Former Republican Powerbroker Convicted of Money Laundering

Tom DeLay, former GOP majority leader in the House now faces time in the Big House.  Convicted on charges of committing money laundering DeLay, formerly known as "The Hammer" could face life in prison for his crime.

It took the jury 19 hours to come to the verdict and DeLay say stone faced as it was read.  He was convicted of illegally passing $190,000 through the Republican National Committee to candidates from big corporations.  The strategy he created changed the face of politics in Texas and much of the nation.  His gerrymandered redistricting plan shaped what he had hoped would be a permanent Republican majority.

It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court, now fully packed with partisan conservatives has made direct contributions by corporations legal

Pardoning the Turkey?

I know it's a White House tradition to pardon the ceremonial Thanksgiving turkey, but isn't it a bit hypocritical? I mean on Thanksgiving there is a huge turkey feast served in the White House.  Where did that turkey come from?  Why was he sacrificed and the big, showy bird gets the pardon?

It is just another reason people today don't understand where their food comes from.  Milk from the store and turkey from some mythical place called Honeysuckle.  If more people were intimately familiar with how and where their daily sustenance comes from they would be more concerned about our delicate planet.

I have to admit there is a side of me that would like to see the President chop the head off the big bird and invite everyone in for the dinner!
 

History of the USSR Video - As Told By Legos

This is a very quirky video I found on Andrew Sullivan's blog. Enjoy!

TSA Pat Down Mania - Breaks Ostomy Bag During Screening

The whole pat down thing is getting silly.  First of all I have said it before that the "enhanced" security measures are pure theater.  Unless the TSA starts doing strip searches and cavity probes they cannot assure us that there are no devices hidden on passengers.  And I am not suggesting that!

The inept technique being used left one elderly passenger drenched in his own urine.  Nice.  Thomas Sawyer of Michigan was traveling to Orlando.  He is a cancer survivor and wears a urostomy bag.  During his pat down the agent broke the bag and left Mr. Sawyer drenched in his own urine, with no opportunity to clean up until he boarded the airplane.

The TSA agent was warned by Mr. Sawyer about the bag, but ignored his request to be gentle with it. 

The list of problems will grow steadily longer as this silliness continues and the traveling public and the airlines will suffer as the government tries to convince us that they are protecting us.  The cold reality is they can't protect us from every threat.  The near disaster of the toner cartridges shows that.  The terrorists want to terrorize us and they have succeeded, and we formally surrendered to them when we passed the Patriot Act.

Until we start dealing with the root cause of terrorism and not the symptoms we will continue to find ourselves in situations like this.  We are a nation driven by fear and that is exactly what the terrorists wanted. 

SPLC Officially Designates American Family Association and Others "Hate Groups"

The Southern Poverty Law Center, long-time repository of the official list of hate groups in the US has added a number of anti-gay groups to its list. Most prominent is the American Family Association, the group formed by Donald E. Wildmon that regularly broadcasts their rhetoric over 200 radio stations.

Additionally, on the list is the AFTAH (Americans for Truth About Homosexuality) as well as Beverly LeHay's Concerned Women for America.  This is a major step toward the marginalization of these groups and has been long awaited.  Kudos to SPLC for their stand in this matter.

How To Beat Your Slave - As Revealed in The Bible

While reading one of my favorite blogs, Joe.My.God. I found this juicy tidbit.  Nice little Bible story for anyone who tries to beat you up with a Bible.  Have them watch this video.


Now to those who know me, I am a Christian and I do read the Bible, however I do not believe it is the inerrant word of God. If it is, then the God who wrote it is bipolar and pretty much not the kind of God I would want. Instead, to make the story short, I sincerely believe the Bible is a collection of books and stories meant to reveal how humans have struggled to understand the divine. As I said it's a short explanation.

Finally the Pope and I Agree - Universal Health Care Coverage NOW!

As strange as it sounds, I agree with the Pope.  In a Vatican conference yesterday Pope Benedict XVI emphasized that health care is a moral responsibility of all countries and nations should, "guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status or their ability to pay."

Meanwhile, the Republicans and Tea Partiers want to roll back the clock and deny coverage to millions.  They scream and holler that we are sliding into socialism.  Bulls**t!

The meager insurance reforms passed by Congress are far from Universal Coverage and that goal is something the Pope and I agree on.  We must have coverage for every citizen if we are going to continue to be a serious player on the world stage.

Felps Cult Now Picketing Children's Funerals - Way Off The Deep End!

The Westboro Baptist Church (Fred Phelps Family Cult) is now picketing children's funerals.  Why?  Well they want revenge since someone slashed the tires on their cult-mobile and then no store in Oklahome would sell them new ones...none except WalMart.  ( that is the subject of a whole different rant.)

Now they figure nod only does God Hate Fags and the USA but now God Hates Oklahoma in general.  These wackos are potentially dangerous.  Someone is going to get fed up and do something drastic and it will not be pretty.  I sincerely hope they stay safe, and they come to their senses!

Willow Palin - Bigot and Homophobe

Seems Sarah Palin's daughter, the one who isn't "Dancing With the Stars" is quite the little bigot.  She revealed her true inner ugliness on her Facebook page by calling critics of her mother and sister, "fagots" and "gay".

TMZ has clips from the Facebook postings.

Latest news is she has apologized, but  the whole thing really emphasizes the underlying problem.  Palin and her brood are not very nice folks.  Under that perky exterior is not a Mama Grizzly, but a nasty bigoted spirit that would be more at home in a trailer park than the great wilds of Alaska.  Just my opinion.

Peter LaBarbera - TSA Pat Downs a Gay Conspiracy!

Peter LaBarbera, a man fixated with all things homosexual, thinks the latest contriversy involving the TSA and "pat-downs" is a gay thing.  He conjectures that "homosexual TSA agents are getting secretly turned on."  More to the point  LaBarbera says, "The reality is, most traveling men would not want Barney Frank to pat them down at the airport security checkpoint."

Well Peter, as a gay man, neither would I.  Barney is just not my type.

LaBarbera is once again trying to whip up any anger and fear he can toward the LGBT community.  Make no mistake, though he sounds like a loony, he is a genuine LGBT enemy is there ever was one. His Americans For Truth About Homosexuality website is filled with not just lies, but purposefully alarming photos of gay men at events like Folsom Street Fair.  Let's face it, LaBarbera is most likely fixated on naked men!

Texas Hops On The Crazy Train Again? Birther Bill In Texas Legislature

Just when you think sanity might have been restored the delightful Texas State Rep. Leo Berman (R) has introduced a "birther" bill in the Texas Legislature. Berman is the same representative who was famously quoted as saying, "Barack Obama is God’s punishment on us."

Now easy as it would be to just paint this guy with the broad brush and call him "frigging nuts",  he represents a real problem in this state and pretty much most of the US.  For a long time the Democratic Party has believed that reason and facts will win the day.  If there were ever an argument against that, the last election cycle would be it. That little debacle for the Dems was won not by reason but by emotion.  Mostly it was fear and bigotry.  Fear stoked by the economic situation many American's find themselves in and bigotry disguised as the "Tea Party".  The whole "take America back" thing is about having a black man in the White House.  Every other argument is predicated on that unspoken premise and a closer examination of their rhetoric will reveal it.

So, meanwhile the Dems keep relying on reason.  How has that worked so far?  Not at all.

The whole birther thing is a racially charged non-issue anyway, but don't let reason get in the way of some good old fashioned fear.  Even though the Obama birth certificate has been widely circulated and there is more than ample proof of his citizenship, the birthers persist.  Why, because it is a good excuse to scare people and to tap into that old bigorty thing again.

So while I could just call Rep. Berman wacko, I will instead call him what he is, a politician who knows how to whip up his constituents with the most powerful tools in the GOP arsenal. 

More Dickishness - This Time From Scalia

Anton Scalia, long known as one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court  has just gotten his Tea Party card stamped.  In a statement before the House Judiciary Committee Scalia and Breyer were asked what they would change about the Constitution.

"Not much," Breyer said. "It's a miracle and we see that through" our work.

Scalia called the writing of the Constitution "providential," and the birth of political science.

"There's very little that I would change," he said. "I would change it back to what they wrote, in some respects. The 17th Amendment has changed things enormously."

That amendment allowed for U.S. Senators to be elected by the people, rather than by individual state legislatures.  If this amendment were discarded, the main effect would be that corporations, already free to give as much money as they have to candidates, could buy state legislatures and in effect run the Senate.  That is a frightening and ominous idea.  You think you saw corporate money in the last election?  Just wait.

Oklahoma, Where Only Straight Kids Get To Graduate

Oklahoma may be "OK" in the song, but in reality it's not a good place to be LGBT, at least in Del City.  There the high school has actively blocked two lesbian students from graduating, strictly because they were a couple.

In the story in the Advocate the school board claims it has never gotten a conplaint, and their policy is clear.

"It is the policy of the Mid-Del Public School District not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age in its programs, services, and activities," said a statement from district officials. "The safety of our students is always the priority of Mid-Del Schools."

You will notice that "sexual orientation and gender identity" are missing from that statement.  There's the truth.  Unless we get our rights spelled out to the letter, the hetero-normative world will continue to deny us our rights.

Isn't it time to call for an Equal Rights Amendment that clearly gives all American's equal rights?

Fred Phelps Cult Can't Get Tires Fixed In McAlester, OK - Awwww!

In the same spirit of "Christian Fellowship" that the Westboro Baptist Church shares, they couldn't find anyone to help in McAlester, Oklahoma last Saturday. Seems these good "fag hating" people had their tires slashed while they were protesting at the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey. Dismayed, and apparently without spare tired the group reportedly tried without success to find someone to help them.

No service station or tire store in the city would sell to them or service their minivan. Finally after limping away on flat tires, they called AAA and got a tow to a WalMart who will sell to anyone.

Now in reality, I think it's too bad that no one would help them. I also think these people are well on the way to the loony bin, but still I would offer help just to get them out of my state.

McCain Gets More Dickish - Now Wants Another DADT Study and Hearings?

OK let's face it, John McCain is a dick.  Yea he's a charming old man, but underneath that feeble exterior is a real asshat.

Take his stance on DADT, first he said once the military leaders said it was OK to repeal DADT he would be fine with it.  Well that was two years ago and now that not only has the leadership in the military said they have no problem with gays and a pentagon study recently leaked which indicates there is no problem with it, now old man McCain changes his tune.

Now he insists that the newest study isn't enough, and then there should be another study and after that hearings and then he might consider a repeal....blah, blah, blah.  And all this because he is worried someone might get a peak at someone in the showers.  Oh grow up!

There are men and women both straight and gay already in the military, and so far the showers haven't turned into some kind of gay Porky's movie.  Our men and women in the military are mature enough to fight and die, they are mature enough to know where sex is appropriate and where it is not.  And they already do know that.

Why old farts like McCain doesn't realize that is beyond me.  Now every time I hear him speak I keep envisioning that old guy screaming at the kids to "get off my lawn".  It's time he retired or moved into the 21st Century.

New Species of Lizard Discovered at the Lunch Counter

My what is that interesting dish you are having?  Surprise it is an entirely undiscovered species of lizard!

Scientists having lunch at a restaurant in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam identified a previously undiscovered lizard being served grilled as their lunch.  You can't make this stuff up!

Jump Rope with a Muslim - Video from Rally For Sanity!

Supreme Court Rejects Log Cabin Republicans Request, DADT Still Holds

Here is no surprise.  The Supreme Court voted Friday to keep to the “DADT”  intact, rejecting a request by the Log Cabin Republicans to reinstate an injunction on the policy pending appeal. They took their appeal directly to Justice Kennedy, one of the most conservative judges on the bench.  Frankly, the whole thing is strange.  I understand the lawsuit, but I question their motives.  In the past LCR has supported candidates and platforms that work against LGBT rights, why the change of heart?  Perhaps they are as frustrated as I am with the administration.  Their suit did get a favorable ruling, but a stay was all but certain.

Taking these issues to a Supreme Court as ideologically stacked as the Bush Era court is will make legal redress for LGBT issues next to impossible.  Things might get better if a couple of justices, like Thomas or Kennedy would retire, but don't count on it.

Out Of Controlled Demolition - Ooops!

It's almost impossible to not see at least a dozen videos each year of some kind of controlled demolition.  You know the kind.  The crew meticulously plants charges and calculates the trajectory of the building and on the appointed day, voila!  The building colapses into a nice neat pile for easy clean up.

Here is the kind of scene you don't often see, since I suspect these videos are closely guarded.  A smokestack next to a power substation is demolished.  It first just sits there, and then....well the video tells the story.  Luckily no one was hurt but 4,000 customers lost power.

Pelosi Hints at ENDA During Lame Duck Session

OK, we have some people saying Pelosi is a toxic asset to the House, and others wondering what she can do to assure her the Minority Leader seat. Personally, I don't care, but I might be more interested if she actually does what she is hinting at. She has been toying with the idea of bring up ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act during the lame duck session of Congress.

Though this makes for interesting speculation, given the past record of the allegedly Democratic controlled Congress, I will cheer once I see it.  In the meantime, I am not holding my breath.  The lame duck session is going to be very full since the GOP has blocked all spending bills this year, so I kind of agree with Barney Frank, LGBT legislation this year is dead.

Prove me wrong Nancy!