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...
A: Health Care reform - um, I suppose the bill that looks like it will land on the president's desk in a couple weeks will at least do away with pre-existing conditions, lifetime insurance payout limits and other barbaric insurance industry practices but it seems to be falling far short of what many wanted. You yourself may not agree with the so called "public option" but 60-70% consistently polled as supporting that option, yest it has been excluded from the bill along with several other, much needed reforms. If the existing insurance industry does not face new competition of some kind it will continue to drain the pockets of average Americans in order to fill the CEO s and other up[per management of the insurance companies with obscenely undeserved bonuses. Who has ever done 500 million dollars of work in a single year? Certainly not the paper shufflers at the top of the heap, rather, they pocket these obscene bonuses (in addition to their normal salaries) year after year no matter whether their companies have turned a profit or have had to be bailed out due to poor management. How is this fair? How is this in the spirit of the Christ the Republican party so often invokes, yet who was also the Christ who drove the money changers out of the Temple and told the rich that it is harder for them to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle? Sorry Barrack, but i think you need to sack up a little and be more willing to play the hardball that former President Bush played when he was able to ram innumerable questionable "reforms" through congress and all without your "super majority" in both houses of Congress. :(
B: Iraq and Afghanistan - I do understand that you made it clear during the Presidential debates prior to your election that you would withdraw troops from Iraq after 18 months of becoming President and that you would transfer some of the resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, however, the 18 month deadline draws near, and based on your poor performance delivering on health care and gay rights, which i will cover shortly, I have begun to brace myself for the 18 month Iraqi deadline to come and go without significant action. Please feel free to redeem yourself and prove me wrong. What I would now like, is a withdrawal deadline for Afghanistan as well please? Don't be the Kennedy or the Johnson to today's Vietnam.
C: The Homos - I voted Republican in a Presidential election once: 1996, Bob Dole. I did so because I wanted to send a protest vote to Clinton who also came into office with a long list of to-do's and quickly failed to produce on many of them. Health care reform? Fail. Clinton's promises to end the military's prohibition on gay recruits? Fail. Clinton's classic "slick willy" move was to change the military's policy from "witch hunt and expel" to "don't ask. don't tell." There are several problems with don't ask don't tell (DADT). Of primary relevance at this time are the numerous expulsions of otherwise exemplary soldiers, during time of war, who's specialties are in short supply, for the simple reason that they were discovered to be interested in members of their own sex. A secondary concern is that "don't tell" is the exact opposite of "free speech," which is among the very first, and therefore, one would assume, the most important of Constitutionally protected rights? So far President Obama has not delivered on his promise to end DADT, a change which, unlike his clearly stated stance against gay marriage, he did insure his gay constituents he would implement. He is in a particularly strong position to do this since, in his position as Commander in Chief of the United States Military does not require him to consult Congress on this matter. He could eliminate this anachronistic relic of puritanism with a single signature on an executive order. That is exactly how the ban on black and white troops was overturned, an executive order in a time of war. The precedent is there, use it?
D: well, this is basically not a disappointment YET, but I do hope that the economy turns around before the 2012 Presidential elections or I may have to face another nail-biter between him and Sarah Palin, or perhaps some worse example of political competence that the Republican party manages to dig out of the woodwork. Oh well, those are things I had hoped a President Obama would deliver on; one (health care reform) seems to have turned out to be a half assed crumbs from the table sort of compromise, the second awaits any action whatsoever, and the third has seen action but I am only willing to wait so long before signs of economic change begin to become apparent or I will be tempted to throw in the towel on that core issue of Obama's Presidential campaign as well.
I don't want to be politically apathetic, but come on people, how many sad sack, wimpy compromised administrations can a good progressive endure before he starts to give up his last remaining hopes for American political progress?
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.
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
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.
In the late 1970s I was taken by my parents to go see that "Rapture Movie" that seems to have exerted a great deal of trauma on many other children of my generation who's parents were in one way or another linked to the evangelical/charismatic protestant tradition. Our elders may have been able to watch the hoekie special effects and not be scarred for years by the sight of a stick of butter dropped on the ground by a suddenly raptured "holier than thou" - or holier than me at least, B grade actor. But kids are very literal. So there i waited through he mid and late 70s for mom andf dad and granny and all to suddenly disappear one day and leave me and my sinful (or what a child imagines to be seriously sinful at least) ways behind to face the UN and it's Antichrist president's demon forces all alone.
But alas, that "late great planet earth" awaited by the Jesus Freaks and friends never occurred.
Pat Robertson resurrected the theme with new scenarios and dates to fill my still immature mind with throughout the 80s that then involved either Russian or Chinese or Arab (it depended on the latest news cycle) boogie men that were identified as either Gog or Magog etc etc.
then a brief break that was the post cold war. no nightmare images of nuclear fires raining down from the sky or robot/demon soldiers in blue UN helmets.
Ah, but then came Y2k. And for all the buildup and all the millennial hype nothing - nothing - nothing - occurred. Again...
On the heals of that "alert" the left stepped in to fill the end times void that the right temporarily abandoned and global climate catastrophe became the apocalypse d'jour.
That seems to be taking place surely, and slowly enough based upon my own observations of the winters here on the east coast during my short enough lifetime. But none the less, the global warming terror peaked with Gore and has begun the downward slump that the Malthusian prophecies calling for world wide famine in the 1960s took along with all the other end of it all alarms before and after have taken.
As the threat of imminent and immediate flooding begins to lose its currency it is now time for the next cycle - this time around it's the Mayans and their calendar and maybe some planets or earthquakes or stars aligning or alien coming down (again? harmonic convergence? hale bop? it becomes exhausting to try to keep track of all the theories over the years!) or something or other.
so, lets have a quick little look at what the hubbub is all about this time around:
"The apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets."
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Tuesday to prohibit credit card companies from arbitrarily raising a person's interest rate and charging many of the exorbitant fees that have become customary _ and crippling _ to cash-strapped consumers.
The overwhelming bipartisan vote of 90-5 was lawmakers' way of telling Americans that they haven't been forgotten amid a recession that has left hundreds of thousands jobless or facing foreclosure.
With the House on track to endorse the measure by week's end, President Barack Obama could see a bill on his desk by the end of the week.
"We've got too many hard-working families in Massachusetts struggling to keep their heads above water, and the last thing they need is to get whacked with unfair credit card fees," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
If enacted into law as expected, the credit card industry would have nine months to change the way it does business: Lenders would have to post their credit card agreements on the Internet and let customers pay their bills online or by phone for free. They'd also have to give consumers a chance to spare themselves from over-the-limit fees and provide 45 days notice and an explanation before interest rates are increased.
Some of these reforms are already on track to take effect in July 2010, under new rules by the Federal Reserve. But the Senate bill would put the changes into law and go further in restricting the types of bank fees and who can get a card.
For example, the Senate bill requires anyone under 21 seeking a credit card to prove first that they can repay the money or that a parent or guardian is willing to pay off their debt if they default.
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...
The Führer Returns to Berlin, This Time Saluted Only by Laughs
This country is so earnest sometimes that even the arrival, finally, of Mel Brooks’s slapstick musical adaptation of his cult classic film “The Producers” has provoked newspapers here to rehash the eternal question.
Eight years after conquering Broadway and then much of the rest of the world (it just invaded Moscow), the show rolled into town on Sunday night. It’s booked for a two-month run at the Admiralspalast, where Adolf himself liked to take an occasional break from invading Poland and France to enjoy light operettas from the Führer’s box.
The crowd for the premiere seemed pleased. It wasn’t your typical Broadway musical audience, to judge from the number of smart-looking young people with interesting haircuts. A “lively counterpoint to Hollywood productions like ‘Valkyrie’ and ‘Defiance,’ with their impeccable Resistance heroes and clichés,” decided the reviewer for Spiegel Online.
“The New York triumph was repeated in Berlin,” concluded the newspaper Tagesspiegel.
“Celebrated effusively by Berlin standards,” observed Stern magazine, the production nevertheless caused some theatergoers to wonder “whether it was really necessary to have so much Nazi paraphernalia onstage.” That’s not to mention the little Nazi flags with pretzels in lieu of swastikas that were handed out to everybody in the audience (including a troop of dirndled transvestites who waved them around like lost cheerleaders).
“Should one be allowed to laugh about Hitler?” The Berliner Morgenpost worried needlessly a few days earlier.
“People in Tel Aviv laughed,” answered The Berliner Zeitung
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.
In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues.
"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."
The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn't provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition.
backtracking on the release of documents and photos related to the torture investigations going on as well as hemming and hawwing on fixing the legal status of the detainees in gitmo who have still not been charged after seven years imprisonment - I was hoping for a little more constitutionality from the former president of the Harvard Law Review. :(
Obama Considers Detaining Terror Suspects Indefinitely
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil -- indefinitely and without trial -- as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
