Melissa Etheridge May be on to Something...

You Can Forget My Taxes
by Melissa Etheridge
November 6, 2008 | 2:15pm

Singer Melissa Etheridge rails against the passage of the gay-marriage ban in California—and she won't be paying the state a dime.

Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.

Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either.

Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.

Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.

…Really?

When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?

I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.

I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, dyke. Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then. The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the immigrants. "Them.” Now the them is me.

I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them". We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.

Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.

Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too...

Melissa Etheridge is an Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.

Copyright 2008 The Daily Beast

Goodnight Opus, Sweet Dreams Old Friend....

(From the Daily Cartoonist.com and the Los Angeles Times:)

Berkeley Breathed’s final Opus appeared today. The comic that appeared in newspapers directed readers to the Humane Society’s web site to see the final panel which depicted Opus in children’s storybook, “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown. Berkeley’s own web site appeared to be struggling under the traffic load.

Berkeley reports on his website that the contest to guess Opus’ final resting place received about 6000 entries which included an entry suggesting Opus would replaced the sequined eagle on Elvis’ jumpsuit whilst the “king” spends the eternities on the potty.

Berkeley Breathed has a message for those “Opus” fans who were worried that the penguin was deep-sixed Sunday when his five-year-old comic strip shut down. “Jumpin’ Jehosphat,” Breathed told The Times via e-mail, “Tony Soprano sleeps with the fishes, which is to say, dead. Opus sleeps with a bunny in a feather bed, dreaming of a more hopeful tomorrow morning.”

Most fans got that sweet image when they saw the final “Opus” online at the Humane Society. But others were worried when the penultimate strip in print took place in an animal shelter setting and that in the finale Opus was being put to sleep (so to speak) in the pages of “Goodnight Moon,” the gentle nursery classic. Those fans can rest easy now that Breathed has clarified that Opus is, well, resting easy.

The 51-year-old Breathed’s “Opus” ended its run Sunday with one foot in children’s literature and another in the unpredictable world of technology. The final comic showed Breathed’s pudgy penguin peacefully napping, while Breathed’s farewell note to his readers crashed the comic strip artist’s website.

Some who just saw the image fretted about the flightless bird’s final fate, so Breathed wanted to be especially clear in his e-mail to The Times.

“I assure people in my web note that Opus is in the comforting place that would make me smile when I think of him in the years to come. I can only hope that his fans will smile too. If Opus was cuddling with tropical girls wearing coconuts, I suppose I’d smile too, but tinged with regret that those things just never last after that early giddy stage.”

Sunday’s comic ran in newspapers and showed Steve Dallas smiling wistfully as he looked down into the pages of a book that couldn’t be seen by the readers. Online, the last strip revealed it to be “Goodnight Moon,” the beloved bedtime story written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd; in Breathed’s panel the book’s nurturing rabbit sits in her rocker with Opus curled asleep in the baby bunny’s bed. The final words are “Goodnight Opus / And goodnight air / Goodnight noises everywhere.”

Breathed had pulled the plug on Opus because of his frustration with current events and to write books for children.

A contest for readers to predict the ending gave $10,000 to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. The winner was Stephen Allen, one of 55 of some 6,000 entries to guess correctly.

“I thought it was a fitting ending for a character that everyone liked,” Allen said.

Now that Prop H8te passed...

Wow! Sorry Karl, we were both wrong!

Back last May, GOP Strategist Karl Rove came out with his Electoral Vote predictions, I posted on here with my own map side by side with his.

Let's see who was better at predicting the outcome shall we?




Gee Karl, looks like we both were a bit off the mark. You overestimated McCain by ...well, let's just say a LOT. And I underestimated Obama.

I have never been so happy to be proven wrong!

Post Election Thoughts....

President Elect Barack Obama -wow!

I was at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in downtown San Francisco when the race was called for Senator Obama. As of this moment my voice is still hoarse from having cheered so loud for so long. Last night's landslide victory has finally closed the door on the sad saga of arrogance and incompetence that has been the last eight years of Republican insanity.

Senator McCain's, incredibly gracious and moving concession speech was sadly marred by his own crowd there in Arizona. Who rather than cheer the accomplishment of their candidate, instead felt the need to jeer at the mention of Barack Obama's name. Disappointing, but given the nature of the crowds we saw at McCain/Palin rallies in the last month, sadly not surprising.

The fact is the entire free world celebrated the Obama victory last night. It marks the beginning of the process to restore America to once again being that shining city on a hill.

Hope defeated fear.

Ideas defeated ideology.

Solutions defeated cynicism.

I stood there in a crowded hotel ballroom watching men and women weep, cheer, dance and all say how proud we all were to be Americans at this incredible moment in our nation's history. Our democracy works. Our country's founders would be proud of us all.

For a few brief hours anyway...

I awoke this morning to see in plain news print exactly what English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) meant when we wrote about the "Tyranny of the Majority."

CA State Proposition 08 -
Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry

YES: 5,235,486 - 52.2%

NO: 4,800,656 - 47.8%

Last night saw another less laudable "First" in California politics. The first time our state Constitution was changed to eliminate existing civil rights for one group of our citizens. It wrote bigotry and discrimination into our civil law, and tells hundreds of thousands of Californians that they are second class citizens, separate AND unequal.

All done in the name of religious bigotry and racial homophobia. The Mormon Church and the Catholic Knights of Columbus both gave millions of Dollars to promote Prop 8. So the polygamists and the pedophile apologists joined forces to attack the Gays. Nice.

The one silver lining in this cloud of stupidity and politically expedient hate, is the fact that like or not, President Barack Obama will the one making the appointment of the next one or maybe even two Associate Justices on the United States Supreme Court.

A court that will one day overturn the likes of Prop 8and reaffirm the concept of Liberty and Justice for All

It's Election Day - Please Go Vote!

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Say It Isn't So Doctor!

David Tennant has announced that he will leave the award winning BBC drama Doctor Who when he has completed the filming of four special episodes which will be screened in 2009 and early in 2010.



David Tennant first appeared as The Doctor in 2005 and has gone on to star in three series and three Christmas specials as the tenth incarnation of the Time Lord. The BBC has confirmed that David will continue to play The Doctor in the four specials that will make up the 2009 series before a new Doctor takes over for Series 5. Tennant will also star in the Doctor Who Christmas Special titled The Next Doctor this year.

David Tennant comments "I've had the most brilliant, bewildering and life changing time working on Doctor Who. I have loved every day of it. It would be very easy to cling on to the TARDIS console forever and I fear that if I don't take a deep breath and make the decision to move on now, then I simply never will. You would be prising the TARDIS key out of my cold dead hand. This show has been so special to me, I don't want to outstay my welcome.

"This is all a long way off, of course. I'm not quitting, I'm back in Cardiff in January to film four special episodes which will take Doctor Who all the way through 2009. I'm still the Doctor all next year but when the time finally comes I'll be honoured to hand on the best job in the world to the next lucky git - whoever that may be.

"I'd always thought the time to leave would be in conjunction with Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner who have been such a huge part of it all for me. Steven Moffat is the most brilliant and exciting writer, the only possible successor to Russell and it was sorely tempting to be part of his amazing new plans for the show. I will be there, glued to my TV when his stories begin in 2010.
"I feel very privileged to have been part of this incredible phenomenon, and whilst I'm looking forward to new challenges I know I'll always be very proud to be the Tenth Doctor."

Russell T Davies Executive Producer of Doctor Who comments "I've been lucky and honoured to work with David over the past few years - and it's not over yet, the Tenth Doctor still has five spectacular hours left! After which, I might drop an anvil on his head. Or maybe a piano. A radioactive piano. But we're planning the most enormous and spectacular ending, so keep watching!"

Doctor Who returns to television screens on BBC this Christmas. The Next Doctor starring David Tennant, David Morrissey and Dervla Kirwan will be screened on the 25th December on BBC1

Closing Arguments.

I remember the first course in economics I ever took. It was during my senior year of high school. I didn't pay much attention to be honest. "Senioritis" was in full swing; most of us were mentally halfway out the door and thinking more about college the following fall than Mr. Conom's lectures on the history of capitalism. Yet a few things from that class have stayed with me.

Our textbook defined an "opportunity cost" as; "the cost of something in terms of an opportunity forgone." So basically it is what you can't have or do, because you had or did something else. As a nation we will come face to face with a choice next Tuesday that will define the collective opportunity costs, that our nation may face in the coming weeks, months, years and even decades.

If America makes the decision to elect the McCain/Palim ticket, we will face many such costs. Some of them economic, some political, some social. Yet and all of them, staggering in size and scope.

A common cliché is to say that leadership is about choices. Simplistic as that sounds it rings true regardless of what political party holds whatever end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Yet our choices speak volumes about who we are both as a nation, and what our political parties stand for, or against.

McCain opportunity cost number one: America's health.

Because of an elective choice by the GOP, at present we cannot afford to do anything to shore up our near critical public health care infrastructure.

Earlier this year the Washington Post reported that the cost of the war in Iraq will top $400 billion, and that total is likely to more than double before the war finally ends. Like most people, I find it hard to wrap my brain around how much $400 billion actually is. So to put this in perspective I thought we might want to examine the opportunity costs that a McCain/Palin adminstration will give us.

The number of people without health coverage rose to more than 45 million nationwide in 2003, 15.6 percent of the population compared to 15.2 percent in 2002. Here in California, we are home to the greatest number, with 6.4 million uninsured, or 18.2 percent of the population. The public health care system is overwhelmed by the country's uninsured that turn to hospital emergency rooms for even routine care. And Medicare -- the only source of health coverage for millions of elderly Americans-- is projected to run out of funds by 2019.

McCain Opportunity Cost number two: America's safety and security.

We are for all intent and purposes alone in Iraq. Britain our only real partner is heading for door as fast they can. And the United States of America, the nation that brokered Camp David and Oslo, has next to nothing in terms of political and diplomatic capital in the Middle East. Our credibility as a broker for peace is gone.

Throughout our history, America has overcome crisis and hardship through collaboration. Without help from France and Spain the American Revolution would have failed. Without allied unity in both the first and Second World War, imperialism and fascism would have triumphed. Without strong strategic partnerships and combined resolve, the cold war between East and West might still be with us today, or worse, not ended peacefully. It was the ability of President George HW Bush to create a unified coalition with Arab partners that enabled the liberation of Kuwait in the first gulf war to go as quickly and as successfully as it did.

The only victory that can be claimed so far in the "global war on terror" is "The United States is safer without Saddam Hussein in power." A popular early John McCain talking point on Sunday morning talks shows is if you dare question the President's failing policies in Iraq, then you clearly would prefer that Saddam was still in power. Again I don't know whether to laugh at the desperation of that, or cry at its sheer dishonesty.

Iraq has through an elective choice by this administration with the full throated support of John McCain; been transformed from a third rate dictatorship with dreams of one day maybe threatening the United States, into a breeding/training ground for real terrorists who are a threat to the United States. Iraq has become the Alamo for the extremist world. A rallying cry, recruitment poster and fund raising infomercial all wrapped up in one chaotic explosive roadside package. A package, with our name on it.

McCain Opportunity Cost number three: America's economic security.

Be it our crack-addict like dependence on oil, or our crippled manufacturing sector that has been allowed to fall critically behind the rest of the world. U.S. Automakers are unable to sell many of their cars in China, because Chinese mileage standards are higher than ours. That fact alone makes the argument by the auto and oil industries that the costs of better environmental standards is too high, seem downright stupid, or deliberately dishonest.

I remember the news this past Summer, and one of the lead stories was the tens of thousands of people who will be losing their jobs. Intel, Ford Motors, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett Packard, and AETNA are just a few of the companies who announced large workforce reductions for this year. According to my old employer, the HR consulting firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., the number of announced layoffs in August totaled 65,278 jobs, compared with 37,178 in July. The crippled housing market, rising fears of inflation, negative job growth , a staggering budget deficit, ballooning national debt and soaring energy prices have all battered consumer confidence.

Not to mention it would be a lot easier to sell your products overseas if your country is wasn't hated by the rest of the world.

McCain/Palin Opportunity Cost number four: America's soul.

Government is not a religion, it is a function. Ideology is not theology and should never presented as such. To claim that God would vote for you, or to seek to win elections by demonizing whole groups as people God doesn't love is truly un-American.

A GOP senate candidates saying only Christian voters can be trusted, an off the cuff remark by a then Texas Governor, and future President that all Jews are "going to hell". A decorated war veteran in Pennsylvania called a coward and traitor because he dared question the judgment of men who did all they could to avoid combat. All these things damage the soul of our nation. Under McCain/Palin all this would be common place for the next four years

Or even a deliberate choice by their political party to make fear and hatred of Gays and Lesbians a central Republican campaign theme. The result is the same. The party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan is reduced to a mob of big mouths with small minds, and our entire national debate of real issues is diminished.

It is true, opportunity costs are hard to quantify. Yet the choices that John McCain and Sarah Palin have promised to make, just like those made by the GOP and the current Bush administration are ones that our nation will be forced to be pay off for decades. The choices made by George W. Bush. John McCain and the Republican Party have left our nation in debt-- teetering on bankruptcy, in danger-- lacking strong strategic partners and facing increasing global animosity, and have sought to create a divided nation where ideology is based on who you hate, not what you believe.

As we head into this most crucial election of this century to date, it is perhaps a good idea to think not so much on the opportunity costs of the last eight years, but about the possibilities of next four if we stand together and make a much needed change on November 4th.

That is one opportunity I am willing to work for. I will walk into the voting booth next Tuesday and vote my hopes not my fears. I will vote for a better future not a rose-colored view of the past.

I am voting for Barack Obama for President of the United States.

I hope you will too...

Great Moments in GOP History...

Your campaign is so lame that even your fake "real American" disses you...

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One Week To Go...

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Greetings from Europe

Took a bit of a mental Health Break from the US Eleciton Campaign and have been in the UK all this past week. Will post more about the trip and the European press coverage of he US Election when I get back the US next week.

Apparently this little diddy really bugs Republicans

My old friend James over at the Wigderson Library and Pub has his
knickers in quite a twist over this. So that's as good a reason as any
to repost it :)

We now join the McCain Campaign, already in progress...

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Fox News is Not Happy....

Why won't Americans care about what Fox News wants them them to care about??! How dare the American People care more about the their homes, jobs and pensions than they do about Bill Ayers!

Oh this just keeps getting better. I imagine the managing editor over there at Fox is praying every day for some middle class white woman to go missing in the Carribean.

Since GOP Rabid Wingnut Morons Keep Asking..

John "I can't talk about the economy or else I'll lose" McCain likes to ask "Who is the real Barack Obama". Ok Senator, here's the answer.

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National Debt Clock runs out of digits

From Today's NY Daily News...
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Times Square National Debt Clock runs out of digits amid Wall St. meltdown
By LARRY McSHANE

Brother, can you spare a digit?

Exactly how bad is the U.S. economy?

Try this: The National Debt Clock near Times Square ran out of numbers to record the federal government's $10.2 trillion shortfall.

The familiar billboard-style clock, erected in 1989 by late Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst, was equipped to handle a debt count of up to $9,999,999,999,999.

The ongooing economic crisis eclipsed the clock's capabilities. As a temporary answer, the space that once held a dollar sign on the electronic billboard is now the number 1.

The clock's owners plan a bailout of sorts next year, when they will make room for two additional digits on the board. Back when Durst launched the clock, the debt was a mere $2.7 trillion.

Senator Grumpy McCranky needs a time out...

Ok, lets talk about consistency...

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Maybe he'll suspend his campaign again to rush up to Alaska to solve the Energy Crisis.

McCain wants to "turn the page"...

Sorry Senator, I don't think so...

Veep Debate Wrap Up..

It is intersting to note the post-debate polling all shows that Senator Joe Biden won the debate this evening. Yet it is worth noting that Governor Sarah Palin did not lose either. The reason for this is more significant than anything that was actaully said tonight.

The expecations for Gov.Palin were so low, going into the debate tonight, that all she had to do for Republicans to be able to claim a victory was not fall down, pee her pants and set the stage on fire. Seriously.

What we saw tonight was a politician that has shown she is very good at memorizing talking points and repeating them relatively in the right context. Had moderator Gwen Ifill actaully asked any follow-up questions, forcing Palin off-script, we would have seen enough disasterous material to keep Tina Fey well employed for years.

Joe Biden had one task tonight, ok two tasks. The first was not put his foot in his mouth with any major gaffes. The second was to hammer home the point that there is essentially no difference between John McCain and George W. Bush. He managed to accomplish both, relatively easily.

And as much as Pat Buchanon is on MSNBC desperately trying to convince people that Palin won on "energy", the facts are clearly proving otherwise. Her "spunkiness" came across as forced and fake, her folksy manner failed to connect, and by halfway through the debate started to grate. Three different network commentators have compared her to a contestant in a spelling bee. Only able to work off of what she had memorized, unable to stray from her script.

By comparison, Joe Biden who often comes across like an out of control fire hose, firing ten differnet directions at once, was poised, clear, direct and had what polls show was the the most connecting moment of the debate.

Joe Biden won tonight Here is the one moment says it all as to why.

Please America, Just Don't Vote... Seriously.

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Or...option 2,

Register,

Vote,

Matter.

From Today's Boston Globe

BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
Wasilla made rape victims pay
October 1, 2008

ONE QUESTION that Sarah Palin should answer during tomorrow's debate is why, during her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, the town started charging rape victims or their insurers for hospital emergency-room rape kits and examinations.

The policy so outraged the Alaska Legislature that in 2000 it passed unanimously a bill forbidding such fees. But Palin has never explained why, under her leadership, the town stopped picking up the cost of the swabs, specimen containers, and tests.

A spokeswoman for Palin wrote to USA Today that Palin "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test." But that was the practice in Wasilla while she was mayor.

If Palin were like most vice-presidential nominees of the past, reporters would have long since had a chance to quiz her on this subject, and many others. So far, though, the McCain campaign team has treated her as though she were in the witness protection program, permitting just three interviews with television personalities and no open-ended press conferences.

After the Alaska Legislature banned the fees, Palin's handpicked police chief, Charlie Fannon, complained that the state's action would force the town to spend $5,000 to $14,000 a year to cover the costs. "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer," Fannon said.

But the policy on rape kits may have had less to do with easing the burden on taxpayers and more to do with Palin's position on abortion. She has said she opposes it even in cases of rape or incest.

Generally, victims of sexual assault have the option of an emergency contraception pill, which some opponents of abortion consider tantamount to abortion itself. Does Palin support the decision two years ago of the US Food and Drug Administration to allow over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception pills?

Whether the fee-for-kits policy reflected Palin's budgetary zeal or her extreme view on abortion, voters deserve to know. As Alaska's governor in 2000, Tony Knowles, put it: "We would never bill the victim of a burglary for finger-printing and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence."

But in Wasilla they would, if the crime was rape.

Why the 2008 Election Matters So Much...

John McCain admits he need to learn how to "get online".

The next President of the United States will need to lead our country into this new and much bigger world...

Take a look:

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Jack Cafferty Read My Mind...

If the thought of Sarah Palin being one 72 year old cancer paitient's heartbeat away from the Presidency doesn't scare the hell out of you, then you are not paying attention.

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Uh... Ok...

America meet Sarah Palin, She wants to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency...

Whaddya think?

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NO on Proposition 8

The GOP Says this election isn’t about “issues” but rather about the personalities and “life stories” of the candidates. Ok then, courtesy of the "internets" here is what the Republican Party is saying the real choice in November is all about:

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic & foriegn.'
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, you are a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real
leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America.
* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

You know something? The GOP is right! The choice in November is MUCH clearer now.

Welcome New Readers!

SNL On Palin and Clinton- Brilliant

Tina Fey and Amy Pohler remind us how every once in a while, Saturday Night Live lives up to its own reputation.

Why I love the Republican National Convention...

It gives John Stewart the chance to show what BRILLIANT political analysis looks and sounds like:

Wow.... I mean.. really..., - WOW!

Hat tip to AMERICABLOG.org for this one...

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Wednesday, September 03, 2008
MUST-SEE TV: Top GOP pundits on accidental open-mic say Palin pick is 'bullsh*t,' race 'is over'
John Aravosis (DC) · 9/03/2008 05:37:00 PM ET ·

Two top Republican pundits, Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy, were just on MSNBC with Chuck Todd, and after their segment was over kept talking about McCain VP pick Sarah Palin. But their mics were still on. Oh my God. Everything we've suspected is true. The GOP is flipped out over this pick. Maybe the evangelical base is happy - maybe - but core Republicans, core conservatives, appears to be apoplectic and demoralized. Noonan was Reagan's most famous speech writer. She's no lightweight in the party, and she's no sexist. Here's the video, and the transcript is below.

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Here's the transcript, courtesy of TPM: (Talking Points Memo)

CHUCK TODD: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.
(cut away)

PEGGY NOONAN: Yeah.

MIKE MURPHY: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PEGGY NOONAN: It's over.

MIKE MURPHY: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CHUCK TODD: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PEGGY NOONAN: Saw Kay this morning.

CHUCK TODD: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MIKE MURPHY: They're all bummed out.

CHUCK TODD: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PEGGY NOONAN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CHUCK TODD: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MIKE MURPHY: I totally agree.

PEGGY NOONAN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MIKE MURPHY: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CHUCK TODD: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MIKE MURPHY: Yeah.

Not My Grandfather's Republican Party

Watching the spectacle of delusion and denial unfold at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul MN, the most striking aspect is the clear evidence that the GOP has become completely beholden to a rabidly neo-conservative evangelical base.

The GOP of 2008 bears little or no resemblance to the GOP of only twenty years ago, let alone the Party my Grandfather supported fifty years ago. Yes that's right, my Grandfather was a Republican. He believed in the ideals and values of the party that once elected Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency.

Yet I seriously doubt he, or Lincoln himself for that matter, would recognize the party meeting in St. Paul this week.

Abraham Lincoln believed in freeing the oppressed, uniting the nation, and punishing War Profiteers. John McCain's GOP ignores oppression in countries that don't have Oil or where the leaders are family friends. And ignores the fact that we have had a war profiteer as Vice President for the last 8 years.

Dwight Eisenhower viewed war is always a last desperate resort, and an unchecked military industrial complex is a threat to democracy. John McCain's GOP sees an unchecked military industrial complex is a crucial part of their "base."

Richard Nixon understood that we live in a world of interconnected global relationships. Constructive engagement and detente' are always more successful than direct conflict. John McCain's GOP blusters "You are with us or against us". To seek the cooperation of Foreign Leader or even to have respect of citizens of other nations is ridiculed as a sign of weakness.

Gerald Ford truly believed in duty, and that the interests of the nation are more important than polls or elections. He was a living example on how accepting responsibility for the actions you take in office, is a president's first obligation. John McCain's GOP sees transparency as a threat and can never under ANY circumstances admit a mistake.

Ronald Reagan saw that to achieve PEACE through strength, America's allies were the key to America's security. He knew that Big Government is never a substitute for American Ingenuity, and he understood that Faith is a private matter not a poltical platform. John McCain's GOP uses faith is political tool. America's historic allies are disposable, and big Government is great when it can make your base happy.

George HW Bush said it best in his inaugural address; "In crucial things, unity, in important things diversity, and in all things generosity. When America says something, America means it. Whether a treaty an agreement or a vow made on marble steps." He used Personal diplomacy to build a grand coalition of nations the likes of which had not been seen since World War II. John McCain's GOP thinks that the Geneva Convention is "Outdated and quaint", "public" meetings should only be open to hand picked supporters. And has given us a nation more divided than at anytime since the civil war. When we most needed strong alliances, we instead have a "Coalition of the Willing". A handful of countries with a handful of troops.

My Grandfather's Republican Party fought for smaller,less intrusive Government John McCain's GOP fights to amend the constitution to regulate the bedrooms and bodies of American Women. Along with a pledge to continue the largest and most costly expansion of the Federal Government in History.

My Grandfather's Republican Party sought to make the US the leader of Strong Global Alliances. John McCain's GOP loves to bash the UN, act unilaterally and recklessly, and trash traditional alliances calling them "Old".

My Grandfather's Republican Party understood fiscal responsibility, and that Jobs are the engine of the American Economy. John McCain's GOP, after only eight short years has given us massive Debt and deficits. Policies that tax the Lower and Middle Class to pay for tax breaks for the most wealthy, resulting in the loss of more jobs on their watch than any time since the days of Herbert Hoover.

This week in St. Paul we will hear a great deal about the GOP's "respect for life", an easily packaged label for a zealous push to eliminate reproductive rights for American women, and achieve theologically based government regulation of how life begins and ends.

"Defending families" will be the code phrase for the zealous push to deny any and all, rights, to Gay and Lesbian Americans no matter what the cost. Arabic translators who could in fact, help win the "war on terror" must be purged from the Department of Defense. Veterans who serve with honor and distinction must be demonized if they stand up and say who they are and who they love. Americans who have lost loved ones in Iraq or Afghanistan must be rendered silent and invisible. Denied any right to publicly grieve, because the soldier they mourn was their partner, and loved someone who was the same gender as they are.

John McCain's GOP easily sets aside issues like dealing the impending collapse of Medicare, the over 8 billion dollars missing from the Iraq reconstruction authority, the near 50 million Americans without health insurance, the problem of illegal immigration, massive trade and budget deficits, or the millions of cargo containers still entering our ports uninspected.

For John McCain's GOP, these and other inconvenient truths, are as easily overlooked as the record of the last eight years has been in the speeches at this weeks GOP Convention.

In an interview with Vatican television in 2003 then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, spoke of the death penalty as one the great evils of the modern world. Religious leaders around the world have been critical of the conduct of the war on terror, American disengagement in the middle east peace process, and intense aversion to meaningful foreign development aid. Yet John McCain's GOP is not interested in hearing about Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses, or how wise stewardship of the environment is "Christian Value".

For John McCain's GOP the "culture of life" ends at the prison door. The Neo-Conservative Right, may hate abortion, but they love capital punishment. John McCain's GOP will rush to defend the lives of the unborn. Yet after you come out of the womb however, you get to join the John McCain's "ownership society" - meaning you are on your own.

For John McCain's GOP, when critics dare question, you call them traitors, you have your surrogates question their character, their motives and their very humanity. In that same inaugural address, George Bush's Father lamented a time in our nation where "not each other's ideas are questioned, but each others motives." Sixteen years later, the party John McCain now leads, has embraced the politics of personal destruction, making a new legacy of division, rancor and politically expedient hate.

We live in a time when the Republican Party seeks to define "American" as only those people who conform to a particular limited , fearful view of the world. It is a political party that history will remember for a legacy of "fifty percent plus one." Where the key to victory is to divide people as much as you can, then prevent any who oppose you from having equal access to the political process. Be they people of color, people who don't speak English, or people who are not Conservative Evangelical Heterosexuals.

This what John McCain and Sarah Palin will ask America to vote for in November.

Thanks, but no thanks. I suggest America follow the advice of another GOP icon, Nancy Reagan...

Just Say No.

Cindy McCain thinks I am a brilliant Brain Surgeon

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Cindy McBeerBucks claims that GOP Vice Presidential pick Sarah Palin is qualified to be Commander-in-Chief because Alaska is the state geographically closest to Russia.

Ok...

If you follow Cindy's uh... Logic? Then I am qualified to perform brain surgery because I live across the street from a hospital.

Also THIS JUST IN! We have obtained a top secret video of Sarah Palin's first debate prep session to get her ready for her upcoming debates with Joe Biden.

Enjoy...

What the World woke up to this morning...

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So the GOP can rant all they want about the backdrop colums and the royal blue carpet at Ivesco Field last night. Whine all they want how accepting the nomination in front of 80,000 flag waving Americans is "arrogant". All it does is further prove the point that the GOP has nothing to offer America to vote FOR.

The Republicans slink into Minneapolis with an eight year record they are desperately hoping Americans won't remember. A Presidential Candidate who makes Bob Dole look young and vigorous, a VP candidate who makes Dan Quayle look Presidential by comparison, and who practically wears a t-shirt that says; "Hi! I'm Big Oil's Bitch!"

I imagine that the GOP party rank and file will attend their convention feeling a lot like the how the London Olympic Committee must have felt after watching the opening ceremonies in Beijing.



I truly wonder about the future of the GOP when the best they can offer for a convetion key note address is a desperate "noun-verb-9-11!" speech by Rudy Gulianni.

When the best counter punch the GOP can muster to John McCain not knowing how many homes he has, is to try play the POW angle like some sort of magic "get out of stupidity free" card. I truly have to wonder if the best thing for the Republican Party at this point wouldn't be to spend the next 4-6 years in the political wilderness.

Ok Grampy McSame... your turn

Dear Senator Obama...

Ok, This new ad is a good start. The problem is, this is August and this ad is only a good start.

I have been watching the game of poltical tetherball that the George W McCain campaign has been playing with you for the last month. What I have seen is disturbingly familiar.

The days and weeks following your incredible speech in Berlin, you had the momentum, the free world had stood up and cheered the hope that America would return to a path of sane, rational global leadership. A hope that now had a face and a name. Yours.

And then, your campaign dropped the ball.

You allowed attack after ridiculous attack to go basically unanswered. You allowed the campaign of the consummate lobbyist's pet to question your ethics. You allowed a man who has voted consistently against supporting the men and women of our military, to question your commitment to the troops. You allowed a man who employs lobbyists for foreign nations to question your love of country. You allowed a man who thinks that wide spread conflict in the Middle East would make a good Beach Boys song, to cast doubt on your willingness to defend America. In the past few weeks, you allowed a man with 10 homes, $500 loafers and a private jet to say that you were elitist and out of touch with the needs of working families.

In response? You mumbled tepid statements of disapproval of "old style politics." You frowned at the camera and said John McCain is honorable man who is running a dishonorable campaign. I have news for you. John McCain is not an honorable man, and at some point, unless you are happy with the idea of watching the McCain Inaugural from the bleachers, you are going to have to say so.

I feel like screaming at you. "HAVE YOU TALKED TO MICHAEL DUKAKIS OR JOHN KERRY LATELY???" Yes, playing defense will make you feel very noble and allow you to say how you are leading a "new kind of campaign." Sorry but there is nothing new about losing. Your campaign seems to be heading down a frighteningly similar path to 1988 and 2004.

I hate to break this to you but there is a truth to this Presidential race that you seem to be unable to grasp, so let me spell it out for you:

The Republicans will say anything and stop at nothing to win.

They will lie, they will cheat, and they will steal. They will call you a terrorist, they will call your wife a traitor, and they will criticize you for every thing you do, then turn around and criticize you for everything you don't do.

GOP Surrogates will spew the most insane nonsense about you with impunity on Fox News, which will then be repeated in the rest of the media as "covering the campaign". You CANNOT play defense. You will LOSE.

Not only that - you have yet to get your OWN house in order. This lunacy of having Senator Clinton's name put in nomination is a prime example. You WON the nomination, will you please ACT like it! Senator Clinton's campaign was historic yes. But it is OVER. The time has come for the Democratic Party to say to every Clinton supporter who is still whining about the need for "healing" a simple question. "Why do you want John McCain to win?"

You need to state in clear terms the choice in 2008 is this; "If you believe the right of a woman to control her own body is a bad thing then by all means support John McCain".

You need to state clear terms the choice in 2008 is this; "If you believe our economic and national security, and the lives of thousands of American soldiers should be sacrificed for Oil Company profits, then by all means vote for John McCain."

You need to state in clear terms the choice in 2008 is this; "If you believe the Executive Branch of the Government has a greater right to privacy than the citizens who elected it, then by all means vote for John McCain."

You need to state in clear terms the choice in 2008 is this; "John McCain has no plan to repair any of the damage done to our economy, national security, global standing or environment over then last eight years. John McCain's only plan is to continue doing more damage. To do that the Republican Party can't offer America anything to vote FOR, they can only try desperately to scare enough of us to vote against anything different."

You must be willing to stand up and say out loud that John McCain has nothing to offer this nation but exactly what we have had for the last eight years. Economic disaster, loss of American lives in wars with no end, and a philosophy of Government that sees the constitution at best, as a nuisance, and at worst, a threat to its power.

Unless you are willing forcefully articulate the choice between the two of you. A choice that is, in fact crystal clear. You will allow the GOP to once again cloud that choice with mud, flung without conscience or restraint. The time has come to stop lying to yourself by thinking that deep down the Republicans want the same things as you do.

They don't. They want you to lose, that's it.

The time has come to call liars what they are. Time has come to call cowards what they are. The time Senator has come for you to stand up and say you are a better man, a better leader and the better choice to lead this nation.

Please Senator Obama, stop being the tethered ball on the GOP playground

Jack Cafferty Gets it Right!

Note: Jack Cafferty is the author of the best-seller "It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars, and Losers Who Are Hurting America." He provides commentary on CNN's "The Situation Room" daily from 4 p.m.-7 p.m. You can also visit Jack's Cafferty File blog at www.cnn.com.

Commentary: Is McCain another George W. Bush?
By Jack Cafferty

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Russia invades Georgia and President Bush goes on vacation. Our president has spent one-third of his entire two terms in office either at Camp David, Maryland, or at Crawford, Texas, on vacation.

His time away from the Oval Office included the month leading up to 9/11, when there were signs Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America, and the time Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city of New Orleans.

Sen. John McCain takes weekends off and limits his campaign events to one a day. He made an exception for the religious forum on Saturday at Saddleback Church in Southern California.

I think he made a big mistake. When he was invited last spring to attend a discussion of the role of faith in his life with Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, McCain didn't bother to show up. Now I know why.

It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. "It means I'm saved and forgiven." Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning of faith for centuries. McCain then retold a story we've all heard a hundred times about a guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand.

Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing, he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not?

Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every day. He was asked "if evil exists." His response was to repeat for the umpteenth time that Osama bin Laden is a bad man and he will pursue him to "the gates of hell." That was it.

He was asked to define rich. After trying to dodge the question -- his wife is worth a reported $100 million -- he finally said he thought an income of $5 million was rich. One after another, McCain's answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has -- virtually none.

Where are John McCain's writings exploring the vexing moral issues of our time? Where are his position papers setting forth his careful consideration of foreign policy, the welfare state, education, America's moral responsibility in the world, etc., etc., etc.?

John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.

He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner -- short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.

I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul.

George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.

He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

"The Drowsy Chapperone" - Pure Fun...

I went with friends and saw the touring production of "The Drowsy Chapperone" tonight at the Orpheum Theater. When it first premiered on Broadway in 2006 the show won 5 Tony Awards but was eclipsed for the Best Musical award by "Jersey Boys". Still it was great to finally get to see it.

The show isn't terribly deep, but who says all musicals have to have a message?

Once in a while it's nice to have show that is just lots of fun...

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Coming Soon to an Economy Near You ...

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My Thoughts on John Edwards...

Over the past day or so I have had numerous emails from friends asking for my reaction to former Senator JOhn Edwards' admission on ABC's Nightline, that he did in fact have an extramarital affair in 2006. Contrary to all his public statements in the days prior to his appearance on ABC.

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Ok, then...

Yes I am disappointed in Senator Edwards. Would I still vote for him if he was running for president? Yes I would. Does adultery disqualify you from running for President? Obviously not since John McCain is still running and is guilty of the exact same thing. Yet that is neither here nor there, as John Edwards is not any party's presidential nominee, nor is going to be anyone's running mate.

I will confess to finding Edwards' "concern" about legalized marriages for same-sex couples vs. civil unions to be a tad hyprcritical now. Just as Newt Gingrich's or Bill O'Rielly's pontifications on family values have been revealed to be stark contrasts to their own personal lives. Yet again, to say that somehow disqualifies any of them from participation in the public discourse is frankly, ridiculous and disturbing.

The idea that John Edwards adultury somehow has anything to do with Barak Obama's candicacy is like saying John McCain's adultury is relevant to George Bush's Presidency. John Edwards' adultury like John McCain's is an issue between those men and their families. A position that I am sure Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich would both agree with.

Let the Games Begin...

Having grown up in Wisconsin I will admit to being more of a Winter Olympics fan than I am of the Summer Games. Yet watching the opening ceremonies from Bejing this Morning you have to admit, China puts on one helluva show.



As I was heading home from work last night I passed a large anti-China / pro free-Tibet rally going on in United Nations Plaza. It is true that the human rights discussion is one that needs to happen in tandem with China's debut on the Olympic stage. Yet it is also important to remember that the athletes competing in Bejing are not the ones responsible for the oppression in Tibet.

I am not sure trying to make these Summer Games about those other issues is the best way to move China towards change.

Paris Hilton - Policy Wonk!?

I am amazed... I can't make fun of her any more.

I dont know if this was her idea, but in any case it's brilliant.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

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Uh.. Ok, um... Wow.

The McCain Meltdown continues...

Grampy McCranky needs to get a funnel horn for his ear apparently..

again... Wow.

Supporting the Troops vs. Saying you do....

Keith and Rachel get it right...

Last Sunday's Church Shooting in Knoxville, TN

As usual when something like this happens, I am never sure exactly how to blog about it... I think the best way to start is with the facts...
---------------------------------------------
From KNOXNEWS.COM:



Police: Accused shooter hated liberals, expected to be killed

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday’s mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.

Jim D. Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his “hatred of the liberal movement,” Owen said. “Liberals in general, as well as gays.”

Owen said Adkisson specifically targeted the church for its beliefs, rather than a particular member of the congregation.

“It appears that church had received some publicity regarding its liberal stance,” the chief said. The church has a “gays welcome” sign and regularly runs announcements in the News Sentinel about meetings of the Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays meetings at the church.

The church’s Web site states that it has worked for “desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women’s rights and gay rights” since the 1950s. Current ministries involve emergency aid for the needy, school tutoring and support for the homeless, as well as a cafe that provides a gathering place for gay and lesbian high-schoolers.

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As I sit and write this here in "liberal" San Francisco, my thoughts are turning to people I know who continue to make excuses for the Anti Gay rhetoric of the GOP.

As a collective entity, the Republican Party and it's bankrollers in the Conservative Evangelical movement, have spent massive amounts of time and energy and money demonizing a LGBT Americans. Saying from the both the podium and the pulpit that Gay and Lesbian Americans are a "threat" who are "attacking" families and children. Calling for their followers to “fight" some phantom’ gay agenda’ and to "defend traditional values".

The Repubilcan Party and their conservative surrogates on the Religous Right like to paint a simplistic picture of the world where you are either in favor of "freedom" or you are supporting the "terrorist killers". Likewise the GOP has said loud and clear from the podium of their last four national conventions that if you believe that all American citizens deserve equal rights then you are "anti family".

The same people who criticize public dissent of the Bush Administration as "Motivating terrorists to attack us", continue to verbally attack LGBT people and will dismiss the hate crimes that follow as the "lone acts of disturbed individuals". The hypocrisy exhibited on the right is beyond belief.

Conservatives will say with great indignation, that I cant possibly blame them for the actions of one individual Yet to think that the flood of anti-gay rhetoric coming for people in power, people in authority, (both political and religious) has no effect, means you are either willfully blind, or deliberately dishonest.

Do I blame Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Bill O'Riley, James Dobson and their like for the actions of Jim D. Adkisson in Knoxville TN last Sunday? No, conservatives cannot be blamed for his actions, but their rhetoric IS partly responsible for his motivation.

In Germany in the 1930's Hitler and his National Socialist Party, ranted against the "Jewish threat", and mobs of young men then took to the streets of Berlin, smashed windows, burned stores and homes and beat up men and women. THIS IS NO DIFFERENT.

To my conservative friends, (and yes I do mean friends) who continue to excuse the the bigotry and politically expedient HATE spewed by conservative mouthpieces on behalf of the Republican party , you either really do hate Americans who are different from you , or you don't mind profiting poltically from that hate.

This is no longer about Right or Left, it's about right and wrong. This isn’t about are you for tax cuts or gun ownership, it's about do you agree with people who believe that one group of Americans are lesser human beings than others.

This debate is no longer about public policy. This is about whether it is ok for our government to vilify an entire group of people for political gain, and then not be held accountable for the consequences of that vilification.

Are we a nation that truly seeks to "crown they good with brotherhood"? Or have become that nation that Martin Niemöller warned of in his speech on January 6, 1946, to the representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt...

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

We see this on a much smaller scale, as John McCain gives in the temptation to demonize some Americans, in order to scare others into supporting him. Last week in an effort to divert media attention from his rival, John McCain accused Barack Obama of being more interested winning a political campaign, than winning the war in Iraq.

When talking about the "War on Terror", conservatives love to ask - "whose side are you on?" That is indeed the question we need to ask.

It's time to ask do you truly believe that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."?

Or will you stand with the Republican Party as it continues to seek political victory through social and religious division?

How many dead Americans are an acceptable number if it helps you win the White House?

10 things you should know about John McCain

(but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

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Your weekly dose of "Awwwwwww!"

Ok yeah I'm a big sap... But if this doesn't make you smile then you're pretty much a grinch to begin with..

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Wir Sind Alle aus Berlin...

The days to come will be full of comparisons of Barack Obama's speech in Berlin to that of Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton. Fox News and various GOP talking heads have been desperately trying to spin today's events in Germany as anything other than what it was. Something that the world has not seen since the year 2000.

Let's put aside the sad pathetic desperate spew coming from the American Right over today's speech. Instead, let's look at it for what it was, historic. Historic because it was not a presidential speech.

Barack Obama is not the President of the United States. He is in fact, not yet even the offical Democratic Nomimee for President. He is the junior Senator from the State of Illinois. Massive crowds turned out to hear both Presidents Reagan and Clinton. That is understandable. It was the President of the United States who was speaking. In 1987 I was one of the people in that crowd at the Berlin Wall when President Reagan spoke. Once upon a time in our history it was only natural and expected that huge crowds would turn out to hear the leader of the free world.

Yet in the past eight years when the American President travelled abroad the only crowds that turned out were throngs of protestors to jeer, rather than cheer his presence. This alone makes today's events in Berlin nothing short of monumental. Over 200,000 people turning out en masse to greet, listen to and cheer an American politician.

I could perhaps feel some sympathy for John McCain. First he challenges Obama to travel abroad. So Barack Obama takes McCain's tripple dog dare, and the Republican Party finds they have scrable desperately to try to divert attention from the success that trip generates. You all most can hear the GOP temper tantrum. "Hey! John McCain has travelled extensively abroad, given countless speeches too!" *Stomps feet*.

Yet as I watch the McCain campaign reduce itself to child threatening to hold his breath until he turns blue to get attention; I remember the electricity in the crowd that day President Reagan spoke. I remember German friends of mine cheering themselves hoarse when an American Politician spoke of his vision of a free and just world. Over the past eight years I was convinced I would never see that again.

Today, twenty one years later, watching the cheering crowds in Berlin, I have never been so happy to be proven wrong.

Post Vacation Thoughts....

I was back in Chicago and Wisconsin for two weeks. Celebrated 4th of July in Chicago with my friends Kyle & Marc. Then up to Madison WI to celebrate my Dad's birthday.

It is always intersting going back to Chicago. I lived there for five years. San Francisco, as friendly as a town as it is, is not an easy place to make new friends. Part of it is my own fault I tend to be somewhat reserved when meeting new people. Now once I get to know you I will never shut up, but the introductions on the front end are something I never have been able to do as easily as others have. So as yet another birthday lurks menacingly at the end of this week I find myself a tad more introspective, and yes retrospective than usual.

Now dont misunderstand I love San Francisco, I have a fantastic job and moving here was one of the better decisions I have made. Yet there have been more an a few times lately where I have found myself, even after 4 years here, feeing like a stranger in a strange land.

Coming back to Chicago to visit is always good for giving me that broader perspective. It is like a tiny little trip back in time where you get to spend time hanging out with old friends and see a little bit of the old "me". That sounds so odd I know but oh well.

I am coming to the conclusion that my rumblings of discontent maybe slightly more than just geographic.

It's hard not to feel like the character Bobby from the musical "Company". When I moved to San Francisco, part of me thought it was to find my life. In retrospect, a very silly reason, and not to mention, a huge misconception. You dont find a life. You make one. Where ever you want to. My life has always been where ever I am. Be it Madison, Wisconsin, Munich Germany, Chongju, South Korea, Chicago Illinois, and even San Francisco, CA.

Or anywhere for that matter.

So why not?

Oh well... Blow out your candles old man, make a wish... want something.


"

He's baaaaack!

Ok I am offically excited!

Apparently the World didn't end after all...

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Well it happened. Two by two, same sex couples trouped up the steps of San Francisco City Hall, went inside and got married.

Shockingly enough, we all appear to be still here...

Last Monday, while on my way home, I walked past City Hall. The scene out in front literally looked like something from a TV movie. On one side of the street you had hundreds of people cheering, singing, crying and celebrating as couple after couple came out of city hall waving their marriage licenses and certificates. The first were a couple that has been together for 55 years. Now finally able to "tie the knot" because of the recent CA Supreme Court decision on same- sex marriage.



Meanwhile on the other side of the street...

Members of the Fred Phelps family from Kansas were there holding up signs and posters to tell you just who God hates and why. My favorite was a sign held up by one member of this delightful little clan that simply proclaimed that "America is Doomed".



Two friends of mine, Felix and Freddie have been together for many years. In fact they have been together for longer than half of the average heterosexual marriages in the United States. They have a home, they work hard, they pay taxes, they volunteer in the community, they vote, they recycle, and they are faithful Christians who worship regularly at their church. They are everything you would think of when you hear the phrase "model citizens".

Yet according to this angry person shaking their sad hateful sign in rage, the fact that my two friends are going to get married this August, has doomed all of America.

Wow, these folks drove all the way from Kansas to San Francisco just to tell us that their angry vengeful God hates us all and the rest of America with us. Just because CA decided to allow two legal adults of no family relation who had the gall to fall in love, to actaually get married.

Yet again, shockingly enough, San Francisco and the rest of the Country appear to be still here.

How disappointed the Phelps family must be today to wake up and discover that God prefers our California love to their Kansas hate.

The True GOP Legacy...

It was a warm and muggy day twenty one years ago today. June 12th, 1987.

I was an exchange student in (what was then, West) Germany. I remember standing there at the Berlin Wall watching the President of the United States, state in words so clear, so commanding that they seemed to reverberate through the crowd like an electric current.

"Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

An elderly man standing near me the crowd saw I was an American and tapped me on the arm, and asked if I spoke German, I said yes. He then pointed towards the podium and said "only the American President could say that and mean it."

It wasn't until days later back in Munich I asked the grandfather in my German host family what did he think the man meant by that. He explained to me at the end of World War II German soldiers were fleeing westward with one goal in mind: Escape the advancing Soviet troops and surrender to the Americans. It was a known fact that the Americans would treat captured enemy combatants in accordance with the Geneva Convention and if you were caught by anyone else you were taking your chances.

It gave America a moral authority in the post war world that the Soviets didn't have. It was "moral capital" that gave successive American Presidents from Truman to Clinton the ability to stand before the world, demand justice, speak for freedom lead the world and mean it.

It was moral authority that allowed Truman to fight communist aggression on the Korean Peninsula, Eisenhower to deliver his Atoms For Peace speech at the United Nations proposing an international atomic energy agency and peaceful development of nuclear energy. It was moral capital that gave Kennedy the ability pull the world back from the very brink of nuclear war and face down Soviet military ambitions in Cuba. It gave Richard Nixon the chance to move détente' from being a nice idea, to real dialogue in China, and over a kitchen counter in Moscow.

It was a moral authority that Americans and the world would find reassuring in hands of Gerald Ford, and it enabled Jimmy Carter to take two nations that had been at war since the time of Moses, and into the woods of Camp David and lead their two leaders to peace.

The moral authority that came from America doing the right thing, the fair thing and the just thing in war , forty years later would empower Ronald Reagan to call an evil empire by its name, and demand the wall it built through a city be torn down. The trust that America does the right thing, would enable George Herbert Walker Bush to say in his inaugural address "When America says something, America means it. Whether in an agreement, a treaty or a vow made on marble steps!" The faith that America does the right thing would let George H W Bush meet with that same soviet leader and end a cold war that gripped the world for decades. The idea that America does the right thing would lead skeptical Arab nations to follow that same President Bush to free Kuwait from Iraqi aggression.

The faith that America does the right thing, would lead a hesitant and fickle Europe to follow Bill Clinton when he said the world community could not allow the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia to go unchallenged.

That authority, that capital, that faith in America as the nation that does what is right, has been destroyed by the Republican Party of George W. Bush. The pictures from Abu Ghraib prison, the FBI reports on torture and abuse of enemy combatants takes that great American legacy of doing what was right, and tears it to shreds.

Rather than lead with the moral authority stemming from generations of American soldiers and leaders doing what was right. We have a President of the United States who has to attack Amnesty International, ridicule the United Nations and insult traditional allies all to avoid admitting his own massive mistakes . Such as claims in the State of the Union Address, they have to be "re examined " when they turn out to be completely false.

Now we find when the President of the United States needs most to enlist the help and support of the global community the best he can do is "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists". Now we find when America goes to war, it is for reasons that are continually changed as they are proven to be fabricated, cherry picked and far more spin, than truth.

I was never so proud to be an American as I was twenty-one years ago today. The American President, MY President stood before the Berlin Wall and before the world and affirmed that American would demand what was right and mean it. Now I watch the President and cringe. For the last century when the American President spoke, the world stood up to listen.

Now when the President, or more importantly, when Senator John McCain - the man who would replace him, speaks; the best we can hope for is they won't be forced to "clarify" things when reality, facts and the truth continue to prove the President and his would be successor to be either wrong, or deliberately dishonest.

Game On!

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