Rarely do examples this stark of the priorities of the Obama Party come along.
Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s support for aerial wolf-hunting has sparked a heated cross-country war of words between the governor and an environmental ad campaign fronted by the actress Ashley Judd, with Palin calling the organization funding the ads an “extreme fringe group.”
The squabble began Tuesday when the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund unveiled a campaign called “Eye on Palin,” targeting the governor for what they call her “extreme anti-conservation policies.”
The group is highlighting “Palin’s championing of the brutal and unnecessary aerial killing of wolves and other carnivores” — a controversial practice allowed by permit in Alaska since 2003, with the goal of protecting populations of moose and caribou.
If there is one theme going through all the propaganda outlets of the Obama Party this week, it's why the government needs to waste billions of dollars on contraceptives, resodding the National Mall, and god knows what else instead of simply cutting taxes.
The stimulus is about one-third tax cuts and two-thirds government spending. The trade-off is fairly simple: Tax cuts work quickly but ineffectively, because much of the money is saved. Most government spending takes longer to implement, but generates more impact because the money is spent.
Um, according to the Obama Party's own chief economic advisor, bullshit.
A key issue facing the new Obama administration is to what extent the economic stimulus should take the form of spending increases versus tax reduction. One way to think about the issue is the size of the fiscal policy multipliers. The multipliers measure bang for the buck--the amount of short-run GDP expansion one gets from a dollar of spending hikes or tax cuts.
So what are these multipliers? In their new blog, Bob Hall and Susan Woodward look at spending increases from World War II and the Korean War and conclude that the government spending multiplier is about one: A dollar of government spending raises GDP by about a dollar. Similarly, the results in Valerie Ramey's research suggest a government spending multiplier of about 1.4. (Valerie does not present her results in multiplier form, but she emails me this translation: "The right column of figure 5A of my paper shows that for a log change of government spending of 1, log GDP rises by 0.28, implying an elasticity of 0.28. To back out the implied multiplier, we can use the fact that government spending averages around 20% of GDP. This implies a multiplier of 1.4.")
By contrast, recent research by Christina Romer and David Romer looks at tax changes and concludes that the tax multiplier is about three: A dollar of tax cuts raises GDP by about three dollars. The puzzle is that, taken together, these findings are inconsistent with the conventional Keynesian model. According to that model, taught even in my favorite textbook, spending multipliers necessarily exceed tax multipliers.
So when that blows up, again, the Obama Party Ministry of Propaganda mainstream media, starts with the ultimate scare tactic: we can't have tax cuts because Americans will save the money instead of spending it!
Americans are hunkering down and saving more. For a recession-battered economy, it couldn't be happening at a worse time.
Economists call it the "paradox of thrift." What's good for individuals — spending less, saving more — is bad for the economy when everyone does it.
Little did I know how much my grandparents hated America when they bought a house with cash and just used their old living room set; if they had been truly patriotic, they would have taken out a no-money-down subprime mortgage, maxed out their cards to fill it with furniture, and then demanded that their Social Security checks be increased to pay their interest costs.
And how evil and unpatriotic I am for buying a seven-year-old American-brand car with cash; had I really cared about the good of our country and self-sacrifice, I would have spent nine times the amount to impress the neighbors with an appropriate high-end brand, borrowed it all, and spent eight years paying through the nose for depreciation, interest, and insurance.
However, because of this treasonous behavior, our banks have one less toxic mortgage, bad credit card, and nonperforming auto loan -- and two rapidly-growing savings accounts. Meanwhile, my financial terrorism against the United States has made several hundred more dollars a month available for me to use in purchasing good, strong, dividend-paying value stocks and bonds.
In short, what we are doing is keeping toxic assets off the banks' books, injecting cash into the banking system, and providing companies and local entities with investment money for improvements. We are making all of these changes without it costing taxpayers a dime or requiring any bit of government intervention.
If Democrats learned anything from the HillaryCare defeat, it was the danger of admitting to their wish to federalize the health market. Since returning to power, they've pursued a new strategy: to stealthily and incrementally expand government control. "What no one is paying attention to in the [stimulus]," says Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, "is that Democrats are making a big grab at the health-care sector."
First grab: the children.
Initially designed for children of working-poor families, this new Super-Schip will be double in size, and even kids whose parents make $65,000 a year will be eligible.
Given that the US median average household income is just over $44,000 per year, that means that nearly 65% of American households qualify as "working-poor" and thus get free health insurance.
And the kicker:
The Congressional Budget Office estimates 2.4 million individuals will drop their private coverage for the public program.
Read that again. These are people who already HAVE health coverage; all they're doing is taking advantage of a government "freebie".
And yes, it does get worse.
Under "stimulus," Medicaid is now on offer not to just poor Americans, but Americans who have lost their jobs. And not just Americans who have lost their jobs, but their spouses and their children. And not Americans who recently lost their jobs, but those who lost jobs, say, early last year. And not just Americans who already lost their jobs, but those who will lose their jobs up to 2011. The federal government is graciously footing the whole bill. The legislation also forbids states to apply income tests in most cases.
House Democrat Henry Waxman was so thrilled by this blowout, it was left to Republicans to remind him that the very banking millionaires he dragged to the Hill last year for a grilling would now qualify for government aid. His response? A GOP proposal to limit subsidies to Americans with incomes under $1 million was accepted during markup, but had disappeared by final passage. In this new health-care nirvana, even the rich are welcome. CBO estimates? An additional 1.2 million on the federal Medicaid dime in 2009.
And if that wasn't enough:
The "stimulus" also hijacks Cobra, a program that lets the unemployed retain access to their former company health benefits -- usually for about 18 months. The new stimulus permits any former employee over the age of 55 to keep using Cobra right up until they qualify for Medicare at age 65. And here's the kicker: Whereas employees were previously responsible for paying their health premiums while on Cobra, now the feds will pay 65%. CBO estimates? Seven million Americans will have the feds mostly pay their insurance bills in 2009.
So let's see; the average COBRA cost is $1,069 per month, so times 65%, times seven million people, times ten years.
Oh well, that's only $4.8 billion a month, or $583 billion over ten years if you're counting -- plus the minor detail of tens of billions more on Medicaid. All on the taxpayer's dime, and all coming out of the pockets of working people, of course.
Let's exclude high rollers from receiving Social Security benefits. Affluent individuals can refuse to receive them, but many have chosen to take them instead, creating a glaring example of waste.
A means test that would exclude seniors who live in wealthy households could start us on the road to saving Social Security.
Problem is, Social Security already HAS a means test that is used to reduce benefits for the affluent; it's called the bend points.
PIA formula For an individual who first becomes eligible for old-age insurance benefits or disability insurance benefits in 2009, or who dies in 2009 before becoming eligible for benefits, his/her PIA will be the sum of: (a) 90 percent of the first $744 of his/her average indexed monthly earnings, plus (b) 32 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $744 and through $4,483, plus (c) 15 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $4,483
Put into English, what that means is that the more you earn, the less you get credited for it -- even though the more you earn, the more you pay into the system.
And where is the income threshold cutoff for what constitutes "affluent", at which point you have too much money and should start receiving proportionately less in benefits?
$8,928 per year.
In short, the Obama Party believes that the key to "saving" Social Security is to punish success on both ends; not only will those who earn more and pay in more get credited less, but now they'll have even that taken away if they dare to accumulate assets or retirement savings.
One can only hope that Susan Alexander gets the trip to Washington she so obviously deserves to advise Pelosi and Obama. It should be hailed as another example of Obama Party political brilliance to state to the public that they are going to take people who have worked, saved, and paid into the Social Security system at the highest rates for over forty years that they get no benefits -- especially as they put into power officials like Timothy Geithner who don't pay their Social Security taxes.
I'm telling you, it makes me feel a whole lot better to drive over roads, cross bridges, and use telecommunication networks built by unskilled labor instead of skilled professionals. After all, remember; it's not the integrity of the structure that counts, it's the color of the person who built it.
-- Send suggestive instant messages to former interns and be hounded out of office
-- Have romantic and sexual relationship with then AND former intern, lie about it yourself, tell said intern to lie about it, initiate full-blown coverup with things like hiring a person who just happens to know more than you would like about the relationship to a job as a city planner for which she's wholly unqualified....and nothing will happen.
I suppose the lesson here is either to go for the gusto -- or, if you want to prey on teenagers, change your party affiliation.
The government wouldn’t be able to spend at least one-fourth of a proposed $825 billion economic stimulus plan until after 2010, according to a new report that suggests it may take longer than expected to boost the economy.
A Congressional Budget Office analysis of President Barack Obama’s plan found that most of the approximately $355 billion in proposed discretionary spending on highways, renewable energy and other initiatives wouldn’t be spent before 2011. The government would spend about $26 billion of the money this year and $110 billion more next year, the report said.
But wait, there's more!
The analysis suggests that much of the stimulus may not come until after the economy has begun to recover. The CBO has previously said it expected a “slow” recovery to begin later this year and that the economy will expand by a “modest” 1.5 percent in 2010.
That clinches it. This "stimulus" has nothing to do with the economy; it has EVERYTHING to do with increasing government spending and is using the recession as an excuse.
Top Obama economic adviser Christina Romer has studied 20th-century recessions and concluded that monetary tools, not fiscal spending, produced recoveries. Even in the Great Depression, monetary expansion, not FDR's public works, opened the way toward recovery beginning in the spring of 1933.
But wait -- it gets even better.
Now, though, Romer and other Obama advisers are betting that the $825 billion package under consideration in the House will be big enough to alter the history that they've all studied.
They are also betting on the fact that a package divided between $550 billion in spending and $275 billion in tax cuts will be the right mix, even though Romer's research also shows tax cuts to have a larger multiplier effect on the economy than spending.
Now we've reached the point of ludicrous.
The New Deal has been invoked for six months as proof that rampant government spending works to slow or stop recessions -- only to have it admitted that government spending really didn't do anything to slow or stop the Great Depression.
Tax cuts have been determined to provide more bang for the buck than government spending -- so Obama is doing double the spending and half the tax cuts, deficit and value be damned.
These people have zero concept of reality. They don't want to fix the economy; they want to spend government money.
From where, exactly, do they intend to get that money?
Long-running TV comedy show The Simpsons has revealed that the character of Duffman is gay.
The revelation comes in the latest episode of the programme, now in its 20th series.
Actually, in the episode "Homerazzi", Homer accidentally takes a picture that shows Duffman and Boobarella in the background, to which Bart responds, "Hey! He's supposed to be in a committed gay relationship!"
A hydrogen fuel cell car driven by U.S. Rep. Eric Massa to Washington, D.C. on Monday didn’t actually get him all the way there.
Massa had to be in the nation’s capital Tuesday for his swearing in as the 29th Congressional District’s new representative. He drove the General Motors Equinox prototype car to draw attention to the technology, some of which is being developed in the district.
The problem is the car can go about 150 to 200 miles without a refill, and the trip from Corning to Washington, D.C. is 282 miles. And there are no hydrogen refilling stations along the way.
As a result, Massa had to switch to another GM hydrogen fuel cell vehicle that was standing by in Harrisburg.
Here's the kicker.
After the trip, both cars were towed back to their original locations by two Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid SUVs.
So let's see; making the optimistic assumption that these two Tahoe hybrids were getting their EPA-rated 22 mpg on the highway while towing other vehicles, that means one burned 7.4 gallons of gas going the 162 miles from Harrisburg to Corning, NY, and the other burned 5.5 gallons going the 120 miles from Washington to Harrisburg, for a total of 12.9 gallons of gas.
Or he could have simply driven a Chevy Malibu, which, given a highway average of 30 miles per gallon, would have gotten there on 9.4 gallons of gas -- meaning he blew nearly 30% more in cash, gasoline, and carbon in the process.
Which is probably why the article in question is another fine example of "Name That Party!"
As pointed out by Victor Davis Hanson, those of us here in California are surrounded by people who will proudly proclaim the necessity of the Big Three automakers bailout -- as they head for their Lexus, Infiniti, Volvo, BMW, Volkswagen, Mini, Porsche, Audi, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Saab, Subaru, Suzuki, and Isuzu.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I think they should advertise the fact. Hence, I am soliciting suggestions for a new line of bumper stickers. Feel free to insert your own.
"I Believe in (Someone Else) Buying American"
"My Help Drives a Chevy"
"I Support The UAW -- I Just Won't Own Anything They Make"
"Unions Build Better Benefits. Cars, Not So Much"
"I Voted Democrat So I Didn't Have To Buy Their Crap"
"Solidarity Forever, Except When It Comes to My Money"
When you realize that Brigham Young's edict to his church was to "put to death" anyone who committed a homosexual act or slept with a black person, and made the edict "eternal," I think you might better appreciate the defensive and offensive nature of the LGBT community.
Oh, I do, I do.
Given the following:
-- Brigham Young died in 1877
-- I personally know black Mormons
-- I personally know interracial Mormon couples with children
-- I have never been threatened with death or even had an attempt made on my life by the numerous Mormons I know
it becomes obvious that you are allowed to take a defensive and offensive view towards a group of people based on the words and behavior of someone who died over a century ago that said group is quite obviously not following or caring much about today.
In that case, I hereby give license to all people who would take a defensive and offensive view towards the gay community to do so, given that I can quote Harry Hay saying publicly that gays should support and include NAMBLA and other exploiters of children as part of the gay community.
It's no news that a gay and lesbian liberal is refusing to use or reference the Bible because it's "offensive" -- but it becomes even more entertaining when that person claims to be a Christian pastor.
As for himself, Robinson said he doesn't yet know what he'll say, but he knows he won't use a Bible.
But after all, it's not what you say or do that matters; it's the fact that you're a minority.
"It's important for any minority to see themselves represented in some way," Robinson told the newspaper for a story in Monday's editions. "Whether it be a racial minority, an ethnic minority, or in our case, a sexual minority. Just seeing someone like you up front matters."
UPDATE: Robinson is now much more direct, letting the world know that he has been reading past inaugural prayers, was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were", and assures us that his will "not be a Christian prayer".
Yes, because, as we know, that Jesus fellow and the whole book about him are just too, you know, offensive.
Last week, Sacramento-based Equality Action Now sent a formal dinner invitation to evangelical pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church who was selected to deliver the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration........
"We'll meet with him anytime, anywhere. Whatever he wants," said Tina Reynolds, who added the offer is a genuine attempt to initiate dialogue with the evangelical community.
And, just as an example of the type of dialogue they have already initiated:
More notably, Reynolds's organization has been responsible for five of the media-focused Capitol protests so far, including Margaret Cho's appearance last month where the comedian sang endearing lyrics suggesting Mormons shove their religion up their asses.
Personally, I fail to see why Rick Warren, or any other religious leader, should waste the dollars, carbon, and oxygen to talk with this group when what it believes and professes is readily available on YouTube.
The local gay newspaper, the Bay Area Reporter, is usually very good about putting their letters to the editor up on their website, but apparently this week, they seem to have slipped up.
As a public service, I now provide you two of the three letters that appeared in this week's print edition.
Graffiti at church
Someone put graffiti on Most Holy Redeemer this week. I'm not surprised.
Every day that I walk past this mega-million dolar structure, thoughts of defacing it go through my own mind. This church funds fashion victims Archbishop George Niederauer and the pope. Niederauer single-handedly did the most to support Prop 8 by enlisting the Mormons to bankroll it.
Cries of, "but it's a gay-friendly church!" make me laugh. They gladly take money from gays, that much is true. "But look what they've done for the community!" Okay, let me look. Decades ago, MHR was one of the first to provide AIDS hospices. Fantastic. Nowadays their support is tied directly to funding.
What else has MHR done? The archbishop told them to stop gay bingo. What did they do? They succumbed. The archbishop told them to provide e-mail addresses of its members so that it could send out Yes on 8 propaganda. What did they do? They succumbed. They were told not to hold legal same-sex weddings. They succumbed. This church puts on a gay-friendly front in order to oppress gays worldwide.
The pope wants to eradicate homosexuals from the planet. This hateful spewing directly leads to violence against gays. Catholics espouse guilt. They certainly have plenty for which to be guilty, especially the ones who attend MHR.
Gary Young San Francisco
Conspiracy theory
I believe the graffiti on the church in the Castro was put there by either the Yes on Prop. 8 people or by the secret Catholic organization Opus Dei to defame gay and lesbian people. The cabal of churches were more than willing to use deceit to promote Prop. 8 and I see no reason why they would stop now that their civil rights busting proposition is being challenged by the high court.
Jerry Royer San Francisco
Gee, I wonder why these weren't published. Is it that it shows the gay community as a bunch of whackjob tinfoil-hat wearing DaVinci Code-spewing antireligious bigots, and makes a mockery of the attempt at PR spin that said bigots' leaders and encouragers are trying?
Leemu Tokpa and several family members stayed overnight at Creative African Braids on 14th Street, the hair salon Tokpa started four years ago. Protesters smashed the store windows Wednesday night.
"I understand they were mad because a black man was killed, but I'm a black lady. If they're protesting, why would they come into the store?" Tokpa said Thursday morning.
"The mayor was forced to come out and acknowledge that the citizens of Oakland are angry and that we want Justice," Shamar said. "I'm not condoning violence, but sometimes to get justice, you can't just sit around holding hands singing 'Kumbaya.' "
Of course, he was at home watching TV at the time, so it's probably easy for him to look at things "objectively". Not like his business was being vandalized or anything.
Long story short, it's looking like I'll be doing more commuting to the South Bay and Peninsula (San Jose and Palo Alto, for those of you who aren't au fait with the messed-up way we do geography here in the City and its environs) -- which means much more dependence on the 101 and its all-day parking lot traffic pattern. However, the thought of navigating my poor little stick-shift Geo Tracker through the morass of stop, go, grind, slam, and swear was just more than either it or I could bear.
So I used the Donald Trump method: get a younger one with more buttons.
Ten inches longer, seven hundred pounds heavier, forty-seven horsepower stronger, a real Ahmurrrican name (no more of that Geo world car multiculturalistic crap) and a (eech) automatic.
In the immortal words of my husbear, "Wow, you finally bought a real car."
And don't worry; my older one found a new home with a loving family literally within fifteen minutes of having it advertised.
Growing up Lutheran, you realize early on that there are two tenets of the faith: one, Jesus died for our sins, and two, you had damn well better sing about it. Johann Sebastian Bach, perhaps the foremost of Lutheran choral composers, wrote over 300 cantatas in his lifetime, or roughly one for every Sunday, feast day, and holiday for five years (which explains on several levels his Coffee Cantata).
Of course, as a bright young lad with an above-average singing voice, Christmas meant one thing and one thing only for me: sing, boy, SING! Sunday school pageant (soloist). Adult church choir (never enough altos, right?). School vocal concert (again, soloist). Christmas Eve service cantor -- for not one, not two, but three different churches. It was like being Andrea Bocelli, only without the hair, groupies, and bumping into things.
Along the way, though, I picked up one song that has to me always symbolized at its deepest level what Christmas is and truly about.
What child is this who laid to rest On Mary's lap is sleeping Whom angels greet with anthems sweet While shepherds watch are keeping This, this is Christ the King Whom shepherds guard and angels sing Haste, haste to bring Him laud The Babe, the Son of Mary
So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh Come peasant, King, to own Him The King of Kings, salvation brings Let loving hearts enthrone Him Raise, raise the song on high The Virgin sings her lullaby Joy, joy for Christ is born The Babe, the Son of Mary
Pretty straightforward, right? All that talk about joy and happiness and babies and shepherds and goodies and whatnot, how could that not be a favorite.
Truly, though, that isn't it at all. It's the second verse -- the one that most people leave out.
Why lies He in such mean estate Where ox and ass are feeding Good Christian fear for sinners here The silent word is pleading Nails, spears shall pierce Him through The Cross be borne for me, for you Hail, hail, the Word made flesh The Babe, the Son of Mary
Talk about a buzz kill. This is Christmas, right? All that stuff is a good three months away! We should be rejoicing! We should be praising!
Well, yes we should. But to me, the miracle of Christ's birth has never been the fact that he WAS born....but that he was WILLING to be born at all.
Seriously. Which one of you would choose, if you could, to give up the sweetest gig in the universe -- Son of God -- to be popped out in a cattle barn and dropped into a cold manger, with the knowledge that, after thirty-three years of life, you would be ditched by your friends, unjustly accused, tortured, and executed?
Jesus knew all that. He knew in gory detail what was going to happen to Him. He knew He was giving everything up for nothing, that He was going to get no thanks for what He was doing, that there would be people that, after all He said and did, would not only refuse to believe Him, but would go so far as to kill Him in the most repulsive, demeaning, humiliating, and painful way possible.
And yet....despite all that....He did it. Not for Himself, but because He loved us.
It is that act of selfless, beautiful love that is truly "the reason for the season". Even on this most joyous night, the shadow of the cross is not far away....but were it not for that cross, that suffering, there would be no Christmas.
On this great and wonderful evening, I leave you with what is my favorite Christmas song of all.....the one that always brings tears to my eyes.....sung by one of my favorite artists.
As a kid growing up in the Midwest whose parents were both emergency medical technicians, there were two things engrained in my early childhood: wear seatbelts, and that the difference between life and death in an emergency is literally a matter of seconds. Do what you could to help someone, especially when the situation was quite obviously dangerous, because if you didn't, the likelihood of them dying went up exponentially.
The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn't immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn't medical.
All right, fine, we won't help them -- then wait for the court to rule that we can be sued for NOT helping them.
The leftist gay blogosphere is allatwitter today over Hilary Rosen's ranting, Rosie-esque performance last night on AC360.
Of course, what they leave out is the fact that Rosen has a little bit of a credibility problem in her tantrums about people who support gay marriage bans, given her endorsement of said people.
Again, the problem is not what Rick Warren said or did; it's the fact that he's a) white, b) not a reliable Democrat voter, and c) doesn't worship Obama.
Many borrowers who received help with mortgage modifications earlier this year tended to re-default on their payments, a top U.S. banking regulator said on Monday, citing recent data......
Dugan said recent data showed that after three months, nearly 36 percent of borrowers who received restructured mortgages in the first quarter re-defaulted.
The rate of re-default jumped to about 53 percent after six months and 58 percent after eight months, Dugan said, without providing an explanation for the trend.
Really? What a surprise! You mean people might be defaulting for reasons other than the bank being mean to them, like their having taken out loans that they had no f'ing chance of paying?
Once upon a time, "AP" stood for "Associated Press".
With stories like this, it can now be formally changed to "All Propaganda".
The Nationals tickets were bargains for Freddie Mac, part of a well-orchestrated, multimillion-dollar campaign to preserve its largely regulatory-free environment, with particular pressure exerted on Republicans who controlled Congress at the time.
Internal Freddie Mac budget records show $11.7 million was paid to 52 outside lobbyists and consultants in 2006. Power brokers such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were recruited with six-figure contracts. Freddie Mac paid the following amounts to the firms of former Republican lawmakers or ex-GOP staffers in 2006:
So I guess we can safely say it's not that Freddie Mac gave money to politicians and political staffers that's the problem; it's whether or not the fact that they did can be used to impugn Republicans. What was done is irrelevant; who did it is.
Not that this is a problem for most of my readers, but for those of you who are new, here's a foolproof set of instructions on how to make people think that you're more than a bit crazy.
1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down
2. Page yourself over the intercom
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask, "Would you like fries with that?"
4. Put decaf in the coffee maker for three weeks; once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch it out for espresso.
5. In the memo field of all your checks, write "For Marijuana".
6. Skip down the hall instead of walking and see how many looks you get.
7. Order a "diet water" when you go out to eat.
8. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go".
9. Sing along at the opera.
10. Tell your friends that you can't attend their party because you have a headache -- five days in advance.
11. When the money comes out of the ATM, scream, "I won! I WON!"
12. When leaving the zoo, start running for your car yelling, "They're loose! They're loose!"
13. Tell your family over dinner, "Due to the economy, we're going to have to let one of you go".
Last, but certainly not least:
14. At the pharmacy, pick up a box of condoms, go to the counter, and ask them for the key to the fitting room.
All in all, though, should I be concerned that my father sent me this?
Your result for Which Star Trek Ship Should You Command? Test...
Galaxy Class!
20% Flight_Control, 30% Tactical, 20% Science and 90% Command!
Congratulations! You have been assigned a Galaxy Class vessel! This class of starship is the top of the line when it comes to Command facilities and diplomatic amenities. It is perfect for any sort of mission of diplomacy!
On Saturday, on a sunny day in San Francisco, 15 beautiful people were arrested for you, your neighbors, your friends, your family and the people you love. We did it for people you may not even know, we did it for people you may fear and we did it for people you may not understand. Most importantly, we did it for civil rights.
To the brighter side, at least this sounds better than the toddler at the grocery store testing out the maximum displacement of his lungs in an attempt to get Mommy to buy Fruity Pebbles rather than Cheerios.
But the net motivation and effect on passersby is exactly the same.
Supposedly this creature so desperate to "do something" for other people lives here in San Francisco. If that's the case, I know at least two organizations who would be more than happy to have him show up on their doorsteps right now and would have him hard at work actually helping people who need it within thirty seconds, without wasting the police's time, burning up thousands of taxpayer dollars, and producing the increased air pollution/wasted gasoline/unnecessary blood pressure spikes that his little tantrum did.
But since there's no TV cameras, I doubt he'd be interested.
One of the things about blogging that I've always taken very seriously is collateral damage, especially to people who are in no way associated with this blog. My opinions are my opinions; however, because there are more than a few gay (and non-gay) people in this universe who have demonstrated their willingness to attack others in an attempt to get at those who disagree with them, I've stuck with pseudonymous blogging pretty much since I started.
But what happens when coincidence turns up someone using the same pseudonym as you -- and the end result is that person's profile, hopes, and dreams being dragged through the mud and mocked on a nationally-read gay blog?
I mean, seriously. My profile says San Francisco. A simple search of my blog would indicate I'm in San Francisco. Heck, you don't exactly need to be a Mensa scholar to recognize that the picture that is the first friggin' thing you see on the blog is not the waterfront of downtown Dallas. They obviously are not without research capability, given that they located the guy's profile in the first place, so how did they miss things so obvious?
But all because of that, some guy who I don't know, who likely doesn't even know me, and has nothing to do with my opinions is having his personal information aired to the public, being accused of being a pedophile, being called all sorts of names, and having people laugh at him -- all because a blog full of bigoted fools couldn't be bothered to do the most basic research before they set off on their smear-fest.
I know the next response from Jim Burroway, Daniel Gonzales, and Timothy Kincaid: "Well, uh, we're not responsible for what our commenters post, and besides, we can't do anything about it."
I might believe that had it taken them more than a few minutes to find my offending comments, remove them, and ban me. But, since it didn't, I call bullshit.
What is more likely is that, since they've spent years teaching these commenters that people who criticize the behavior of other gays are lower than pond scum and should be treated accordingly, their ability to correct the behavior of their drooling hordes is sharply limited by their fear of being stomped. Besides, they're gay liberals; they're not about to admit that they're wrong, and more likely they're going to blame me or this guy for having the same pseudonyms.
So there's the problem. This guy is probably going to keep receiving undeserved sh*t from gay liberals and other assorted halfwits, and the people who precipitated it are too intransigent and too cowardly to stop it.
Seriously, I wonder if it's time for a name change on my part. I have no desire to undo four years of history, multiple email routings, and God-only-knows-how-many weblinks, but the simple fact of the matter is that I either do it or leave someone else in the situation where a bunch of moronic gay liberals are going around trying to ruin his life because they're too stupid to realize he's not me.
The streamlined process looks only at income, not assets. If you refinanced your home to buy a Mercedes or own another home, you won't be expected to sell them to pay your mortgage.
Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, predicts that many homeowners who have little or no equity will stop paying their mortgage and then reduce their income to get the biggest payment cut possible. They could stop working overtime or, if two spouses work, one could quit. After the modification, they could try to boost their income again.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Schiff says. "People are going to feel like complete morons if they don't participate. The people getting punished are the ones who never made an irresponsible decision to buy a house they couldn't afford."
I hope nobody is ever stupid enough to leave their little boys alone with him.
But no, I wouldn’t leave my nephews around him either.
-- Questioned my sexual orientation
If he’s really gay, then he has serious emotional problems, and I feel bad for him.
ND30, along with other kooks like former gay porn actor turned flop wannabe-FOX pundit Matt Sanchez, and a “michigan matt” all come from the “Gay Patriot” blog - aka the deranged sisters of Log Cabin Republicans.
The guys from that particular website has some issues - nothing more than walking Paul Cameron advertisements, and believing your average gay person is inferior to them.
Confused me with someone else entirely -- and then proceeded to publish that person's profile and information
While we value a range of opinions, we may delete comments and/or ban or moderate commenters who engage in:
-- Threats, direct or implied. This can include implied threats through the posting of phone numbers, addresses, or places of business or employment.
-- The use of derogatory terms. Prohibited terms include (but are not limited to):
-- Terms which demean one’s personal appearance or mannerisms
In addition, commenters may be moderated or banned for persisting in any of following behavior:
-- Defamation against entire categories of people. This includes members of religious groups and political parties.
-- Unsubstantiated claims, for example, claims which are not backed by direct quotes, links, or bibliographic references from independent sources
-- Unsubstantiated rumors or speculations, particularly where sexuality or sexual behavior is concerned
What makes this really funny is that a simple thirty-second check of my blogsite would have made it clear that, if that's my Gay.com profile, it's in the wrong city, wrong physical description, wrong age, and totally unaware of the partner I already have. But why be accurate, when you know that you'll never be held accountable for such behavior by Jim Burroway, Daniel Gonzales, and Timothy Kincaid? It's all about the smearing, and these blog owners are more than willing to aid and abet such things when it's their ideological allies that are doing it.
As I said yesterday, gee, it's almost like they care less about content and what a person actually does than who that person is.....
UPDATE: Grabbed the Google Cache of the comments in question. Second Update: Not surprisingly, Jim Burroway tried erasing the comments (which is why I grabbed the Google Cache).
Not good enough. As I pointed out above, their idiot commenters not only made all sorts of nasty remarks about me, but, in their attempts to do so, directly smeared someone who is in no way connected with me AND everyone over at GayPatriot. There needs to be a public retraction and an apology made to that person and the GayPatriot blog.
Karger says a "soft boycott" they started against Bolthouse Farms, which gave $100,000 to Proposition 8, was dropped after he reached a settlement with the company. Bolthouse Farms was to give an equal amount of money to gay political causes. The amount ultimately equaled $110,000.
Remember that these gay and lesbian groups were the ones that said threatening boycotts unless someone donated an equivalent amount of money to them was blackmail and extortion?
Of course, expect a condemnation by gays of said behavior committed by gay and lesbian groups about the same time there's a run on mukluks in Hades.
Since Jim Burroway and Box Turtle Bulletin apparently have issues with their tactics being criticized, here's my response to Burroway's latest attempt to justify why the tactics of flagrant antireligious bigotry and attempting to get people fired for exercising their religious and political beliefs that he endorses are all right.
And so are you saying that I have no legal right to express my freedom of speech in encouraging others to participate in a boycott?
But the anger was apparent as the few customers of the evening walked in, including a lesbian couple. They were met with angry chanting of "Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you!"
Funny, last time I looked, yelling "Shame, shame, shame" at a lesbian couple qualified as harassment and hate speech in the eyes of Burroway and his cohorts, and thus did not qualify as "freedom of speech".
The other example, on the other hand, is that of a private employee who merely had a conversation with a co-worker — the same sort of conversations which take place around water coolers all across America. This is not even close to being in the same category. This employee was in no way the public face of of the company. In fact, her identity remains publicly unknown still.
Meanwhile, this woman's donation is only public because she followed the law and put her correct name, address, and occupation on it, which was then propagated by websites that were specifically set up and looking for "dirt" to harass and attack Mormons prior to the vote.
Nothing exists to show that she publicized the fact; the law and gay and lesbian people did it. Why, then, are they calling for her to be fired?
Hey, hey, ho, ho, Marjorie has got to go!
The entertaining part about this is that California law explicitly forbids firing someone as a result of their involvement in a political campaign or making donations. In other words, the gay and lesbian liberals like Burroway who are endorsing this are demanding that businesses make a choice: violate the law, or have your customers hassled and harassed with hateful remarks.
And in several cases, they're more than entertaining.
As a gay man, as an American, as an HIV physician and academician at one of the more conservative medical institutions in the U.S, I can say without hesitation that your views remind me of the sad duplicity that arises in gay men who grow up in the Bible Belt. I was born and raised in Dallas, and still reside here, and I face constant personal and professional challenges due to the indoctrinated bigotry, Red State "values" and religious and cultural philistinism that plagues this town. You seem to cling to those philistine principles, but hypocritically deny the aspects that aren't compatible with your sexuality or your chosen family. As I kept reading your blog, I felt like I was being enclosed in a progressive, suffocating hysteria that was like being trapped in a housefire with the smoke rising to my nose. I was crawling on the ceiling, desperately looking for the chimney. Your repressed shame and self-doubt was so obvious beneath the grandstanding and stident lectures that you made Mary Tyler Moore in "Ordinary People" look like Robert Mapplethorpe.
What staggers me is that you abandoned the struggle for progress here in the South in favor of the tolerant comforts of San Francisco--a city whose inhabitants bled for the acceptance you enjoy there--and with staggering condescension and arrogance, you trash and condemn those who still fight for your freedom. It must be intensely empowering to write your judgmental blog--which is essentially a courtroom with a jury of one--with the city without a priori rejections right at your doorstep. You, sir, are guilty of the worst form of Uncle Tomism, and belong to a small, infuriating sect of gay men who make life exponentially harder for the rest of us.
I have some unfortunate news for you: your political party only approves of you until the election is over--after that they're embarrassed by you. Your church may "hate the sin and love the sinner", but most of them think you represent the sickest form of pathology and evil, and if it were socially-acceptable and legal, you and your partner would be hanging from a tree. Meanwhile, those idiot liberals you so hatefully condemn elected a mayor who is fighting for your right to have the love between you and your partner recognized in the eyes of society, the government, and God. There is true spirituality in that fight--if Jesus is your thing, he'd be standing by your mayor, not by the privileged polish and sanctimony of Sarah Palin.
I can only theorize that you're wearing Republicanism and Christianity and Conservatism as a facade to convince yourself that you can be gay and "normal" at the same time--and honestly, I think that's why the majority of Republicans cling to that party. For men at least, it's a form a hormone replacement therapy--it's all about guns and Biblical patriarchy and the expensive suit that hides the paunch. For both sexes, having that Bush '08 sticker on the minivan is an excuse to behave with reprehensible hypocrisy and still keep the membership in the country club. I know one thing--if Palin had won (McCain won't be around much longer, so let's dispense with the fiction), my partner of four years, who is from Germany and working to get a green card, would be sent home in a rowboat, and you and I would be tattooed and sweeping floors in a concentration camp. She's the political equivalent of Nurse Ratched, and when you're dealing with the company woman incarnate, the only way to keep order in the commune is to silence those that don't play by the rules. This means you, no matter how many quaint homilies you post on your blog. There's no room for gay couples on the Ark, big guy. You can try to outsmart them with the khakis and top siders and the short haircut, but they know how to smell a fox.
Of course you're entitled to your views. The liberals out there will make sure you always will be.
Which is, of course, why they keep sending these letters telling us how they know exactly why we do what we do and how wrong our views are, how very awful of persons we are, how no one else cares about, respects, or loves us, how anyone else who says they do is just lying, and how our only hope is to do exactly what they say and be grateful that they're still willing to forgive scum like us.
Please. I've seen too many Lifetime Original Movies to fall for that one.
It seems noted gay media whore and bigot John Aravosis is at it again, this time calling for a boycott of the state of Utah in retaliation for the fact that numerous Mormons donated to the campaign that successfully pushed for passage of California's Proposition 8.
In response, I would state the following:
It seems odd that Aravosis is only attacking the Mormons, rather than going after Democrat Party-trending groups like blacks and Catholics who voted in equal or larger percentages for Proposition 8 and contributed millions of dollars as well.
So what we have here is an antireligious lunatic who is not only going after people for exercising their right to vote and contribute to political campaigns, but is doing so in a fashion that makes it obvious that he doesn't care if the "right" people do the same thing as those he's attacking.
And remember, it's all because he's gay and that's what gay folks do.
This has been a tough week in far more respects than an election loss, and frankly, I've been more than a bit down even before today.
Help for these funks sometimes comes from unexpected places, and in this case, it was from Turner Classic Movies -- or, more precisely, their showing of The Mortal Storm. Not for the movie itself, which is more than a bit disquieting on numerous levels, but for the poem with which it ends, "The Gate of the Year" by Minnie Louise Haskins.
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied, "Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!"
So I went forth and finding the Hand of God Trod gladly into the night He led me towards the hills And the breaking of day in the lone east.
So heart be still! What need our human life to know If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife of things Both high and low, God hideth His intention.
Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read 'Vote Obama, I need the money.' I laughed. Once in the restaurant my server had on a 'Obama 08' tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference -- just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need -- the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
Today's latest whine from "Equality" California, the Democrat shill gay liberal group agitating against California's Proposition 8: people are being mean to our donors!
Yesterday, donors and supporters of Equality California began receiving threatening letters from the "Yes on 8" campaign leadership.
These letters threatened to "expose" the donors listed on our website if they don't donate to the "Yes on 8" campaign and refrain from supporting Equality California in the future.
That's how low the other side is willing to go. They are willing to threaten organizations and other donors who support efforts to protect youth and seniors, as a way to raise money in their effort to eliminate our right to marry.
Now keep in mind that these are the same people who:
-- Sent out donor lists from their opponents encouraging people to go find "dirt".
The most effective ad of the Yes on 8 campaign for California's Proposition 8 so far has been the one in which they bring up the likelihood that churches and individuals will be sued and personally harassed for their beliefs about homosexuality.
There is a list of a bunch of Mormon donors to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign (in case that one goes down, here's a mirror with slightly worse formatting.
Here's what I'm asking for:
This list contains information about those who are big donors to the Yes on 8 campaign--donors to the tune of at least $1,000 dollars. And, as you can see, there are a lot of them. It also indicates if they're Mormon or not.
If you're interested in defeating the religious right and preserving marriage equality, here's how you can help:
Find us some ammo.
Interestingly enough, this is no garden-variety gay idiot; turns out he's a supporter of Barack Obama and rather well-connected in the California Democrat Party. It seems he's even been going door-to-door in Nevada telling people all about how the Democrat Party and Barack Obama respect their religious beliefs and their right to express them as they see fit.
All while he's calling for his fellow Obama supporters to carry out jihad against Mormons and the LDS Church.
This is why, whenever I hear politicians whine about forcing the rich to pay their "fair share", I just laugh.
New statistics from the Internal Revenue Service show that the highest-earning 1% of taxpayers in America make 22.06% of all income reported to the government. That's almost twice the 12.51% of total income earned collectively by the lowest-earning 50% of workers. Yes, 1.4 million taxpayers claim 22% of income earned while 68 million share just 12.5%.
But get this: When it comes to taxes paid, an even wider discrepancy shows itself, in reverse. Those earners in the top 1% pay 39.89% of all federal individual income taxes. The bottom 50% of earners pay just 2.99% of those taxes.
"Number two, with regard to bankruptcy now, Gwen, what we should be doing now -- and Barack Obama and I support it -- we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you're paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe."
Or, put differently, Obama supports people taking out mortgages they can't pay, then having a judge arbitrarily cancel the debt and force the bank to take a loss.
Aside from the ludicrousness of this from a financial standpoint -- as in, the reason why secured debt like mortgages and car loans from which you can't just walk away in bankruptcy have lower interest rates than do unsecured loans from which you can -- there's this whole other matter of what kind of behavior you're rewarding.
In other words, go buy that $400k house you can't afford; you can declare bankruptcy, ask a judge to reduce it to $200k so you can "afford" it, and have instant equity of $200k.
Meanwhile, that sucker next door to you with a similar house who pays his debts, well.....that's his fault for being responsible.
"When we buy up this toxic paper, we're in charge. We can do the kind of loan modifications we've been urging [the industry coalition] Hope Now to get done. ... We'll be able to set some standards," Waters said during the floor debate.
Put bluntly, what Maxine wants to do is to buy the mortgage the homeowner took out that they couldn't afford for $400k and reduce it to $200k so the homeowner can "afford" it -- meaning you, the taxpayer, eats that remaining $200k.
Again. You didn't overestimate your capabilities. You didn't take out the mortgage. You didn't start skipping payments. You didn't get in over your head.
But as a taxpayer, you are going to pay for all the people who did. They are going to get free equity, and you are going to get stuck with the bill.
I've not been in a bloggy-updatey mood lately, so when news arrived of rather pointless Internet taunts from someone of which I've never heard before, it could have created some minor ennui.
At the Broward Democratic Party's monthly meeting Tuesday night, it started right at the beginning — with the invocation, delivered by Mike Moskowitz, the state committeeman for the county.
He called for a "blessing on the elk and moose in Alaska who have been decimated by Sarah Barracuda" and included a prayer that Palin doesn't turn her sights on the squirrels in Washington, D.C.
"We pray that her journey takes her across the bridge to nowhere," he said.
The policy allowing failed test scores to be thrown out is just one of several changes to the grading policy that went into effect at the start of this school year.
Other grading policies include:
• For elementary and middle school students, only homework grades "that raise a student's average" will be recorded.
• Students must be given one opportunity to turn in homework assignments that weren't finished on time.
• Parents must be contacted before a teacher records a zero in the grade book.
Of course, this is all done with what could be loosely termed "good intentions".
The new policies were put in place because Dallas has one of the highest dropout rates in the state of Texas.
A small committee of administrators and teachers wrote the new grading policy. The goal, they say, is to keep kids in school and prevent them from getting discouraged and dropping out.
"What we're really interested in is 'Are the children learning?' and if they're not, we need intervention immediately. This system does that," said Jerome Garza, a district school board trustee.
Evidently under the theory that children will get smarter merely by your inflating their grades and ignoring their bad work.
Basic rule of thumb, Mr. Garza: mistakes that are ignored invariably are repeated. When your poor dear cherubs reach the working world, people are not going to be amused by their belief that, if they are late to work, it means that the starting time is wrong and needs to be moved backwards.
If someone does not have the skills or education to receive a high school diploma, they should not get one. When it comes to educational standards, you should be raising the students to them, instead of the exact opposite.
The Harvey Milk Club political action committee held its endorsement meeting at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center on Market Street the other day - and from the sound of things, it was a real head spinner.
The lemony cake on the snack table was laced with marijuana, courtesy of the Access of Love cannabis collective.
It wasn't long before a number of unsuspecting attendees began feeling the effects. When finally told of the secret ingredient, one gentleman angrily demanded an explanation from club leaders.
"It's my birthday," shouted the guest who had brought the cannabis confection.
Oh really? So for your birthday you get to give people drugs without telling them? Ever think that might, you know, cause a problem?
Added irony: why did they leave off the "LGBT Democratic" that lies between "Harvey Milk" and "Club"?
That's the sort of thing that justifies the description "religious wingnut". There are grounds to argue that the ban on churches that claim tax-exempt status carrying out political advocacy is very, very selectively-applied, but to challenge the ban itself is stupid, for a very simple reason: the Constitution guarantees religious freedom, not governmental endorsement.
This article, even though it certainly wasn't intended to be, is one of the best meta-expositions of the whole mentality and circumstance that created the national mortgage crisis.
It comes in two lovely parts.
1) Six paragraphs excoriating Wachovia for allegedly not working with distressed buyers to modify their mortgages by Obama money-laundering organization ACORN and others, only to be undone by the seventh:
No group or individual, however, could point to any statistical evidence that Wachovia was less likely to modify troubled mortgages than any other large lender.
2) A profile of one of the "typical borrowers" to whom Wachovia is allegedly being so mean.
Susan Fallis, a communications professor at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, so far seems to fall into the "get the loans off the books" camp of Wachovia customers. In 2004, she sold the Santa Cruz parking lot her father bought in the 1960s for his mobile home business. She reinvested the approximately $3 million into 20 single-family houses in and around Reno, with a 40 percent down payment on each one.
Sixteen of the loans were Pick-a-Payment mortgages from Wachovia. Because Reno rents dropped as her minimum payments climbed, she is now losing about $7,000 per month. She has asked Wachovia to temporarily lower the interest rate on her loans by less than two percentage points, without asking for any adjustment on the loan principal. The change would enable her to break even, but company representatives have told her allowing it "would require a complete reversal in corporate policy," she said.
If Wachovia doesn't allow any modifications, Fallis expects she will have no choice but to default in the next few months. She said everyone loses in that scenario: Wachovia has to sell 16 homes at a loss, 16 families have to vacate their rental properties and her family loses wealth accrued over more than a generation.
"It's absolutely insane," she said. "I'm about ready to become the Cindy Sheehan of real estate; this is just making me so angry."
Lady, if you want to know the freaking problem, look in the mirror. You bought not one, not two, but twenty houses, leveraged yourself to the hilt to do it, and did so without even thinking that, "Oh, if I can't rent these houses for full price, I'll not be able to pay for them".
So let's see; we have "community organizations" who use taxpayer dollars to pay for political campaigns trying to keep people who leveraged themselves to the hilt to pay for a small village worth of houses from taking any kind of loss for making what can only be described as very risky decisions.
Personally, I've always thought she was quite witty and clever, and certainly smart and capable enough to run for office, but if she wants to tear her own intelligence and competence down for the sake of her party's attacks, that's her business.
It's a shame that such a bright woman can be so browbeaten down that she would be willing to do this to herself, though.
Strike that....not halfwits, just dumb Obama partisans who really think they can cover up and spin for their master in the age of high-speed connectivity.
Exhibit A: their front-page handwringing article about how John McCain did not "thoroughly vet" Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his vice-presidential nominee, quoting several Alaska political figures who claim that they and their "contacts" knew nothing about it.
When you look deeper, though, these local luminaries include:
1) Lyda Green, a Republican and current President of the state Senate -- who has regularly butted heads with Palin and is in the process of "retiring", both because one of Palin's allies is set to kick her butt in the November election AND because she was receiving campaign contributions from VECO -- the same company connected with indicted Senator Ted Stevens.
2) Representative Gail Phillips, who Palin also has butted heads with and ran against in Palin's unsuccessful 2002 bid for lieutenant governor.
3) State Senator Hollis French, the Democrat who is pushing the ethics investigation against Palin
And last, but certainly not least:
4) Randy Ruederich, the Republican Party state chair for Alaska, who was required to pay $12,000 in fines for ethics violations after Palin blew the whistle on him.
Gee, wonder why McCain didn't bother calling any of them or their supporters?
The reason the Times thinks they can get away with this is, of course, their Obama-esque belief that everyone outside their circle is ignorant and stupid; therefore, a little media spin, and away goes Palin.
SEIU spokeswoman Michelle Ringuette said the union "is going to be looking very closely" into allegations this week that the local leadership retaliated against some staff members when they refused to sign a letter in support of Freeman.
A small number of staffers were transferred to positions far from their homes, and about 10 had their union cellphone service terminated after balking at signing the letter, according to three workers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal.
Probably because, in a secret ballot, no one really knows who voted which way -- versus cards, which the union itself collects and thus can use to determine who still needs "convincing".
But then again, how else could the unions channel millions of dollars annually to Democrat candidates, especially when they're doing that instead of funding the worker pensions they promised?
