If For No Other Reason Than He Did It.....

here's mine.Charming, no?

Closed On Account of Wishing For Death

Let today be marked as the official observance of my annual summer cold.

If anyone needs me, just follow the scent of cherry-flavored menthol to whatever dark corner in which I chose to collapse in a fetal position.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's....Hey, Wait a Minute!

Dare to dream, I suppose.

No Surprise There

Chris Crain has discovered, thanks to the efforts of one of his readers, that Democrat Presidential candidate Bill Richardson has a bit of a way with unfortunate Spanish words -- and is more than a bit upset by it.

To me, what Richardson says is irrelevant; I expect nothing but the worst from him, and quite obviously, we got it. But, in my opinion, the real issue exposed by this incident lies elsewhere.

Sixteen months ago, Richardson’s Imus appearance flew under the media
radar, and the Democrat has never publicly acknowledged or apologized for using
the word. That has bothered Denver, Colo.-based Christopher Hubble, a member of the spiritual activist group Soulforce and a blogger.

Hubble was listening to the Imus show that morning, and afterward
alerted Shana Naomi Krochmal, then GLAAD’s media strategist for the Southwest
region.

“I was shocked that an elected official would think he could use a
derogatory epithet simply because he is speaking Spanish and is perhaps assuming
we don’t understand what he is saying,” Hubble wrote later in an email
describing his reaction at the time.

Krochmal told Hubble she would pass the email along to Monica Taher and
Carlos Macias, GLAAD’s “excellent Spanish-language media advocates.” Taher would
say later in an interview for this story that another GLAAD employee decided
instead to go to Equality New Mexico with the information.

“The statewide organization [in New Mexico] asked us not to contact
[Richardson] because that would jeopardize the domestic partnership bill that
the governor was supporting and working on at that time,” Taher said.

Alexis Blizman, executive director of Equality New Mexico (EQNM),
acknowledged that she asked GLAAD not to “go after” Richardson because of his
strong gay rights record, but said the domestic partnership bill was not under
consideration at the time.........

Hubble also asked a friend to inform Media Matters for America about the Imus appearance, and although Media Matters located an MSNBC clip of the exchange between Richardson and Imus and posted it online, the watchdog group took no additional action.

Now, keep in mind that GLAAD, for one, was throwing hissy fits over the use of the word in question and applauding people who called it out as hateful back in 1999 and providing helpful guidebooks on what it actually meant in 2002. Obviously they knew what it meant, and they weren't shy about calling out public figures on such statements -- a statement which I am certain can be said about Equality New Mexico as well.

Not in this case, though.

What is most amazing is that I have never once heard of GLAAD, Media Matters, or any of the innumerable "Equality X" groups refraining from public tantrums, handling the matter in private consultation, and constructing elaborate apologia blaming culture, upbringing, and Santa Claus when a Republican does something they construe to be antigay. Indeed, it's invariably the opposite; no matter how obscure the person or oblique the statement, their reactions to it make the Spanish Inquisition look understanding and tolerant.

But, it seems, let a Democrat use words on a national radio program that they have previously had aneurysms over, and they not only ignore it, but do their best to deep-six it completely. Indeed, had Christopher Hubble not had the courage (and it is courage) to come forward and keep coming forward, what Richardson gleefully replied to Imus would still be on the back shelf of some moldy closet, half past the Nehru jacket and to the right of the mothballs.

Pity we can't put Hubble in charge of GLAAD or "Equality" New Mexico -- and tell the folks who work there now that, if they want to kiss politico ass, they can do it on the politico's dollar.

Ironic Saturday Thought

I am perpetually amused by people who loudly state, "No Republicans or God- believers" in their online profiles.

Especially while reading said profile because its owner sent a message about my being "hot".

Talk Amongst Yourselves......

we're off to New Mexico for the weekend.

Right On Tune....

I never thought I'd see it either....but there are rock stars with a sense of proportion.

There is indeed a very fine line between celebrities who do charity for charitable reasons and those who do it for self-aggrandizement.

Bono and Sharon Stone, in spades, are the former.

Al Gore and his entourage are clearly the latter.

And Of Course.....

Happy Independence Day!

I am marking the occasion of our nation's 231st birthday by a symbolic protest against out-of-control and unsafe exports from and unfair trade practices by China.

Translation: We're killing and rooting out the bamboo that is trying to tear down our back fence.

I Didn't Think They Even Went That Fast

Part of the reason I have avoided buying a Toyota Prius (aside from the fact that I have two serviceable cars already) is that, according to most sources, they are relentlessly non-sporty. According to automotive journalists, one at full throttle sounds like your microwave cooking a hot dog -- not exactly fulfilling to one's fantasies of driving at LeMans.

But apparently the little electron-burners do have some top end.

Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over at about 2:15 a.m., Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino said.

Given that even a Prius is polluting a relatively-enormous amount at that speed, that may be what constitutes rebellion among a Gore child.

Bet he was listening to sexually-explicit music, too.

Hi-Larious Hy-Pocrisy

Sorry for not getting this up sooner, but it's been a busy weekend. Let us just say that the last thing I remember was walking into Macy's to look at new towels.....and everything else is a blank, right up until we came to with paintbrushes in our hands and a redecorated pair of bathrooms.

Anyway, Matt Foreman, of NGLTF fame, whining (as we reported last week) about the possibility of un-gaying babies in utero:

As Matt Foreman from the Task Force put it, “It’s not playing with the number of toes you have; it’s really manipulating your very essence. So many people see gay people only in terms of sexual behavior, as opposed to what sexual orientation is really about, which is how you fit into the world. I don’t want to get mushy, but it’s about your soul.”

Uh huh. But a few weeks before that:

Any woman needs to be able to terminate a pregnancy when her life will be degraded on account of it, no matter her sexual orientation, no matter how she became pregnant.

This is about much more than access to abortion, as important as that is. It is about who controls our bodies and our sexualities. Reproductive freedom and gay rights are inextricably intertwined.

So, to summarize:

1. Babies in utero are beings with souls
2. It is awful and evil to change the sexual orientation of those babies, as it is an affront to their souls.
3. Killing these babies, however, is no affront to their souls at all, and is actually a good thing, an expression of "freedom" that supports "gay rights".
   

Being straight is many things, not all of them pleasant, but I doubt even the most hardcore queen would choose death over it, as Mr. Foreman seems to prefer.

Unless, of course, one's being gay is really the only thing they have going for them.....

Two and Two Make 400

The eagle eye of Jamie over at I Must Be Dreaming captured this.....edifying....picture and story for the morning.

At the same time, on my interminable Caltrain trek, I was reading this.

And people wonder why healthcare costs so much today.

Believe me, I do understand. My genetics are prone to storing fat (badly). My belly grows when I don't get enough sleep or when I have an impending deadline at work. And especially when you're in a hurry, for one of as parsimonious ways as I, that $1 double cheeseburger looks quick, filling, and to be a good value.

But at some point, people, we gotta say....you can blame genetics, environment, and George Bush for the fact that you can't see your feet without a mirror, but the simple fact of the matter is that the biggest influence on you being fat is your own behavior.

That's not a PC stance to take, but it's God's own truth.

Human beings should be able to fit in an MRI with a 350-lb weight limit. People should be able to contain their ass within one airline seat (or folding chair). Seatbelt extenders should be something car dealers order from Detroit, not stocked in quantities of 100 in the parts department.

Unless you are a pregnant woman (for whom all is forgiven) or an NFL lineman, these should be as inexorably written as the Ten Commandments. And if you are outside the boundary lines, you don't NEED an MRI or CT scan to tell you what your health problem is.

Eat less and exercise. As Twatty McGee might put it, "Honey, there just ain't another way."

The Sky Is Falling

Or so certain people would have you believe, given yesterday's Supreme Court ruling against educational districts using race as a determinant in school assignments.

As far as I'm concerned, this decision was a slam-dunk. Students were being told they could not attend their choice of schools because of their race. That was the reason that Brown v. BOE was ever filed in the first place.

But, as always, the moonbats came crawling out of the woodwork to explain why the decision was wrong, wrong, evil, racist, halitosis, wrong.

Especially amusing to me was this quote:

"The 5-4 decision reflects the narrowest of court majorities, but it has the potential to touch the lives of many by making it unlawful for public school officials and their communities to consider race among other factors in taking needed steps to address the resegregation of a critically important institution that is more segregated today than it was 30 years ago."

— Cassandra Butts, senior vice president for domestic policy at the Center for American Progress.

Ummm.....OK....so you're mad at the Court for striking down desegregation plans that have resulted in schools being more segregated than they were when you instituted them in the first place.

And along the same inane lines:

Experts say segregation contributes to the educational achievement gap among poor black and Latino students, because it typically means they are stuck in schools with the highest teacher turnover and the lowest rates of parental involvement.

Which, of course, will be solved by importing some white and Asian kids.

No need to do crazy things like....you know....get the parents involved, which would probably also help with, like, discipline, and might then lead to, maybe, a better classroom environment, which could, uh, make more teachers stay, and kinda sorta, lead to better education.

Here I've thought all these years that we could achieve better schools through such dry and esoteric things as testing and enforcing strong academic standards, when it's just like a seasoning rub for steak; all you need is the correct mix of salt and pepper.

Small Minds Corrupting Smaller Ones

Remember Hamas's psychotic Mickey Mouse lookalike who we reported on previously?

If you thought there was no lower level to which they could sink.....there is.

A Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children's television program was beaten to death in the show's final episode Friday.

In the final skit, "Farfour" was killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour's land. At one point, the mouse called the Israeli a "terrorist."

"Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed "by the killers of children," she added.

.

A Hypocritical UN Bureaucrat? Surely You Jest.....

Witness the height of condescension and self-righteousness over the (justified) collapse of the Senate's amnesty bill.

President Bush's plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants from around the world while fortifying the border collapsed in the U.S. Senate on Thursday.

"This is very bad news for Mexican migrants in the U.S.," said Jorge Bustamante, special rapporteur to the U.N. human rights commission for migrants. "It means the continuation and probably a worsening of the migrants' vulnerable conditions."

Yes, because we all know how wonderfully Bustamante's home country of Mexico treats their illegal immigrants.

Mexico had an extremely strict immigration law for both legal and illegal immigrants until recent changes brought on by a new bill. Certain legal rights are waived in the case of foreigners, such as the right to a deportation hearing or other legal motions. In cases of flagrant delicts, such as a person declaring they entered the country illegally, any citizen may make a citizen's arrest on the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities. Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican companies have the right to acquire ownership of lands, waters, and their appartenances, or to obtain concessions for the exploitation of mines or of waters. Mexicans have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all classes of concessions and for all employment, positions, or commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable. Foreigners can serve in the military only during wartime.

Hobson's Choice

I am of two minds on The Malcontent's poll question for today.

Should I just give up on my ban of North Dallas Thirty?

• Yes
• No

On the one side, yes, I'd love to be able to comment there again. Despite our battles -- or perhaps because of them -- I have enormous respect for Matt and Robbie's insight, savvy, and video capture capabilities.

But on the other hand, "give up" makes it sound like I've just worn them down and bullied my way back onto their blog, as if Matt thinks it's a waste of time to continue blocking and deleting my comments.

I don't want to play that way.

If Matt and Robbie think I can make a reasonable and positive contribution to their community, then that would be grounds for unbanning.

But if they think I won't, but they're tired of dealing with it, then they shouldn't unban me.

Either way, I will continue to link them when needed, praise them copiously when warranted, and criticize when required.

Although I will say that the bar has been significantly raised as to what level actions will "require" criticism.

39.2 Million Suckers

Harsh, yes.

But when one considers this:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first female candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, drew the night's largest cheer when she suggested there was a hint of racism in the way AIDS is addressed in this country.

"Let me just put this in perspective: If HIV-AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34 there would be an outraged, outcry in this country," said the New York senator.

but remembers this:

It is with sadness that I learn about your efforts to block the bipartisan Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act of 2006 (S. 2823) and gut the funding formula reforms supported by 19 of the 20 Senators on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. I must share with you the bewilderment of African Americans throughout the country who cannot understand why you are taking this stand against opening the door to more equitable funding that will chiefly benefit people of color who currently have nowhere to turn but the federal government.

African Americans have overtaken every other ethnic group to become the face of HIV/AIDS in America, and we all have a duty to ensure that every black American living with HIV/AIDS has equal access to the care and support services needed from the federal Ryan White CARE Act to stay healthy and stay alive.

As with most health care problems, people of color are now disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS, much more so than at any time since AIDS emerged in 1981. But the current Ryan White CARE Act funding formulas have never been updated to fit the changing epidemic, creating growing inequities that have thrown many patients onto waiting lists for life-saving drugs because money has run out in their states, particularly in the South.

Women of color in the South are 26 times more likely to be HIV- positive than white females. But a third of all Ryan White CARE Act funding is set aside for large metropolitan areas, and most of the states in the South will never qualify. African Americans make up 19 percent of the South's population, but accounted for over 60 percent of all new AIDS cases in 2003. Eight southern states have to treat the same number of people with HIV/AIDS as other states which get more funding under the outdated formulas.

The growing inequities are obvious and unacceptable. Addressing these gaps requires bipartisan compromise. I urge you to join that effort and not to obstruct it.

Your effort to wipe out the adjustment to the hold-harmless provision in Title I, and leave it at 95 percent for three years, will gut the funding that the reforms were trying to secure. It will render the Title I reforms meaningless and sentence African Americans in the rural South to three more years of waiting lists for AIDS drugs and vital services. People in the rural south don't have the tax base or the state resources to survive without federal help in a crisis. Efforts to gut the federal funding in the committee's mark of S. 2823 shows a disturbing misunderstanding for the health care interests of the whole nation and the whole African American community. The CARE Act is a national program, and it's imperative that we fight to make sure it serves all Americans fairly in 2006.

....harsh words seem more than warranted.

In short, Hillary Clinton is badmouthing and calling racist her own refusal to direct HIV funding to the black communities who need it the most -- because her predominantly-white gay Democrat donors in New York City didn't want to go without Gray Goose at their galas.

But does the black community call her on it? No.

What this makes beyond obvious is that Hillary Clinton is a hypocritical liar who will self-righteously condemn in one venue what she practices and pushes in another.

But really, who is more at fault here, the one who lies to and backstabs the minority group.........or the minority group that says nothing and lets them get away with it?

Pride Schedules of the Bourgeois and Overcommitted

• 6 AM: Wake up, throw on grungies, walk dog
• 6:30 AM: Clean Safeway out of bags of ice and preordered sandwiches
• 7 AM: Arrive at home of volunteer leader at agreed-upon previous time, find volunteer leader barely awake and begging for revival formula infusion from Starbucks
• 8 AM: Set up booth at Civic Center, dodging and watching dance/smelling people who are still lit/stoned/whatever from previous night and who have been so busy entertaining themselves, they forgot to bathe
• 9 AM: Find parking spot reasonably close to teardown entrance (five blocks), run down to Muni (six blocks), run uphill from Muni to where car is parked (six blocks), step on it.
• 10 AM: Freshly showered, shaved, reclothed in aforementioned kilt and hat, making mad dash down hill to BART station
• 10:45 AM: Arrive at float fifteen minutes after start of parade, following SRO (Sardine Room Only) BART ride
• 12:45 PM: Float begins to move (yes, two hours later.)
• 1:15 PM: Finish mad dash down Market from Beale to Eighth Street (a distance of 1.35 miles) while pushing handcart loaded with beads, making air-to-air refueling stops with people handing down buckets of beads from float, and dodging Muni tracks, Muni grates, and assorted drunks not associated with Muni.
• 1:30 PM: Fight way through crowd to booth
• 4 PM: Leave booth to run friends back to house to get luggage
• 5:30 PM: Return to booth. (To put that in perspective, approximately 15 minutes of that gap was actually devoted to time in house and eating. Such is the beauty of Muni scheduling and the fact that a half-million people basically had no other way to get around San Francisco yesterday -- the latter seeming to have zero effect on the former).
• 5:31 PM: Can of sugar-free Red Bull consumed. Later determined to be 7th of 9 for the day.
• 6 PM: Tear down booth
• 7:15 PM: Load up booth -- after hour-plus spent guarding booth contents in collapsing festival that looks like a live performance of West Side Story without music, dancing, or Leonard Bernstein, but with far more intoxication, screaming, and threatening gestures than the original
• 7:45 PM: Finish unloading booth into storage
• 9 PM: Arrive home, thanks to kind friend who notices that bus drivers traversing the Castro are all on simultaneous 45-minute coffee breaks
• 9:15 PM: Walk four blocks down- and uphill to get takeout
• 10 PM: Collapse

Why, you ask?

Because, at the end of the day, we brought joy and happiness to several, eye candy to most, and raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000 for people with HIV/AIDS.

That's why.

Does This Confirm Anyone's Suspicions?

You scored as Hermione Granger, You're one intelligent witch, but you have a hard time believing it and require constant reassurance. You are a very supportive friend who would do anything and everything to help her friends out. Hermione Granger 85% Albus Dumbledore 85% Harry Potter 80% Ron Weasley 65% Ginny Weasley 60% Sirius Black 50% Remus Lupin 50% Draco Malfoy 40% Severus Snape 30% Lord Voldemort 15% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...? created with QuizFarm.com

That, and people have trouble pronouncing and spelling my given name correctly, too.

(h/t Army of Mom)

I Am Proud....To Survive It

As you may or may not know, this is Pride Weekend in San Francisco, which means you're going to be seeing very unusual things on the street.....well, more than you usually see, anyway. 18th and Castro are overflowing with queers out and about, the pink triangle is up on Twin Peaks -- and my legs are already hurting.

If you've always wanted to watch our Pride Parade, but weren't within our receiver range, this is your year; through the miracle of modern technology, it will be featured globally on live webcast on Clear Channel's Shake Radio and on our local station KRON, starting at 10:30 AM Pacific time.

For those of you who prefer women, be sure to arrive on time; for those of you who prefer men, you will have about thirty or so minutes to be fashionably late, since it takes approximately that long for the Dykes to move their bikes, bob cuts, and bared boobies the length of the parade route (they go first -- no questions).

Yes, NDT will be in the parade this year, once again in vest and kilt, and a hat of some sort, working tirelessly to keep kiddies and drunks from running out into the street in front of our float, and probably handing out some sort of bauble to the crowd.

Wave if you spot me. ;)

Confirming the Obvious

Read.

Especially this part:

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

Perhaps the most ironic twist of all is that Fox News, which does not ban political contributions outright and is castigated as being completely anti-Democrat, in fact has many people who contribute substantial amounts to Democrats -- while organizations which ostensibly ban contributions in the name of fairness have virtually no contributions that are made going to Republicans.