Clinton Hits a Home Run

I rarely use baseball metaphors, but the only thing I can say about President Bill Clinton's speech last night at the Democratic National Convention was "he hit it out of the park".  Looking healthy and chipper, the former president had the crown on their feet through much of his speech, and hammered home the point that if we are going to move forward, we must reelect President Barack Obama.  His speech is below, if you missed it it's wrth a read.

We're here to nominate a President, and I've got one in mind.

I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. A man who ran for President to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before the election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression. A man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs were created and saved, there were still millions more waiting, trying to feed their children and keep their hopes alive.

 I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama.

I want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party.

In Tampa, we heard a lot of talk about how the President and the Democrats don't believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everyone to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy.

The Republican narrative is that all of us who amount to anything are completely self-made. One of our greatest Democratic Chairmen, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself, but it ain't so.

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."

Who's right? Well since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What's the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 million!

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats. After all, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to my home state to integrate Little Rock Central High and built the interstate highway system. And as governor, I worked with President Reagan on welfare reform and with President George H.W. Bush on national education goals. I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.

Through my foundation, in America and around the world, I work with Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are focused on solving problems and seizing opportunities, not fighting each other.
When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. After all, nobody's right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day. All of us are destined to live our lives between those two extremes. Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn't see it that way. They think government is the enemy, and compromise is weakness.

One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation. He appointed Republican Secretaries of Defense, the Army and Transportation. He appointed a Vice President who ran against him in 2008, and trusted him to oversee the successful end of the war in Iraq and the implementation of the recovery act. And Joe Biden did a great job with both. He appointed Cabinet members who supported Hillary in the primaries. Heck, he even appointed Hillary! I'm so proud of her and grateful to our entire national security team for all they've done to make us safer and stronger and to build a world with more partners and fewer enemies. I'm also grateful to the young men and women who serve our country in the military and to Michelle Obama and Jill Biden for supporting military families when their loved ones are overseas and for helping our veterans, when they come home bearing the wounds of war, or needing help with education, housing, and jobs.

President Obama's record on national security is a tribute to his strength, and judgment, and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship.

He also tried to work with Congressional Republicans on Health Care, debt reduction, and jobs, but that didn't work out so well. Probably because, as the Senate Republican leader, in a remarkable moment of candor, said two years before the election, their number one priority was not to put America back to work, but to put President Obama out of work.

Senator, I hate to break it to you, but we're going to keep President Obama on the job!

In Tampa, the Republican argument against the President's re-election was pretty simple: we left him a total mess, he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.

In order to look like an acceptable alternative to President Obama, they couldn't say much about the ideas they have offered over the last two years. You see they want to go back to the same old policies that got us into trouble in the first place: to cut taxes for high income Americans even more than President Bush did; to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts; to increase defense spending two trillion dollars more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they'll spend the money on; to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor kids. As another President once said – there they go again.

I like the argument for President Obama's re-election a lot better. He inherited a deeply damaged economy, put a floor under the crash, began the long hard road to recovery, and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses, and lots of new wealth for the innovators.

Are we where we want to be? No. Is the President satisfied? No. Are we better off than we were when he took office, with an economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month. The answer is YES.

I understand the challenge we face. I know many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. Though employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend and even housing prices are picking up a bit, too many people don't feel it.

I experienced the same thing in 1994 and early 1995. Our policies were working and the economy was growing but most people didn't feel it yet. By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history.

President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. No President – not me or any of my predecessors could have repaired all the damage in just four years. But conditions are improving and if you'll renew the President's contract you will feel it.

I believe that with all my heart.

President Obama's approach embodies the values, the ideas, and the direction America must take to build a 21st century version of the American Dream in a nation of shared opportunities, shared prosperity and shared responsibilities.

So back to the story. In 2010, as the President's recovery program kicked in, the job losses stopped and things began to turn around.

The Recovery Act saved and created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95% of the American people. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the President's jobs plan costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here's another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, Congressional Republicans zero.

Over that same period, more than more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created under President Obama – the first time manufacturing jobs have increased since the 1990s.

The auto industry restructuring worked. It saved more than a million jobs, not just at GM, Chrysler and their dealerships, but in auto parts manufacturing all over the country. That's why even auto-makers that weren't part of the deal supported it. They needed to save the suppliers too. Like I said, we're all in this together.
Now there are 250,000 more people working in the auto industry than the day the companies were restructured. Governor Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. So here's another jobs score: Obama two hundred and fifty thousand, Romney, zero.

The agreement the administration made with management, labor and environmental groups to double car mileage over the next few years is another good deal: it will cut your gas bill in half, make us more energy independent, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and add another 500,000 good jobs.

President Obama's "all of the above" energy plan is helping too – the boom in oil and gas production combined with greater energy efficiency has driven oil imports to a near 20 year low and natural gas production to an all time high. Renewable energy production has also doubled.

We do need more new jobs, lots of them, but there are already more than three million jobs open and unfilled in America today, mostly because the applicants don't have the required skills. We have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are being created in a world fueled by new technology. That's why investments in our people are more important than ever. The President has supported community colleges and employers in working together to train people for open jobs in their communities. And, after a decade in which exploding college costs have increased the drop-out rate so much that we've fallen to 16th in the world in the percentage of our young adults with college degrees, his student loan reform lowers the cost of federal student loans and even more important, gives students the right to repay the loans as a fixed percentage of their incomes for up to 20 years. That means no one will have to drop-out of college for fear they can't repay their debt, and no one will have to turn down a job, as a teacher, a police officer or a small town doctor because it doesn't pay enough to make the debt payments. This will change the future for young Americans.

I know we're better off because President Obama made these decisions.

That brings me to health care.

The Republicans call it Obamacare and say it's a government takeover of health care that they'll repeal. Are they right? Let's look at what's happened so far. Individuals and businesses have secured more than a billion dollars in refunds from their insurance premiums because the new law requires 80% to 85% of your premiums to be spent on health care, not profits or promotion. Other insurance companies have lowered their rates to meet the requirement. More than 3 million young people between 19 and 25 are insured for the first time because their parents can now carry them on family policies. Millions of seniors are receiving preventive care including breast cancer screenings and tests for heart problems. Soon the insurance companies, not the government, will have millions of new customers many of them middle class people with pre-existing conditions. And for the last two years, health care spending has grown under 4%, for the first time in 50 years.

So are we all better off because President Obama fought for it and passed it? You bet we are.
There were two other attacks on the President in Tampa that deserve an answer. Both Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan attacked the President for allegedly robbing Medicare of 716 billion dollars. Here's what really happened. There were no cuts to benefits. None. What the President did was save money by cutting unwarranted subsidies to providers and insurance companies that weren't making people any healthier. He used the saving to close the donut hole in the Medicare drug program, and to add eight years to the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. It's now solvent until 2024. So President Obama and the Democrats didn't weaken Medicare, they strengthened it.

When Congressman Ryan looked into the TV camera and attacked President Obama's "biggest coldest power play" in raiding Medicare, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. You see, that 716 billion dollars is exactly the same amount of Medicare savings Congressman Ryan had in his own budget.
At least on this one, Governor Romney's been consistent. He wants to repeal the savings and give the money back to the insurance companies, re-open the donut hole and force seniors to pay more for drugs, and reduce the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by eight years. So now if he's elected and does what he promised Medicare will go broke by 2016. If that happens, you won't have to wait until their voucher program to begins in 2023 to see the end Medicare as we know it.

But it gets worse. They also want to block grant Medicaid and cut it by a third over the coming decade. Of course, that will hurt poor kids, but that's not all. Almost two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for seniors and on people with disabilities, including kids from middle class families, with special needs like, Downs syndrome or Autism. I don't know how those families are going to deal with it. We can't let it happen

Now let's look at the Republican charge that President Obama wants to weaken the work requirements in the welfare reform bill I signed that moved millions of people from welfare to work.

Here's what happened. When some Republican governors asked to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama Administration said they would only do it if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20%. You hear that? More work. So the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform's work requirement is just not true. But they keep running ads on it. As their campaign pollster said "we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." Now that is true. I couldn't have said it better myself – I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad.

Let's talk about the debt. We have to deal with it or it will deal with us. President Obama has offered a plan with 4 trillion dollars in debt reduction over a decade, with two and a half dollars of spending reductions for every one dollar of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.

I think the President's plan is better than the Romney plan, because the Romney plan fails the first test of fiscal responsibility: The numbers don't add up.

It's supposed to be a debt reduction plan but it begins with five trillion dollars in tax cuts over a ten-year period. That makes the debt hole bigger before they even start to dig out. They say they'll make it up by eliminating loopholes in the tax code. When you ask "which loopholes and how much?," they say "See me after the election on that."

People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets. What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic. If they stay with a 5 trillion dollar tax cut in a debt reduction plan – the – arithmetic tells us that one of three things will happen: 1) they'll have to eliminate so many deductions like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving that middle class families will see their tax bill go up two thousand dollars year while people making over 3 million dollars a year get will still get a 250,000 dollar tax cut; or 2) they'll have to cut so much spending that they'll obliterate the budget for our national parks, for ensuring clean air, clean water, safe food, safe air travel; or they'll cut way back on Pell Grants, college loans, early childhood education and other programs that help middle class families and poor children, not to mention cutting investments in roads, bridges, science, technology and medical research; or 3) they'll do what they've been doing for thirty plus years now – cut taxes more than they cut spending, explode the debt, and weaken the economy. Remember, Republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before I took office and doubled it after I left. We simply can't afford to double-down on trickle-down.

President Obama's plan cuts the debt, honors our values, and brightens the future for our children, our families and our nation.

My fellow Americans, you have to decide what kind of country you want to live in. If you want a you're on your own, winner take all society you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities – a "we're all in it together" society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. If you want every American to vote and you think its wrong to change voting procedures just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters, you should support Barack Obama. If you think the President was right to open the doors of American opportunity to young immigrants brought here as children who want to go to college or serve in the military, you should vote for Barack Obama. If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American Dream is alive and well, and where the United States remains the leading force for peace and prosperity in a highly competitive world, you should vote for Barack Obama.

I love our country – and I know we're coming back. For more than 200 years, through every crisis, we've always come out stronger than we went in. And we will again as long as we do it together. We champion the cause for which our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor – to form a more perfect union.

If that's what you believe, if that's what you want, we have to re-elect President Barack Obama.

God Bless You – God Bless America.

The Republican Infomercial

Now that the "event" is over I guess it's time to put some perspective on it.  The "it" of course is the Republican National Convention.  Delayed by Hurricane Isaac, the convention was compressed into 3 days instead of four, and judging from the ratings, America was grateful.  The fact that the cable television show, "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Child" beat out the network GOP convention coverage should send a clear message.  Nobody cares!

Not that nobody cares about the election, it's just that since the candidate and his running mate were preordained and the platform was hammered out already, little more remained but a few minor votes on rules changes and a three night long infomercial for the Republicans as they tried to make Mitt Romney look like a "man of the people".

Mitt Romney is anything but a man of the people.  He is a millionaire money-shifter who understands nothing about what average American's  lives are like.  His world is one of buying and gutting companies and dressage horses.  Most folks in this country don't even know what "dressage" is, and they are too busy trying to make a living and provide for their families to care.

The Republican Infomercial was notable for it's absences rather than it's speakers.  Not surprisingly they trouped out every Republican woman they could find to try to make Mitt look appealing to the female voter.  The big hole, no pun intended, was the absence of "Mama Grizzly" Sarah Palin.  You would think the former VP candidate would rate a few minutes of podium time.  Sarah was even pulled off Fox News prior to the convention, once again proving that Fox is simply a propaganda arm of the GOP.  The Republicans don't want you remembering their folly of not vetting a candidate for VP, and their obvious tokenism of selecting a woman.  Apparently, just any woman would do as long as she looked good on TV.

The other gaping hole was the former president George W. Bush.  His name was never spoken, and his voice was conspicuously absent.  The Democrats are featuring former president Bill Clinton as their keynote speaker, but the GOP is trying to rewrite history and ignore that Bush ever existed.  And that is the real issue.

The GOP is all style over substance.  Their platform is filled with wacko right-wing ideology but their candidate is trying to look like a nice guy.  They are counting on the press being passive and the public being stupid.  They are wrong.  This election cycle the press has woken from their slumber and actually is doing their job, reporting facts, not just what people said.  CBS, CNN and amazingly even someone at Fox called Paul Ryan on his monumental lie-fest that was his acceptance speech. 

Thanks to the Occupy movement and the fresh memory of how bad the Bush years were, Americans have begun to look closely at politicians and not just their outward appearance.  I sincerely hope this trend continues right through the election and beyond.  It's time we all got serious about our government, and not just during election years.

Bring Back the Sideshow!

"Hi-ya lookie lookie lookie, I got it here and I'm going to show it to you free!.  Get right up to the edge of the stage cause we're gonna have a free show right here on the Midway. The management of the fair has asked that we try to keep the midway clear,so step right up.

Now I am going to bring out one of the amazing people from our show. People who are so strange you might not believe they are real, but let me reassure you they are all real, live and you'll see them all on the inside of the big Side Show tent."

That was one of the opening pitches by a sideshow talker.  He was building a"tip" or a crowd that later he would "turn"into ticket buyers for the sideshow. Today you rarely hear that call on the midway.  Sideshows and "freak" shows have fallen out of fashion and long been considered politically incorrect.  Some fairs even banned them, but never fear curiosity seekers, the freak show is alive and well on cable TV.

The 21st century freak show is "Reality TV" and though that used to be a metaphor, it is becoming a more accurate description day by day.

Now first of all I am not fond of the word freak, which used to refer to people born with spectacular deformities.  I prefer the more accurate term "special people", because aside from an abnormality through genetics or accident of birth, they are folks like you and me. 

At one time the only way for people such as these to earn a living was to put themselves on display for the curious who would pay to see them. Many special people made good livings as entertainers and moved from the sideshow to the vaudeville stage, even movies.  Today, special people are mainstreamed, and that is a good thing. They go to college, raise families and live relatively ordinary lives without the ballyhoo of the midway.

Enter television,with its voracious appetite for novelty and pretty soon the sideshow is back in full swing. Shows about little people, obese people, and yes even conjoined twins are now box office bonanzas for networks and cable outlets alike.

Even the sideshow acts that were once called "working acts"or "made freaks" are now stars of their own shows.  The tattooed men and women are the most obvious with shows about tattoo artists, but less obvious are shows with the strangest people of all, kiddy beauty pageant contestants and their "freak" parents.

Personally I liked the side show better.  The performers were honest about their role and as an audience member we were honest in our curiosity.  Now it's hidden behind the mask of education and documentary, but add some cotton candy and popcorn and you might as well be inside the big tent.

Hi-ya lookie lookie lookie!

Solar Powered Toilets - Shining New Light on Waste Disposal

Sorry for the pun, but it seemed appropriate.

The story is very exciting, or at least as exciting as waste disposal can be.  To date, most sewage disposal, as in waste from toilets, goes into a city system and is processed at a large waste treatment facility.  The process is costly, inefficient and wastes lots of water.  The alternative septic tank used in rural locations has a number of drawbacks as well.

Enter the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  They offered a prize for research groups to reinvent the toilet.  The idea was to make an affordable, efficient and a model that could be used world wide in developing countries with little or no waste treatment facilities.  A tall order for a stinky problem.

Never fear, the smart folks at Caltech rose to the challenge and flushed away the competition  with their solar-powered toilet.  The unit takes waste sewage and converts it into hydrogen gas, pure water and fertilizer.  Nice trick.  The video below explains.

Is Toddlers and Tiaras Disguised Child Abuse?

I despise toddler beauty pageants.  Not just because they sexualize per-pubescent girls, but because they are grooming these kids to be walking disasters when they grow up.

This video on Young Turks shows the really weird side of this whole "reality TV" mess and especially the sad, odd and somewhat frightening example of "Honey Boo-Boo Child".  Watch it and tell me what the producers of that show and the kids parents are doing isn't child abuse?  If she lives to be 16 I will be amazed.

WWII Ended 67 Years Ago

I was surprised when I missed the date.  67 years ago in 1945 on August 15, the Japanese signed the documents of surrender and ended the conflict which saw the most horrific weapons mankind has ever produced unleashed on the world. 

Normally this date is one I like to commemorate not only for the end of the war, but to remind myself how destructive we humans can be.  The coup de grâce of the conflict was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the only two atomic bombs ever used in a military conflict.  Once the world saw the death and destruction they caused, these weapons have remained unused in actual combat, and for that I thank God.

For more info on putting an end to nuclear weapons visit:
http://www.gensuikin.org/english/index.html

It is a sad thing the we don't mark this date anymore in our country.  Not so much with celebration, but with a somber remembrance of all who died and the sacrifices made to end the conflict.

Just in case anyone doesn't know what  a nuclear weapon can do, I added this photo of a mass grave that was hurriedly prepared in Hiroshima as the destruction was being cleaned away.  This is the real face of nuclear weapons, and it is a face that we must never forget.

Also, we must not forget the hubris and blind ambition that started the conflict as well.  Germany and Japan sought to expand their influence and conquer the continents of Europe and Asia.  Their ruthlessness appalled the world.  It is unfortunate that it took an act of equally ruthless destruction to put the final end to the war.

For all those who died, on both sides of the war, it is fitting that we remember them, applaud their bravery and morn for their losses.  Never forget.

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity"

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

The NRA and Gun Violence

This week after the horrific shooting at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin comes another story of crazy gun owners.  This one is in Westlake, Ohio where a man entered a movie theater playing the Dark Knight with a bag of guns and ammo.

A quick thinking policeman saw the man who was seated in the back row of the theater.  When he asked to examine the man's bag, he found he was carrying guns and ammunition, along with a first aid kit.  The man, Scott Smith was arrested and his house was searched.  There officers found a cache of guns, pistols and shotguns as well as thousands of rounds of ammo and a gas mask.

Come on folks, isn't it time we really got honest about this mess?  We have unstable people stockpiling guns and ammunition with visions of mass murder in their heads.  We have white-power fanatics using automatic and semi-automatic weapons to kill people strictly because they wear turbans.  We have idiots with orange dyed hair donning assault gear and blasting innocent people in movie theaters.

We also have the NRA.

Now, I have owned guns in the past, and I enjoyed target shooting.  I understand people like to hunt and shoot  for sport.  That's just fine with me, but what the hell do people need with semi-automatic assault weapons and body armor?  How can we interpret the second amendment to include shoulder mounted rocket launchers like some judges do? 

The NRA has far too much political clout and I suspect they are supported not by sportsmen, but by gun manufacturers.  Politicians need to do some serious push-back to the kookie arguments of the NRA and address the epidemic of gun violence in our country.  Rather than feeling safe with all these weapons out there, I feel very vulnerable.  I no longer own guns.  Mine were stolen when my house was burglarized and so more guns got in the hands of criminals.  We have to tell the NRA that we will no longer allow them to bully the country so gun manufacturers can reap the profits of selling military weaponry to every Joe Schmo who wants to be a Rambo.

Get real people!

Russian Flash Mob for Wedding Party - Puttin' on the Ritz!

Obviously staged flash mob, but really fun just the same. Might have been for a wedding reception? My Russian is rusty. Thanks to Nina Hartley for posting this on Twitter! Made me smile.

Prophecy or Dumb Luck?

Handcuffed Suspect Commits Suicide? Why I Don't Buy It!

This one goes in the WTF file for sure.  Jonesboro, Arkansas Police had a suspect in custody and they claim he committed suicide while in custody.

Now take this into consideration.  His hands were handcuffed behind his back and he was in the back seat of a police car.  He was arrested for possession of $10 worth of marijuana.  The arresting officers say the apparently missed a gun he had on him in two searches before being shut in the back of the police car.

Even the police chief has trouble answering how a suspect with hands cuffed behind himself in the backseat of a police car managed to shoot himself in the temple.  This is either an example of a contortionist at work or it's a coverup.  I would apply Occam's Razor to this one and suggest that the arresting officers shot him then concocted the incredulous story of the suicide.

How a Bill Becomes Law - ALEC Style

Lower IQ Related To Racism

To anyone growing up in the south this should come as no surprise.  We have all had run-ins with our fellow Southerner's whose racism is only eclipsed by their "kicked in the head" stupidity.  Still, it's nice to get validation of my experience.

A new study published in Psychological Science shows people who score lower on IQ tests in childhood are more likely to become bigoted as adults.  The same holds true for conservative beliefs.

Why?  Well, I had postulated that it was because conservative ideologies tend to see the world in simple. black and white terms.  That rigid structure appeals to the intellectually incuroious, and the study bears that out as well.

Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist said in an interview, "Reality is complicated and messy. Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies."

So next time you are arguing with a conservative, be sure to use small words and simple sentences, otherwise they will just look at you with a blank expression. 

If It Looks Racist, and Smells Racist, It's Probably Racist.

Our friends at the ACLU released a whole lot of information surrounding the Arizona immigration laws and they aren't pretty.

They are emails to and from former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce (R) and they make a good case that the "show Me Your Papers" law SB 1070 was motivated by racial hatred.  These emails were obtained as part of potential evidence to prove to a federal judge that the law should not go into effect.

A few choice quotes:

“Last week, Denver’s illegal aliens sang our national anthem in Spanish and bastardized the words of OUR country’s most sacred song.”

"Corruption is the mechanism by which Mexico operates. Its people spawn more corruption wherever they go because it is their only known way of life.”

“We are much like the Titanic as we inbreed millions of Mexico’s poor, the world’s poor and we watch our country sink.”

More here at Think Progress if you can stomach it.

Tennessee Ordered to Stop Blocking Muslims from Worshiping in Mosque

Ah Tennessee!  The state that gave us "Don't Say Gay" legislation has finally been bitch slapped by a federal judge and told to join the 21st century.

You wee the affluent suburb of  Murfreesboro is home to a new mosque.  The congregation of that mosque had hoped to worship there starting today at sundown, the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan. The problem is the good citizens of that town have long sought to prevent the opening of the Islamic Center.  The residents filed a lawsuit alleging that Islam was "not a real religion" back in 2010.  Failing that, they convinced a local judge that the mosque’s building permits were invalid because the congregation had not provided “adequate public notice”. 

That is where the Federal Judge stepped in.  He ruled that the county judge could not hold the Murfreesboro mosque to the separate standard he had created in his May ruling.  In other words, they deserved equal protection under the law.  That is a novel idea in Tennessee apparently.

The Mosque will open for it's congregation tonight as scheduled.  However, I suspect there will be a crowd of ignorant mean-spirited "hillbilly kristshuns" on had with offensive picket signs and perhapse worse.  I pray for the safety of everyone involved.

Full disclosure:  my grandfather was from Tennessee and I'm from Texas, where we have our own industrial strength rednecks and idiots, so don't go flaming me for my opinions as some kind of "northerner".

Climate Change Story You Need to Watch

This in-depth report from Al Jazeera is the kind of news stories US networks should aspire to.  Great reporting and a story eveyone on earth needs to see.  I wish we had Al Jazeera on DirectTV in the US.  Hell, I wish we had Comedy Central on DirectTV!

Romney Lies - Again! This Time it May be a Crime

Oh it's going to be repeated over and over, but how can you avoid it when it's the truth.  Mitt Romney lies.  And I know there are those who will say, "all politicians lie", but not like this.

Romney filed government documents that show he remained CEO of Bain Capital three years after he says he did.  Why does this matter?  Well these are SEC documents showing he was the firm's "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president."  Meanwhile in a Massachusetts financial disclosure he filed in 2003 showed he was executive in control in 2001 and 2002.

That contradicts what the Romney campaign and Bain have been feeding to the press.  Like this one:

"Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital in February 1999. He has had no involvement in the management or investment activities of Bain Capital, or with any of its portfolio companies, since that time."

Except according to legal documents filed with the SEC it isn't true.   A lie!

Why does this matter?  Well if someone saw the SEC filings and invested in Bain because they believed Romney was CEO then  it is deliberate misrepresentation by the company and Romney and that is not legal.

The intricacies of the lie are myriad, but the substance is simple.  Romney stayed around at Bain while it bankrupted companies and outsourced thousands of jobs.  He either maintained control of Bain Capital or he lied about it.  He lied to the SEC or to the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission and either way it's serious.

Fixing Beliefs - Texas GOP Promotes Ignorance in Their Platform

I was raised to be intellectually curious.  My family encouraged me to investigate, explore and learn both with their guidance and on my own.  As some of you know, my father was a research scientist, microbiologist and hematologist, so I spent a lot of time hanging around laboratories growing up.  Asking “why” was a natural to me as breathing.

Most of my friends when I was a child also shared some of that intellectual curiosity; it was taught to us in school and at home.  Critical thinking skills were as important as learning facts and figures. It is what an education is all about, teaching children not just to recite their ABC’s but to actually reason and think on their own.

That is why this clause in the GOP platform struck me as uniquely bone headed and inconceivable.

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

Read that gobbledygook again and let the meaning really sink in. 

The idea that challenging students “fixed beliefs” is something bad really floors me.  I believe it was Socrates who taught his students by asking questions.  Questioning their “fixed beliefs”.  That is a technique that worked very well over 2000 years ago and seems to have been the foundation for science, philosophy and even theology for lo these many years.  That’s why when the great State of Texas GOP want to toss out the entire purpose of scholarship I get a little testy.

If we abandon critical thinking, we might as well stop innovating and doing any research and development at all.  Why question the “fixed beliefs” of anyone?  Some people believe the Earth is flat, I suppose the school system under the GOP platform would stop teaching the fact that the Earth is round, to avoid the behavior modification of having a student understand that they will not fall off the edge of the earth if they travel too far east or west.

What is this plank in the otherwise wacko platform really about?  Well it is a concession to the folks who are convinced that schools are trying to teach kids all manner of un-biblical facts like the Earth was not created in just 6 “literal” days.  Or that all humankind did not descend from Adam and Eve!

What’s worse is that the folks who wrote this tripe most likely have kids that will never attend a public school.  Their kids will go to private academies where they are protected from minorities and other undesirable rabble. And that brings me to the real reason for this plank.

For years the GOP has been actively trying to gut the public education system in our state.  Their continued call for “vouchers” points to this.  They believe in a two tiered education system, though they will never come out and say it that clearly.  One tier is private education for the privileged kids who will become the leaders and the other is the public system for the kids who will most likely grow up to be serviceable workers in society.  Now before you go calling me a socialist or worse, hear me out.

In South Africa during apartheid, they had a very well organized two tier education system.  For whites, a good public education will all the bells and whistles and for blacks and “coloreds” they had the “Bantu Education System”.  This appalling system was designed to give its students only enough education to make them useful as low paid workers and underlings.  It was one of the most reprehensible components of the apartheid system yet was very effective for its evil purpose.

Transpose that to today, and you see the same mentality being woven into the GOP platform for public education.  It is insidious and potentially devastating for our education system which used to be one of the best in the world.  Now it is but a shell of that and a large part of it is due to changes imposed by politicians in the guise of “improving accountability” and the latest ploy, preventing the education system from challenging “fixed beliefs”.

You will be hard pressed to find any politician who will admit to this systematic dismantling of public education, but if you look at the facts it is undeniable.  Of course that is unless you are already a product of a system that doesn’t challenge your “fixed beliefs”, in which case you most likely never finished this blog.

Another Multimillionaire Denounces Citizenship to Horde Money

It's becoming a trend, the ultra rich denouncing their US Citizenship in order to horde more cash.  They escape taxes when they leave the country, even though they continue to make money from US investments and from US sources.  Some like billionaire Facebook part-owner Eduardo Saverin. He denounced his US citizenship in favor of one from Singapore where he can stash his profits from the sale of Facebook's stock and pay no US taxes.

Second case is Denise Rich, yes the songwriter Denise Rich, whose husband Mark Rich fled the US in 1983 for tax evasion, has decided to take the legal way out.  In November, she renounced her citizenship and stashed much of her wealth in the Cook Islands.  That tiny South Pacific country has become the new Switzerland for hiding massive amounts of wealth.

The trend has seen 1800 ultra-rich US citizens bail the country to avoid paying their fair share of taxes to the country where they made their billions. Add to this the many companies who shifted their "headquarters" to off shore locations like the Cayman Islands.  Because of a nice tax loophole companies having "headquarters" offshore get big tax breaks.  There is a building on Grand Cayman housing what some estimate as 12,000 corporations including Coca-Cola and Halliburton.  Though not illegal, the practice is a sham and needs to be stopped.

The idea that the super-wealthy are above our laws and are "Citizens of the World" is not new, but when their businesses and investments make their fortunes here, they need to pay their taxes here.  Just because they are obscenely rich does not give them any more rights than any other US citizen....oh wait, they are no longer US citizens!  See how it works?

GOP as Organized Crime

Provocative post title isn't it? 

Well I came to the realization this morning that it is most likely pretty accurate.  Let me explain. 

Back in the 1940s just after the war the mob, aka Mafia ran most of the gambling in Cuba.  Under the Batista government gambling was a major source of income for the island and Batista took a healthy cut of the profits.  In effect the mob controlled some if not all of what the government did in Cuba.  They played the long game, slowly gaining more and more influence until they could operate without fear and run casinos and narcotics as they pleased.

Today, corporations have made significant inroads into our government.  They write laws under the guise of the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC.  The GOP has been known to take ALEC documents almost word for word and create laws. 

Corporations now have "personhood", a gift bestowed on them by GOP justices on the Supreme Court.  A "long game" tactic from the Bush era.  The Citizens United ruling allows corporations to slush as much money into political campaigns as they want.  Super Pacs are another result of GOP strategy that was set in place by the corporate controlled Supreme Court in 2010. 

The GOP once seen as favorable to big business is now completely controlled by big business and is no longer a political party but a policy arm of large corporations.  Don't believe me?  Can you name a law recently that did not benefit big business directly or indirectly?  If you say the Affordable Care Act, you are wrong, it is favorable to insurance companies and in my opinion should have been a federally supervised healthcare insurance program instead.

Meanwhile Mitt Romney, a candidate no GOP pollster wanted is the party's standard bearer.  He is a multimillionaire businessman who is not just controlled by big business, he IS big business.

See my point? 

I have no problem with corporations, heck I even was on the board of one.  But my problem is when these businesses start infiltrating our government to run it for their benefit, not just influence it, but RUN IT!

This has to be stopped, and for now we have the ballot box.  You can vote for a corporate takeover of our country or against it.  What will you decide?

"Romney=Liar" Keep it Simple!

As a liberal, I am often tempted to try to persuade people with facts and figures.  I make the assumption that most liberals and progressives do that "knowledge=enlightenment=voting". 

This equation is flawed, fatally.  This is a fact that the right-wing found years ago and have abandoned facts for "gut-level" messaging that tugs at peoples hearts and instincts.  Truth may or may not be part of it, but all that matters is results.

How do you fight that kind of strategy without succumbing to the same "win at any cost" mentality?  You don't.  You modify the strategy and use it to your benefit.

We need to keep our messages as simple as possible.  Here is a great example.

Romney held a press conference to express his opinion about the Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, something the right-wing has successfully dubbed "Obamacare". 

(First rule, never use their framing or you have already lost the argument.  So, from here on out I will refer to the law by it's name, the ACA or Affordable Care Act.  Whenever you hear someone call it Obamacare, correct them.  Simple and direct. Can this make a difference?  Sure it can, but wait there's more.)

In that press conference he began by spouting 6 big lies.  You can read the details of them here in Lee Saunders column in the Huffington Post.

Now, once you have armed yourself with those facts, and there are many.  stash them away and just remember the main point of the whole thing, Romney lies.

Let me make that a simple equation:  Romney=Lies.

If you need to back it up with facts, you now have them, but don't start with the facts, start with the premis, Romney=Lies.  Once people hear that they will not listen to too much else anyway, and when you start going into details you will loose them completely.

Are people stupid?  No, they are not, but they are not used to digging into a detailed analysis of statements by politicians.  They don't have time or energy since most folks have real jobs and lives that require most of their attention and energy.  That is why sound-bites are so effective.  So, keep it simple.

Romney lies.  About the ACA, about his job-killing outsourcing, about pretty much everything in order to get elected.  Now what do you remember about this blog entry?

Romney lies.

Right Wing War on Sex

It's become common to hear politicians talk about the GOP "War on Women" and though it makes for a great sound bite, the truth is much deeper.

In our country there is actually a war of sex.  Since the 1920s women have asserted their rights to choose who they have sex with and when they have it.  It started with the "free love" movement and really came into blossom after oral contraceptives became readily and legally available in the 1960s. When the Supreme Cort ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut that citizens had a right to privacy and essentially removed any barrier to obtaining contraceptives.

Everyone knows about the 1960s, when the sexual revolution really began.  Not only were women exercising their new found freedom, but LGBT people stood up and proudly proclaimed they were going to take the fight for sexual freedom to the streets.

The problem is the whole idea that sex could be something more than an act for procreation angered and scared a lot of people, mostly men.  If women could control their own bodies, that meant men could not control women.  Moreover it meant that women could enjoy and explore their own sexuality with or without men.  Scary stuff for some people!

This battle against sex has deep roots and it is driven by the insecurity and immaturity of a lot of men and some women.  Until we begin realizing what the real motive is from the right wing, to "stop sex for any other reason than procreation", we will be tilting at windmills.

The fundamentalists, the right wing politicians and the like are threatened by your sexual freedom, and they want to gain control over it once again.  They see your sexual freedom as a vital link towards gaining more power and power is an amazing aphrodisiac for them.  Think about it.

If you want more information about your sexual freedoms and the continuing fight go to Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance and get much more information.

Ex-Gay Group Slinks Back from Reparative Therapy

It seems that Exodus International, the Christian extremist group that is best known for their "pray away the gay" ideals, is distancing itself from the idea that individuals can change their sexual orientation.   Seems strange for an "ex-gay ministry" but apparently reality has caught up with them.

Alan Chambers, president of the group, told The Associated Press on Tuesday, "I do not believe that cure is a word that is applicable to really any struggle, homosexuality included." 

He continued with this significant line, "For someone to put out a shingle and say, `I can cure homosexuality', that to me is as bizarre as someone saying they can cure any other common temptation or struggle that anyone faces on Planet Earth."

Wow!  I feel the ground shifting and have to wonder if the next step in the Exodus saga is their final acceptance of being gay as a God-given gift, just like heterosexuality.  The jury is still out on that one.

Cities Sell Out To Corporations

As someone who works in marketing and advertising I am not usually surprised when I see a new way to promote a product, but this one takes the cake. 

Seems Brazil, Indiana was out of money and couldn't afford to keep up parts of its infrastructure, so they turned to the private sector and the result was sponsored fire plugs with KFC buckets on top of them.

Now though it might be seen as an innovative way to support the fire department, I find it pretty sad.  At this rate every single inch of space in public parks, buildings and infrastructure will be plastered with advertising. If the quality of our lives any better because of this?  Personally, I think it's just sad.  The result of outsourced jobs and industries, refusal to raise taxes and overall economic malaise has led to the sell out of America. 

Happy 160th Birthday Antoni Gaudi

As a teenager I was fascinated with architecture, especially modern architecture.  I read everything I could about Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mies Van De Rhoe, but the man who intrigued me was one of the forerunners of these men.  Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi was a product of the 19th century, but his work still inspires today.

His style had elements of the Art Nouveau school while maintaining his own quirky and richly organic style.  His crowning masterpiece, a structure still being completed was the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia.  It soars like a cathedral, but seems to have grown from the earth like some kind of living organism.  Words fail to describe it.

The website for the building is here.  It's in Spanish, but the images are universal.  Enjoy!

Grannies are Mad About 50 Shades of Grey

This is absolutely delightful!

Just in Time for Gay Pride - The Cure!

Funny video from Thaddeus Thacker.  Enjoy!

How Times Have Changed!

The Myth of the Gay Agenda - Video

I saw this on Joe.My.God and had to share it.  LZ Granderson  gives a TED talk about the "evil gay lifestyle".  Watch it!

TSA and the Growing Cream Cheese Threat

I had overlooked this little gem.  Seems TSA or at least some TSA agents now feel that cream cheese is uber-dangerous.  The story about a traveler who was bringing home bagels and cream cheese and had her cream cheese confiscated is another example of the TSA theater that is doing so much to convince us they are protecting us, without doing much to really protect the flying public.

Silly procedures like removing shoes is another example of the useless measures taken by TSA.  Adults have to remove shoes when traveling and have them screened.  Kids get a pass.  Why? 

And what about underwear?  The reason for shoe removal has been given as the thwarted "shoe-bomber" a few years ago.  We had an "underwear-bomber" too, but I don't see TSA demanding we remove undergarments before flying.  Why?  Because they know it doesn't matter.  The whole screening is a good thing, but the measures taken by TSA are not effective.  Time and time again news stories surface of people beating the security measures by doing something as simple as moving a metal object to their side instead of front pocket. 

And then there is the 3 ounce rule.  How does a zip lock plastic baggie provide any protection against some kind of chemical mischief in three containers under 3 ounces?  Mix them together and you have 9 ounces, is that a critical mass for something?  Nonsense. Why can I buy 12 ounce bottled drinks inside the airport?  Are you telling me every one of those is removed from it's container and analyzed prior to sale?

I do believe we need rational screening at airports, the bad guys have already shown us that, but the expensive machines that don't work and silly rules that are absolutely arbitrary do nothing to enhance our safety and just make the TSA and the whole program look foolish and annoying.

As I travel tomorrow, I feel pretty sure I will have to remove my belt and boots and who knows whatever before boarding the plane.  Does it make me feel safer?  Nope.  Because I know if someone with a nasty plan ends up getting all the way to the airport, they are more likely to be stopped by the passengers than TSA.  Check the records, the last few major plots were foiled by passengers not official security and that is both comforting and disturbing.

Pleasant flights!

UN Monitors Note "Smell of Burnt Dead Bodies" in Syria

While we have been busy here in the US watching the burlesque show that is our political primary season, the citizens of Syria have been suffering under the heel of a tyrant.  Bashar Hafez al-Assad, current president of Syria will most likely go down in history along side such illustrious company as Hosni Mubarak, Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler. 

His response to the populist uprising in Syria has brought untold suffering to the citizens, and as the conflict between rebels and the government forces continues, hundreds are dying each day.  In April, the United Nations estimated that more than 9,000 people have been killed, but activists say the number is closer to 13,000. 

The latest outrage comes as UN monitors entered a farming village of Mazraat al-Qubair this week to find almost 80 people dead and body parts strewn on the ground.  "You can smell the burnt smell of the dead bodies," said Sausan Ghosheh, spokeswoman of the U.N. observers.

This confirmation of the carnage being wrought by the Syrian government should move the world into action.  al-Assadmust be forced to step down and stop the needless killing.  Sign the petition to ask President Obama to send aid and try to intervene.

Cool Time-Lapse of Venus Transit

Very nifty NASA footage of the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun.

President Obama on LGBT Pride Month

What can I say? This is historic and wonderful!

Chasing Voter Fraud a Fraud Itself

The whole "we're purging voter roles to prevent voter fraud" is in itself a fraud.  Recently when conservative think tank "expert", Brian Darling was asked to cite specific examples of this activity, he couldn't.  The truth is voter fraud is pretty rare and the "purge the roles" initiatives especially in Florida is a political dirty trick to disenfranchise potential Democrat voters. 

The urban myth that there are hundreds of dead people still voting is BS.  Conservative "gotcha" video producer James O'Keefe supposedly exposed voter fraud in North Carolina.  He "exposes" non-citizens like Zbigniew Gorzkowski who have voted in recent elections.  The problem: Gorzkowski is an American citizen.

This and other examples are canards being used by the GOP to fire up the base and demand stronger laws against voter fraud.  The problem is, voter fraud is not widespread and is very rare.  Odds are higher being struck by lightning!

Department of Justice Stops Florida From Purging Eligible Voters

The GOP, party of illegal and very dirty tricks has been foiled in their latest dirty plot. The Secretary of State of Florida was trying to purge eligible voters form the roles.  This process is targeted at minority voters and people who would potentially be voting Democratic.  Despicable and they have been caught in the act.  The letter from the Department of Justice is here.

This could have thrown the election into question and tilt things to favor the GOP in normally Democratic districts.  They have been foiled, for now.

Is Disco Dying Out?

The light show was really hitting it’s stride and music was pounding out of the massive sound system. Dancers twirling fans had jumped atop the subwoofer boxes and were working up a sweat. My leather jacket was way too warm for dance apparel but it didn’t matter, the music and the motion of the crowd drove me to the dance floor.

Could have been last weekend, but it was 1979 and Donna Summer was singing “Bad Girls” over the speakers of the old Village Station disco. Yes, leathermen did dance back then.

Now, the voice that drove the mood of dance floors across the country is stilled. Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco died of lung cancer at age 63. That was a couple of weeks ago, then came news of Robin Gibb, one of the last two of the BeeGees had died as well. Another voice from the Disco era gone.

Some would be quick to declare Disco is now officially dead, yet with the exception of the songs, the beat of the music hasn’t changed much. The sound and lights are more sophisticated, but the dance floor is still crowded on most weekend nights and occasionally a voice from the past electrifies the crowd as Cher belts out another hit.

Disco is not dead, it just changes. The basic formula for disco is the same, great sound system, popular music, dazzling lights and the company of hundreds of sweaty dancing bodies. When that dies, the Mayans may be right.

NOM Strategy Not Working - African American Support for Same-Sex Marriage Growing

I hope Maggie Gallagher is in a tizzy.  The National Organization for Marriage - a hate group dedicated to denying LGBT people equal rights, is failing.  Their strategy, detailed in previously secret documents, was to   drive a wedge between the African American community and LGBT community.  According to the latest ABC/Washington Post poll it isn't working.  Support for same-sex marriage has risen to 59% in the African American community.

For the first time, the number of Americans who “strongly” support marriage also (39 percent) outweighs the number who “strongly” oppose it (32 percent). 

CBS News Finally Reports How Dire Climate Change Situation Really is

When CBS news, a tool of the Viacom conglomerate is reporting how dire the situation for climate change is it's time people took notice.  We are at or perhaps past a tipping point in  global warming.  State Farm wont sell insurance in coastal areas, because they know it will get worse for those living along endangered coastlines.  We just lived through the hottest 12 months on record... ever!  Wake up and smell the oven!

Nutty Former Navy Chaplin Says Gay Demons Can Infect Animals

Occasionally I have to have a chuckle at the hate mongers out there. Take this guy for example, former Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who put forth a strange argument on a progressive talk show.  His twisted logic goes this way.  Gays get that way because they have been persuaded by a "marketing scheme" and are recruited to homosexuality.

When asked why there are over 4000 other species that display homosexual traits he uses the example of Jesus casting out demons into Swine.

"It is entirely possible — we know from the Bible, for example, when Jesus cast the devil out of Legion, he went into a herd of pigs,” Klingenschmitt said. “So, it is possible for demons or the devil to inhabit or invade animals just the same way they invade humans, and that causes the sin of lust"

 Watch and please restrain yourself from throwing a brick through your screen.

Mississippi Lawmaker - Coat Hanger Abortions are OK

Mississippi proudly marches backwards in time as Mississippi State Representative Bubba Carpenter tells his audience when talking about poor women performing self-abortions with coat hangers, "We have to start somewhere."  These yokels will do anything to get the fundamentalist vote, even sacrifice the lives of pregnant women, but only if they are poor.  Appalling!

Harvard Baseball Team

Really cute video by the Harvard Baseball team.  Cute guys, too!

Christmas in New York - 2035

As I sit here on the Battery Dikes and look out over New York Harbor, I am amazed I am still alive.  At the ripe old age of 85, I am still traveling and speaking and sometimes even playing tourist with my boy, a senior himself. 

My eyesight is not as good, but I can still see the Statue of Liberty rising from the waters of the harbor, her pedestal now converted to a dock for the tour boats that visit the aging monument.  I still remember taking the J train to Coney Island for a dinner at Garguilos on West 15th.  Of course that is all gone now.  What land is left there is mostly estuary and marsh and the wind turbines that power much of Brooklyn slowly spin in choreographed motion.

My boy hugs my shoulder as I reminisce and soon we decide to head uptown for dinner.  The walled lower Manhattan area is busy during the day, but not much good for an evening meal.   “If only the people in these buildings had listened to scientists and not Fox News,” I say as I shrug my shoulders.

The boy clucks and shakes his head.  “Greed always seems to win out.”  He is still a bit of a cynic and frankly so am I.

It’s getting colder and for us desert dwellers from Dallas the chill in the air is unfamiliar.  It reminds me of my youth, when we had all four seasons in Texas and the dusty plains were lush with vegetation and grazing cattle.  Now just a distant memory.

Tomorrow, we will watch the Macy's Parade as they carry the big balloons down the street like huge beach balls past the crowds.  Most of the kids never saw them when they flew overhead filled with the rare gas we wasted so quickly.  

(Sorry to be so morose, but I have come to believe that we have passed the tipping point on climate change, so we had better adapt or we will not survive.   The truth has become not just inconvenient but entirely conceivable.)

Detroit Dungeon Party Taped on Hidden Camera by TV Station

What happens when you invite a TV reporter to a dungeon play party?  You end up on TV and in the middle of a real media circus.

In Detroit, a reporter for the NBC affiliate, WDIV got invited to a local play party as he was investigating a murder.  The suspect in the case was a participant in the BDSM community, but the murder was not BDSM related and in fact may be a murder for hire committed by a third party.  The story is still developing, but the damage to the local BDSM scene has already happened.

The report which played last night on Detroit TV had little to do with the murder or the suspect other than to lean heavily on his involvement with BDSM.  The majority of the piece was blurry video with lurid descriptions of the activities that take place at the party.  Now to those in the community, these are almost commonplace, but when sensationalized, and in this case really sensationalized it seems dangerous and scary, especially to vanilla folk.

To make things worse the report gave the address of the party, a local VFW hall.  All the footage of the event was shot with a hidden camera, so the participants did not know they were being filmed.  Luckily the TV station blurred out all the faces but to the participants it must have felt like a violation of their privacy, and it was just that.

The report added no new information to the story of the suspect murder and was designed specifically to scare people with the “debauchery” going on in the peaceful suburban neighborhood.  Never mind the fact that this party has been happening on a regular basis for a long time with no complaints, it is great stuff for ratings and TV news is all about ratings.

Now lots of people who attended that party are frightened, perhaps more than the viewers who saw the shadowy figures and blurred video on TV.  They are afraid of being “outed” as kinky.  Sadly in this country “kinky” is not a protected class and often people lose their families and jobs by being exposed. 

The fears of the BDSM community in Detroit may be unfounded, but the hubbub this incident has caused should give people a few valuable lessons.  If you are not “out” as kinky, then you need to make sure any event you attend is really a private party. That means invited folk only and/or all participants have signed some sort of release that assures they are not offended by the activities taking place and agree not to photograph or reveal names and identities of any other attendees.  These are pretty standard at most play parties, but apparently in Detroit they were not used. 

Secondly, do not invite the press to a play party!  News folk look for sensational images, specifically TV journalists and whips and crosses make for sensational images, even if the reality of a play party is far from the imagined images vanilla people might have in their minds.  Additionally, once the press splashes something like this all over peoples TV screens, some folks will complain to local authorities and next thing you know, the police are visiting any event that looks remotely out of the norm.  In most cases what we do in a dungeon might not be illegal, but police will arrest first and ask questions later.  I would not be surprised if a wave of “vice” operations followed closely on the heels of this report in Detroit.

The unintended consequences of this might be very severe for some people and that is what makes this even worse. 

Now, to be honest, most cities have some kind of BDSM activity going on, and the police and authorities are not blind to it.  I have spoken with law enforcement people about this and to a great extent their attitude is, if no one is getting hurt and there is not any prostitution going on they have bigger fish to fry.  The difference in Detroit may be the murder investigation and just how much involvement BDSM may play in the crime.  My suspicion is it is completely tangential, but that is for the police and courts to find out.

Meanwhile, kinky folk in Detroit should take a deep breath and then use some common sense next time they get an inquiry from a reporter about attending a party. 

We don’t want to scare the Muggles!

Don't Say Gay - A Plot to Make LGBT People Invisible

My family roots go back to “The Old Country” on my father’s side and the hills of Tennessee on my mother’s side, so it is no surprise that my ears perk up whenever news comes from the Volunteer State.  Lately that news has been disturbing.  The legislature of Tennessee has crafted what is being called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.  It is a measure that would eliminate any discussion of LGBT people in Tennessee classrooms of any discussion of sexual activity that is not related to “natural human reproduction science”.  The good thing is it won’t become law because it will not come to a vote.

Now the Show Me state has taken up the cause and is pushing a similar bill that would make LGBT topics illegal in public schools and prohibit teachers from addressing bullying based on sexual orientation. You can expect Texas to follow suit if these bills are signed into law.

Though they would seem just another attempt by the prudish people to impose their stiff morality on everyone else, they are actually something much more insidious. The people writing these bills, and trust me it is not the legislators themselves, are trying to erase LGBT people from history.

It’s no secret that the younger generation of American’s is much more accepting of LGBT people than their parents.  They have been raised in a world where they can see everyday examples of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender folk all around them.  Because more and more LGBT people choose to live openly and proud, their lives are visible examples to everyone.  That growing acceptance sticks in the craw of bigoted people, who realize that their prejudices are going to die off with their generation.  That’s what these new laws are really about, perpetuating prejudice.

They are trying to make LGBT people invisible again, just as they were in the 1950s and 60s.  They want to marginalize us in the minds of their children so that we will seem strange and frightening. 

It’s all about loosing one of the last bogeymen the right wing has left and that is vitally important to their survival.  The movement which masquerades as “conservative” today is in actually a far-right fear-based religion.  They cling to a belief that the world is one of evil and good, black and white and for that kind of system you need clearly defined roles.

Naturally, they assume that they are the good and righteous folks, therefore anyone who is remotely different or outside their norm must be evil.  It requires a scapegoat, someone to embody the bad and since it has become culturally impossible to use racial minorities like they once did, they turn to us.  To the people writing these laws, LGBT people are a threat and we must be eliminated, of not in reality at least in perception.  They have to keep us invisible to continue to affirm their righteousness. 

If you want proof, just listen to Representative Joey Hensley (R), the Tennessee bill’s sponsor.  “I have two children - in the third and fourth-grade - and don’t want them to be exposed to things I don’t agree with.” 

The key word there is “agree”.  Teaching about LGBT people means believing we are part of the fabric of our nation.  He doesn’t agree with that idea.  The problem is we are here and a constant reminder that whether he believes we exist or not, our rights are every bit as “self-evident” as any other American’s.  He wants his children to live in the same cognitive dissonance that he does.  Rep. Hensley and others like him want to make our very existence a matter of opinion.

The good news is that if this whole thing is boiled down to opinions, the more LGBT people who are visible, the harder it will be to maintain the illusion that we don’t exist.  The good news is that children are a lot smarter than these yokels think and no matter how much smoke and how many mirrors they try to throw up, we are not going away.  Kids know this and eventually they will begin asking why mommy and daddy can’t see the gay people like they can.

Pastor Who Endorsed Child Abuse Now Backtracks

Most everyone has heard the angry words of Pastor Sean Harris as he screeched against children who appeared the least bit gay.  Apparently the media spotlight is too hot for Sean and he has tried to distance himself from what he actually said.  First of all here is a transcript of the particularly fiery portion of his "sermon".

So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,” you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.
Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting to Butch you reign her in. And you say, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.”
You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?”
Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that."

Lets compare that with his apology in which he lies about not having said the previous statements.

For the record, I want to ensure everyone that I do NOT believe physical force is capable of fixing effeminate behavior or homosexual behavior. Parents should not punch babies or children....

I would never advocate for such discipline or actions on behalf of a father or mother. I misspoke. Hopefully, you understood that I was speaking in a forceful manner to emphasize the degree to which gender distinctions matter to God; and therefore, must matter to each of us and especially parents.

Funny, when I read these statements they directly contradict each other.  Either he meant it or not.  Seems like he is breaking one of the Ten Commandments here....wonder which one?

Role Play Abduction Mistaken for Real Thing

This is something I warn people about in my "Abduction and Interrogation" classes and now I have a real-world example to point to.  A Portland couple wanted to spice up their love life with a little role play.  Nothing wrong with that, but when the police found her naked and bound in the back of the car, well they naturally assumed there was a crime in progress.

The charges of kidnapping were dropped after a judge heard their story, but they still got a charge of disorderly conduct and hefty lawyer fees.  Take this story to heart if you are planning to play on this edge.   Though this happened back on Valentine's Day, it is a timeless story.

Mitt's Swiss Bank Account - New Obama Ad

This ad is about as hard hitting as they come. Glad to see it, too! If you want to talk about class warfare, look no further than the Republican nominee and the reality of it becomes clear.

Republican War on Women is Real

Deny it if you will but the latest vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act is dramatic proof of the intsitutionalized misogyny in the GOP. The bill passed with 31 nay votes and all of them came from Republican men. If anyone asks you for proof of the War on Women, give them that statistic.

Pennsylvania Will Get First Openly Gay State Legislator

Brian Sims tonight has won the Democratic primary in his Philadelphia district and will become Pennsylvania’s first openly gay state representative.  He won over a longtime incumbent and faces no Republican challenger in November.

More from Gay Politics.

Andrea Bocelli - Con te Partiro (Video)

I heard this again this morning in the car on the way to work and had forgotten how stunningly beautiful his voice is. Enjoy!

Amendment One in North Carolina Will Hurt More Than Just LGBT People - Video.

The amendment being voted on in North Carolina was designed by ultra-conservatives to stop anything that resembled same-sex marriage.  In the haste and hate the writers of the amendment forgot that people other than LGBT folk can be hurt by this bill, but their hatred is blind to that.  Luckily there is a campaign to stop the amendment.  This TV ad is one part of it.  Watch it!

President of Uganda Lies On CNN - Why Am I Not Surprised?

I usually reserve the term "lying sack of poop" for those special folks who can be so blatant in their lies that I have to wonder how they keep a straight face doing it.  Apparently in Uganda it is a way of life.  President Yoweri Museveni demonstrates just how big a sack of poop he is and does it on CNN.

Watch and be amazed!

Tony Perkins Wants Ban on Day of Silence

So the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins wants a ban on the Day of Silence protest, a day when students in many schools remain silent to draw attention to anti-gay bias and bullying.  Considering Perkins and his organization are recognized hate groups it is amazing they still get the press they do.

What if the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan made a similar statement about the observation of Black History Month.  Would the press even bother to mention it?  No they wouldn't and I can say that because the delightful folks at the KKK have made similar protests in the past and only get coverage if they show up in their lovely white outfits.

It's time the press stopped using its double standard of reporting every word groups against LGBT causes say, but ignoring other hate groups.  Let's press the press to start ignoring these yokels and get back to reporting real news.

Saudi Arabia Cracks Down on Gays and "Tom Boys"

The unenlightened kingdom of Saudi Arabia, whom our country considers a strong ally had enlisted the aid of its "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" to make the lives of LGBT people there more miserable.

In the words of the new service Sharq Arabic, "“Instructions have been issued to all public schools and universities to ban the entry of gays and tom boys and to intensify their efforts to fight this phenomenon, which has been promoted by some websites."

This is  the kind of pronouncement that signals open season on gay bashing in Saudi Arabia.  Of course that is not a far stretch since it is something that occurs regularly there, but this kind of official condemnation sanctions that abuse. 

It's time we told our "oil pusher" that we are kicking the habit.  We need clean energy independence not just for the good of the planet and our country, but to cut off the cash flow we pour into this barbaric country, propping up their monarchy and abusing their people.

Oklahoma Personhood Bill Will Have Dire Consequences

If lawmakers in Oklahoma have their way, the zygote will become a person in the eyes of the law. This back-door challenge to a woman's right to choose was tried in Mississippi and failed, but that won't stop the anti-abortion foes from using it wherever they can.

The problem of making a fertilized egg a "person" means that in cases of rape or incest, the "person" in the victims womb has more rights than she does. Since zygotes cannot survive outside the body for long, the woman could be forced to carry the pregnancy to full term.

Then comes the matter of fertilized eggs in fertility labs. Parents wanting children may have in-vitro fertilized ovum frozen as part of their attempts to have children. Under Oklahoma law will these frozen embryos become people? If so do we hold the labs as perpetrators of kidnapping, since the embryos are being held against their assumed will?

This whole thing is just silly and a full blow assault on women and their right to choose. It will even make some forms of contraception illegal if it can be proven that the contraception somehow prevents a fertilized ovum from implanting in the womb.

The huge can of worms this bill would open is something far beyond the comprehension of the opportunistic lawmakers who are proposing it. They see an easy vote getter from anti-abortion folks and they don't care what havoc it might cause. Their real agenda is to crank the clock back to the 1950's or before. Not good for women and not good for America!

Megan Mullally & Nick Offerman for Marriage Equality

GOP Rep. Alan West Riding the Crazy Train Again

Alan West, Republican Representative from Florida has once again gone off into crazy territory when he told a group of constituents at a Tuesday town hall event that he's "heard" that dozens of his Democratic colleagues in the House are members of the Communist Party.

"Heard"?

Well if that is all it takes to make wild accusations, the I have heard that Alan West is a "secret child molester and supporter of cannibalism". Of course that is not true and I would never accuse West of either of those things, but I did hear it when I asked a friend to tell it to me. 

Hearing something doesn't make it true Mr. West.

This kind of nutty statement is West's stock and trade as the clip included in the link shows during his speech at CPAC.

TSA Body Scanners a Fraud

This video confirms what I have long believed about these silly machines.  TSA Theater at it's best!

Why Santorum is Dropping Out

And this is the real reason why Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum is dropping out.  He was about to be spanked in Pennsylvania.

Rick Warren Cherry Picks Bible Verses Again, Puleeze!

The pastor of Saddleback Church, Rick Warren has once again emphasized his opposition to same-sex marriage, and he uses the same old tired argument that "God said so"!  He is quoted in an interview on ABC This Week saying, "Well, if the Bible is the word of God, then I don’t have the right to change it."

So he is falling back on Biblical Literalism as his argument and that is a big problem for me and most thinking people of faith.  If the Bible is the literal "word of God", then God really is inconsistent and capricious. I could spend days noting inconsistencies in the Bible but lets just cut to the chase.  The Bible as it is known in the Saddleback Church is the King James Version.  That was translated at the behest of King James from a Greek version that was essentially agreed upon by committee after committee.  The actual books we now include in our Bible were agreed upon by a committee during the Council of Nicaea under Emperor Constantine.  If you believe the actual "word of God" managed to filter through all those translations and committees without being altered, I have some land in the Negev Desert you might be interested in.

Beyond his silly assertions of divine guidance in his opposition to same-sex marriage, Rick makes the astounding statement supporting a conservative church, "history shows that when the church accommodates culture, it weakens it."

Perhaps Mr Warren would like to tell that to Jesus who actively sought to include cultures other than Jews in him ministry.  Remember those Samaritans, Rick?

Warren just shows his personal biases and tries to find justification in Bible verses and it is getting really old.  It's time the media began treating him like any other slightly off-kilter sidewalk preacher and stop giving him the bully pulpit of television.

God Bless Anita Bryant

Let me explain.  If Anita Bryant hadn't been so virulently anti-gay in her interview with Playboy Magazine the nascent Gay Rights movement might have never taken off.  Her bile and hatred, such as calling for 20 year prison sentences for being homosexual gave gay men a rallying point.  Her "Save Our Children" activities in Florida did more for gay self-awareness than anyone could have imagined.

That spark ignited a whole generation of activists and this lovely clip shows just how some of them responded.  The famous "pie assassination" on national television got cheers in LGBT households across the country.  Enjoy!

Private Security Forces - Terrorists Best PR Tool

Private security forces like Blackwater are the worst diplomatic nightmare our country has ever had. They operate outside the laws of our country and the countries where we have troops stationed and deliver a clear impression of Americans as cavalier and dangerous. In a recent video released by Harper's Magazine Blackwater forces are seen running over civilians in Iraq, crashing civilian cars and threatening the populace for no apparent reason. 

The video which was apparently posted by a Blackwater employee features a heavy metal soundtrack and was undoubte3dly considered "cool" by the people who posted it.  It is anything but cool. 

 If our enemies ever wanted a better PR tool to use against the US it's the actions of these paid thugs. We must stop outsourcing security to private companies who are international scofflaws.  Watch the rest of the videos here and you'll see these guys firing randomly into traffic and shooting out the windows of passing cars.

This makes me physically sick!

Turn the Wheel Thelma!

It seems to me like someone riding in the car we call the Republican Party, grabbed the wheel and swung it so far to the right it has careened off the road of mainstream American politics. 

Consider this.  Back in the days of my childhood, a guy named Barry Goldwater was the Republican nominee for President.  He ran against Lyndon Johnson and a lot of people felt he was far too radical and right-wing for the country.  He lost the election in an avalanche for Johnson.  Barry Goldwater favored a woman’s right to an abortion.  Later a Texan named George Bush helped author the Family Planning Act of 1970. 

Today, we have Republican candidates not only calling for an end to abortion, but denigrating the idea of birth control completely.  Rick Santorum has stated publicly that he feels states have the right to ban contraception.  Meanwhile, a Republican governor in Virginia backed the now infamous “trans vaginal ultrasound” bill that forces an invasive procedure some women compare to medical rape.

My concentration on women’s issues in regard to the GOP is intended to give a graphic example of how far right the Republican Party has veered.  When it comes to LGBT issues, it’s much worse.  Both Romney and Santorum favor a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to “one man one woman”, though Romney does favor certain civil rights for LGBT couples, Santorum compares gay marriage to bestiality. 

State GOP platforms make clear just what a conservative government would have in store for LGBT people.  Take the infamous Texas 2010 GOP Platform and these chilling words.

We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.

The bigger question is what happened to the Republican Party?  Well, my suspicion is that back during the Regan Revolution, the GOP made a deal.   They saw the nascent “family values” movement within the fundamentalist church as an opportunity for an alliance.  The “Moral Majority”, Jerry Falwell’s group was disillusioned with Jimmy Carter’s policies and seemed like a perfect fit to gain support in the conservative South.
This came on the heels of Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” publicity and soon the GOP actively sought the involvement of the Far-Right Evangelical movement with notable success.  Regan even appointed one of the Moral Majority officers to the Department of Education in 1980.

The point of all this is that the GOP actively sought and entangled themselves with the religious right and now a good deal of Republican policy is being written by those same far-right factions.  The deals they made back in the 1970’s and 80’s are coming due.

Though the Moral Majority and Save Our Children are long gone but their influence is still around and they are the folks who are actively making policy and platform decisions.  They are decidedly homophobic and as such they are continuing to steer the GOP away from any position that supports LGBT rights. 

As we see the primaries grind on, the struggle for control of the car may play out like the finale to Thelma and Louise with the GOP flying over a cliff and never recovering control of what was once a Grand Old Party. 

Synn Wins! Ms Texas Leather Wins International Ms Leather

It was a long grueling weekend for all the contestants in the 26th annual Internatiomal Ms Leather competition in San Francisco this weekend. Each woman gave a speech, answered pop questions before an audience of almost 1000 and went through personal interviews with a distinguished judging panel before performing a live fantasy onstage.

A field of seven contestants were in the competition from points as far as Austrailia and as near as DFW but when the judging was done our own hometown leather dyke, Synn took top honors.

She nailed her speech, talking about the spectrum of leather and her goal to bring a message of queer leather to the community. I understand from someone who was at the interview with the judges that she performed flawlessly and was relaxed and poised. hen came the fantasy, and it was a hit. I have attended a lot of leather contests and never saw an audience spontaneously give a standing ovation to the fantasy. With the help of her co-performers Lillity Grey and Lexa Lusty, Synn brought the house down.

My congratulations to a fine IMsL and a wonderfully butch leathe dyke!

Who is Carson Daily and Why Should I Care What He Says?

When I heard about a homophobic comment from some "personality" named Carson Daily I had no idea who he was. today, when I heard him make a homophobic joke about the recent Jet Blue incident where passengers subdued a crazed pilot and saved the plane I was moved to look him up.

Apparently, he is the host of a show that comes on NBC so late it's only competition is infomercials for gold retrieval schemes. With the exception of his Wikipedia entry, I would never have known who he was. Why is this important?

My suspicion is he has trouble getting publicity and so he has taken the Ann Coulter approach: say bat shit crazy stuff and the press will eat it up.

His latest "joke" was to say that if he had been on the Jet Blue flight, it would have been headed to a pride celebration in San Francisco. To emphasize the "joke" he lisped when he told it.

So here is why you should know who he is. Write NBC and tell them this clown is anything but funny, in fact he is so offensive you will make it a point to avoid any of his sponsors products and more precisely, stop watching late night NBC shows. It's not a boycott, just a statement of fact.

If the geniuses at NBC gets loads of these letters, they will think twice about putting no talent low life scum like Cason DaIily on their network. Wonder how he likes that name calling?

Great New TV Ad for the GOP

From Betty Bowers, the worlds best Christian!  Enjoy!

Lighted Wheels for Bicycles - Very Cool!

These new LED lights for your bike wheels are amazing.  Work as headlights  and safety device.  Watch!

Cheney Gets a "New" Heart

I make light of this, but it is serious. The 71 year old Dick Cheney just underwent a heart transplant. He is resting in recovery after the operation. Perhaps now he will have a conscience transplant and he might be a nice guy to know.

Kevin Smith Defends Gay Brother on Piers Morgan

Kevin Smith has directed a few really funny movies and always seemed like a nice guy, and now I really believe that after this clip from Piers Morgan's show.

European Court Of Human Rights Finds That Same-Sex Marriage Is Not A Human Right

This is absolutely stunning in it's prejudice and short sightedness.  Ruling against same-sex marriage the court used as it's basis, "if gay couples are allowed to marry, any church that offers weddings will be guilty of discrimination if it declines to marry same-sex couples."

Once again the sticky subject of marriage being a religious institution gets in the way.  When will governments get out of the marriage business and start conducting civil unions for everyone for legal reasons and let churches do the marrying part? 

That was a rhetorical question, of course.  So far, only a few governments have understood the distinction between religious institutions and civil ones. Until then LGBT people will be officially treated as second-class citizens in Europe and most of the rest of the world.  This must be appealed.

Ellen Goes Back to Her First Job Location - JC Penny

Chow Down at Chick-fil-A (Video Parody)

Great drag parody. So appropriate.

Happy Birthday Bayard Rustin

The man who organized the great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. King gave his momentous speech, was gay.  Bayard Rustin was a pioneer for civil rights and an openly gay man at a time when being gay was anathema.

Today marks his 100th birthday, (Rustin died in 1987)and I believe it is a day both African Americans and LGBT Americans should celebrate.  The city of New Orleans has already done just that by declaring today LGBT Civil Rights Equality Awareness Day,

So, if you don't know much about Rustin, take some time to do a little reading and learn more about the man behind the scenes of one of the great social justice movements in American history.

"#ToMyUnbornChild" Hashtag Brings Out The Homicidal Homophobes

The Twitter hashtag #ToMyUnbornChild  struck a nerve with a large number of homophobes.  The tag was trending with some of the most disgusting tweets I have ever read. 

Some of these delightful hate haiku include:

"#ToMyUnbornChild u betta not be gay mi ahh fi kill u"

"#ToMyUnbornChild I Will Put A Bullet Through Your Skull If You Become Gay..."

Aside from the obvious grammatical errors, the unbridled hatred here is shocking. My hope is that none of the over 100 hateful tweeters will ever have children, gay or straight, but I fear that may already be just a pipe dream.

Santorum - "Teleprompters Should Be Illegal"

Of all the brainless comments made by GOP candidates this one takes the cake.  Santorum in an attempt to smear his opponents has said he feels teleprompters should be illegal.  So that means that every US president since Nixon should have not used teleprompters?  Oh please! 

In case you didn't know (Luddites and Amish are excused here) a teleprompter is a device which allows a speaker, usually on television to read his speech without looking down at his notes.  It allows for better eye contact with viewers and is much easier to read that looking up and down from prepared notes.

Just in case you had no clue, every president, politician and official reads from a prepared speech sometimes.  Hell, even Abraham Lincoln read the Gettysburg Address from his notes on the back of an envelope.  The ancient art of writing speeches is a time tested way to make sure your words are clear and concise. 

I suppose Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum would rather everyone just shoot from the hip, and though most politicians and public figures do that sometimes, when it comes to an important message reading it really assures you will get it right.

So next time you hear someone denigrate the use of the teleprompter, let them know that the great communicator Ronald Regan used them in almost every speech.

Sheesh!

Santorum Won Alabama and Mississippi, But Romney Still Far Ahead in Delegates

Though the media and the Santorum campaign would have you believe that he swept the south, he only garnered 31 delegates from the two states.  Romney got 22 as well as Hawaii and Samoa putting his total at 495 to Santorum's 252.  It is hardly a sweep.

Meanwhile Gingrich with 131delegates and Ron Paul with 48 are plugging away hoping to become king makers at the convention.  Tampa should be interesting.  I think there is a good chance it will be a rowdy event and the final decision may not be reached until the fight on the floor.

Limbaugh in Limbo - All National Ads Pulled

According to reports, Premiere Networks sent a memo to the traffic managers at all its affiliate stations telling them that they were suspending all national advertising for the weeks of March 12 and March 19 on the Rush Limbaugh Show. This will leave the program without any national ads for two weeks.

Limbaugh's controversial comments have resulted in over 150 sponsors specifically questing that their ads not run in the shock-jock's program. One wounds how much longer he can survive on the air with no sponsors?