Beyond the Pale

You may now retrieve your heart from San Francisco - legally.

2008-05-15T17:33:34Z

From The California Supreme Court's ruling on the state's ban on same-sex marriage (emphasis in original):

"the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process. These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish — with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life — an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage. As past cases establish, the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family — constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy"

Now, I've plucked this passage out of text that clearly defines the scope as pertaining to the California State Constitution and its application in Perez v. Sharp, but replace that with the U.S. Constitution and Loving v. Virginia, and it reads the same as it should.

This is a huge victory. The California Supreme Court has basically said that the Legislature nor the Electorate have any right to eliminate civil liberties from one group that another group already enjoys, and draws a framework from previous cases showing that tradition is not sound legal justification for doing so.

These wins may look local, but they represent a changing of prevailing legal opinion and provide great ammunition for the showdown that's certain to go before the SCOTUS sooner than later.

-pb

Little victories

2008-05-08T16:05:25Z

I learned that the anti-marriage amendment I wrote to my State Senator about a few days ago has been tabled and apparently left for dead. The author of the bill wisely realized that it wasn't going to pass in the house, and the debate on the proposed amendments was going to take a loooong time. One of those amendments was from outgoing Senator Vince Fumo, who suggested that if they really wanted to protect marriage, they wouldn't mind including a near-blanket ban on divorce in the bill. That didn't go over too well.

-pb

Synchronicity

2008-05-08T15:58:20Z

So, the Democratic National Convention is being held August 25-28th (timed to be a four day celebration of my birthday, methinks, but I digress.)

Barring a meltdown of epic proportions or some other game-changing miracle, the person making the acceptance speech on August 28th, 2008 will be Barack Obama.

...

45 years to the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Here's hoping it doesn't disappoint.

-pb

Strongly Worded Letter

2008-05-05T20:16:50Z

I sent this to my State Senator:

I strongly urge you to vote against SB 1250, “Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, providing for marriage between one man and one woman.” This bill seeks to strip a fundamental human right from an entire group of people for no other reason than to mollify the prejudices of another.

In 1967, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that the “freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men,” and “[m]arriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival.” The context of survival here does not simply mean survival as a species, but as individuals, for we each seek another to share our lives with. To deny that right to one group based on something as arbitrary as sexuality is indeed denying a human right to us all. It runs contrary to the very reasons that our forefathers rose up to forge a new destiny. If we as a people are so quick to deny such a basic human right to one group, how long will it be until we attempt to deny more basic rights for equally flimsy pretenses?

Senator, I speak as someone who has no immediate stake in the outcome of this legislation. I am a happily married according to the laws of this great Commonwealth, and this bill would neither jeopardize nor protect that status. However, the denial of rights to one group lessens us all. I want my children to have the right to marry whoever they choose, to love as they choose, and to be able to do it here in Pennsylvania. I hope that you will denounce this discriminatory and un-Constitutional attempt to subvert human rights.

PA Residents can find their State Senators at the PA Senate Website.

-pb

Terrible.

2008-05-01T19:57:15Z

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known as the "D.C. Madam,"was found dead in Florida Thursday. Suicide notes were found near the body in a small storage shed next to a mobile home, police said.

This is just awful. This woman was rung through the criminal "justice" system for providing what she consistently maintained was a legal escort service. The problem I have here is that even if she was running a sex-for-hire service, why is she the only one held accountable? She released her complete client list, and how many of the government official and public office holders on that list have been brought up on charges?

None. Not a single one.

If she was convicted of running a prostitution ring, one would expect that somewhere along the line, someone had sex with someone else and money exchanged hands for that purpose, and they were able to prove that transaction took place. Why wasn't the customer held equally as culpable for the transaction?

I'm all in favor of legalized prostitution. Legalize it, regulate it, and UNIONIZE THEM. Stop prosecuting one side of the trade and letting the other side walk.

Tom The Dancing Bug says it best:

-pb

The Litmus Test

2008-05-01T19:26:00Z

I've come up with what I think is a pretty good question to frame the same-sex marriage debate:

Here is the case: Two men have entered into a relationship. It is a deep, abiding, loving, committed relationship which is strictly platonic. There is no sexual interaction between these people whatsoever. They have, however, "forsaken all others," choosing to remain completely celibate. They wish to marry in order to affirm their love for each other and for the very practical purpose of obtaining the 1,000+ rights and privileges accorded by civil marriage.

Would you support this union? If not, on what grounds would you oppose it?

That's sure to spin some heads. At the very least, it's sure to expose irrationality.

-pb

Norristown can kiss my ass.

2008-05-01T14:09:14Z

I've had my fair share of love/hate relationships with towns, but I can honestly say "I Hate This Fucking Town."

I'm not quite to 95 theses to tack on their door yet, but I'm getting there. Here's the current list of grievances:

Citing us for "disturbing the peace" because our dogs had been barking all day. Never mind that the porch was littered with animal crackers, and it was obvious that the dogs were being taunted. Nope, our fault.
Citing us for parking on our own property.
Not bothering to inform us that a new statute had been passed requiring house numbers on our alley-facing fence. Good thing we got the paper and read to page A-12 that day
Posting a no-parking zone on our side of the block between the hours of 8a and 12p on Thursdays (other side on Mondays) because of street cleaning, and then cleaning the street at 6:45a those days. Real helpful.
Cashing my payment of a ticket received because I failed to move my car on a Thursday because I was sick in bed, forgetting that they cashed my ticket, and then issuing a warrant for my arrest and demanding $150 because of court costs. Also, the warrant would have been executed before the payment actually arrived for them had I tried to pay. Instead, I was forced to go through my records in order to tell them they fucked up.
Wasting my taxpayer dollars in order to inform me that I had 10 days to remove the trash from behind my house, because I had put it out there outside of "18 hours before or after your scheduled trash pick up." If I didn't, they were going to send someone over to remove it for us! Now, I'd put my trash out on a Wednesday night, and our scheduled pick-up is Friday morning. That means the issue had already resolved itself by the time I got the letter Friday afternoon. And, according to the letter, I could have simply waited until the trash truck had passed, taken my trash out, left it there for a week, and still been in compliance with city regulation. Either way, they wasted 42 cents, the cost of the paper, and however much they paid their secretary to type and send it, just to tell me to remove trash that the trash removal company had already taken. The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
And the most recent abuse of municipal code: We've been a little behind on some things. I let my inspection slide a month over by accident, and V's inspection expired on the last day of April (that'd be yesterday), and I'd forgotten to get it in on time. Too bad! While there were no repercussions for me, she got a ticket for $25 for parking on the street with an expired inspection. Guess when the ticket was written? 3:08 this morning. It's not enough for them just to write the ticket, no, they paid a parking officer double time to write tickets for expired inspections three hours after they expired at midnight.

So, fuck this town. I can't wait until I no longer have to pay inflated income and property taxes for miserable, malicious service that does nothing to serve the common good. I'm still waiting for the disintegrating curb to be fixed. Maybe that $25 you poached from me can get you cracking on fixing that? Hmm? Yeah, probably not.

-pb

Nevinyrral comes home to roost

2008-04-30T15:33:10Z

Nevinyrral
Artifact - 4

1, Tap: Destroy all credibility

Larry Niven has launched himself off the deep end:

Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.

“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.

That's right, folks, the best way to deal with hospital funding is to dissuade the largest racial minority in America from using it through lies and fearmongering. Good one, Larry. Why don't you just say exactly what you mean? "We can solve our problem by grinding up all the fucking wetbacks for Kzin chow!"

-pb

Designed with little intelligence.

2008-04-29T15:21:41Z

There's been a lot of fur flying about Florida's recently passed "Evolution Academic Freedom Act," which detractors claim opens the door for the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools. Now, this bill is kind of funny. Upon reading the full text, it's readily apparent that this bill is not intended to allow the teaching of Intelligent Design, but rather to block it.

the term "scientific information" means germane current facts, data, and peer-reviewed research specific to the topic of chemical and biological evolution...

Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological evolution.

That would categorically dismiss Intelligent Design or Creationism as an acceptable course of study in Florida schools. Of course, it's not what the legislature actually intended - they wanted to craft some legal fiction to allow their pseudo-science into the classroom. They just worded it in such a way as to mean the opposite of what they wanted. But that's to be expected. They've got their heads wrapped so far around this concept that ID is science that they think that the simple definition of "scientific information" covers it. Too bad this is the real world, and they just screwed the pooch.

-pb

So long and thanks for all the fish.

2008-04-25T15:47:15Z

So, if you're in a good mood and you're feeling good about the world, you may want to skip this.

Floating in this cosmic jacuzzi
We are like frogs oblivious
To the water starting to boil
No one flinches
We all float face down

-Incubus, "Warning"

I've read a few articles lately and seen some scientific data that have lead me to some truly disturbing revelations. To put it mildly, we are fucked. Completely, totally, ineffably fucked.

While some still refuse to believe that global climate change is happening, others argue that it might be happening, but (if it is) we're not the cause, and still others think we can solve it (sorry, Al). The problem is so horrifyingly worse - the very fact that we're asking the question means it's too late. Game over. Get ready for Mad Max.

No, I am not kidding.

The conditions that make Earth habitable for the current array of life is unimaginably fragile. Far, far more fragile than most of the world understands. Over the last 10,000 years or so, we've had an enormous impact on our environment. We've driven species to extinction. We've raised the temperature of the atmosphere. We've changed land masses. We've ripped things from the very ground and burned them. We've become masters of our world! We are like GODS!

Well, gods with a dizzying lack of foresight and no way to repair the damage we've done in time to prevent our own extinction.

It starts with the collapse of the ecosystem. Within 50 years, the coral reefs will be almost completely wiped out. From the sea floor up, ecosystems will collapse. Microscopic life dies, and the next thing you know, blue whales go bye-bye. Fish populations disappear. Once the oceans become devoid of meaningful food, we'll turn inland. But that system has already begun to collapse, and will only be accelerated by the interconnectedness of our global ecosystem and the increased demand.

Following the beginning of the worst effects of the ecosystem collapse, society will break down. People will demand to eat (the nerve!) and civil unrest will lead to government crackdowns on scales not seen since WWII. Governments, unable to feed their citizens, will turn to other governments for help, but will find none. And then the wars will start. This time, it won't be "living space," but "somewhere that has food." If we're incredibly unlucky, a limited nuclear exchange might be in the offing. Because seriously, at this point, we're going to be begging for the end.

The population might top out around 9 billion. After that, the proverbial four horsemen are going to annihilate a large swath of that. 50-75% attrition in under 50 years. The die-off will be catastrophic.

At some point, a sustainable population level may emerge in an area that still has some sort of food source. But we're looking at massive extinctions worldwide. It's quite possible that cockroaches and a few other hardy low-order creatures might be all that's left... in under 200 years.

So, what do I have to back this up? Even if all 6.5 billion people on the planet put Al Gore's every recommendation into practice, we'd cut a whopping 21% of our harmful emissions. 21%. Less than a quarter. The other 79%? Industry. Good luck changing that paradigm in the next five minutes.

All those emissions are raising the global temperature, which really sucks. Ice cap melting, and whatnot aside, though, there are bigger problems. We're dumping billions of tons of pollutants into the sea. We're killing whole sections of the ocean. And all of those greenhouse gases are also being absorbed into the oceans, raising those temperatures and throwing off the chemistry. Might not be a big deal for a whale, but when its food source is dead because it couldn't deal with a 1 degree change and a 1-point pH shift, that whale is pretty screwed - just like the rest of us.

We would have to cut worldwide emissions by nearly 100% yesterday in order to simply halt the damage we've already caused, but China is opening up a new coal-fired power plant every two weeks.

And then there's the strain we're already putting on our food supply. To fill an SUV's gas tank with ethanol takes enough corn to feed one person for one year. Think of the magnitude of that when our gas is required to have 10% ethanol. In Haiti, people are already rioting because they're dying of malnutrition. Same in Africa. In Southeast Asia, rice crops are faltering. Countries are blocking exports in order to feed their own people, leaving countries that rely on those exports to starve. Notice that the price of rice and wheat have tripled lately? This is not a momentary uptick, it's a trend. Fuel is more expensive, meaning that food is more expensive to transport.

In the Western world, where we spend less than 10% of our income on food, this is a minor inconvenience. But in developing or impoverished nations, that ratio is closer to 50% - and the cost of basic food just tripled. Do the math. My predictions aren't doomsaying, they're already fucking happening. This is real shit, people, this is a prelude to extinction. And it's not a long, slow slip into decline, it's going to be short, brutal, and leave what's left of us begging for the sweet, sweet release of death. And by "us," I actually mean you and me.

Have a nice day!

-pb

Huh.

2008-04-22T12:55:54Z

Apparently there was an election of some importance today?

Our election-day ritual has been to take the 10-minute walk to our polling place before work. We tend to get there around 30 minutes after the polls open. They give us a number when we walk in, and prior to today, my highest number was 11 - as in the 11th person to vote that day, which you'd expect 30 minutes after the polls open, right?

Today, I was number 61. There are two polling districts at our polling place, and the poll worker said that when they got there to open up, there were already 50 people in line.

Pundits that tell you that a long primary are damaging to the party are lying. I'd say it'd be bad if it goes all the way to the convention, but if it goes to June 3rd, that's not a bad thing. People are excited and heading to the polls. How is that hurting the party?

-pb

KILL KILL KILL

2008-04-16T16:28:08Z

As you (should) already know, I am vehemently opposed to any form of capital punishment. I know of no crime that anyone can commit that gives the state the right to murder them in retribution. It is not the state imposing a punishment, but rather the state becoming an instrument of vengeance. The fact that said vengeance is meted out much more often to minorities for similar or lesser crimes than it is to Caucasians simply reinforces my opposition to it. And then there's the preponderance of exonerations as new evidence becomes available, crime labs are found to be highly negligent, or legal frameworks are found to be biased towards the prosecution and/or highly inadequate for the defense.

Besides - death is easy. The constant debate is over whether our methods of disposing of criminals is "humane" (whatever that's supposed to mean). If we're faced with a truly heinous crime, wouldn't locking that person in a cell 23 hours a day for the rest of their miserable lives be a more torturous punishment than simply euthanizing them?

Five states want to reinstate the death penalty for rape in cases where the victim is a minor under the age of 13. Now, for vengeance-minded people, I'm sure this sounds like a grand old idea. However, the margin for error just gets thinner and thinner.

The flagship case in this push does nothing more than underscore what a terrible idea this is.

Patrick Kennedy was convicted of brutally raping his 8-year old stepdaughter and sentenced to death. Now, the Supreme Court found in 1977 that the death penalty for rape was unconstitutional, but the wording of the decision can be read to refer specifically to an adult victim, which led the Louisiana Supreme Court to rule that Kennedy's sentence didn't violate the SCOTUS decision.

Kennedy's case is fraught with problems. He initially called 911 to report the rape, and the tape has him asking for an ambulance because his stepdaughter had been raped by two boys, and then telling the operator that he was going to find them and kill them - a predictable reaction from someone who's just found his stepdaughter raped. The stepdaughter's report backed that up, that two boys had dragged her into the alley and raped her. In the course of the investigation, however, police began to focus on Kennedy.

He was tried and convicted, not because of any physical evidence that he'd committed the crime - there was none that implicated him - but because his stepdaughter changed her testimony and implicated him. She's on tape at one point telling the forensic psychologists that the police wanted her to change her story. She was told, as was her mother, that she would be placed in foster care if Kennedy was not convicted, because the state would not let her live with him, even if they couldn't prove his guilt.

So, an eight-year-old was told that she was going to be taken from her parents, unless she said what the police wanted to hear. Eight-year-olds do not have even the slightest concept of imprisonment and are easily impressionable. Tell them what you want them to say and conjure up the specter of being snatched from their mother, and they'll tell you what you want to hear, and make up as many convincing details as you need.

So, the obvious oversights in the case notwithstanding, Victims Right's and Rape Prevention groups have come out against the death penalty for rape cases. Why? Because it leaves more rapes unsolved and more rapists in close proximity to their victims.

Rape is a highly underreported crime. The shame and fear and public humiliation involved leads many victims to stay silent. Child rapists tend to be related to their victims, which creates another problem: family members, while they'd be OK with seeing someone rot in prison for their crime, might not be so keen on having them executed for it. So it goes unreported. And then there's the real problem. Plea deals in these cases involve life in prison without parole. Someone falsely accused of raping a child has two alternatives: plead guilty and get life in prison, or go to trial for their very lives. Kennedy's case shows what a poor proposition that is. No physical evidence? Changing statements from the key witness? Possible witness tampering? Too bad. Get ready for the death juice!

Between 1972 and 1977, there were 63 rape convictions in Georgia, and juries returned death penalties in only 6 (one was set aside by Georgia's Supreme Court) - juries handed down death penalties in less than 10% of cases, making the punishment highly arbitrary (and therefore unusual). People executed for rape are overwhelmingly black, and no white man has ever been executed in America for raping a black woman. So, it's not just arbitrary, it's racially biased when it is handed down (which isn't surprising, because the same can be said for death sentences for murder).

Rape is also very hard to prove, but when it is "proven," the chances of convicting the innocent is high, and higher still when the victim is a child.

So, five states are trying their hardest to execute the innocent, claiming that they're protecting the rest of us. I'm not sure how sacrificing one innocent person for the nebulous and unproven claim of protection for the rest of society is Justice. It's not even peace of mind - it's just a momentary satisfaction of blood lust. Is that what we are?

-pb

Give Blood - Play Hockey

2008-04-16T10:26:25Z

From ESPN (emphasis mine):

Flyers forward Patrick Thoresen was on the fourth line four days after a puck to the groin sent him to the hospital and nearly cost him a testicle.

The play that this happened on, one of the Caps shot the puck at the goal. Now, the goaltender would probably have stopped it, but right on the doorstep was Alex Ovechkin, the regular season's best player and probable league MVP. Thoresen dropped to the ice to stop the puck - preventing it from even getting within Ovechkin's reach - and it nearly cost him a testicle.

That's what hockey is all about. Sacrifice for the team.

Also, Flyer's goaltender Martin Biron had his wife reschedule her c-section. It's playoffs! Kids can wait.

-pb

TURKEY!

2008-04-15T15:56:43Z

More on the media shitstorm surrounding Barack Obama and his orange-juice prefering, Yeungling-swilling, non-bowling ass, from Hunter at DailyKos:

Very well; I give up. If, as the Reuters correspondent declares, common America has no hope of identifying with someone getting a poor bowling score, then the answer seems obvious. We must quantify how much "connection with the voters" is possible, given a particular score in the sport: this will then allow us to wallow freely in our own idiocy, not bothering the pitiable higher-ups of government or the press with our incessant demands for any more substantive information or knowledge. I therefore suggest the following crude measures of a man, so that the people of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre will not be left in cruel emotional limbo, unable to find an emotional bond with their candidates.

A score of 100 should be the minimum: if a candidate can bowl over 100, after practicing for a week, that signifies that they have the minimal personal integrity worthy of office. They are suitable for heading a lesser government agency, or an ambassadorship.

If a candidate can top 150, they show true intellect, and are worthy of at least a cabinet position. 170 indicates fortitude in the face of adversity, indicating perhaps a position in the defense department is in order. 180 signifies that their tax returns are in order.

If a candidate achieves a score over 200, that means that they are faithful to their spouse. A score over 220 furthermore indicates a loving relationship, and not just a marriage of convenience. A score over 225 signals that they have the love of their children as well, and that their children are free of drugs or unfortunate homosexual tendencies.

A bowling score of 240 or above shows a candidate as capable of leadership. It also testifies to a good relationship between with their God; the presidency may be viable. 250, the typical score of devout Protestants, cinches the deal, indicating God loves them back. A second term may be in order.

A score of 260 indicates competent fiscal management abilities; if they achieve this score on a league night, managerial competence is also likely. Bowling an impressive 270 is a sign of great foreign policy capabilities, possibly including past war hero status. At 280, you can expect a balanced budged to be achieved, as well as at least one great speech about the evils of communism.

A score of 290 will win a war, probably without a nuclear exchange.

And what of the perfect game, the elusive 300? Ah, my children, that indeed shows true greatness. In the entire history of the Republic, only one President has been a 300 bowler: none other than the Emancipator, the great Abraham Lincoln himself.

Because it was Abraham Lincoln's hard-fought perfect game, achieved in the dead of one cold and bitter winter's night, that allowed him to free the slaves.

Kennedy must have had one inconsistent game.

-pb

Just How "Free Market" Are You?

2008-04-15T15:02:38Z

I love to hear right-wing economists screaming and ranting and raving about the "free market" and "letting the market decide" and so on and so forth. Of course, the second someone's stock portfolio takes a hit, they're shrieking for someone, anyone (specifically the government) to come save them.

However, it's a disaster in slow motion for the economy when this actually happens (as we've seen over and over again). Bear Stearns is a example. The free-market advocates demanded a hands-off approach that allowed them to risk enormous sums of money in an area that anyone should have been able to tell you was a bad bad bad place to risk enormous sums of money. Of course, no one was thinking of the long term. They never do. When the inevitable crash came, they all looked shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED! How could this have happened? How could anyone have foreseen this?

So, as Bear Sterns was going down in flames, investors cried out for a life preserver from the Fed. "Save us!" they cried. "Save us from this catastrophe that has befallen us that we could not have foreseen or prevented, given our level of nearsightedness and greed!"

And the Fed stepped in. $2/share, $10/share, whatever. The business failed. It should have been allowed to go all the way down.

The argument, however, is that if Bear Stearns had been allowed to collapse, it would have sparked a chain reaction that would have devastated the economy. Uh, sure. Bear Stearns was trading at over $160/share the week before it imploded. What exactly is the difference on the grand scale between $10 and $0? Not much. The only thing the Fed did was dump a sandbag on top of the levee and pray that the hurricane would just go away. The next investment bank that goes down (and it's likely to happen soon) will simply expect a bail-out. And when this crisis passes, as they do, firms such as this will have learned an important lesson:

Fuck it up as much as you want, Uncle Sam will bail you out!

This will, of course, fuel the next economic crisis. Rinse, repeat. Act surprised the next time it happens. You couldn't have foreseen it. No one could!

Allowing entire sectors of the market to fail really sucks for business. However, it's not all bad for consumers. Take the airline industry. Back in 2001, the airline industry, under the weight of its own stupidity, was having a hard time of things. The new Bush administration, looking for some way to help out megacorporations, found the perfect excuse - 9/11. Holy shit, people! The airline industry is going to go under because no one wants to fly! (never mind that it was pretty fucked up on 9/10, that's UNAMERICAN TALK AND THE TERRORISTS WIN).

So, they bailed out the airline industry. What would have happened if they hadn't?

Well, in the short term, a lot of people would have lost a lot of money as the legacy carriers went bankrupt. Mergers, acquisitions and the resulting layoffs would have put thousands of of work. To gain some sort of revenue, airfares would have skyrocketed. And then, something strange would have happened. Consumers would have decided that this was bullshit.

Amtrak's and Greyhound's ridership would have jumped up (higher than post 9/11, and more steadily). Smaller carriers with lower airfares would have seen an increase in business. Larger carriers would have disappeared. Services would have increased as airfares lowered in order to attract customers. The market would have corrected itself in order to win consumers back, or it would have failed. And how, exactly, is that a bad thing? Isn't that what the "free market" is all about? Isn't that capitalism? If there is no allowance for an entire segment of the market to fail because of its own inability to meet the needs of the consumer, what is the point of a free market? What is the point of private enterprise?

In the end, these bail-outs hurt more people than they help. They immediately saddle the taxpayers with the money required to guarantee solvency, and in the long run, it only validates and perpetuates the validity of the stupid decisions that led to the need for a bail-out. In the case of Bear Stearns, the Fed handed the company over to J.P. Morgan and said "We'll cover 30 billion in losses that you might incur." So, Morgan gets Bear Stearns' entire profitable portfolio and next to none of its losses, while you and I get upwards of 30 billion in debt and no possibility of reward if that debt is less and the portfolio proves to be more resilient than expected. We get the risk, private enterprise gets the reward. And for all the people who were lent sums of money they couldn't afford and told that it was all good, they get eviction notices. Sorry, but the government can't be bothered to help you out. You're not a "market segment," you're just a consumer. And who gives a shit about the consumer? Well, the free market would, because if it didn't, it would collapse. Good thing the federal government won't let that happen!

-pb

Well, to hell with that.

2008-04-14T15:29:01Z

Well, I just can't vote for Obama now. That elitist prick prefers orange juice to coffee*!

Of course, you know what this means - Barack Obama prefers O.J., a guy who (despite a botched prosecution) brutally murdered his ex wife and her boyfriend. Instead of denouncing O.J., Obama has embraced him - nay - literally drank him up, pulp and all! First Farrakhan, and now O.J.? What's next!? This is the guy who thinks that I'm bitter because Washington has been screwing me economically for the past, oh, forever. How out of touch is he? I'm a ball of sunshine because the economy is literally shitting rainbows all over me. True story. Barack Obama - wrong on breakfast drinks that share initials with a black guy who probably knifed two people to death, wrong on the economics of rainbow turds, obviously wrong for America.

Up Next: John McCain, he's the greatest! (Even though he launched into a red-faced, profanity laden tirade while beating our intern to death because he was provided with a chair was an inch too short. Skip probably deserved it, though!)

-pb

*offer not valid in Florida, where this is probably a selling point.

FAIL.

2008-04-08T17:29:28Z

From General Petraeus' testimony today:

MCCAIN: Do you still view al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?

PETRAEUS: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.

MCCAIN: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shi’ites overall?

PETREAUS: No.

Uh, sparky, if you're going to run solely on your foreign-policy credentials, maybe you should at least know that Al Qaeda isn't a Shi'ite organization. If you can't tell the difference between the two biggest sects in the region we're currently balls-deep in, maybe you shouldn't be the guy calling the shots there.

This has not been an isolated incident. McCain's continuing narrative has him continually blurring the lines between Sunni and Shi'ite, Iran and Al Qaeda. One of two possibilities exist: he's really that dumb and can't tell them apart (they're all brown!), or he's deliberately trying to connect the two in the minds of the average person so that he can sell the "Al Qaeda is in Iran SO BOMB THEM" concept. He's either a nitwit who can't tell two distinct groups apart, or he's trying to lie us into a war. Wow, just what we need.

-pb

April 4

2008-04-04T13:03:45Z

Great leaders and visionaries create an image in our lives that we may not fully grasp at the time we see it. When those leaders are cut down and taken from us, we often have trouble comprehending what they were, and only see the instant that the were no longer. That image is burned into the retina of our mind's eye, as if we paused the video in disbelief and stared for hours, days, weeks. The scenes before seem to pale in comparison, the life before seems to take a back seat as we look forever into that single moment, when all that could have been and all that was intersect, and the screen snaps to a single dot in the center of the screen and goes dark, leaving us with an indelible negative seared into our consciousness.

The Promised Land's still just beyond that mountain, brother, and we're all still climbing up. Sometimes it seems like that mountain is getting higher, and sometimes some of us want the rest of us to believe that we're already over it, but we're all still climbing. Some of us have an easier climb, some of us are still fighting about how to climb it, some of us don't even see the mountain, and some of us don't even think that the mountain exists, but it's there. We know you saw what was on the other side, and it must have been beautiful, but we know you came back, and we know you walked all the way back to bottom to help us all along, and we can't forget that and we've got to keep climbing.

...

So keep climbing. Even if you think you don't have a mountain to climb, there are people still out there who do, and believe you me... as long as even one person is still huddled on the side of that mountain, no one's getting into the Promised Land.

-pb

Fuck these dysfunctional insecure Democrats

2008-03-28T16:05:50Z

From The Gavel, Nancy Pelosi's blog:

“The Olympic Charter states that the Olympics should seek to foster ‘respect for universal and fundamental ethical principles.’ Sadly, the Chinese government has not lived up to its commitments to improve the human rights situation in China and Tibet. I believe the International Olympic Committee made a mistake in awarding the 2008 Summer games to China, and I sponsored a Congressional resolution expressing that view at the time.

“However, I believe a boycott of the Beijing Olympics would unfairly harm our athletes who have worked so hard to prepare for the competition.

People in Tibet are being mown down in the street for demanding their country back. People in China who are sentenced to death are harvested for cosmetic supplies. But we need to think about our athletes, who experience Pon Farr every four years and must compete in the Olympics or die from a hormone overload! THINK OF THE ATHLETES, PEOPLE!

Send China a Congressional resolution. That's sure to get 'em to wake up!

"Dear China, it would be kinda cool if, you know, you maybe stopped ~~killing~~ ~~hurting~~ throwing kittens at ~~people~~ ~~citizens~~ sub-human savages in ~~Tibet~~ Himalayan Chinastan. If you don't, we'll send you a ~~strongly worded letter~~ ~~George W. Bush~~ ~~Condoleezza Rice~~ a fruit basket.

Kthxbai!

P.S. Can we get another loan?

-pb

Horrors!

2008-03-27T20:14:11Z

I may be a liberal whackjob, but rare is the day that I am in agreement with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos on pretty much... anything. However, he posted this:

Here's my top three picks for Obama:

1. Bill Richardson
2. Kathleen Sebelius
3. Chris Dodd

They've all got their plusses and minuses. But if we got any of those three, I'd be ecstatic.

And that right there is my list, in that order.

Obama/Richardson would be one of the most potent foreign-policy teams ever assembled. Obama/Sebelius would be a huge boost to gender and race rights, as well as showing the Midwest that they matter, and Obama/Dodd would be an impressive domestic team. All three are fairly progressive tickets. (Well, Richardson's got some crazy economic ideas, but socially, he was one of the more progressive contestants in the race.)

-pb

Things of minor importance.

2008-03-26T20:17:31Z

I've just learned that for the 4th Edition of D&D, Bard is no longer a character class, Gnome is no longer a character race, but Tiefling and Dragonborn are.

They rolled a 1.

-pb

NEWS!

2008-03-26T12:47:46Z

Why, in every presidential cycle that I can remember, does every news outlet get all nuts over the fact that Candidate A is related to Candidate B and French King C and Author D? John McCain is Laura Bush's sixth cousin! Barack Obama is related to Brad Pitt, and Hillary Clinton is related to Angelina Jolie! THEY'RE PRACTICALLY COMMITTING INCEST BY BEING IN THE SAME STATE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!! ALERT THE MEDIA!

-pb

The Ownership Society

2008-03-24T21:02:29Z

Michael Medved, right-wing moonbat and all-around bad person (who denounced my heterosexual, yet childless marriage as "not as valuable") made excuses for slavery last September.

Here's his "Six inconvenient truths about the U.S. and slavery":

SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION.
Slavery. It's OK, everyone was doing it!

SLAVERY EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED LOCALES, IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC – INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE ANCESTORS OF TODAY’S AMERICANS.
Only five people ever owned slaves, and only for like five minutes. The Civil War was fought largely over a case of particularly yummy Salt Water Taffy. The resultant poverty and oppression of Blacks in America is because they are, indeed, lazy and shiftless.

THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL: LIVE SLAVES WERE VALUABLE BUT DEAD CAPTIVES BROUGHT NO PROFIT.
In fact, slaves who were killed were tickled to death by kittens.

IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.
Northern states learned it years before, but those pesky backwards Southern states never quite realized that slaves couldn't be used as railroad tracks and lumber mills. Northerners, of course, never understood how to use a slave as a teapot.

WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.
Hey, we got rid of it right quick! Please disregard that there were slave-owners at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation who were British citizens by dint of their fathers being British Citizens prior to 1776, regardless of the fact that they were born in America. Other than that, yeah, we got rid of it first! Well, except for Iceland, Norway, Sweeden, Finland, Lithuania, Japan, Russia, Portugal, England, Denmark, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, France, Uraguay, Argentina, Tunisia, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Moldavia and Wallachia, and Cuba.

THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.
There's also no reason to believe that today's Native Americans would be better off if European settlers hadn't given them blankets infected with smallpox. I guess we'll never know!

-pb

Hockey Gique.

2008-03-24T18:44:29Z

If you don't follow hockey, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about from here down.

So, the Washington Capitals Website should really be called the Alexander Ovechkin website. In fact, it really should be capitals.ovechkin.com, not capitals.nhl.com. The kid is a team unto himself.

Alex Ovechkin became the first player in 12 years to score 60 goals, but that's not as remarkable as the fact that those 60 goals account for over 27% of the Capitals total offense (220 goals). He's also got 46 assists for 106 points, which means that he's had a hand in nearly 50% of every goal that the Caps have scored. More than one of every four of the Caps' goals have come off of #8's stick, and this team is still in playoff contention. MVP? Any player who you can point to and say "give me four of him, and that's my team" is definitely MVP material.

I'm not Caps fan, but damn, this kid is the real deal. People think that Sidney Crosby is the next Gretzky. They're a little off target. Crosby is easily the next Lemieux. Ovechkin, now there's the next Gretzky.

-pb

Good news, everyone!

2008-03-24T15:19:07Z

Now that more people are dying in Iraq, looks like we won't have to invade Iran after all! Cheney was starting to get worried that he might not hit his target body count before 2009, meaning that he'd be dragged straight into Hell upon the new President being sworn in.

-pb