Rats Leaving Sinking Ship - Gonzales Counsel Monica Goodling Resigns

Lawyer overboard! Looks like Monica Goodling, the liaison to the White House for the Justice Department has submitted her resignation. No explanation was given, but she was scheduled to testify before Congress in the recent US Attorney scandal. She may be trying to shake off requests for her testimony in the firing of 8 US Attorneys by Gonzales to be replaced by political appointees. Apparently Congress is still interested in her as well as the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility.

Seems that jumping ship is not the answer. It looks more and more like Gonzales is going to have to answer for his lies to Congress soon.

South Park Skewers The Easter Bunny

Watching South Park can rot your brain, but you can have a whole lot of fun while it does. The creators of the show have always had a take no prisoners attitude toward organized religion, and especially religious creeds that are rife with hypocrisy. The have skewered Scientology, Mormons and Catholics more than once. Their start in the business came from a poignant and irreverent animated duel between Jesus and Santa Claus over whom embodied the real spirit of Christmas. Jesus won!

Even though their antics are a bit over done sometimes, Matt Stone and Trey Parker really do make some good points as far as social commentary in their series. Last night as they roasted the tradition of the Easter Bunny, they scored another hit for common sense and sound morals. How? Well it seems that the whole bunny thing is because Jesus intended for Peter…rabbit to be the pillar of his church. The Popes hat, with its high crown was designed to fit over rabbit ears…. You get the idea.

They skillfully mixed the Da Vinci code with a plot hatched by Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and ended with Jesus neatly slicing Bill in half with a Ninja blade and reinstalling a rabbit as the head of the church. (Funny how Donohue bears a striking resemblance to Karl Rove.) Why a rabbit? Because the rabbit makes no pronouncements as to God’s judgements for mankind. He just sits there silent, watching and lets God speak for Himself.

Heady stuff, and it is the kind of plot that has kept South Park fresh and avoided "jumping the shark".

Fred Phelps "God Hates Fags" Family Exposed On BBC

These guys have been spewing hate for years and now finally someone exposes the truth about them. The BBC did a documentary on this alleged church. The congregation is really almost completely the Phelps family. It's a storefront operation and perhaps the most odd bunch of twisted bigots ever born. Watch and cringe.

Bush Criticises Pelosi While GOP Lawmakers Meet With President Of Syria

So Bush is outraged that Pelosi met with the president of Syria. He says it sends the wrong signal. What about the Republican U.S. House members that were meeting with President Bashar Assad on Sunday? I heard not a single word about that from Bush and more disturbingly from the media reporting Bush’s statements about Pelosi. Only NPR let it slip that GOP officials had similar meetings the following day.

Is the Bush administration cornering the market on hypocrisy? Can there be a more duplicitous administration than this one? I seriously doubt it. Veiled in secrecy, they don’t even provide microphones for the press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House yesterday for reporter’s questions. That way Bush can "hear" only those he wants to hear.

Come on folks, this crap has to stop. Does nobody in the press see that they are giving Bush another free pass? Do your research and ask some real questions. Your readers deserve that at least.

Where Is The Outrage At Iranian Hostages?

The British sailors being held captive by the Iranians has sparked outrage in the UK, and the British government has protested loudly in the press and through diplomatic channels. Where are the US cries of outrage? Where is the demand from our government?

Well, funny thing. We used to be able to take the moral high ground on these kinds of issues. We stood firmly against torture, and taking hostages. We abhorred human rights abuses and deplored parading prisoners before TV cameras where they gave forced confessions.

Today, we can’t do that anymore. Why? Because we use torture to get confessions from hostages, or as we like to call the "detainees". We parade them in front of TV cameras to show our determination to win the "War on Terror" and we have become serial human-rights abusers. We have no moral high ground left to stand on.

Now we have taken a page from the playbook of the same nations we once railed against and now we must remain relatively silent or risk exposing our hypocrisy to the world. Well here’s the big news. We already look like hypocrites to the world and he America I grew up with is a pale shell of the country I once knew. We must reclaim our heritage and constitution and cease the kind of immoral behavior the Bush administration is awash in. There is a solution and it is in the hands of every registered voter. We must take back America at the ballot box!

Bush And Laura Divorce Rumors Again In The Globe

As the continued war between Bush and the Congress heats up, the domestic dispute between him and his wife seems to be taking front burner again. According to the Globe, Bush has been throwing tantrums and driving Laura crazy. No surprise there. Though the Globe is hardly a reliable source of information it still provides good fodder for the rumor mills.

More importantly it again shows that the country now finds George and Laura less than scared figures. When the supermarket tabloids begin attacking you, you know your popularity rating is in the dumpster.

I was going to do an April Fools blog on the subject of their impending divorce, however I suspect it might not be all rumors. Any divorce arrangement would only take place after Bush leaves office in order to keep from further deteriorating his standing with the public and more specifically the Christian Right. Marital woes would not play well with the evangelical voters.

Homeland Security Wants Full Control Of The Internet

So the Department of Homeland Security wants the keys to the DNS servers. What does it mean? It means they want the control of the entire Internet. The Domain Name Servers are the way everything on the Internet gets routed to where it needs to be. With this in hand DHS can snoop on everything, even change sites at will. It will mean an end to any privacy on the web.

Why is nobody reporting this? Most of the world is in an uproar over it but the US media has remained silent. Maybe because they are afraid that they will be the next target. This government is determined to control all information and bend it to their will. This isn’t about security; it’s about control. Don’t let this happen. Write your congressperson NOW!

Pictures From Stonewall Democrats In Las Vegas

Though I would post a couple of snaps from the Stonewall Democrats Trainng session in Las Vegas this past weekend. Bill Richardson (Govenor of New Mexico) was a featured speaker. Sorry for the fuzzy pics from my cellphone. Dennis Kucinich showed up as a surprise speaker, he was in town for the Democratic Health Care forum at UNLV.

Gays And Lesbians In The Armed Forces Face Institutional Hatred

I just walked in and had to write this about my trip back from Las Vegas. On the plane I sat next to two female soldiers who had obviously been returning from a deployment. They were both very tan and wearing those gray camouflage that blends in urban fighting. Both could not have been over 20and they were dog-tired.

I tried not to disturb them as they slept, but I wondered how their superiors would have reacted to their intimate sleeping arrangements. They lay in their seats, heads resting on each others shoulders, a lot like my partner and I do when we fly. I didn’t ask them, but I strongly suspect they were lovers, and that made me even more sympathetic to them. I felt proud that they were serving our country, yet sad that they were so young and if they were gay, that they were on such shaky ground.

Don’t ask, don’t tell may be the official policy on the Armed Forces, but it sucks as both a practical and moral regulation. In recent polls of the military the majority of soldiers have no problem with having gay or lesbians serving in their ranks. So much for the bullshit argument about gays causing problems with unit cohesion.

Beyond that, it forces young men and women who already have enough to worry about in a combat situation to have yet another concern. Staying in the closet is tricky and dangerous both to their career and to personal sanity. Funny how the Spartans, (the real ones not the ones in the movie) were often lovers fighting side by side. They considered lovers the best fighters because they would fight fiercer for each others safety. Pity the Army can’t study history any better.

As I sat down to write I saw this story that emphasized the whole insanity of this policy. A recruiter, upon learning that a potential recruit was gay is quoted as saying in an official email:

"GO BACK TO AFRICA AND DO YOUR GAY VOODOO LIMBO TANGO AND WANGO DANCE AND JUMP AROUND AND PRANCE AND RUN ALL OVER THE PLACE HALF-NAKED THERE."-- U.S. Army recruiter Sgt. Marcia Ramode

Looks like Peter Pace’s policies and attitudes are paying off with big dividends. Just what our government needs, more hate and prejudice!

Blogging From Las Vegas - Back To Big D Tomorrow!

Heading back to Big D tomorrow morning EARLY! Gee, I wish air travel was fun like it used to be, no arrive at the airport an hour early so you can undress and be screened. No crowded tiny seats with no food or refreshments. Ah the good old days.

You can really tell how old I am by that rant.

Well, the Stonewall Democrats training session was great! Looks like the DNC has finally figures out that it’s not about the next heroic candidate to magically fix the party, it’s about the party! We are really trying to build an effective infrastructure and that’s what we need to do.

As for Vegas, well there was fun to be had. Friday night we all attended a party at La Cage here in the Riviera Hotel. Frank Marino and a gaggle of fabulous drag queens. Even though I am so over drag, it was big fun.

Last night I went out on my own and saw Steve Wyrick’s Real Magic at the Aladdin Hotel, (soon to be Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino and no they are not blowing it up, just refacing the whole building!) The show was fast paced and very clever. Steve is a Garland, TX boy who made good, and his act is one of the best magic reviews in Vegas. He starts by appearing onstage magically along with a full sized helicopter. Later he jumps through the spinning fan blades of a jet engine!

And my luck, he ended up pulling me onstage for a card trick and ended up stealing my watch! Of course he gave it back much to my embarrassment. All in all a fun night. My complaint was the audience. They seemed dead. They were smiling and enjoyed it but they wouldn’t clap. What is that? I can only guess it is from too much TV watching and they don’t know how to react to a real live performance.

Overall, Las Vegas is Las Vegas, and I am ready for Dallas again.

Blogging From Las Vegas - Bill Richardson & Dennis Kucinich Speak At Stonewall Democrats Luncheon

The day is not yet half over and I am already spinning with new information. I am attending the National Stonewall Democrats Western Training Session in Las Vegas this weekend and it has been very informative.

This morning I had to decide between going to the Health Care form sponsored by the Center for American Progress and the training sessions. I opted for the sessions and it was a good choice. Many members of the DNC are present and very active here. The session I sat in on this morning was on becoming a presidential delegate to the Democratic Convention. There is so much more involved that I would have ever thought. Seems every state is different in the selection process and navigating that maze was most of the session.

For lunch we had the traditional rubber chicken, (except here in Vegas it’s really good, kudos to the Riviera Hotel catering staff on that), and lots of speeches. Notably Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexica, a presidential candidate. Gov. Richardson sat at the table right next to me, so I had a chance to at least see and chat with him. Additionally the mayor of Las Vegas was on hand and left everyone with a favorable expression.

The surprise was Dennis Kucinich who showed up unexpectedly and made an impromptu speech. He unabashedly stated that he supports Gay Marriage and left everyone to a standing ovation. I got a picture with him that I will post once I get home.

This afternoon it is more workshops and maybe a few minutes to rest and schmooze with fellow gay democrats.

Blogging From Las Vegas - National Stonewall Democrats

Well I have been in Las Vegas a day now and it seems like a week already. This is the city that never sleeps!

I am here for the National Stonewall Democrats Training Sessions. These are a series of workshops to help budding queer activists have a real impact on the party and the campaigns, as well as little tips on raising funds, etc. The other big draw here is Vegas is the Health Care Roundtable being hosted at UNLV and attended by most of the Presidential Candidates (all Democrats by the way). Seems Republicans don;t want to talk about the health care crisis almost as much as they loath talking about global warming.

Last night I took time off to attend a show. The Fashionistas. John Stagliano, famed porn director tried his hand at an adult Vegas show and he hit a home run. It's filled with fetish wear, beautiful women and hunky bare chested guys. Needless to say, I loved it. Lots of leather and bondage and all set to a rock beat. It is a dance extravaganza, with amazing performers and even a couple of aerialists thrown in above the audience. Very kinky, but not as much skin as you might expect. Seems since they are not in a major hotel, their venue has restrictions as to the amount of nudity allowed. Still plenty of bare butts and lots of manflesh.

I met John and his wife Karen a couple of years ago at the AVN awards. A couple of films I photographed got nominations for awards and I attended. Though you might not like some of his stuff, all that gonzo video, he has successfully been able to create some truly erotic visions both on the stage and in his film, The Fashionistas. See it if you can in Vegas.

Bye for now, we are off to a party at Le Cage at the Riviera Hotel, drag of course!

White House Secrecy Wall Is Cracking

The latest scandal involving Alberto Gonzales is just a distraction.. Face it, Gonzo is going to be another fall guy just like Scooter and Kyle Sampson. The recently released emails fron the White House show that the real brains behind this an pretty much every underhanded political scheme at the White House comes from Karl Rove, Bush and Cheney. This axis of deceit lays the blame on their loyal underlings and still manages to get away with their activity.

No surprise that Sidney Blumenthal lays out the "crime family" scenario in his latest piece for Salon.com. The surprise is that more American’s haven’t figured this out sooner. As the White House twists and spins to avoid Karl Rove and Harriet Myers from testifying under oath before Congress, it is painfully obvious that they are hiding something. To turn the line used by the Bush administration around when they began illegal wiretapping, "if you aren’t guilty, then you have nothing to worry about."

The real truth is that they have a lot to hide, and their guilt wreaks like a rotten stew of deception and lies. Bush and his cronies are expert at lying and getting away with it, until now and it’s time they were brought to justice.

Senator Inhofe - A Prick & A Fool?

Senator Inhofe comes from a state that is feeling the direct consequences of Global Warming. Drought, and higher temperatures have hurt crops and cattle in Oklahoma, not to mention the possibility that future warming might even spawn more sever weather which lays waste to the Sooner State each year. It is amazing that he refuses to understand or even listen to testimony given by Al Gore in Washington this week.

Inhofe interrupted, bullied and tried to prevent any answers from the former Vice President to the point that Barbara Boxer had to remind him that the GOP was not making the rules anymore. She enforced the time limits and let Gore speak.

Inhofe tried to bully Gore into signing a vague energy use statement that totally ignores the use of solar or wind and other green energy sources which Gore and my family use. Overall, Inhofe is a prick, and he apparently is in the pocket of Big Oil, since he tried desperately to skew any testimony or just prevent it.

He surely cannot believe that global warming is a myth. If he does, he is not just a prick; he’s a fool.

18 Days Of E-mails Missing From White House Evidence

I woke up this morning and saw the ghost of Rosemary Woods standing in my room. She kept saying the number 18 over and over again. Then I sign onto my computer and see that FireDogLake.com is reporting that there seem to by 18 days of emails missing from the document dump the White House laid on congress yesterday. Hummm? 18 Days, and Rosemary woods accidentally erased 18 minutes of tape for Nixon?

I wonder if it is an omen?

North Carolina Castrators Get Convicted

I have had a lot of people ask me if I hurt people for fun. I usually reply with a quip, "Only if they ask politely". In reality, SM is something much more difficult to describe. We participate in activities most people would consider as painful, and yet we find enjoyment in them. We do lots of things that would shock most "vanilla" folk, but still we have a code of behavior that keeps us safe. We often speak of "safe, sane and consensual" as our bywords. These were invented years ago as a way to explain what we do, not so much as rules. That being said, they are not bad bywords and in fact make pretty good rules.

The safe part is quantifiable. Any activity which causes life threatening harm or irreversible damage is probably not safe. Consensual is an easy definition as well, but the "sane" thing is a gray area. What would constitute "insane behavior"? We as the judge said about pornography, "I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it." In other words it’s a little subjective.

Well the news story that came out a while back about the three guys in North Carolina that were doing backyard castrations and calling it SM, really looked insane to me. After reading more about their activities, I believe that it still qualifies as insane. More to the point, it is a case of people with a real pathological problem finding a willing practitioner to harm them. These guys had people flying in from other countries to have their balls cut off. They are not surgeons and the operation is about as irreversible as it gets. For me that is very hard to understand.

I have thought long and hard about this and still come to the same conclusion. They either were just plain crazy bubbas who wanted to cut guys balls off and post them on the internet (which they did). Or they were people dabbling in SM who got caught up in the role-play and just went too far. Either way what they were doing was not safe or sane though it may have been consensual.

They were convicted of felony castration and maiming. That charge carries some jail time but I think they need something more than that. They need a little real education in SM and some serious counseling to find out what the hell they were thinking! People like these guys make it harder on all the rest of us who are sincere about our BDSM and wish to continue to enjoy ourselves and our partners in safe sane and consensual play.

Time To Talk Seriously About Impeachmet

Dennis Kucinich is urging a genuine conversation about impeachment. It is about time!

Dallas Looses Two Famous Rays - Ray Nasher & "Crazy Ray"

Two Rays passed away this weekend in Dallas. I was lucky enough to know them both, at least for a short time.

I had a chance to interview Ray Nasher several years ago as part of an industrial film for a PR group working for The Limited. That retailer was getting ready to open their new Northpark store and Ray was delighted. The interview ranged widely from the original topic and much of it was about Mr. Nasher’s views on not only retail but also civic responsibility and politics.

Nasher was an unapologetic liberal. The liberal part of his politics was seen in the way he ran his business. Anyone who has ever been to Northpark Center in Dallas, knows what I mean. The mall, one of the first and best malls in the country is beautiful. It is not overblown and showy, but built with persistent cream colored brick and an uncluttered design that gives the stores the featured attention, not the mall’s architecture. The other thing that makes Northpark so great is the abundance of public art. Drawn from Nasher’s personal collection walking through the mall, you are exposed to modern sculpture from Alberto Giacometti to Frank Stella. Round one corner and you see a huge steel piece by Mark Di Suvero soaring into the atrium before the food court. Sit and relax by in the courtyard outside and you can see a giant safety pin by Claus Oldenburg. Make a trip to Neiman-Marcus and you pass a giant mechanical sculpture by Jonathan Borofsky.

Nasher believed in sharing his art with everyone. He believed it was a joy to posses a world class collection of modern sculpture, but more of a joy to bring it to the citizens of Dallas to enjoy. The museum that bears his name, The Nasher Sculpture Center is one of the finest museums of it’s kind in the world and will be a lasting legacy to the man for whom it is named.

The other Ray who died was a man known to millions of Dallas Cowboy’s fans as Crazy Ray. Wilford "Crazy Ray" Jones was a local celebrity since my childhood. I first met him at a little shop in downtown Dallas called Magicland. It was the only magic shop in the area, and as a budding amateur magician, it was my favorite hangout.

Ray, though when I first met him he was shining shoes, was a magician, too. He wasn’t the kind of magician who needed expensive props and lots of assistants. Ray did magic with the kind of things you could find in your pockets or even on the street. His favorite trick involved a cheep noisemaker hat he bought by the dozens at Magicland. It was simply a metal crescent with a piece of waxed paper attached. When held in the mouth, it was invisible and with practice, a skilled operator could make it emit the sounds of everything from birds to small dogs. Ray’s favorite trick was to carry a paper bag around and make the sounds of a whining puppy. He would flick the bag with his finger; hidden inside to make it twitch and it was so convincing that once he got on a bus with the bag. A passenger told him he couldn’t ride the bus with a dog in that bag, so he threw the bag out the window to the horror of the passenger.

Ray was an illusionist of the first class. He once taught me a trick where he borrowed a dollar bill. Tearing a corner off, he gave it to me for safekeeping, and then he lit the dollar on fire and proceeded to use it to light a cigarette. As the last of the bill turned to ashes, Ray watched my surprise. He simply sad, " now don’t you worry. Gimme some of that soda you are drinking."

I handed him the bottle of Dr Pepper and he took the cigarette and laid it on his outstretched palm. Pouring the soda over the cigarette to extinguish it, he plopped the soaked cigarette into my hand and told me to roll it between my palms. As I did the wet cigarette began turning green, and soon it was a soaked dollar bill between my hands. Of course there was a corner missing. The one I had saved from the bill in the first place!

David Blaine could learn volumes from Ray.

He later became the unofficial mascot of the Dallas Cowboys and was seen at almost every home game. His antics and magic brought smiles to millions of people and he was a Dallas icon. He selflessly shared his humor and talent with anyone who would stop and watch and like Ray Nasher, he gave a lot to the citizens of Dallas. I will miss them both.

Bush Still Not Explaining His Plan For Iraq

Bush and company are hoping people will forget about the fourth anniversary of the war, but we won’t. Bush’s mother Barbara won’t even watch the TV News about the war, especially any coverage of how many Americans have died. I guess her cold imperiousness has been passed down to her arrogant son?

Today Bush will spend 5 minutes on the war in a press conference with no questions allowed. He will present no new ideas, no success examples and no recipe for success in Iraq. He is out of ideas and imagination and his policies are a disaster. His administration is cracking at the seams and it looks like Alberto Gonzales will not last the week.

What does it all mean? It means that Bush & Co. are teetering like Enron on a tower of lies and deceit and someone needs to push them over. Time for Congress to stand up and make Bush take responsibility for his crimes and mistakes. Impeachment is the solution.

More Bush Lies - No Probe Launched As Promised Of Plame Leak

I get really tired of writing about Bush’s lies, but he just can’t stop lying. After the Valerie Plame scandal, he swore he would launch a full investigation of who leaked her name as a covert CIA agent to the press. Guess what? He LIED!


In testimony before the house oversight committee, James Knodell, Director of the Office of Security at the White House, stated that the Bush administration never launched an internal probe to find the source for the leak in 2003. Why is no one screaming for Bush’s resignation for being a lying dirtbag?


Clinton lied about getting a blow job and it’s impeachment time! Bush lies about treasonable acts committed by his staff and it’s business as usual. What the fuck is wrong here?


What is wrong is that for too long the GOP controlled Congress has been complicit in the crimes of the White House. It is now the day of reckoning.