Here’s your sign.
I was stunned when this actually made news. Talk about a tempest in a teapot. Have we really sunk this far? How far up your ass does your head have to be to even consider the President of the United States encouraging kids to stay in school a bad thing? Have you been watching the man at all the last nine months? He couldn't be more restrained, diplomatic or politic. What do you think he's really going to say TO. SCHOOL. CHILDREN?
HT: Greg Prince
Sarah Palin for President
Can you think of anything more frightening for this country? Recently on Meet The Press, McCain stated unequivocally that he believes Sarah Palin to be qualified for President. Her qualifications? "She has all the right instincts, all the right principles, she was a mayor, she was a governor, she has a great background."
She was mayor of a town of roughly 5,500. Yes, Wasilla is part of the Anchorage metropolitan area, for a total population of about 360,000. Does anyone else wonder if being Mayor of a small town extrapolates well to being President of the United States? She was elected governor in 2006, that means she was basically governor for one year, maybe 18 months. How effective a governor do you think she was while on the campaign trail? And now she has resigned. She didn't even complete a full term as governor. All I've heard is whining about media scrutiny, a.k.a. slander and defamation. I'm sorry, but she is a nobody from nowhere and suddenly she's candidate for Vice President. You think that isn't going to raise eyebrows? You set yourself up as a target then complain when people start taking shots at you. Does that sound like someone who can take the heat of being President?
When asked if he had any regrets about choosing Palin as his running mate, McCain responded, "...with all due respect to those who like to examine the entrails and look backward, the fact is we were three points ahead on September 15 and then the stock market crashed and we went seven points down..."
Ummmm...isn't examining entrails about looking forward? And how do you give respect to someone who you then immediately dismiss and a conjurer or a quack? He talks about the stock market crash like it was a force of nature beyond his control and not a reflection on eight years of Republican economic policy, which maybe, just maybe had an impact on voter confidence in his and her ability to govern well.
I don't get the Sarah Palin obsession. From where I sit it has to be one of two things: a delusional attempt to rescue an ego and save face, or they really do think she would be a great president because she is so clueless, Republican power brokers would have a perfect puppet in the White House. Oh, I'm sorry. Was that a personal attack?
Kirby on Utah Pride
It was the most polite event I've been to since I can remember. But then I wasn't a street preacher.
On the northwest corner, a couple of preachers were telling passersby they were going to hell, and in turn being told to "[deleted] off."
The one with the "Homo Sex is Sin" sign was besieged by a dozen furious lesbians, a fact I deduced partly because of how they looked but mostly because they kept saying so at the top of their lungs.
The other preacher periodically held up two female ends of electrical cord and jammed them together to show, I guess, that the fit didn't work.
Neither did the object lesson. For me, it begged all sorts of gospel imponderables about biblically approved amps, volts, etc. Is Heaven 220 or 110? Are power strips brothels or plural marriage?
The Ends Justify The Means
Isn't this just special. Supporters of Prop 8 let slip in an amicus brief they don't really think that ministers will be forced to perform marriages that are contrary to their beliefs. Interesting since we keep hearing that saw over and over and over...even during the Prop 8 campaign. "If we let the gays get married in a court house the next thing you know we'll be getting sued and be forced to perform marriages in our houses of worship!"
Or not. But that's okay. Jesus doesn't mind a little dishonesty as long as it's for a "good cause."
I’m Speechless
Valerie Mills of Bountiful's Citizens for Families argued the "collapse of traditional marriage" is leading to high rates of child anxiety and obesity.
Salt Lake Tribune: Legislative panel approves first gay-rights bill
OK. I lied. The collapse of traditional marriage has nothing to do with gay sex, gay marriage or gay rights. It's about toxic heterosexual couples who lack the maturity and relationship skills to even be in a relationship, much less be a parent or get married. Heterosexuals have done a fine job of demolishing marriage without our help.
Oh, but don't lets talk about the failings of heterosexuals. Let's just blame the gays.
Praise the Lord and pass the denial.
There's an interesting article over at The New Yorker about the incongruent attitudes about pre-marital sex and teen pregnancy among Christian conservatives.
During the campaign, the media has largely respected calls to treat Bristol Palin’s pregnancy as a private matter. But the reactions to it have exposed a cultural rift that mirrors America’s dominant political divide. Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion.
I think there are two things here worth noting. First, I tend to think this nonplussed reaction to teenage pregnancy is just an extension of the culture of denial that surrounds sexual behavior in these groups. It harks back to the days when you bundled your kid off to live with a distant cousin "for her health" to avoid the embarrassment of having an unwed, pregnant teenager in the house. They just pretend it didn't ever happen, just like they pretend their teenagers aren't horny and dancing in the sheets. Today's version of packing your daughter off to live with the relatives is to play the whole issue down, demonstrate to the world how open-minded and compassionate you are and talk about how your are proud of your daughter because she has "decided to take responsibility for [her] actions and decided to follow up with that and get married and raise this child." I'd be willing to bet things weren't that calm in the house when her daughter dropped the bomb that she was pregnant. I'd also be willing to bet the decision to get married was a lot more about ultimatums and less about decisions.
The second piece plays into why Sarah Palin is such a hit: everybody's doing it. I can just see two women at some church social, pausing at the punch bowl: "You have an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter? Me, too!" There's a sense of camaraderie that seems to exist. These women can sympathize with "poor Sarah" and the "trials and tribulations" she must be going through because of the dreadful choices of her wayward daughter. Never mind that's hardly a reason to put someone in the White House. Never mind that it was their deliberate misinformation about the realities of sex that got their daughters there in the first place.
HT: Greg Prince
Ya think?
On-stage remarks made by leaders at this week's Republican National Convention - aimed at discrediting the resume of Barack Obama - offended a much broader group of people who tend to be very vocal.
Namely, community organizers."
Well, duh. We stumbled onto Palin's talk while channel surfing. I could only stomach about five minutes of her posturing and ridiculous attempts to make her look like she's more qualified than Obama. Here's a hint for an obviously clueless bunch of idiots: If you're trying to connect with "the salt of the Earth," don't insult the people on the ground.
Again?
This is getting cliche now.
There's been an explosion of chatter on Alabama-based blogs today that the state's Republican anti-gay Attorney General Troy King may be about to resign in the face of a sex scandal with a male assistant. According to multiple sources, King was caught in bed with the man by his wife and thrown out of his home. ( Joe. My. God. )
King. Honey. That is so six months ago. You guys really need to find some fresh, new way to self destruct.
I try and have sympathy for these guys, I really do, but come on. If you're conflicted about your sexuality go be a hermit or a monk or something. Just because your life is miserable that doesn't make it okay to drag the rest of us down with you. Or is there some Biblical justification for that I missed during Sunday School? See, I thought the whole, "remove the beam from your own eye before you go bitching about the mote in your brother's eye" thing applied here.
K. Now I’m pissed.
Chris Buttars, Utah State Senator from West Jordan, is an ass. I have to believe that even wingnuts who support him as a champion of moral causes privately think, "What an ass." Generally I just try and ignore him. Otherwise, I'd be angry all the time, but this just tears it.
Buttars just lost his seat as the chairman of the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee. It's about damn time he was sanctioned. Of course, you don't get sanctioned for being a homophobic and racist bigot. Sorry, I meant Champion of Moral Causes. However, you can get sanctioned for unethical behavior, which is only a matter of time when you've got an ego as big as Buttars'. Buttars wrote a letter to a judge, on Senate letterhead, scolding him for ruling against a personal friend (and large campaign contributor) of Buttars' in a land dispute said friend is engaged in with Mapleton city. And here is what Buttars said in that letter that just burns my shorts.
I had hoped that we had appointed a judge that would err on the side of individual rights, not a liberal activist judge who would champion government." (Salt Lake Tribune, 2/26/08)
ARE YOU [expletive deleted] KIDDING ME???!!! This is the [expletive deleted] who introduced a bill to put the kabosh on a recently created domestic partner registry in Salt Lake City. Passed unanimously by the city council, it would allow local businesses to offer domestic partner benefits if they so desire (Salt Lake Tribune, 2/23/2008). What a hypocritical [expletive deleted]. He's only a champion of individual rights if you're rich, white, straight and a campaign contributor. Otherwise, the state (ie. Buttars) gets to decide what constitutes individual rights.
All you have to do is read the news from the last few weeks and any rational, thinking individual would be able to tell the man is clueless, probably a raging narcissist, and has no business in the Senate. He plans to seek re-election, because he knows his critics are unjustified. I think the odds he will get re-elected are actually pretty good, but if by some stroke of luck he should lose, you know it won't be because he's an [expletive deleted]. It will be because his critics sabotaged and slandered him.
Talking Points: 1 Clues: 0
If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or (Barack) Obama would win," he said. "And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror" (NPR).
Of all the things Romney might have said on his way out, of all things that might have turned my opinion of him even slightly toward positive, this wasn't it.