Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.
Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.
Remind me again how it is that liberals are the traitors?
Meanwhile, society in Massachusetts, California, Canada, and everywhere else where same-sex marriage is legal casually continues to refuse to fall apart.
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so;
[...]
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
Just sayin'.
[Just to be clear, Card stops one short of saying that he advocates the overthrow of the government himself. He uses one of the classic weasel techniques, attributing the above sentiments, which are clearly in line with his own, to a generalized group, in this case "married people." It's textbook protection-racket talk.]
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp said on Thursday soaring oil prices pushed its second-quarter earnings up 14 percent, again breaking its own record for the highest-ever profit by a U.S. company.
Net income in the quarter rose to $11.68 billion, or $2.22 a share, from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, last year.
Exxon -- the world's largest publicly traded company -- previously set the high-water mark for quarterly earnings in the fourth quarter of last year, when it brought in $11.66 billion.
I literally don't know what to say about this anymore.
Update: I don't know how I missed this from the link below:
Senate conservatives debated yesterday whether to threaten a government shutdown as a way to force a vote on offshore drilling. Congress would have to pass a continuing resolution in September to keep the government functioning, and conservatives are mulling a filibuster.
Last week, guestblogger Juliemania told us all about the plight of Iraqi sprinter Dana Abdul-Razzaq, who was being denied her Olympic hopes because the Iraqi government had disbanded their Olympic Committee.
However, after the International Olympic Committee met with Iraqi officials in Switzerland earlier this week, where Iraq agreed to restore its Olympic Committee, Dana will be allowed, contingent on the restoration, to compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Yay!
You can read more about Dana, and another Iraqi Olympic hopeful, and their struggle to train amidst violence, sectarianism, and lack of resources here. Pretty amazing.
[Thanks to Shaker Everstar for passing along the update.]
Yesterday, the New York Times ran an article entitled "10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List." It's a light-hearted puffy-poo piece "debunking" ideas such as killer hotdogs and an increase in shark attacks. Fine, wev, but a few of the points brought up are obviously there to ease guilt regarding global warming and carbon footprints, and as a result we get this gem:
2. Your car’s planet-destroying A/C.No matter how guilty you feel about your carbon footprint, you don’t have to swelter on the highway to the beach. After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.
I'm not big on using the A/C in my car, but I know I'm most tempted to use it when I'm stuck in stop-and-go traffic in the sweltering heat. I'd be willing to say that this goes for most other people, yes? And exactly how often do you find yourself driving at 65 miles per hour on the highway? I know that here in the Chicago area, we've got incredible traffic problems, not to mention constant road construction that causes the entire area to be in a neverending state of stop-and-go traffic, even on the highway. (I'm thinking such cities as Manhattan and L.A. might have similar problems, ahem.) When you're creeping along at 5mph, something tells me that "aerodynamic drag" isn't using as much gas as your straining, creeping SUV with the A/C roaring*. Hell, I drive a Mini, and when I try to use the A/C in crawling traffic, you can practically see the gas level dropping before your eyes.
And, of course, there's never any traffic on the way to the beach in the summer.
I suppose I'm just splitting hairs, but this "don't worry about it" crap irritates me. If people want to use air conditioning in their car, that's fine by me, but please don't present its use as nothing to "worry" about. I have further annoyance because I know this study, and this sloppy article, are exactly the sort of thing that global warming deniers love to point to as proof that we have nothing to worry about. "Hey, tree-hugger! Better roll up your windows; you're killing the planet!" You know this will be on Limbaugh's show any minute now.
*(Maybe it's just me, but when the weather is beautiful, I love driving with the windows down. I'm always shocked by the amount of people driving around with their windows up and a/c cranked when it's a perfect high 70s, low 80's day with no humidity. Don't people breathe real air anymore?)
I've got a new piece up at Comment is Free America, "Sex is messy," about what being pro-choice really means:
In a perfect world, every woman of child-bearing age would only have consensual sex in the optimum circumstances - when she is emotionally and financially prepared to handle any and all possible personal or physical consequences, with a man with whom there are no secrets and perfectly aligned expectations, using, if she does not want to get pregnant, whatever form of contraception she prefers, and knowing, should that contraception fail her, that she has access to medical or surgical abortion, or that her partner will be on board if she decides to keep the pregnancy, and that no fiscal or other disaster will befall them in the interim, that the foetus will be healthy—
But, of course, we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world of broken hearts – and broken condoms. And so we need to deal with the complexity that accompanies imperfection.
[Kelly Ramey of High Ridge, Mo.] bought a bag of [Cheetos at] a local convenience store, and inside the bag she felt something unusual.
"I looked at that and I thought, 'Oh my that looks like Jesus on the cross.' It was just like wow," she says.
Family and friends agree with her. Her daughter says, "I thought it was pretty cool." But Kelly Ramey's friend, Sue Edelman, sees something different. "I looked again and I thought a horse head."
Sue Edelman, you are going to hell.
Kelly doesn't plan to sell the Cheeto and will keep it in a safe deposit box.
Cheesus Christ, Kelly! Didn't you learn anything from Our Lord and Savior Cheesus being confined once before? Next thing you know—
I said "Jesus, I know you want me to lose weight somehow. Please, Lord, give me a sign to help me find the courage to do what I need to. I'm so weak – HELP ME, JESUS!!"
And that's when the Miracle happened. I opened the bag, full of guilt, and pulled out a Cheetoh, and THERE WAS LORD JESUS STARING ME IN THE FACE!!!
Something tells me the finder of Cheesus the Third are using Our Munchy Messiah to make mock of fatties. Cheesus will not be pleased.
He'll be back. You can count on that. Cheesus will keep returning until he falls into the hands of someone who appreciates his power and greatness, who will not imprison him, nor use him for nefarious purposes.
Keep your eyes peeled, Shakers. Cheesus just may come to one of you.
There's no reason to include Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in this ad. None. It hangs on the word "celebrity" being included, which means it could have just as well been Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Anyway, all the footage is from Obama's Berlin speech, not the red carpet. This is absolutely meant to juxtapose images of white women with images of a black man.
Which is not only accurate, but underlines the misogynist superfluity of Josh Marshall's ridiculous description of Spears and Hilton as "oversexed and/or promiscuous young white women." Anyway…
Once again, McCain reveals himself to be eminently, shockingly willing to embrace the heinous tactics of the Bush team that he once deplored. That anyone still considers this guy an honorable rogue, a maverick, or a hero is beyond laughable. He doesn't possess any lingering shred of integrity, and his alleged independent streak came to a screeching halt as it collided with the stumbling zombie corpse of his credibility the moment he stood in New Hampshire with his arm around the shoulders of the man whose operatives called his wife a junky and his adopted daughter illegitimate. He may have been honorable and brave once upon a time, but he’s not anymore.
And if this advert doesn't prove that once and for all, I don't know what will.
[H/T to Shaker Interrobang, in comments. Shaker Samanthab. also mentioned it here. Thanks!]
So, just about a year ago, I wrote this piece about Bill Maher's upcoming film "Religulous," which I still maintain sounds less like a cross between religion and ridiculous than Caligula and ridiculous—a perfect name for a Bill Maher project, but I digress.
I said at the time that (totalfuckingmisogybagrape-jokingasshole) Maher is not an atheist, but an agnostic anti-religionist, that I will never understand the compulsion to evangelize a lack of belief (separate altogether from speaking against legislated religion, of which I am in support), and that the movie sounded like complete shit.
Well, here's a "leaked" clip of the film—in which, as Tracey (who gets the hat tip) notes, Maher magnanimously "take[s] a break from oppressing women in the U.S. long enough to try (poorly) to make a point about how women are oppressed in other parts of the world"—and it's precisely as dire as I expected:
[Transcript below.]
I mean, wow. What an awesome crusader against the tyranny of religion. Who knew that freedom of oppression was down the same road as fag and bitch jokes?
Snort.
Maher: Woo! Boy, it's good to get outta the cold and into a burka store, huh?
Woman with Maher Whose Name I Don't Know: Yeah.
Maher: The fashion industry, the Islamic fashion industry—you feel that's been hobbled at all by the fact that homosexuality is a sin punishable by death?
M. Hasan, Store Owner: Quran is the only book where women are given equal rights.
Maher: Women are equal in Islam?
[Store owner gives Maher blank stare.]
Maher: Okay. We in the West have seen so many pictures of clothing that's a lot more severe than that; I used to call them the beekeeper suits.
Hasan: In Iraq, people are wearing, even some men are wearing these just to cover themselves—
[Crosstalk.]
Maher: But if I can admit that, even in the Western culture, our—Judaism, Christianity—horribly keep women down, it's almost like religion was created as a way to keep women in their place. [Turns to female companion and snaps.] Now go get me a coffee. No, I'm kidding!
[Laughter and touching her shoulder. She turns away while he looks into the camera and grins.]
Well, actually $482 billion dollars plus the $80 billion in war costs the White House left out in violation of a Congressional mandate. Oh, and apparently we should also add unemployment costs, Medicare fees, the cost of that new housing bill parked in the garage.
You know what, this is like a bitch trying to determine my personal deficit without factoring in monthly soul food expenditures or the cost of fueling up Miss Sister Girl Cabrio.
Blink. Anyhoo, we’re actually talking about a deficit closer to $600 billion dollars when you add in all the shit Scooter B. and his 'we'll just hide it under the mash potatoes!' minions decided not to...and that’s a whole lotta motherfucking cabbage.
Here’s where it get’s ugly.
See, there are those who like to say that the 2009 projected deficit isn’t that big of a deal because as a percentage of the gross domestic product it implies a ratio of around 3.3 percent which is below previous years and blah, blah motherfucking blah.
White House budget director Jim Nussle gave forth the following statement. “These projected deficits are both manageable and temporary if spending is kept in check, the tax burden remains low and the economy continues to grow.”
A bitch reads that statement and sees code for those vicious assaults on the masses these people like to call deficit reduction plans.
I can almost write this script my own damn self.
Oh, someone could stand up and shout "Last Call, motherfuckers!" on the federal pork binge…or suggest that mayhap we’ve written a war spending check our asses can’t cover…or take a step towards those sanctified holy relic tax cuts that no one I know qualifies for.
But no, these rancid motherfuckers intend to tap a funding vein in the social programs that are already writhing on the floor in wretched agony begging to be put out of their misery. They’ll stand above those pitiful used-to-be-programs....mmmhmmm, like Jack the Ripper....and slash away whilst mumbling maniacally about killing off entitlement programs and how small governments really turn them on.
Ugh.
Someone please tell me that the people who voted for this rancidity...who opened the door and invited the fiend inside our house...Lawd, tell me that they have learned something from this fuck up that just keeps on fucking!
The House Judiciary Committee has just voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt for failing to respond to a subpoena to the committee.
The final vote was 20 ayes and 14 nays. With Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) voting "absolutely, 100% aye."
In a memo on the Full Committee meeting, Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) summarized the facts surrounding Rove's refusal to even appear before the committee and assert executive privilege:
Mr. Rove has refused even to appear before the Committee and assert whatever privileges that he believes may apply to his testimony, relying on excessively broad and legally insufficient claims of "absolute immunity" - never recognized by any court - in declining to appear.
Odds are that he will never see the inside of a courtroom, much less a jail cell, but hey, I can dream, can't I?
It may come as no surprise that yet another member of the "Family Values" party has been caught in an embarrassing legal snare.
Peter Hong, a longtime Republican operative in Minnesota, was arrested Wednesday afternoon on a charge of soliciting prostitution in St. Paul.
..."Hong has been in and out of the Republican side of Minnesota politics since the mid-1990s, when he surfaced as a genial bulldog campaign press secretary for former Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn. He served as a spokesman for Gov. Tim Pawlenty's campaign in 2002 and for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Minnesota in 2004.
Of course, that was so long ago, right? I mean, 2004? Practically ancient history! Oh, whoops...
Most recently, Hong was a point person for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
So, of course, Hong is still getting support from his "family," right? Not so much.
Gina Countryman, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Republican Party, said Hong is not currently working for any Minnesota candidate.
We in Minnesota are SOOOO looking forward to hosting the GOP convention in September! Pawlenty! McCain! Oh, joy.
Something tells me Mr. Hong doesn't have a golden ticket for the event...
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