalabi sought new friends. He cultivated Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia clergyman whose militia the US Army was trying to destroy. He became a leader of one of the main factions in the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia coalition which triumphed in the election on 30 January.

Again Mr Chalabi has escaped not only political annihilation, but has emerged from a crisis with his power enhanced.

- rob 4:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Too much good stuff to even contemplate taking a snippet.

Go read: Orcinus: The undertow of totalism

- rob 4:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Bush Family: One Success After Another

Education - 18 Percent Of Florida Seniors Flunk FCAT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- About 18 percent of Florida high school seniors have failed to pass state examinations needed to get a diploma.

Figures from the state Education Department show 27,000 of 150,000 seniors have failed to pass at least one of the required exams.

About 60 percent of them also lack credits or have grade point averages that are too low for graduation.

I know the solution: The Ten Commandments on every desk (its not like they're being used for anything else).

- rob 3:47 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Found via Eschaton (I think)

David Sirota over at his blog has this great quote from Eisenhower.

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54

I enjoyed the quote so much it is now part of our quote section on the right side.

I have to say between the above quote and his famous Military Industrial Complex speech - Eisenhower's got a good track record as an Oracle.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Another little known quote from this modern day Nostradamus has this: "One day an idiot Texan oil millionaire will rise to power based on funding from the military-industrial complex via fraudulent means, but this will go unchecked as that same military-industrial complex also owned much of the media resulting in a lack of knowledgeable citizenry. That idiot will then dismantle social security and wage war solely for the benefit of the military-industrial media complex."

For some reason I can't find the origin of that particular quote.

- rob 12:50 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Republican Definition of Family Values: Less then 6 Marriages

Official Sues Over Letter Citing Marriages

SANFORD, Fla. - A county Republican chairman says his bid to head the state party was sabotaged because a letter falsely accused him of having been married six times. The right number, he says, is five.

"That's unconscionable," Seminole County Republican Party Chairman Jim Stelling said Tuesday in the trial over his defamation suit. "I have four children and eight grandchildren that I love dearly. I believe in family values."

Emphasis mine - not that it was needed.

- rob 12:42 PM - [PermaLink] -

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words of wisdom from: America (The Book):

If "con" is the opposite of "pro," then isn't Congress the opposit of progress?

- rob 12:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Gripe, Bitch, Whine

In the words of one disgraced ex-U.S. president whose downfall was the direct result of federal crimes, overreaching, conspiracy, secrecy, and an underhanded attempt to overthrow the Constitution by stealth attack and intimidation of the media, Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I may be whining and bitching about the government, but my gripe is with the body politic, which is infected, sick in heart and mind, anemic, befogged, spiritually confused, psychically numb, politically disenfranchised, dangerously undereducated, delusional, unattached to reality, ahistorical, unread, obtuse, willful, ignorant, easily misled, vainglorious, in serious denial, and unable, unwilling, and incapable of wrapping its mind around a simple fact. When I say "Bush" this is what I'm referring to. Sure I hate the guy, but he's the one whom Americans allowed into the Oval Office by letting him get near it. Sure he stole both elections -- because he was allowed to be a candidate. Americans have never been able to let go of the idea of dynastic monarchy. We never really let go of it in 1776: only one third of the body politic, small as it was, wanted to make the break with the crown; one third were loyalists, and the rest didn't give a fuck, they had their own problems just getting food and trying to stay alive, in the days before modern medicine, hygiene, electricity, steam-driven engines, flushing toilets, refrigeration, bullets, knowledge of transmission of disease and its mechanisms -- including plague, scarlet fever, cholera, typhus, and smallpox -- low infant mortality, a system of roads, crop rotation, the rule of law, a functioning judiciary, adequate protection against exposure to the elements, protection against drought and famine, dentistry, central heating, or any of the basic amenities of life that every American takes for granted and considers a birthright.

So "Bush" to me is a symptom of a disease that has been long festering. If we were ever a ball of string, Bush is the Great Unraveling, and I lay this squarely at the feet of all of us -- not just the ones who voted for him. That would be missing the point. Americans get the government they deserve. Any close election is up for grabs, and the Republicans grabbed it, because they were hungry -- ravenous -- while the Democrats stood idly by, bemoaning our fate. Who needs them? Unfortunately, I do, because we're all eating it now, thanks to one-party rule. I feel like a goose whose gullet is being rammed with a stick in order to make fois gras so that billionaires can dine on my liver for free. That's exactly what's going on. And we're all being distracted by wedge issues to break us up and keep us powerless -- permanently powerless. The last thing anybody in power wants to do is share a single scrap of it, because any compromise -- any at all -- constitutes a breach in the wall that separates the haves from the have nots. It's all for them, nothing for us. A handful of scheming robber barons have more water than they can possibly drink in three lifetimes while we die of thirst. And right now we're in the middle of the Sahara, facedown in the hot sand, our lips cracked and white, fighting each other about abortion, religion, sex, science, "moral values" -- whatever that is -- "family" values, "traditional" values, Red states and Blue states, homosexuality, time-honored social programs, patriotism, the flag, you name it -- all at a time when we should be pulling together to share a cup of water. One lousy cup. You know what happens to cows when there's no more grass? They dry up and drop dead. A citizen is not a cow. Try telling it to the cows.

Meanwhile the world is on fire.

- Michael 9:16 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Daily Kos :: GOP Activists Admit Beastiality, but Not Gay Sex

For those who aren't as newsgeeky as I am, PA Senator Rick Santorum has equated homosexual sex to beastiality, which is as shocking to the civilized world as it is sensible to the Deliverance Republican base.

But the ugly face of beastiality has reared again, in the form of aptly-named anti-abortion terrorism advocate Neal Horsley. On the FOX News Radio program "The Alan Colmes Show," Horsley apparently freely admitted to engaging in beastiality as a youngster.

"Is it true?" Colmes asked.

"Hey, Alan, if you want to accuse me of having sex when I was a fool, I did everything that crossed my mind that looked like I..."

AC: "You had sex with animals?"

NH: "Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule."

AC: "I'm not so sure that that is so."

NH: "You didn't grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?"

AC: "Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?"

NH: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm..."

Okay time for a flashback (A post from last summer):

Conservatives and the need for law and societal stigma

I'm beginning to feel that liberals really don't understand conservatives. Yes some times conservatives are projecting, but sometimes, from their point of view, they are exactly right.

They condemn liberals because liberals try to reduce the stigma of divorce. Now, conservatives say "people will just get a divorce when they feel like it." Liberals just think that is insane but for conservatives it may be accurate. It is stigma and laws that keep a conservative in line. Nothing else.

Conservatives want many religious mores to become law. Why? Because if they are not law the conservatives will break them. Thus you have the religious moral conservative drunks gambling away their child's college money at a sleazy casino. "but... sniff... if only things like that were illegal. Then I wouldn't do it."

The whole "Personal Responsibility" line is the greatest projection in political history. Liberals are saying "make it legal, if you don't like it don't do it." Conservatives say "I don't like it, make it illegal." But what they don't say, but in their hearts they know it to be true, "I don't like it, make it illegal, make it stigmatized or I will do it."

Even when things are fine and decent, but their teachings have hang ups about it (say like homosexuality), the conservatives get angy and liberals get confused. When the right fights against gay marriage and says things like "it'll lead to people marrying animals." Liberals look at them like they are insane. But the religious right is very concerned, like most homophobes they are insecure of their sexuality, and want to keep homosexuality stigmitized (and better yet, wouldn't it be great if it was illegal) so they can keep themselves on the straight and narrow (as they see it). They are so self-unaware, so without personal control (relying on social, religious, and legal control) that as far as they know they themselves might marry dogs.

Hypocracy is the sin to teens, when they are filled with rightious power. Hypocracy to adult conservatives is a way of life; it is because they are fearful of themselves. They say we are above animals but in their dark hearts they think of themselves as horribly base, needing laws and peer pressure to keep them inline.

Its all so horribly sad.

- rob 1:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Biggest Story of Our Lives

At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Election Day, I checked the sportsbook odds in Las Vegas and via the offshore bookmakers to see the odds as of that moment on the Presidential election. John Kerry was a two-to-one favorite. You can look it up.

People who have lived in the sports world as I have, bettors in particular, have a feel for what I am about to say about this: these people are extremely scientific in their assessments. These people understand which information to trust and which indicators to consult in determining where to place a dividing line to influence bets, and they are not in the business of being completely wrong. Oddsmakers consulted exit polling and knew what it meant and acknowledged in their oddsmaking at that moment that John Kerry was winning the election.
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It is damned near impossible to go to graduate school in any but the most artistic disciplines without having to learn about the basics of social research and its uncanny accuracy and validity. We know that professionally conceived samples simply do not yield results which vary six, eight, ten points from eventual data returns, thaty's why there are identifiable margins for error. We know that margins for error are valid, and that results have fallen within the error range for every Presidential election for the past fifty years prior to last fall. NEVER have exit polls varied by beyond-error margins in a single state, not since 1948 when this kind of polling began. In this past election it happened in ten states, all of them swing states, all of them in Bush's favor. Coincidence? Of course not.

- rob 1:34 PM - [PermaLink] -

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All of this apocalypse talk reminded me of George Rapp (believe it or not it really did).

Rapp wasn't alone amongst his 19th century contemporaries in believing the end was nigh. He decided the best way to prepare was to create a more pure society. In fact he and 1,700 of his followers did set up a commune in Pennsylvania.

But what popped into my mind after reading all this crap about the Dominionists waiting for the rapture (not the Blondie song) was Mr. Rapp's death bed statement:

If I did not know that the dear Lord meant I should present you all to him, I should think my last moment's come.

Well - surprise! that was his last moment. Waaay back in 1847. And guess what he never got to present the dear Lord to his followers, despite having his intro speech all written: "Now I'm proud to present to you an entity that needs no introduction whether you know him as the big kahuna, the all mighty, God Man, or as we like to call him around here: "The Lord," you know He's got a lot to say... and between you and mean me - a lot of explain to do... I kid... Anyway without further ado 'ere's the big man himself..... God!"

Well a day will come when Tim LaHaye and his ilk will meet their ends... and they too will be bewildered that humanity has continued on... and they never got to give their intro speeches.

- rob 12:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The series by Tim Roff over at Koss continues:
Daily Kos :: Bush to Trigger Rapture Part III: What the Dominionists Seek

Back in April of 2003 I posted a banner I saw on Yahoo.

I thought it would be appropriate to share it with you all again:



Wheee... it's the end of times! do I get a lollypop?

- rob 12:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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There are dozens of alternatives to fossil fuel (and no mr. president coal is not an alternative to fossil fuels... it is a fossil fuel).

And if we are going to detox from our oil addiction we'll have to use all of them all where it makes sense (i.e. solar power isn't a good idea in Seattle, nor is geo-thermal power going to be so hot in New York). All of them have environmental consequences, but they can be minimized by tailoring the solution to the geographic area.

However it requires a lot less ingenuity to come up with a blanket solution... this is where nuclear power comes in - and it is especially tempting to Bush and fans because of the financial expediture required to even get the initial watt generated.

I'm not saying nuclear power doesn't have its place (thought beyond medical research I'm not exactly sure where....), but of all alternative energy sources (heck even including good ol' fossil fuels) Nuclear Power has the largest consequences.

And not just in Jane Fonda flicks, as today's news reminds us:

Huge radioactive leak closes Thorp nuclear plant

A leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid, enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, has forced the closure of Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant.

The highly dangerous mixture, containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel, has leaked through a fractured pipe into a huge stainless steel chamber which is so radioactive that it is impossible to enter.

Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months and may require special robots to be built and sophisticated engineering techniques devised to repair the £2.1bn plant.

Mistakes do happen but an energy source that brings with it the threat that a mistake can lead to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives may not be our best bet.

And that's not a worse case scenario... that's recent history....

On the Friday evening of April 25, 1986, the reactor crew at Chernobyl-4, prepared to run a test the next day to see how long the turbines would keep spinning and producing power if the electrical power supply went off line. This was a dangerous test, but it had been done before. As a part of the preparation, they disabled some critical control systems - including the automatic shutdown safety mechanisms.

Shortly after 1:00 AM on April 26, the flow of coolant water dropped and the power began to increase.

At 1:23 AM, the operator moved to shut down the reactor in its low power mode and a domino effect of previous errors caused an sharp power surge, triggering a tremendous steam explosion which blew the 1000 ton cap on the nuclear containment vessel to smithereens.

To quote the site: How many people died of radiation? No one knows - not even approximately. The official casualty reports range from 30 to 300,000 and many unofficial sources put the toll over 400,000.

Here's a picture of the town of Pripyat - in 1986 it was the home of 48,000. Now no one lives there. It will be 600 years before anyone can.



Pripyat is 4km north of the reactor. 50 KM (yes - 50) south of the reactor there was a town of 4,500. 3,500 of whom refused to move in 1986. Now only 400 of them are still alive.

Big consequences.

- rob 6:46 PM - [PermaLink] -

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So does this mean that gays in North Carolina are more in line with the law then Heteros?

Shacking Up: N.C. Anti-Cohabitation Law Under Legal Attack

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - There are some 144,000 unmarried couples living together in North Carolina, and they are all breaking the law - a statute that has been on the books since 1805.
The law against cohabitation is rarely enforced. But now the American Civil Liberties Union is suing to overturn it altogether, on behalf of a former sheriff's dispatcher who says she had to quit her job because she wouldn't marry her live-in boyfriend.

Deborah Hobbs, 40, says her boss, Sheriff Carson Smith of Pender County, near Wilmington, told her to get married, move out or find another job after he found out she and her boyfriend had been living together for three years. The couple did not want to get married, so Hobbs quit.

Here's a bit I find interesting:

There were roughly three dozen cohabitation-related charges filed in North Carolina between 1997 and 2004, according to state figures. But the number of people actually convicted under the law - formally known as the fornication and adultery statute - is not clear, said Patrick Tamer, a statistician with the North Carolina court system.

Umm... no offense against Mr. Tamer who is probably a fine statistician, but if you know there were roughly three dozen charges... don't you think someone would have written down the end result? Are their still fornicators in prison yearning to be free? Why is it in the 21st century North Carolina is finally being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th?

- rob 6:03 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Tim Roff over at Daily Kos has a couple of Diaries I think TCS readers would be interested in:

Is Bush trying to trigger the End Times? *Updated*

and

Bush triggers the End Times Part II: A Rapture Primer

We presently have in office a President whose advisors make decisions based on what they feel will most quickly hasten the end of the world. Not a trait I find endearing.

- rob 5:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I found the George Will article (below) from this great slacktivist post which features this bit from a "Merlin Missy" who posted a comment to an earlier post.

Of course Christians are persecuted in the United States. After all, everyone knows Christians can't marry other Christians (except in one state but nobody recognizes Christian marriages anywhere else and it's not like those are real marriages anyway), can't adopt ot become foster parents after they truthfully answer the "Faith" question on the questionnaire, can be denied housing and jobs for being Christians, and are regularly the butt of jokes where practitioners of other religions (especially Jews) are portrayed as kind and giving. In many parts of the country, Christians are afraid of walking down the street because they know people will shout at them for being Christian. They don't dare walk into some bars, knowing that their conservative clothing or a slip in conversation might make them a target for "beat the Christian in the backroom." When a Christian commits an act of terrorism against an abortion clinic, Christians lock their doors in fear of retaliation by complete strangers. Doctors who practice and promote Natural Family Planning are listed on websites with "Wanted" posters and regularly receive death threats. Halloween and Beltaine are paid days off regardless of a person's faith; anyone who asks to take a vacation day for Christmas or Easter is grilled suspiciously by coworkers and managers. Schools for other faiths are everywhere; there are only one or two Catholic schools per state and they don't advertise after three were firebombed in one year. The ruling party and all three branches of government have dozens of people who have made public statements that Christians are destroying this country and that the practice of Christianity should be banned by the Constitution. Christians are barred from military service. Every Christian has a friend or relative who was killed or imprisoned during the last world war because they were Christian. When Christians complain about the treatment they receive, they're told to move to another state / country with their own kind. People regularly picket the funerals of Christians with signs that read "The nameless forces that randomly shaped the cosmos into an appealing pattern hate Christos!" The word "christian" is used as an independent adjective to describe something stupid and/or undesireable. Christian girls who ascribe to Paul's teaching that women must keep their heads covered when they pray are suspended from schools for violating the "no hats" policy. The only movie most people have even heard of that features Christianity is "The Faith," a horror film that shows teenaged girls praying for bad things to happen to their classmates and committing cannibalism (using a phrase made trendy by the movie: "Body and Blood of Christ"). Politicians regularly end statements with "And Allah bless America," and when called on it, they claim they mean all gods when they say Allah. "In YHWH We Trust" is written on our money. Teenagers who tell their parents they're interested in Christianity, or believe they might be Chrisrians, are told they're "going through a (rebellious) phase" and are often sent to counselling to "fix" them. The first response people often make when they hear someone's family member is a Christian is to say "I'm so sorry." Christian clubs at colleges don't advertise their meetings because atheists regularly show up and hand out copies of "On the Origen of Species."

- rob 4:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Scary... I agree with some of George Will's statements

George Will: The Christian Complex

Some Christians should practice the magnanimity of the strong rather than cultivate the grievances of the weak. But many Christians are joining today's scramble for the status of victims. There is much lamentation about various "assaults" on "people of faith." Christians are indeed experiencing some petty insults and indignities concerning things such as restrictions on school Christmas observances. But their persecution complex is unbecoming because it is unrealistic.
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Religion is today banished from the public square? John Kennedy finished his first report to the nation on the Soviet missiles in Cuba with these words: "Thank you and good night." It would be a rash president who today did not conclude a major address by saying, as President Ronald Reagan began the custom of doing, something very like "God bless America."

Unbelievers should not cavil about this acknowledgment of majority sensibilities. But Republicans should not seem to require, de facto, what the Constitution forbids, de jure: "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust."

- rob 4:51 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Please Read

- rob 4:46 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Corporate Media Today

MSNBC makes a correction: "Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't trying to destroy the moon."

Arnie's not mad at the moon

Los Angeles - California Govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger does not want to destroy the moon.

A US political commentator has admitted he failed to check his facts when he erroneously reported on the MSNBC cable news network last month that Schwarzenegger had jokingly advocated doing away with the moon.

In one of the stranger mea culpas from a major US news outlet in recent years, the commentator, Joe Scarborough, a former congressman, acknowledged on Friday that the governor's purported lunar outburst on the nationally syndicated radio show of Howard Stern was actually a spoof.

Citing a British newspaper, Scarborough had quoted Schwarzenegger on the air as saying: "If we get rid of the moon, women, those menstrual cycles are governed by the moon, will not get (pre-menstrual syndrome). They will stop bitching and whining."

Scarborough chided Schwarzenegger for insensitivity, saying: "Hey, governor, way to make 50 percent of California's voting population turn frigid towards you.

"I don't know how it works in Austria, but let me tell you something, friend. Jokes about such matters, (are) not laughing subjects to women in America."

See, Citizen Joe was just trying to show his sensitive side.

- rob 4:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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This isn't the first study to say this... it won't be the last

heterosexually nor homosexuality are choices

They're simply wiring.

A gay is not gay because he or she chooses to be. They are gay because they were made that way (you know by God... for those who are saying it is God who tells you to hate them).

Declaring gays obscene, abominations, and immoral is just as stupid as declaring the demonic nature of red heads.

Not that this will make anyone pay attention... Facts are so 20th century.

Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheromones

WASHINGTON - The sexual area of a gay man's brain works a lot like that of a woman when exposed to a particular stimulus, researchers say.

In an experiment, men and heterosexual women sniffed a chemical from the male hormone testosterone. The homosexual men's brains responded differently from those of heterosexual males, and in a similar way to the women's brains.

"It is one more piece of evidence ... that is showing that sexual orientation is not all learned," said Sandra Witelson, an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

Witelson, who was not part of the research team, said the findings clearly show a biological involvement in sexual orientation.

Hey I don't care about you're sexual orientation - if you sneeze I'll say "bless you." (except for the times I say "gesundheit").

- rob 12:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The news from Orwell's homeland.

Cameras on every street: PlusGood

Microphones and cameras on city streets: DoublePlusGood

Microphones to catch noisy neighbours

Noisy neighbours have become a scourge of modern life, resulting in stress, sleepless nights and even violence.

Now Westminster Council hopes a new wireless microphone could help tackle the problem.

It plans to attach the device to lamp posts outside houses, allowing inspectors to monitor sound levels.

- rob 11:07 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Future GOP Senator

A University of Delaware student who was suspended after he was caught cheating on a test in a corporate ethics class is suing the school to be reinstated.

- rob 10:18 AM - [PermaLink] -

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I just hope he doesn't take us all down with him

Pride goeth before a fall

Bush Won't Take Backseat in Latvia Meeting

After Bush finished, Vike-Freiberga then explained that they would take four questions — one for each president. Again, Bush tried to interrupt, saying, "Or you can have all four questions to me," knowing that foreign reporters usually want to use the opportunity to probe the U.S. president.

Vike-Freiberga ignored the remark as she called on a Latvian journalist, and Bush threw his arms up and looked to help from aides offstage. The Latvian journalist said he would prefer to question the U.S. leader, and Bush responded, "Yeah, I thought that might be the case."

And as he predicted, all four questions were for him.

Arrogant Ass.

- rob 4:21 PM - [PermaLink] -

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If I Could Ask Ann Coulter Four Questions in a Public Forum

First off, I never read anything by Ann Coulter except maybe two paragraphs of her column, and quit reading immediately. Second, any quotes I ever heard attributed to her are all second-hand, so they're out of context and of dubious verbatim authenticity, yet no doubt the spirit behind them is real. Third, I first became familiar with her odious views years and years and years ago, during the "Geraldo" era, otherwise known as the Age of Wacko Right-Wing Blondes -- Coulter was just a fledgling wacko, one of dozens of wannabes. It occurred to me at the time that she was upping the ante to stand out from the others, sort of like porno stars outdoing one another for a better starring role, like blowing fire out of their assholes or drinking forty pints of midgets' spoo. You get the idea.

Anyhow, Coulter's so-called views became more and more severe over the years, which confused me, because she was already a star right-wing assassin in the manner of the captain of the guards in a Chilean junta or Guatemalan death squad at a time when her side had successfully gained control of every lever of government and media; so why is the rancor being ratcheted up? This led to an imaginary conversation that popped into my head while I was making a white sauce (!) to put on my noodles for dinner last night. Here it is: I'm in a TV studio in front of cameras and an audience, and for some reason I'm sharing the stage with Ann Coulter on one of these Fair and Balanced Hardball Nutjob Hate You My Side Impartial Scream All the Time interview formats, hosted by some low-brow pit bull in conservative clothing. There's no particular reason why I'm up there, but I am, probably as raw meat to be shredded and eaten as spectacle for the masses, a la the Roman Colosseum. I agree to the format, with one condition: To be able to ask Ann Coulter four questions without interruption, then shut up and listen to however she replies. My opening statement:

"Ms. Coulter, assume I'm completely unfamiliar with your viewpoints, and that I have none. I haven't read a word one way or the other. Could you explain, in a way a tabula rasa like me can understand: 1) the value of inciting violence against specific groups; 2) why calls to violence against up to and including murder of anyone who disagrees with you is a good thing for you or me; 3) how taking a bat to the head of your opponent solves economic problems; 4) that if it didn't work for Hitler, why would it work for you?"

Strangely, in this fantasy I never get an answer,* just the knee-jerk ripping apart and devouring of human flesh as televised blood sport.

You know what happens to old pit bulls, right? One of three things: They're either turned out into the street, where they roam freely, terrorizing anyone or anything that crosses their path, mauling children and ripping the throats and bellies out of beloved pets; "rescued" by lonely single animal lovers who have absolutely no control over them, because they have killing and disemboweling bred and trained into them from when they were puppies; and third and last, fed to and ripped to pieces by the up and coming newer and improved pit bulls, where they're used as training bait.

--I suspect the fate of Ann Coulter.

*Of course I know the answer to each of these rhetorical questions: base blood lust for money and power, the crassest of motivations, disguised under the rubric of "ideology" -- the real question is, What's ideological about grabbing power through thievery and murder? This is hypocrisy red in tooth and claw: vilifying those you intend to rob and disenfranchise via scapegoating and demonization. If you read the backlog in these pages you'll see that it only took one short year for "liberals" -- i.e., Democrats, anyone from a "blue state" or who isn't a particularly hate-filled evangelical Christian -- to be branded a "terrorist" and "unpatriotic" (read Communist: not an American) and therefore undeserving of the right to vote, the right to property, the right to own a business, the right to practice in the professions; and thus stripped of social standing, worthiness is based on how fit they are for manual labor. Two sets of laws are applied. What's next, ghettoization, rounding up people who wear glasses, forcing tired old men to carry cement all day until they drop dead? That's where all this is headed. It happened before and it's happening again.

- Michael 12:54 PM - [PermaLink] -

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