Link Here. 

Can you tell the difference between music that passed through a pricey Monster stereo Cable, and a coat hanger? A reader forwarded us a post from the Audioholics Home Theater Forum and its author says no. He says his brother ran an experiment on him and four other audio aficionados listening to a new CD from a new group blindfolded. Seven different songs were played, each time heard with the speaker hooked up to Monster Cables, and the other time, hooked up to coat hanger wire. Nobody could determine which was the Monster Cable and which was the coat hanger. The kicker? None of the subjects even knew that coat hangers were going to be used.

Eat shit and die Pearson…

Via Der Spiegel…   Some really scary video of a German Lufthansa Passenger jet aircraft attempting a landing at Hamburg International Airport during that violent wind storm last week that killed 13 people….

The powerful winter storm system that swept across Central Europe this weekend nearly caused a massive air traffic disaster on Saturday in Hamburg. A Lufthansa jet struggled through 90 kilometer-per-hour (56 miles per hour) crosswinds on its approach into the Hamburg airport. After skidding dramatically across the runway in an aborted landing, the plane’s pilot opted to take off once again.

I’d have to say that was a good decision… 

Whenever someone starts preaching to me about how the sex lives of gay people are sad and broken I just cheerfully point them to the tons, literally tons, of articles out there written by heterosexuals, for heterosexuals on how to fix their own broken sex lives.  If the grass is any greener on their side of the fence I’ve yet to see it.  Other then the fact that their marriages are given some security in the rule of law that ours are not, their intimate sex lives don’t seem any less difficult to manage then our own.

And believe it or not, single though I’ve been most of my life, and gay ever since…well, puberty…I read those articles now and then, mostly for clues as to what pitfalls to avoid in the event that my own sex life happens to improve.  Even though they’re written with a basic premise of gender difference in the relationship, a lot of it can I think, apply to same sex couples too.  Conversely, I think opposite sex couples could learn a thing or two from our households too.  How gender equality works in practice being one of them, but also how it is to keep things together in a hostile world.  When all you have is literally each other, and you have to find a way to make it work without the support of the world around you, then you really know what your union is made of.  The same sex couples who have made it in this world, under that kind of relentless emotional stress, are my heroes.

So anyway…I see this this CNN fluff piece about how sexual incompatibility is troubling some marriages and I start reading…

He’s a 38-year-old executive. She’s a 34-year-old homemaker. He says they never fight, and in many ways they’re compatible — but not when it comes to sex.

"It’s almost like a checklist," says Jon (who asked that his real name not be used) of their once-a-month lovemaking. The problem, he believes, is a lack of desire.

Sexually unfulfilling marriages aren’t limited to new parents or aging baby boomers with hormone imbalances. They can ensnare even the relatively young and the recently married. When they are unable to blame kids, stress or physical issues, many couples struggle unhappily to identify — and resolve — the problems behind their lackluster sex life.

Couples end up in sexually unfulfilling marriages for a variety of reasons, says Marty Klein, a licensed marriage counselor and certified sex therapist in Palo Alto, California. One reason, he says, is America’s obsession with marriage.

Laura Berman, a Chicago sex therapist and relationship expert, agrees. "We put the blinders on when we’re dating," she says. "We focus so much on the wedding, we don’t notice the warning signs."

That obsession with marriage being fueled in part, by the fundamentalist kook pews here.  Not everyone is temperamentally suited for marriage, and in any case, after you’re married is the wrong time to find out you’re not sexually compatible.  Having sex while dating and before marriage, or for that matter when marriage isn’t even a goal, isn’t unhealthy unless it’s unloving.  Much as the right hates the sex drive, it’s an important part of our being.  Just ask your gay and lesbian neighbors: It does us great harm to put sex in the closet.

In more ways then one.  As I was scanning down that CNN article, I saw this on the page…

When your spouse announces he’s gay…  Which, wasn’t one of those Surprising reasons you’re not having sex either as it turned out.   A lot of right wing pulpit thumpers say that sex before marriage is responsible for weakening the institution of marriage, but it isn’t.  It’s the padded cell they’ve put marriage into on the one hand, and sex on the other, that’s weakened it.  There is nothing wrong with sex that is truly loving and joyful.  The more gay people know that and accept that there is nothing wrong with them and that their sex drives are as legitimate and as beautiful as those of heterosexuals, the fewer surprised spouses there’ll be.  And the more intimately couples know each other before they tie the knot, the more likely they’ll go into it with that beautiful body and soul union that can make a marriage endure anything.

I’ve seen it happen.  Maybe someday it’ll happen to me.  If the pulpit thumpers would just get the fuck off our backs and out of our beds, it might happen to more of us.

The OEMs were apparently screaming warnings to Microsoft early on about Vista.  Funny thing though…Microsoft didn’t listen…

Dell slams Microsoft over Windows Vista launch

A leaked Dell presentation accused Microsoft of making late changes to Windows Vista which forced key hardware partners to "limp out with issues" when the OS launched last year.

"Late OS code changes broke drivers and applications, forcing key commodities to miss launch or limp out with issues," said one slide in a Dell presentation dated March 25, 2007, about two months after Vista’s launch at retail and availability on new PCs.

The criticism was just one of many under the heading ‘What did not go well?’

Others ranged from knocks against Vista’s Windows Anytime Upgrade scheme, an in-place upgrade option, to several slams on ‘Windows Vista Capable’, the marketing programme that targeted PC buyers shopping for machines in the months leading up to Vista’s debut.

Funny how all the problems with Vista can be boiled down to two things: Microsoft’s tyrannical software license branding/activation scheme, and Vista’s locking down of the hardware to enforce film and music industry anti-piracy schemes. 

In an email to CEO Steve Ballmer written less than three weeks after he took over the post, Sinofsky [chief of Windows development] spelled out his three reasons why Vista stumbled out the gate.

"No one really believed we would ever ship so they didn’t start the work until very late in 2006," Sinofsky said. "This led to the lack of availability [of device drivers]."

Okay…that’s bullshit.  The reason why hardware vendors got started late, was because they kept having to start over.  That’s right there in Sinofsky’s points two and three: 

Next on his list: Changes to the operating systems’ video and audio infrastructure. "Massive changes in the underpinnings for video and audio really led to a poor experience at RTM," he said. "This change led to incompatibilities. For example, you don’t get Aero with an XP driver, but your card might not (ever) have a Vista driver."

Finally, said Sinofsky, other changes in Vista blocked Windows XP drivers altogether. "This is across the board for printers, scanners, WAN, accessories and so on. Many of the associated applets don’t run within the constraints of the security model or the new video/audio driver models."

The hardware driver issues arise from Microsoft’s changes to the hardware API to prevent anyone from tapping a pure digital signal and thereby bypassing Vista’s DRM.  Microsoft has gone as far as to demand that video and audio circuitry not provide any way for a signal to be tapped directly from the hardware, as a requirement for Vista certification. 

The problems with Anytime Upgrade revolved around the fact that you had to have your original install disks so the software could verify that you had a non-pirated copy of Windows XP before it would install Vista.  A lot of folks didn’t get those from the hardware vendors.  Others had trouble with the validation process that resulted in their computers being rendered inoperable.  Some were told that their license was invalid, even though they had legitimately purchased it, and then found they could not downgrade back to XP.  For many it was a nightmare.

This is what happens when you put profit over reliability.  Software license branding, digital rights management, all add complexity to operating system software, which needs to be as straightforward and elegantly designed as possible for the sake of reliability.  But the only thing Microsoft and Hollywood give a good goddamn about in terms of reliability is the sound of the cash register.  Microsoft became a multi-billion dollar company distributing software that could be easily copied, and for them to get pissed off enough about piracy that they’re willing to break your computer to make sure it doesn’t have an unlicensed copy of Windows running on it is on its face more a measure of their corporate greed then how bad the problem of software piracy may have been.  Windows piracy couldn’t have been so bad if honest software purchasers made Bill Gates a billionaire fifty-six times over could it?   Unless of course, even that wasn’t enough money for him.

This is why I’m running Linux at home, and a smattering of Apple Macs.  Yes, iTunes has DRM embedded in it too, but Apple seems not as paranoid about it as Redmond.  And Linux is open source, so I don’t have to worry that if I have a hardware failure my OS won’t work anymore when I swap out whatever broke with something new.  Amazon.Com is selling DRM free music now that I can play on both iTunes and my Linux boxes just fine.  I don’t need Microsoft anymore in my home anymore.  And the fact is that Linux is a mature enough technology now that most folks, who just use their computers for email, text editing, maybe a little checkbook balancing and web surfing would have no trouble using it at all.

For the moment, it looks like most people are standing pat on XP, or even older versions of Windows.  They don’t see the need to upgrade, especially when Microsoft keeps making the upgrade path more and more onerous.  Vista is costly not only for the software itself but the hardware you have to buy to run it smoothly.  It didn’t have to be this way.  Microsoft could have had a hit on their hands if they’d produced Vista for their customers, and not their stockholders and Hollywood media moguls.  Greed and paranoia about piracy are killing the music industry.  It’ll do the same to the big software companies too if they want it to.

According to the emails made public last week, Microsoft will apply the lessons it learned with Vista the next time around. "There is really nothing we can do in the short term," noted Joan Kalkman, the general manager of OEM and embedded worldwide marketing, in a message written a week after Sinofsky’s. "In the long term we have worked hard to establish and have committed to an OEM Theme for Windows 7 planning.

Committed to an OEM Theme for Windows 7 planning.  Committed to an OEM Theme for Windows 7 planning.  Committed to an OEM Theme for Windows 7 planning.  Take that apart and try to figure out what it means.  Go ahead.  I give Microsoft another decade before it completely implodes.  Nobody cares about their goddamned slogans and buzzwords anymore.  It all sounded so cool back when Microsoft was a bunch of bratty young computer geeks running rings around stogy old IBM, but it just doesn’t fucking cut it now. 

It was never about the promise of the personal computer was it Bill?  It was never about taking technology out of the hands of big corporations and their mammoth data processing centers and putting it on people’s desktops and giving them control over their own data and empowering them.  It was all about money wasn’t it Bill?  Software was never about empowering people, it was just a way for you to become rich.  And now you’re even bigger then IBM, stodgier, and way more paranoid, and all the little computer geek children are writing Open Source software now that anyone can copy and modify and use however they want to and running Linux and BSD and they don’t give a shit about Microsoft.  And they’re wearing t-shirts that say, In a world without fences, who needs Gates?

…Still in it.

Via Box Turtle Bulletin…  More on Texas District Attorney (former) Chuck (moral standards) Rosenthal. 

"I think what — what I’m saying is — and I had not gotten into the equal protection argument, Texas has the right to set moral standards and can set bright line moral standards for its people. And in the setting of those moral standards, I believe that they can say that certain kinds of activity can exist and certain kinds of activity cannot exist."  -Charles A. Rosenthal.

I hadn’t known the details of how Rosenthal’s incriminating emails were discovered…only that they’d seen the light of day via some sort of legal proceedings against him.  Apparently it began with a Houston drug raid.  Some neighbors took photos of the raid and were later harassed and arrested by the police for it.  At trial they were exonerated, and they sued.  During discovery proceedings, they subpoenaed Rosenthal’s emails and that’s when the whole shit pile that is Rosenthal’s inner nature came tumbling out…the racist jokes, the pornography, the love notes to his secretary…  But wait…it gets Even Better…

But the thing that took Rosenthal down was not his adulterous affair. Nor was it his racism.

Rosenthal scorned the judge’s orders and did not turn over all of his email. Instead, he deleted over 2,500 email just days after being ordered to remit it. This got him in a heap of trouble.

So Rosenthal, Mr. Bright Line Moral Standards, destroyed evidence in a case against him.  Attorney At Law much?   And as it turns out…there’s more to Rosenthal’s gutter then this even…

 A grand jury indicted a Texas Supreme Court justice Thursday [January 17, 2008] on arson-related charges. But on Friday the district attorney’s office that brought the case to the grand jury in the first place dropped the charges, angering members of the panel and drawing allegations of political backscratching.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, who is himself embroiled in a scandal involving inappropriate e-mails found on his office computer, said there was insufficient evidence to support the charges against Justice David Medina, a fellow Republican.

Rosenthal by all appearances, was trying hard to scuttle the case developing against Texas Supreme Court justice David Medina, a fellow republican (surprise, surprise) for torching his own house due to financial troubles.  Here’s how the Dallas Morning News reported it…

AUSTIN – A Harris County grand jury indicted Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina and his wife Thursday in connection with a June fire at their home in Spring, north of Houston.

But within hours of the indictments – Francisca Medina on an arson accusation, Mr. Medina on an evidence-tampering charge – Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said his office didn’t think there was enough proof to charge either of them with a crime.

"We don’t feel like there’s sufficient evidence to proceed," Mr. Rosenthal said. "We will be asking the court to dismiss those [indictments] so we can proceed with further investigations."

The district attorney’s decision not to prosecute was the only good news of the day for Mr. Medina, a 49-year-old former district judge who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Gov. Rick Perry in 2004, and for his wife, defense attorney Terry Yates said.

They’ve "done nothing wrong," Mr. Yates said, "and will continue to fight this thing vigorously."

But legal experts say Mr. Rosenthal’s announcement – and in particular, its timing – are unusual.

… 

Harris County fire officials believe the June blaze, which destroyed the Medina home and a neighbor’s house and did nearly $1 million in damage, was intentionally set. Their initial investigation focused on six people close to the justice, and was fueled by a trail of financial troubles for Mr. Medina’s family.

In 2004, the Medinas failed to pay nearly $10,000 in county and school district taxes, resulting in a lien on their home. A year later, a mortgage company attempted to seize the couple’s home, claiming they had not made a payment in four months. The suit was resolved out of court.

The Medinas’ home insurance policy had lapsed because of unpaid premiums.

Mr. Medina, a former general counsel to Mr. Perry who makes $150,000 a year as a state Supreme Court justice, has called the financial problems "miscommunications with the bank."

The June fire wasn’t the Medinas’ first. A decade ago, the family’s garage went up in flames.

When Mr. Medina was called before a grand jury last fall, he told reporters he was sure he wasn’t suspected in the fire. He said he had some ideas about who might have started it, and said Mr. Rosenthal had assured him he was only a witness.

On Thursday, Mr. Rosenthal acknowledged that’s what he told Mr. Medina – "at the time."

"Whether anything else came up that would make him a target, I don’t know I can say that," Mr. Rosenthal said.

In an interview with the Quorum Report, Jeffrey Dorrell, the assistant foreman of the grand jury, accused Mr. Rosenthal of playing politics to protect Mr. Medina.

"Rosenthal resisted these indictments with a vigor I have never seen or heard before," Mr. Dorrell told the online newsletter. "The [district attorney’s] office called my office last week and said we should not meet, the case was not viable and we should not indict. Obviously, that came from the top." 

Now…consider this:  Rosenthal was the second state attorney to argue in defense of the sodomy laws before the U.S. Supreme Court since the Stonewall Riots announced the beginning of the modern gay rights movement.  The other guy?  Michael Bowers.  And Bowers, you may recall, later endured his own episodes of political scandal and cheating on his wife.

It may seem odd…surreal even…that these self appointed moral authorities on the right would keep turning out, time and time again, to have the inner moral character of a gang of crooks.  But that’s only if you look no further then the surface fealty to the moral code they claim to embrace.  Look deeper.  Look at the moral code itself.  Where does it come from? 

The Bible?  No.  They pick and choose from the bible like customers in a cafeteria, sliding their trays down the rails…now and then finding a tasty treat to their liking, ignoring the rest.  These people, for all their bellyaching about their deeply held religious values, have religious values that are skin deep and no more.

The flag?  No.  For all their super duper true red white and blue American super patriotism, these people have utterly no commitment at all to the basic values of liberty and justice for all.  None.  If anything, they find it anathema.  Their vision of the American Dream, is one that enriches their own lives, only and to the degree that it kicks into the gutter everyone they personally despise.  The American Dream is money in their pocket, so long as it came out of yours.  Freedom isn’t a rising tide that lifts all boats, but a ladder with them at the top and the rest of us down at the bottom, holding them up.   The American Way, is their way. 

Look at the values these people hold, not the ones they profess.  Really look at them.   All their moral values, all their deeply held religious beliefs, all their breathless reverence for America, amount to one thing only: themselves.  They are worshiping a mirror, and calling it Jesus.   They are saluting a flag with their face on it, and stripes made of line items in their personal prosperity check list, and calling it America.  And that is how the man, the lawyer, could stand before the U.S. Supreme Court and argue that the only justification the sodomy laws needed was that they reflected the moral values of the people.  Whether or not they embodied or conflicted with the values this nation was founded upon were irrelevant.  If the people believe it is moral to imprison homosexuals said Rosenthal, then that makes it right.  It was a statement of his innermost moral character: if he believes it is moral, then it is moral.  Or more specifically, if he does it, it must be moral because he did it.

And that is why the man, the lawyer, who stood before the U.S. Supreme Court and said that Texas could draw a bright line of morality for its citizens, could cheat on his wife, use his office to protect a fellow republican from criminal prosecution, and destroy incriminating evidence against himself.  Never doubt that in each and every step of the way down that path, in each and every moment of the walking of it, Rosenthal knew beyond any doubt or misgiving, that he was acting morally.  It isn’t that he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t think it was immoral by his standards.  He was the standard.  His life, his needs, his desires, his behavior.  Because he did it, it Was moral.

That’s how these people think.  It’s how they measure right from wrong.  Jesus is the image in the mirror that nods approvingly back at  them.  The American way is the shape of their daily lives.  Family values, is whatever goes on under their own roofs.  Morality, is the stamp of approval they give to their own behavior from one moment to the next.  That his how both Rosenthal and Bowers could condemn gay rights as a threat to marriage and family life, and cheat on their wives and still tell the world that they were moral men.   Yes, they really believed it.

Note to self: After a fight with your boyfriend, do not get drunk, do not get drunk and throw the furniture around, do not get drunk and throw the furniture around and smear tomatoes all over the walls and the floors, do not get drunk and throw the furniture around and smear tomatoes all over the walls and the floors and set the bed on fire, and especially if the furniture you’re throwing and the tomatoes you’re smearing and the fire you’re starting is in the fire chief’s historic Nob Hill house…

$1 million bail in chief’s residence fire

Bail was set at $1 million Wednesday for the San Francisco planning director’s companion, who is accused of setting fire to the historic Nob Hill residence of the fire chief where the couple were living temporarily.

Lance Farber, 47, pleaded not guilty to felony arson and vandalism in a brief appearance at the Hall of Justice, shortly before Superior Court Judge John Conway set bail.

…

Farber’s lawyer, Randall Knox, said it was an "accurate assessment" that the dispute was a lovers’ quarrel. Farber set fire to the couple’s mattress, then called Rahaim to tell him that he had done so before leaving the residence at 870 Bush St., where the men were living while they were looking for a permanent home, Knox said.

…

Farber has been "going through a difficult time" since the move from Seattle, having left behind his friends and his job, Knox said.

Thirty firefighters and several high-ranking city officials rushed to the three-story home after the fire broke out around 8:40 p.m. Friday. Police found the burning bed, overturned furniture and crushed tomatoes smeared on the floors and walls.

Damage to carpets and walls was estimated at $30,000. Some city officials said they hoped Rahaim would pay for the damage. The planning director did not return calls Wednesday seeking comment.

Farber was arrested in San Mateo County on suspicion of driving under the influence about an hour after the fire broke out.

So I’m reading this and thinking to myself that being single for so much of my life has spared me from this little rite of passage…the lover’s quarrel.  My experiences getting dumped have all been along the lines of You’re a nice guy Bruce…  I don’t get the knock down drag out never darken my door again you bastard fight at the end.  They’re always so fucking nice to me.  So I’m sitting here trying to imagine what it would take to make me want to smear tomatoes all over the walls and floors and I can’t.  Kick over some furniture…yeah…I can imagine myself doing that if I got angry enough.  Getting drunk afterwards…check.  I can grok that.  I think a basic instinct for self preservation would prevent me from setting any fires indoors.  But…tomatoes?  Tomatoes???  (sigh) There is so much about being coupled that I’ve missed out on…

Via Atrios…  From Bill Bennett’s Book Of Virtue…Chapter 88, How Do We Protect Multi-Billion Dollar Oil Companies From Responsibility For Their Own Jackass Behavior…?

Chief Justice Roberts defends Exxon

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on how much money ExxonMobil should be forced to pay as damages for its Exxon Valdez oil spill 19 years ago. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank notes that Chief Justice John Roberts appeared “bothered” that Exxon might have to pay for its destruction:

What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion — roughly three weeks’ worth of profits — for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

“So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?” Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. “Well,” he said, “it can hire fit and competent people.”

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

As Atrios said…"The real question is "how can coastal Alaska protect itself from being covered in oil by companies like Exxon." Apparently they shouldn’t be able to.  I imagine if, say, a tractor-trailer careens into Justice Roberts’ home, his first thought won’t be about how to protect the company from punitive damages."

Three weeks worth of profits.  Exxon just posted something like 40 billion dollars in profits for the last fiscal year.  And Roberts thinks that they need to be protected from a 2.5 billion dollar judgment that holds them accountable for what they did to Alaska.  Those coastlines Still aren’t restored.  When republicans talk about the liberal nanny state, verses self reliance and personal responsibility, they’re talking about us peons.  If you’re a multi-billion dollar a year corporation, you’re entitled to all the government largess you want.

Le Dance Pathetique (Petit)…as choreographed by Katy B., of Katy’s Conservative Corner…

Un…

"While your blogger has nothing personally against gays…"

Deux…

"…and does not care what they do as consenting adults…"

Trois…

"…she does care about Equality NC’s attempts to tie homosexual desires onto the civil rights causes hard fought by black Americans.  This is just wrong!"

Quatre…

"These gay militants want to be able to be married, just as heterosexuals are, and that personally offends this blogger."

Le Curtian…Applaus a Voux…

When fundamentalists speak of freedom of religion, they don’t mean what you think they mean…

Calif. Capitol chaplain says religious tolerance offends God

An evangelical chaplain who leads Bible studies for California lawmakers says God is disgusted with a rival fellowship group that includes people of all faiths.

"Although they are pleasant men in their personal demeanor, their group is more than disgusting to our Lord and Savior," Drollinger wrote on the Capitol Ministries’ Web site.

The comments drew immediate fire from others in the capital, including the Republican lawmaker who sponsors Drollinger’s Bible study group.

Drollinger said "progressive religious tolerance" is an offense against God and causes harm to its practitioners.

He said the other Bible study group was perpetrating a "deadly lie" by presenting Jesus as "a good moral teacher who loves everyone without distinction."

Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines, who sponsors Drollinger’s Bible study group, said the differing approach between the two groups should not be a cause of conflict between them.

Right.  Until Drollinger’s kind finally acquires the power to decide what the first amendment means. This on Drollinger’s Capital Ministries from Jews On First…

Capitol Ministries aims to "reach every elected official in every nation of the world at every level of government with the uncompromised, saving message of Jesus Christ," according to its website. So far, the California-based group has, again according to its website, "singularly focused on establishing biblical ministries in State Capitols throughout our nation … in order to make disciples of Jesus Christ within the political arena, at every level."

… 

The growing roster of states is worth noting because of Capitol Ministries’ extremism.

The group’s leader, Ralph Drollinger, is so extreme that the Los Angeles Daily News reported this month without qualification that he "has a long record of bashing Catholics, gays and mothers of young children who serve in the state Legislature."

…

In his keynote address to the May 8th Harrisburg "Commonwealth Prayer Breakfast," Drollinger said it was important to challenge legislators to make decisions to "submit to Christ as Lord," according to Rabbi Paula Reimers of Congregation Beth Israel in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, who attended.

She also noted Drollinger’s remark that it isn’t necessary "to coerce one who has come to Christ as to how to vote."

…

In 2004 he [Drollinger] offended many in the California legislature when he called Catholicism "the world’s largest false religion."

According to a 2005 report in the Sacramento News & Review, the previous year Drollinger "had to move the Bible study from the governor’s suites after he labeled Catholicism, the religion of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a ‘false religion.’" Thanks to the sponsorship of three Republican legislators, Drollinger moved the study to a legislative suite, according to the paper, where its attendance was around a dozen Republican lawmakers. There is a separate study group for staffers.

In 2004 Drollinger wrote a Bible study stating that women legislators were sinning by leaving their children to go to Sacramento. "It is one thing for a mother to work out of her home while her children are in school," he wrote. "It is quite another matter to have children in the home and live away in Sacramento for four days a week. Whereas the former could be in keeping with the spirit of Proverbs 31, the latter is sinful."

Drollinger amplified with a patriarchal assertion about the roles of men and women. "Man’s is, primarily, to be a breadwinner, and women’s is to be at home nurturing their children," according to contemporaneous news reports.

Some members of the state Senate responded by wearing aprons to a legislative session.

In the interview with the Sacramento News & Review, Drollinger differentiated his operation from religious right organizations. They, he said, lobby on bills, whereas Capitol Ministries works to win souls (the same distinction he made at the Harrisburg breakfast)..

He also insisted that he supports the separation of church and state, because the two insititutions are biblically ordained to serve different purposes, according to the SNR.

The group’s own descriptions of its activities suggests quite the opposite. A 2002 "Bible study lesson series" aimed at Tennessee government workers was titled "Decision-Making and God’s Will," according to the Nashville Business Journal.

…

In 2005, in a retort to the speaker of the California Assembly’s statement that all are "children of God," Capitol Ministries’ national "expansion" director, Sean Wallentine, said: "While it is nice to believe that God is everyone’s Father, it is not true." Only those who are "born again" become God’s "adopted children," Wallentine said in a written statement quoted by the California Observer blog.

The Daily News report on the prayer breakfast in Santa Clarita quoted Wallentine disparaging an alternative Interfaith event. "I would just say they’re allowed to have their meeting," he said, "but we wouldn’t be supportive of a meeting that taught that there are many ways to heaven. There are not."

Freedom of religion?  You’re very much mistaken citizen…sin has no rights that men of god are bound to respect…

Now…this is nice…this is really cool…if it’s real…

Straight-friendly destinations – the new trend in gay travel

Travel experts at the Gay & Lesbian Travel Pavilion at the world’s largest tourism fair have said the a new niche market for heterosexuals has emerged.

"Apart from gay and lesbian cruises, we have noticed a clear rise in hotels and resorts that are not only gay-friendly but targeted mainly towards gay men.

"Straight people are, in most cases, allowed to stay, too. The magic word is straight-friendly," said Robert Kastl, Managing Director of Publicom GmbH, the organisers of the Pavilion.

ITB Berlin, the world’s largest tourism fair, is being held in Berlin from March 5th to 9th.

He claims that destinations that have already established a gay-friendly image are increasingly putting their bets on explicitly gay and lesbian events, which are open to heterosexuals too.

"The range of special travel products has increased and even within the gay and lesbian travel market we are noticing more and more diverse sub-niches," says Kastl. 

The reason I prefer to go to gay friendly places while on vacation is because it’s nice to be able to actually relax and let my hair down and enjoy myself and not have to worry that some asswipe is going to bash my skull in to prove how manly he is and/or much he loves god.  But what I would really like is to be able to enjoy a mixed and diverse crowd of folks who all get along and just want to have a good time wherever we all happen to be. 

You have to figure that a heterosexual who goes to a gay friendly resort goes knowing that they’re going to be in the company of gay people and will likely find themselves witnessing PDAs between same sex couples, if not being the recipient of a cruising glance or two themselves.  If they’re the sort that doesn’t faze then far as I’m concerned I’d love to share a vacation space with them.  Be really nice to, at least for a few brief vacation days, imagine you’re living in a world where being gay (and for that matter, the color of your skin, or the country you’re from or the specifics of your religion) is no more an issue then the color of your eyes or your hair.  It’s hard to believe in that world if everyone around you is the same…even if that sameness is something you need to make you more comfortable.  Especially if, actually.

From The Washington Post…

Attention, Parents: Larry Craig is Seeking Interns

The Idaho Republican has just announced he’s taking applications for summer internships in his Capitol Hill office, which has been the brunt of gossip and many a colorful "wide stance" joke ever since last summer, when Craig was busted in a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport men’s room sex sting.

"Interns have the chance to be an essential part of a working congressional office," Craig said in a press release issued Tuesday. "They participate in the legislative process as well as ensure that constituent services run smoothly. For those interested in politics, it is an incredible opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at how our government functions while serving the people of Idaho."

Craig is giving preference to "Idaho applicants attending Idaho schools who are in their junior or senior years of college (including graduating seniors)."

The interns Craig seeks are "expected to fulfill some administrative duties such as answering phones, sorting mail and greeting constituents."

…with a pre-arranged shoe tap to let them know the coast is clear.  Craig’s want ad is Here, where he also notes…

Idaho law students are encouraged to apply for a full-time position as Law Clerk working directly with my Chief Counsel in Washington, DC. Contact my Intern Coordinator to learn about requirements and how to apply.

I’ll bet his Chief Counsel is a very busy man these days.  Unlike Mark Foley, I’ve yet to hear of Craig hitting on teenagers.  His libido, if a tad whacked, seems nonetheless to be drawn toward other grown men.  But still…what parent is going to consent to this?  You want to intern for Who?  Over my dead body…!

Card #12: Houston District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal:

“I think that this Court having determined that there are certain kinds of conduct that it will accept and certain kinds of conduct it will not accept may draw the line at the bedroom door of the heterosexual married couple because of the interest that this Court has that this Nation has and certainly that the State of Texas has for the preservation of marriage, families and the procreation of children. “Even if you infer that various States acting through their legislative process have repealed sodomy laws, there is no protected right to engage in extrasexual – extramarital sexual relations, again, that can trace their roots to history or the traditions of this nation.” -Chuck, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas

Ah yes…the preservation of marriage and families…

Resignation doesn’t end trouble for Houston’s top prosecutor

Rosenthal is back in the headlines again. Last December, as part of a federal civil rights lawsuit into how justice is meted out in the county, he turned over the (partial) contents of his government e-mail account. And what a batch of e-mails it was. Black ministers called for the Republican to resign because of racist material, including a cartoon depicting an African-American suffering from a "fatal overdose" of watermelon and fried chicken. There were adult video clips and love notes from Rosenthal to his secretary, his mistress during a previous marriage. "I love you so much," Rosenthal says in one. "I want to kiss you behind your right ear," he says in another. "Go spend time with your family," she admonishes him back.

Extrasexual extramarital sexual relations.  Extrasexual extramarital sexual relations.  Extrasexual extramarital sexual relations.  What the fuck?  There something in the water down there?

Via Pam’s House Blend…  Mayor Naugle and his friends score another one…

Police search for man who attacked gay couple

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WSVN) — Police are searching for a man driven by hate, who beat a gay man and threatened him and his partner, after they finished a meal at an outdoor restaurant.

The couple were dining at the Floridian restaurant on Las Olas Boulevard with a friend around 3 a.m. Saturday when they say a stranger verbally and physically attacked them. "I can barely see out of my right eye at this point, I got scrapes…" said Melbourne Brunner.

Brunner said he received the injuries from the stranger who walked by their table and targeted him for no other reason besides the fact that he is a gay man. Brunner said they tried to be cordial with the stranger when they first made eye contact. "He looked down at us, and my partner said, ‘Good morning,’ and that was it."

Brunner recalled, moments later, the man returned visibly upset. "He just started with this barrage, of, ‘Are you looking at me, you faggot? You know what I do to faggots? I break their necks!’"

After the verbal encounter, his partner and friend decided to ask for their check. They got up, left the restaurant and headed down the sidewalk to their car. That’s when the attacker followed them and made his move. "As I was almost into the car, the guy had made it down the sidewalk and had reached inside and grabbed the edge of the door," explained Brunner. The verbal attack turned physical when Brunner stood up. "That’s when he hit me, and I landed face-down on the concrete."

Mitchell Mart, the victim’s partner, went to render aid to Brunner and noticed his injuries. "I came down the street to pick him up and put him in the car and saw he was badly injured," Mart said. "His forehead immediately swelled up, his eye closed, he was bleeding."

Mart tried to get the attacker’s license tag number from his pickup truck, but the assailant went out of his way to keep it hidden. "He took off his shirt, covered his license plate, put down his tailgate," he said.

Brunner said the attacker then threatened them. "’I’ll kill you before you get my tag number, you faggot!’ and jumped in his car, rolled down the window and was screaming, ‘That’s right, run, faggots, run.’"

Despite the attacker’s attempts to keep his identity hidden, the victims did give a detailed description to police. Authorities are looking for a newer model, four-door Toyota Tacoma with a metallic green color, chrome rims, a black roll bar and a black bed cover. The attacker is described as a white male, in his early 30s, with a muscular build, clean-cut hair, standing about 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet tall.

Make no mistake…this is exactly what they were calling for, when Naugle and a group of black ministers got up in front of the cameras at a press conference, one of them wearing military fatigues, and called for a war on homosexuality, and a cleansing of sin from Ft. Lauderdale.

 

 

You see it often, how conservative parents of gay kids fight a bitter, vitriolic battle against gay equality, as a way of punishing their children.  There was Robert Knight, who fought gay rights in California till the day he died.  Alan Keyes.  Phylis Schafly.  Charles Socarides.  There’s a bromide about how so many anti-gay KulturKriegen are closeted gays themselves.  But often, it’s not that they’re gay, but that one or more of their children are.  So they lash out at the gay community, as a way of punishing their kids for being gay.  Less often you hear about children of gay parents, doing the same after they’ve grown up and left the nest.  But it’s there.  Just as bitter, just as vitriolic.  Case in point, Dawn Stefanowicz, whose new book, Out From Under, about being raised by a gay father, is being pushed by the usual suspects.  Here’s Peter LaBarbera gushing over it…

Folks, this is a beautifully written book that testifies to the lunacy of encouraging homosexual parenting in public policy. It can be ordered through Dawn’s website:

Of course…it’s about more then "encouraging homosexual parenting"…

Stefanowicz said she was prompted to write the book in 2004 after testifying before a Canadian senate committee against hate crime legislation and expressing public opposition to the sexual diversity curricula used in her country’s schools.

…it’s about opposing hate crime legislation…and teaching tolerance to kids…because god knows if we don’t bully the little dickens mercilessly when they’re young they might grow up to be well adjusted gay people.  But look at this…really look at it.  Here’s a woman whose claim to fame is that her childhood was made miserable from having a gay dad, and she’s out there vigorously working to make school kids less accepting of their gay peers, thereby insuring that their childhoods will be miserable too.  Does she want kids to suffer abuse in school?  No.  So long as they’re heterosexual.

But, as it turns out, she doesn’t want other kids, gay or straight, to miss out on the suffering she went through either.  Look at this, from LaBarbera…

The author and speaker said writing down her memories about being raised by a father who welcomed numerous male sex partners into the family’s home on a regular basis was a painful process. Stefanowicz said her father’s destructive homosexual behavior created confusion about sexuality in her own life. In the book she chronicles how, as a young girl, she often wished she were a boy.

Of course, and conveniently, Stefanowicz’s dad isn’t around anymore to tell his side of it.  Stefanowicz says elsewhere that it was only after both her parents had passed away that she was able to come forward with her story.  Okay…that’s entirely plausible.  But it’s also very convenient and you learn to be suspicious of these kinds of happy advantages a speaker has when it comes to the religious right.  But let’s take that story at face value.  There’s two problems here, and below the surface of both, a terrible third.  First, any parent, gay or straight, who "welcomes numerous sex partners" into the household isn’t thinking of the effect that has on the kid, on their sense of being loved, and being secure.  So right away it’s obvious that it wasn’t her father’s homosexuality that was the problem there, it was his indifference to his kid’s emotional needs. 

Second, and reliably, there’s LaBarbera describing that as "homosexual behavior".  This is how bigots think.  It’s exactly like an antisemite talking about greed as a particularly Jewish behavior, or a racist speaking of black criminality.  LaBarbera, who almost certainly knows what he’s doing, deals professionally in every anti-gay stereotype you ever heard.  He’s a professional hate monger, who works tirelessly to inflame passions against gay people.  That’s how he earns a living.

But look closer into Stefanowicz’s story.  Her dad grew up in a time when gay men were deeply closeted, when we were all taught that we were depraved monstrosities deep down inside.  That doesn’t excuse his behavior, but it puts it into context.  We were given no moral guidance from the men of "virtue" in our culture, other then the knowledge that because we were homosexual, we were beyond the pale.  We were given nothing to aspire to beyond the gutter.  Some of us managed to escape that trap, and live decent whole lives in spite of the constant message being drummed relentlessly into us, that we were human garbage.  But it’s that message that Stefanowicz insists the culture keep teaching to gay men and women.

Stefanowicz may claim that writing about her childhood has helped her to heal, but in painting her experience as a warning, not about what homophobia does to gay people and to their families, but rather a warning not to accept the homosexual into society, she’s working diligently to guarantee that other children have exactly the same childhood she did.  Because when the message is that homosexuality is abominable, and that to be homosexual is to be lower then dirt, gay men and women will try everything in their power to not be gay…including getting married and having children.   But the human identity isn’t a blackboard anyone can scribble their will upon, and the sex drive is an instinct older then the fish, let alone the mammals, let alone the primates.  You suppress your sex drive and the next thing you know it’s rushing out in all manner of self destructive ways, and you have no control because you never learned control, because denial isn’t control.  So what we end up with, when we make the culture more homophobic, are a lot of married homosexuals, in denial about their sex drives, and utterly unable to control them.

Just ask this lady what it’s like being married to one. 

Unlike that poor woman who told her story to MSNBC, Stefanowicz is working to insure that more kids will have childhoods like hers.  Because she has to.  Because if other kids can have happy, fulfilling lives being raised by gay parents, then she’s still all alone in the misery of what happened to her.  Instead of rising above it, she’s made it her home.

More on  Stefanowicz Here, and Here, and Here…