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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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":

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


2. 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.


3. 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.


4. 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.


5. 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.


6. 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

This whole hullabaloo over someone at State snooping around in Barack Obama's passport file stinks like week-old fish. Now, suddenly, we've got State saying that they've been elbow deep beyond the borderline in Hillary Clinton and John McCain's files... so, don't worry, right? Because it wasn't politically motivated, our naughty naughty employees are snooping on everyone!

Bullshit, Pyle!

This goes back to the total disregard for the law and the Constitution that was the original wiretapping story. "Warrants that we can get after the fact that have a 99.9998% approval rate slow us down, so we need to completely ignore the court that was designed just for this purpose. After all, TURRISTS!" Why wouldn't they just get a warrant? Two possible reasons (neither of which were the stated one): 1) The 99.9998% approving FISA court would have said NO NO NO to the warrants they wanted to get. 2) They knew the FISA court would never approve a warrant form with the "Who do you want to spy on" field filled out with "Everybody."

I think scenario 2 rings a bell here. One guy peeking? Yeah, but that one guy is DICK CHENEY.

Kagro X at Daily Kos sums it up pretty well:

What an amazing development, eh? George H.W. Bush's State Department sticks their nose into Bill Clinton's passport file, but the "responsible" official resigns, and nothing ever comes of it. Lesson learned? Sure! Now George W. Bush's State Department is free to stick its nose into Hillary Clinton's files. Plus anyone else it feels like poking around on. And like almost everything that happens around Condoleezza Rice, no one could have foreseen it!

Dangerous domestic spying? Or just imprudent use of a new class of massive, all-encompassing, Total Information Awareness-style databases by unnamed and unidentifiable "outside contractors" and "low-level employees?" Who knows?

And does it really make a difference? So long as a government official in a proper-looking suit tells reporters -- from behind a proper-looking podium with a proper-looking seal on it and proper-looking blue draperies behind -- that it's "been taken care of," though they can't tell you the names of the employees (confidentiality, you know) or the name of the contractor (national security, you know), then everything's just find and dandy, right?

Besides, it's just another opportunity for Republicans to point out how "Big Government" doesn't work. Just look! We can't make it work, either! And if that contractor was a government employee, Teh UnionZ would make it impossible for us to fire him. So really, this breach was a terrific way for us to demonstrate that outsourcing really works! Sure, we had to let someone totally unvetted and totally untrustworthy access sensitive personal information about our opposition's top political leaders to prove it, but prove it we did! After all, we just announced that this unverifiable person was unverifiably fired. What more proof of our dedication to security and freedom could you want?

Yeah. That sounds about right.

-pb

28 years ago today, the United States announced a formal boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Why is our delegation still headed to Beijing?

-pb

(Oh, and screw this misnamed and misdirected "strike.")

I love when idiots on teh intarwebz drag out that old chestnut about Sodom as proof of god's hatred of homosexuality.

Internet Whackyjob: Remember Sodom and Gomorrha? It was completely destroyed because God cannot stand this sin. Please read a KJV of the bible.

My response:

I have read the KJV Bible. Here's what it (very explicitly) has to say about your god's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:

Ezekiel 16:49 "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."

Sodom was torched for being rude and inattentive to the poor (hmm, sounds familiar). No mention of homosexuality there. There's actually no implication of homosexuality in the verses you mentioned, either. Yes, I understand that your holy book sometimes uses "to know" in place of "to penetrate in a sexual manner," but in this case, it makes much more sense if you refrain from turning everything into a sexual reference.

Here's how it reads if you don't make a penis joke out of it:

Two strange guys show up in a village city and sequester themselves in the house of a particular person. This being the Bronze Age, people are understandably wary about this. Might be spies from a neighboring tribe, here to case the joint in anticipation of a raid! "Bring them out unto us, that we may know them," they say, meaning "who are these strangers that you've brought in here to spy on us? Inquiring minds want to know!"

Lot's response? He offers up his *virgin daughters* to the crowd and suggests that they gang-rape the poor girls (not exactly Father of the Year material, but he's not done yet). The crowd, security-minded (albeit a bit rude) citizens that they are, are not mollified. Of course, Lot deflowers his daughters himself later in the narrative (*now* he's Father of the Year), something your god doesn't seem to have a problem with.

Now, let's look at this from your perspective:

Sodom was torched because your god apparently couldn't find 10 non-homosexuals residing therein. Interesting, considering that homosexuals make up *at best* 10% of the population. People in those days rarely traveled more than 10 miles from their homes *in their entire lives*, yet your version of events would have required practically every homosexual for hundreds of miles to make the trip to the ol' Gayborhood, Sodom and Gomorrah - because since they were all gay, it's not very likely that they had a self-sustaining population, right? The only way they could maintain it would have been to promote immigration. "Hay HAY hay! Come on down to SODOM and be a SODOMITE! Every day is a gay holiday! Everyone just FLAAAAMES! Well, except for this one guy who might suggest that you gang-rape his daughters, but we don't talk to him."

Yeah, your scenario doesn't seem very likely. Or even plausible.

You need to get over this sex obsession of yours. I understand that your holy book is chock full of people having sex with all manner of inappropriate partners, human or otherwise (with and without your god's consent), but seriously, you need to let it go.

-pb

I've been incredibly snarky on the Topix boards lately. Here's my recent favorite:

Whackyjob:

You nor anyone on this forum can prove that homosexuality actually exists.

Me::

Homosexuality:
1 the quality or state of being homosexual
2 erotic activity with another of the same sex

Homosexual:
1 of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex
2 of, relating to, or involving sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex

If you think that none of the above exists, then you don't come from our reality, and you might be getting a bad connection that's routing you to our time-space continuum where such things and states actually do exist. You might want to call your internet service provider. It might be solar flares, or you might need to check your TCP/IP setting (or whatever it is you have in your reality).

-pb

Al Gore, through no particular prompting or prodding or anything else, he's released a video on Current, a network that he co-owns, openly advocating his support for same-sex marriage.

Why on Earth would he do this? I think the answer here is he's quietly getting himself on record before the Convention in the hopes that there will be a brokered convention and he'll be held up as a compromise candidate. Or, he might try to get the nomination from the floor.

Either way, Al Gore is still my president. And with my displeasure* with the remaining three candidates, I'll probably wind up writing him in when I vote in the primary.

*more later.

-pb

Every time I open my mouth to respond to this, only a small squeaking sound comes out, and a vein on my forehead throbs and threatens to explode, so I'll just give you the quote:

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."
-Mike Huckabee, Warren, MI 1/14/08

::squeak!::

::THROB::

-pb

There's another divorced candidate running for president. Mike Huckabee is divorced from reality. Here's what he said to GQ Magazine:

There's never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived.

Holy FUCK! We all know what happens when gays get married! (To quote Stan Smith) "You know what that'll do to society? Girls playing with trucks, boys playing with dolls, horses eating each other!"

HORSES. EATING EACH OTHER.

For the love of all that is holy, people, HORSES WILL FUCKING EAT EACH OTHER! Trees will wield machine guns and hold Peoria hostage until their demands for the NFL Network are met! Buddhist nuns will streak naked through the Louvre to protest the poor treatment of Spanish cab drivers! Snow will fall up! Full-grown cats will be born to week-old puppies! BJORK WILL BE ELECTED POPE!

The inside of Mike Huckabee's head must be like the fucking Twilight Zone meets Tales from the Dark Side written by Eli Roth and directed by David Lynch.

-pb

"I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George H. W. Bush, 27 August 1987

"Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom." - Mitt Romney, 6 December 2007

I fail to see the difference in these statements.

-pb

h/t to kylecassidy:

SixApart introduces LJ to Orwell

There have been a number of crazy scandals concerning LJ's use of the thought police over the last year or so, and for the most part, I didn't have the time or interest to get as roiled up as some other people on ye olde flist did. Not that I didn't see the stupidity in 6A's actions, I just had other things to worry about, and in ostrich fashion, it didn't concern me directly, so, I ignored it (mainly because I wasn't writing first year Harry/Snape slashfics and posting them on LJ).

This one, however, has the potential to effect me directly. Other users will now be able to flag my content for moderation. Now, I'd like to think that 6A won't be so stupid as to simply cloak any post that's flagged and will actually scan them for content. If I make a post that says "I went to the store and bought milk," and someone flags it, it shouldn't pass the censor test. But, if I make a post that says "They might be trying to convince us that either of the two major bills right now are coated in lube as they shove them up our ass, but no, they're red-fucking hot," should that be flagged just because I used a few colorful metaphors?

And now they've declared nudity as "explicit adult content." Watch out, scottchurch. LJ says boobies aren't art anymore, they're the same as hardcore fucking.

So I figure the only way to combat this is to overload the system. Everyone who sees this, please, hit the "flag" link and select one of the reasons, preferably "Nude Images of Minors," which I'd hope would get them to the front of the mod queue.

And feel free to pass this on.

-pb

Brigadier Gen. Keith Kerr (R): “My name’s Keith Kerr, from Santa Rosa, California. I’m a retired brigadier general with 43 years of service,” Kerr told the candidates in the video that he submitted to the YouTube debate. “I’m a graduate of the Special Forces Officer Course, the Commanding General Staff Course and the Army War College. And I’m an openly gay man.

“I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA): “General, thanks for your service, but I believe in what Colin Powell said when he said that having openly homosexual people serving in the ranks would be bad for unit cohesion.

“The reason for that, even though people point to the Israelis and point to the Brits and point to other people as having homosexuals serve, is that most Americans, most kids who leave that breakfast table and go out and serve in the military and make that corporate decision with their family, most of them are conservatives,” Hunter said.

“They have conservative values, and they have Judeo-Christian values. To force those people to work in a small tight unit with somebody who is openly homosexual goes against what they believe to be their principles, and it is their principles, is I think a disservice to them. I agree with Colin Powell that it would be bad for unit cohesion.”

Military people are conservative, conservatives hate gays, therefore, gays shouldn't be in the military. Well, now we have a candidate that comes right out and says "Republicans fucking hate your homo guts."

Principles schminciples. If it's against their principles to participate in an illegal war, they get court martialed.

-pb

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2007/11/24/s1b_PBCC_1124.html

Full-time college employees [of Palm Beach Community College] can receive a 5 percent discount on services because of the college's enrollment in the program, which covers dogs and cats, but also hedgehogs, frogs, guinea pigs, geckos, iguanas and sugar gliders - small flying mammals native to Australia.

Well, isn't that awesome! A health plan that covers your pets! What pet owner wouldn't want that? What a progressive workplace! I wonder what else they cover?

In August, PBCC trustees voted down a proposal to allow the domestic partners of full-time employees to receive insurance benefits. The plan wouldn't have cost the school anything because it pays employee premiums only, not those of dependents.

Oh. Please reference my icon.

Note to the Florida LGTB community: I'm sure "sugar glider" can be construed in some way to help you out here.

-pb

So, remember back in August, I took a long look at the field of Democratic hopefuls?

Well, I've got to change at least one of those numbers: Barack Obama. I had originally given him half a point because he supports civil unions. Now, it turns out that he's travelling with an anti-gay gospel singer who is campaigning for him. Pander, much? When they say "Obama just doesn't have experience," I think this is what they mean. Sure, he's been in politics for a bit, but it doesn't take a genius to know that you don't pander to the other side until you win the primary. I guess he didn't get that memo. At least Dems will get to decide before the general if they want a guy who tows along a hate-monger to represent them.

Dealbreakers: Obama 2.5/4 (Still better than Hillary)

-pb

From Mary Shaw at Philadelphia Freedom Watch: Bono speaks out against torture -- and gets censored

On September 27th, here in Philadelphia, the Liberty Medal for 2007 was awarded to Bono and his organization DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), for their work in fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa. Each year, the National Constitution Center awards the Liberty Medal to a person or persons for outstanding work in advancing the cause of liberty around the world.

While Bono's entire acceptance speech was quite good, I was particularly moved when he spoke out against the use of torture. He said, "You do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster."

Indeed. Very well put.

And I wrote those words down right after I heard them, because I was so impressed and wanted to share the wisdom.

However, two days after the event, I downloaded the official video of Bono's speech at www.libertymedal.org. And I discovered that the official video had been edited so that it no longer contains the references to torture, or other portions of the speech that apparently were not acceptable to The Powers That Be. Furthermore, the edited version seems to over-emphasize the few gratuitous positive comments that Bono made regarding the current Bush administration. (By the way, George Bush Sr. presented the award.)

Not being a conspiracy theorist, I began to question whether I had heard it all correctly the first time.

Fortunately, I discovered that Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News heard the same speech that I heard, and he wrote about it in his blog at www.attytood.com. Bunch's blog entry about Bono's speech fills in some of the gaps that are missing from the official video, including the context surrounding Bono's "monster" comment.

So, thanks to Will Bunch, here is what Bono had to say about torture:

Today I read in the Economist an article reporting that over 38 percent of Americans support some type of torture in exceptional circumstances. My country? No. Your country? Tell me no. Today, when I receive this great honor, I ask you, I implore you as an Irishman who has seen some of these things close up, I ask you to remember, you do not have to become a monster to defeat a monster. Your America’s better than that.

Yes, that is exactly what I heard.

But, in the official video, all is missing except the last two sentences.

Yes, this is America, land of the free. Or so it once appeared to be.

Indefensible! Disgusting! Is this nation so gutless, so spineless that criticism from those it awards for human service is to be supressed, lest it offend?

Bono, I fear you may be too late with those words.

So, the Senate undertook the enormous task of condemning 2/3rds of the First Amendment by a 3/4 majority.

Glad that's out of the way. I was getting anxious wondering when Congress was going get around to pissing on the Constitution again while not doing the job they were elected to do.

-pb

Here's a scenario: A gay couple adopts a child in Vermont. The three of them go on vacation to the Southwest. On their way, in Oklahoma, they get into a car accident. The child is taken to the hospital.

Now, under Oklahoma's 2004 "Adoption Invalidation Law," neither parent would have any legal rights, as the adoption was considered null and void the second they crossed the Oklahoma border. Since there's no adoption, the child can be taken from them and placed in protective custody and then the foster system.

Well, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals didn't think that was a very good idea. And it's not. It directly violates the Full Faith and Credit clause in the Constitution.

Back up, wait a minute... According to the Constitution, an adoption from one state, which is a legal construct, has to be recognized by the other states? Change one word in there, and there's no reason that any court should uphold the horribly-named Defense of Marriage Act. Marriage is a legal construct, and according to the Full Faith and Credit clause, a same-sex marriage in Massachusetts would have to be recognized in Virginia. Virginia is under no obligation to sanction the enactment of same-sex marriages (just like Pennsylvania is under no obligation to allow first cousins to marry), but according to the FF&C clause, they have to recognize existing marriages from other states, just like Pennsylvania has to recognize the marriages of first cousins that move to Pennsylvania after being married in one of the 25 states that allow it.

So, this ruling is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, someone will challenge the DOMA soon.

-pb

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/23/alimony.partnerships.ap/index.html

At some point, it was bound to happen. A straight man is suddenly financially hurt by the fact that same-sex marriages aren't legally binding:

A judge has ordered a man to continue paying alimony to his ex-wife -- even though she's in a registered domestic partnership with another woman and even uses the other woman's last name.

California marriage laws say alimony ends when a former spouse remarries, and Ron Garber thought that meant he was off the hook when he learned his ex-wife had registered her new relationship under the state's domestic partnership law.

Uh-oh! How's that going to play out?

-pb

Number of illegal wiretaps required to bring down the cell plotting to assault Fort Dix: 0
Number of prisoners tortured for info to bring down the cell plotting to assault Fort Dix: 0
Actual cause for the downfall of the cell: a concerned citizen and some good old-fashioned police work.

Note to Bush: Apparently shredding the Constitution wasn't necessary, was it? By the way, what was your rationale for fighting them "over there" again? Some New Yorkers might disagree, but New Jersey is not "over there".

Fighting them over there makes us less able to fight them over here. It also makes us much less able to fight threats like hurricanes and tornados. And no, it's not because the governor of Kansas didn't fill out the paperwork correctly, you asshole. It's a simple matter of "all my fucking equipment got blown up or just left in Iraq".

Note to New Jersey jihadis: Fort Dix? Come on, are you fucking kidding me? FORT DIX? Wow, just... man, you should apply for jobs in the Bush administration. You've got about the right intelligence level for it.

-pb

Florida housing sex offenders under bridge

While I have little sympathy for child molesters and rapists, I do have a great respect for humanity and life, and this is disgusting. Florida has sealed off nearly the entire state from these people, and when they're released from prison, they're literally tossed under a bridge like garbage.

If you can't trust these people out in open society, there's only one other choice I see here: Lock them up forever. Create penal colonies. Sexual predators have a disease. We can't cure it, we don't really understand it, but that doesn't make it ok to treat them like animals.

Registered sex offenders have some of the most unjust treatment in our society. They're basically stripped of all civil rights, even after serving their debt to society. If society can't deal with them after they've been in prisoned, it's time to revisit the entire system and create a humane atmosphere for them that allows them to live with dignity while protecting society at large. Because right now? We're doing neither.

-pb

Early evening, April 4
Shot rang out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride.

-pb

Please refer to the icon:

Dennis Kucinich:

I would say that I think we need a politics which does not condemn people. So I am not going to condemn them. But what I am going to say is that FOX is a legitimate news agency that has the ability to reach out to millions of Americans, so why not get that message out? That is what I want to do, and all Democrats should be capable of doing it.

Great. Wonderful. And on top of that, we've got Hillary and Obama flat out refusing to say four simple words in response to General "Let's Shoot Some Fags" Pace: "Homosexuality is not immoral"

Note to Barack Obama: Just say it. You're not going to win a single social conservative vote anyway, so WHY FUCKING BOTHER TRYING. Be the candidate that has the balls to say "That guy is a nut, gay bashing is wrong, and being gay is not immoral". You only need 50.1%. You don't need to win Alabama and Georgia. You do need to win California.

-pb

I think I'm getting scandal fatigue.

Fuck that, I have scandal fatigue.

Let's recap 1992-2000, shall we? Feel free to point out things I miss.

Whitewater
Waco
Ruby Ridge
Monica Lewinsky

That's the four major cock-ups of the Clinton years. What was the end result? An impeachment proceeding.

Now, 2000-2007:

Katherine Harris
9/11
Afghanistan
Iraq
More time spent cutting brush than presidenting
Ken Blackwell
Warrantless Wiretapping
Katrina
Secret prisons
Abu Ghraib
Military tribunals
Harriet Miers
Jeff Gannon
Cheney's Got a Gun
Scooter Libby
FBI Patriot Act abuses
Prosecutor dismissals

And that's just the shit I can name off the top of my head. Two stolen elections, two wars, countless violations of the Constitution.

End result? One convicted staffer and a president who thinks that a 30% approval rating is a mandate to ignore the other two branches of government.

I keep thinking "maybe this is the scandal that brings it all down", but I know that it's not. The man was caught lying about a justification for a war that has cost over 3,000 American lives and just south of a million Iraqi lives and over two million refugees. The greatest security breach in American history happened on his watch because he didn't feel like reading a memo, and then any lessons that could have been learned from that were promptly forgotten, leading to the destruction of an entire city.

So no, the scandal du jour is not going to be the one that brings it all down. The only thing that we (hopefully) have to look forward to is January 20, 2009. That is, assuming, that 50.1% of the ballots counted aren't in favor of someone equally as repugnant.

-pb

http://www.local6.com/spotlight/10962054/detail.html

Some woman in Florida driving past a theatre was offended by the marquee displaying the title "The Vagina Monologues".

So, the theatre did what any art-loving community would. They changed the fucking title to "The Hoohaa Monologues". I shit you not.

Oh no! Someone was offended by the correct term for a body part! HORRORS!

I'll bet this woman would be horrified by the title of my new play: "Conversations with the Epidermis". I'm such a sicko!

-pb

Missouri town to evict couple w/3 children on the basis that they are not married

"The couple had closed on the home and sought an occupancy permit. City officials asked to see their marriage license and the children’s birth certificates. That is when they were told they were in violation of the city ordinance."

Excuse me? The simple fact that they were required to present such documents is despicable. The whole concept of an "occupancy permit" is despicable, too. They bought the house, they own it, it's their property, and since it was built as a residential structure, it's logical to assume that it's correctly zoned for a residence. What right does the government have to tell them that they can't live in a house that they legally own, for any reason?

"The current ordinance prohibits more than three persons from living together unless they are related by 'blood, marriage or adoption.' It had been used to prevent unwed people from living together with their children."

So, these people are not married, but have three children together.

Therefore, three out of five people in the house are related by blood to everyone else, and the other two are related to three of the other four.

Under the *loosest* interpretation of this I can see, the city can enforce this by evicting ONE of the parents, but not both. If they try to evict any of the children, they'd be violating the law as written.

I consider this a seperation of church and state issue, but for a reason deeper than the obvious "they're fornicators, that's a sin, so let's git 'em" excuse. They're being denied a permit to reside on their own property because they have not sought official sanction from the state to be MARRIED. Why, exactly, does the state have any say over who can and cannot enter into marriage, which in this country, is a RELIGIOUS definition? I've got no problem with the government licensing and regulating civil unions, but marriage should be strictly off-limits.

Of course, even in this case, I would have a problem if they were denied a permit based on a lack of a civil union. There is simply no excuse for this family to require an occupancy permit for residential-zoned land that they own. This is tyrrany, and I distinctly remember something from high school where they talked about the consequences of that.

-pb

Remember this? I was thinking about things this morning, and I came to the realization that we're seeing history repeat itself.

Here's a clip from the Wikipedia entry on the American Civil War:

Most historians agree, following Ulrich B. Phillips, Avery Craven, and Eugene Genovese that the South had grown apart from the North psychologically and in terms of its value systems. One by one the common elements that bound the nation together were broken. For example the major Protestant denominations split along North-South lines. Fewer travelers or students or businessmen went from one region to the other. The last common elements were the Constitution (which was in dispute after the Dred Scott ruling of 1857); the political parties (which split along regional lines in 1860), and Congress, which was in constant turmoil after 1856.

Does this sound at all familiar? I may as well have written the same thing from a 2140 perspective:

Most historians agree that the South and Midwest had grown apart from the North and Pacific States psychologically and in terms of its value systems. One by one the common elements that bound the nation together were broken. For example the major Protestant denominations split along North-South lines. Fewer travellers or students or businessmen went from one region to the other. The last common elements were the Constitution (which was in dispute after the Bush v. Gore ruling of 2000); the political parties (which split along regional lines in 1980), and Congress, which was in constant turmoil after 1996.

We may not be seeing fighting in the streets in Kansas, but there is a major ideological battle going on there in the form of Intelligent Design. We have seen abortion clinics bombed, and now we're seeing the abortion debate brought back into contention. Ideologically, the South is separating quickly from the North.

Maybe that's not the right term. The South and the North haven't had a united cause since the end of the Revolutionary War. The outcome of the Civil War and Reconstruction did nothing to mend the giant ideological gulf separating the two. And while the core of the debate has changed (from slavery to quasi-religious interpretations), the fact remains that the Mason-Dixon line is more than just the lower border of Pennsylvania and Delaware - it's a sectarian divide.

Now, I understand that states wax and wane in terms of "blue" and "red". Take for instance Virginia and Pennsylvania. Virginia is a reddish purple, and Pennsylvania is a bluish purple. There are pockets of deep red in California, and pockets of deep blue in Texas. Some would say that it's not a geographical divide because of these things. That's a rationalization, though. There were plenty of Northerners who were pro-slavery who strapped on their blue and headed for war, just like there were plenty of Abolitionist Southerners that did the same. Even if you remove the slavery issue and simply view it as a cultural divide, there were pro-secession Northerners ("let 'em leave!"), and anti-secession Southerners (even the President of the CSA, Jefferson Davis, argued fervently against his home state of Mississippi leaving the Union). The geography was about as solid then as it is now.

There was a point in 1860 where peaceful secession was discussed. What would have been the outcome of that? There would have been two nations, each free to pursue their own destiny. Progress would have come naturally to the south instead of being forced on it. They would have likely banned slavery within 50 years after mounting economic and political pressure from the USA, Britain, France and Spain. They would have waxed and waned as allies, but for better or worse, we would have remained close. Civil Rights would have come sooner, I think, because there wouldn't be the lasting resentment against blacks that arose from reconstruction.

I think that time is quickly approaching us. I honestly believe that we are moving towards another major schism in this country. We're not careening towards it as they were in 1860, but I can imagine that we're in the "1850" of the timeline. I think there may come a time when the option to let go is discussed. I think we should take that option. Just let go. This continent is big enough for the two of us. There's no need to cling to the idea of one just because that's the way it's always been.

Lincoln was not always right. I believe that united, we may fall. Divided, at least we won't be at each other's throats.

-pb