discoveries from the internets and some stuff I wrote too
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recent quotes i like
"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." - ? | | | | | | |
"If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice. " - shane claiborne | | | | | | |
"If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell ||||||
"On Facebook, no one can hear you scream." - I dont know ||||||
"The reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it." - Machiavelli ||||||
Chest of Drawers
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This chest of drawers is to replace the cheap stand (with no storage) that
was previously holding up our parrot's travel cage. She only lives with us
a few...
An important message from Consumer Reports
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This is our last post on Consumerist.com. We’re deeply proud of all the
work we’ve done on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by
secretive ...
My Milk Toof Travel Update
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*Dear International readers from Southeast France!*
ickle, Lardee & myself will be traveling around the southeast of France
area from 06/02-06/20. If anyo...
The Years Of Writing Dangerously
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Thirteen years ago, as I was starting to experiment with this blogging
thing, I wrote the following: [T]he speed with which an idea in your head
reaches th...
Saint Francis of Assisi
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… everyone who follows Christ receives true peace, the peace that Christ
alone can give, a peace which the world cannot give. Many people, when they
think ...
X-Factor Auditions, Part Two: The registration...
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Kind of creepy to be walking around White Plains at 4:30 in the morning. No
lights on, no cars, no people. I felt like I was in a zombie movie. And,
really...
I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.
I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.
Oakeshott I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.
I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.
I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.
I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.
I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.
I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.
I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.
I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.
I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.
I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.
I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.
I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.
I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.
I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.
Does this make me a "radical leftist" as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.
To paraphrase Reagan, I didn't leave the conservative movement. It left me.
Who could have known that Barack Obama would double-down in Afghanistan? Only people who listened to Barack Obama:
Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won't have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.
As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, a conservative-leaning political blog, officially announced his break with the right in a post on Monday evening. Johnson is co-founder of Pajamas Media, and Little Green Footballs has been named one of the top 100 most popular blogs.
Succinctly titled "Why I Parted Ways With The Right," Johnson's post argues against the fanaticism of politicians like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Pat Buchanan as well as the conservative blogosphere
Levi said on a national morning show the other day that he could easily unload some "huge secrets" that could ruin Sarah but that he chooses not to at this point. He did throw a couple small barbs her way like saying that Sarah would often make jokes about her "retarded baby" etc.
Sarah no likey - today she came out with her rebuttle - she asked why anyone would listen to someone who would "sell their body" just to get into the spotlight.
for your "well isn't that ironic" meter's enjoyment here we can view our uber-chaste ex Alaskan gov in action:
Testimony given for and against Maine's marriage equality bill on April 22, 2009. Nearly 4,000 people attended the hearing, with marriage equality supporters out-numbering the opposition 4 to 1.
Anyone who assaults someone else can be arrested and tried for assault. the law already makes stomping on a homo illegal because stomping on anyone is illegal. so i basically find it redundant and unnecessary. i don't see it as punishing "thought" because it does cover actual assaults, but being convicted and serving time for stomping on (or killing) a straight guy and stomping on(or killing)a gay guy should both carry the same penalty.
I think this is just a fig leaf offered to gays to say "hey, look, we're doing something for you guys" but in the end assault of any kind still results in arrest and being tried and convicted if guilty so what does it really do for us? I think it's a distraction from more important issues and more fuel for the anti-gay movement while not actually criminalizing anything that isn't already a crime anyway.
Anderson Cooper talks to an editor of towleroad.com and columnist dan savage about the passage of this law. both support the law (one less emphatically than the other)but they do express a few of my thoughts above as well as the general frustration the pro-gay movement is beginning to feel towards the Obama administration's lack of progress on many of his campaign promises to the gay community:
the tears (again!) and then the somewhat nonsensical allegory of the party and the beer and the dad - what is he trying to say (again)?
the simpler time beck longs for was the same time period when he was a teenager already addicted to drugs - does he really want to go back that time?
According to Wikipedia, in 1979, the date of the commercial that made Glenn Beck cry, his mother drowned in a mysterious boating accident. His parents had divorced in 1977 and he then had to move to a different town to live with his father. His step-brother subsequently committed suicide. Keep those apparent facts in mind and watch the Youtube clip.
one of 750,000 teen pregnancies per year. the other question no one wants to talk about is that since humans become capable of reproducing (and very much encouraged by their own bodies just try to remember what it felt like when you were 16!) is there the possibility that our biology is trying to tell us something? In our current society it is easiest to be a mom or a dad when one is in their late 20s or 30s but maybe that is a disorder of society and not a disorder of our own genetic and biological imperatives? if one wanted to be "totally traditional" males and females would be married by 16. This is part of the problem concerning the stance of the conservatives regarding sex and teenage pregnancy. It seems to be a matter of just how traditional and how conservative you might want to be... conservative 1970, 1950, 1930, 1850, 1700, 1200 a.d.? My problem with the entire "conservative movement" is that it is entirely retroactive - a desire to return to some ancient golden age that obviously never existed, apart, maybe, from the garden of Eden? I want to look forward and i want to look towards the future as a positive possibility and I only find this in one American party right now. The simple slogan of "Hope" works for the democrats but not for the republicans because the democrats offer hope for the future, rather than a simple dragging of feet in resistance to the past. Please feel free to contradict! I love discussions!
so she is the poster child of absitinence now, but wasn't a minute ago...
there are two options here in our modern American society and i think they are both inherently at odds - A: remain a virgin until you are 25-35 or practice saf(er) sex before then. These are the two realistic options we currently have, for whatever reasons, so we need to pick one as realistic and one as not...
here is another question that gets at the bottom of things: do you think either of these women are old enough or experienced enough to be speaking on this subject? your answer to that question probably will determine you answer to all the other questions raised...
