Scott Lively, author of the revisionist Pink Swastika, is in Uganda. Lively has previously traveled to eastern Europe, and the former Soviet block, to tell the people there that the Nazis who massacred millions of Slavs during World War II were homosexuals. Here’s what I wrote about it a year ago January…
Alex Shevchenko has been arraigned for a hate crime tied to the assault and eventual death of Satender Singh in July. According to prosecutors, Mr. Shevchenko and Andrey Vusik taunted Mr. Singh in a park because they thought he was gay. Mr. Vusik eventually threw a punch that toppled Singh, dashing his head, they charge.
Gay leaders in Sacramento say the incident followed several years of escalating tensions with some Slavic immigrants.
"The gut feeling of the [gay] community is that preaching among the local Russian evangelical community is breeding hate and that something would happen. And Satender was the something that happened," says Ed Bennett, a gay Democratic activist.
While Slavic leaders say their community is being unfairly scapegoated for legitimate political protests and deeply held religious beliefs, some monitors warn that an emerging group called the Watchmen on the Walls may be fomenting a dangerous atmosphere within the ranks of Slavic immigrants here.
I’ll say it’s dangerous. Scott Lively, one of the group’s founders, is also the author of The Pink Triangle…a Holocaust revisionist book that argues that the Nazis were basically a homosexual movement and that rather then being among the victims of the Holocaust, homosexuals were the primary instigators of it. Consider that Lively is now preaching this message to Slavs in what was the eastern Soviet bloc at one time…a people who suffered a staggering loss of life at the hands of the Nazis during world war two…
Videos of Watchmen conferences abroad suggest some leaders are less modulated, and their audience less against violence. One video shows Lively giving a version of Singh’s killing different from reported facts, including the notion that Singh was undressing in front of children. The audience cheered twice as Lively recounted the punch and the death of Singh – a reaction Lively rebuked, saying: "We don’t want homosexuals to be killed. We want them to be saved."
The camera was on and Lively knew it. There is no way on God’s green earth Lively doesn’t know the impact his message that the Nazis were homosexuals and homosexuals are all basically Nazis has on this particular group of people. He knows Exactly what he’s doing. He has never publicly condemned the killing of Satender Singh by a group of young Slav men in Sacramento. There’s a reason for that.
Eastern Europe taken care of, and sufficiently incited to murder, Lively has now traveled to Africa, with basically the same message: African genocide is caused by homosexuals…it is the homosexuals who are killing Africans… Jim Burroway reports…
According to anonymous blogger GayUganda — as we said, Ugandan gay bloggers need to remain anonymous for their own safety — American Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively provided the much-anticipated red meat on day three of the anti-gay conference taking place in Kampala.
On Saturday, Lively repeated his discredited historical revisionist theory in which he claims that the cornerstone of Germany’s Nazi lies firmly in the gay movement, and that the gay movement today, if left unchecked, will result in a similarly murderous fascism wherever it goes. In Kampala, he went further by expanding his examples of what he calls homosexuals’ murderous impulse by blaming the 1994 Rwanda genocide on gay men.
Now consider the environment Lively is pouring his gasoline into…
Lively was asked about the current state of Ugandan law, which provides for a life sentence for homosexuality. Lively reportedly approved of the existing law, and endorsed adding a provision mandating forcing convicted gay men and women into ex-gay therapy. Conference speakers had called for such a law on the second day of the conference. Adding more fuel to the fire, GayUganda had earlier noticed that this apparent press release was posted on The Earth Times:
Kampala Anti-gay activists in Uganda Saturday formed a pressure group to discourage homosexuality, following a two-day conference of religious leaders, teachers and social workers in the capital Kampala.
The group, to be called the Anti-Gay Task Force, is intended to “fight against the spread of homosexuality and lesbianism in the country,” spokesman for the group Stephen Langa told reporters. Same sex-relationships and marriages are illegal in Uganda, and human rights groups have criticized the government for harassing homosexuals.
The task-force said that it would one day “wipe out” gay practices in the African state.
The threat to “‘wipe out’ gay practices” is not an idle threat in a nation that provides a life sentence for those convicted of homosexuality. Further, Uganda witnessed at least three seperate campaigns of government sanctioned and media-led vigilantism between 2005 and 2007. The last spate of violence was sparked by a press conference of LGBT leaders calling on the nation to simply allow gays and lesbians to live in peace. The LGBT leaders at the conference wore face masks out of fear of being identified.
This conference poses a very dangerous development in a country with such a volatile history in how it treats gays and lesbians.
Which is precisely what Lively went there to accomplish. Is there any doubt now that this man wants to rise the mob against gay people, in order to enact his final solution? This is deliberate incitement to violence. There is just no mistaking it for anything else. Like so many other Culture Warriors, Lively wants gay people dead. But unlike most of the others, he has a plan to accomplish it. Step one: Go to nation that has suffered genocide. Step Two: Teach the people of that nation that the ones who killed their kinfolk were homosexuals. Step Three …
Satendar Singh was a native of Fiji. At age 19 he immigrated to the USA and lived with relatives in the Sacramento, California area. He worked at an AT&T call center. He was well liked by both his co-workers and friends.
On Sunday afternoon July 1, 2007 he and 6 friends, reportedly 3 couples of Indian and Fijian descent, were partying at a California State park at Lake Natoma, east of Sacramento. Trouble broke out between Singh’s group and another group, reportedly Russian speaking and of Russian descent. Verbal assaults were traded between the groups. The Russian group allegedly made racist and homophobic comments to Singh’s group and singled him out for homophobic comments.
About 8pm that evening as Singh’s group was leaving, the men of the Russian group confronted Singh’s group in the parking lot. During the confrontation one man punched Satendar Singh in the face and Singh fell backward hitting his head. Singh slipped into a coma never to regain consciousness. Four days later on July 5, 2007, family removed Satendar Singh from life support and he died.
A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.
"When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.
However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.
"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.
If you’re surprised about this then you haven’t traveled much in the bible belt. I see more highway billboards advertising strip shows and adult entertainment dives when I take a road trip through the Fundamentalist States of America then anywhere else, except maybe Nevada. But at least there they aren’t hypocritical about it. Oh…and guess who is the biggest consumer of online porn in the nation.
The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. "The differences here are not so stark," Edelman says.
Utah. Where marriage is so sacred they pour millions into California last year to prevent loving same sex couples from being allowed to marry. Nice. The magic underwear isn’t working so well I take it. Or perhaps too well. Perhaps it was all part of a plan on the part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to drain money out of the faithful’s porn budgets.
Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays – a 1% increase in a postal code’s religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds.
Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage.
I keep thumping my pulpit on this but it keeps being relevant. They need their scapegoats. Gay people are their handy punching bags for all their own private secret shame, their own pathetic failures of moral character. They hate us, because we learned to live with our sexual nature and they, locking it in the closet, never learned how to control themselves.
Denial isn’t a plan for life. The human identity isn’t a blackboard anyone can scribble their will upon. Least of all religions founded by con artists. No river rises higher then its source.
The anti-gay American Family Association is calling now, for a boycott of Pepsi. Seems they’re none too happy that Pepsi treats its gay customers like something other then human garbage. Here’s their email alert to the faithful…
Dear ****,
Pepsi has produced another TV ad not only promoting Pepsi but also promoting the gay lifestyle. Click here to see the ad.
Pepsi had released a similar ad before. The ads serve two purposes for Pepsi: to sell Pepsi and to promote the homosexual lifestyle. AFA asked Pepsi to remain neutral in the culture war, but the company refused – choosing to support the homosexual activists.
Pepsi has made no effort to hide their support for the homosexual agenda:
Pepsi gave a total of $1,000,000 to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to promote the homosexual lifestyle in the workplace.
Both HRC and PFLAG supported efforts in California to defeat Proposition 8 which defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. HRC, which received $500,000 from Pepsi, gave $2.3 million to defeat Proposition 8.
Pepsi forces employees to attend sexual orientation and gender diversity training where the employees are taught to accept homosexuality.
Pepsi is a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
Take Action!
So you folks in the kook pews are going to drink…what…from now on? Coke? Coca Cola company gets a 100 Percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign. Hmmm. Well…you Could do 7-Up, which is owned by Dr Pepper/Snapple…but only here in the U.S. Elsewhere it’s owned by…Pepsi.
Jonathan Rauch, who writes from time to time like he has common sense, joins hands with a bigot to announce they two have found common ground. Wow…common ground…
In politics, as in marriage, moments come along when sensitive compromise can avert a major conflict down the road. The two of us believe that the issue of same-sex marriage has reached such a point now.
It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.
I see. Well that sounds like a plan all right. And it would work too…right up to the point that something like this happens…
One moment everything was fine. You were in your stateroom on the cruise ship — it was to be an anniversary cruise — unpacking your things. The kids were in the adjoining stateroom playing with your wife. Suddenly, they banged on the door crying that mom was hurt.
So now you’re in the hospital — Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami — waiting for word, and it’s not coming. They tell you, Joe (we’ll call you Joe) you can’t be with her. You plead with them, to no avail. No, Joe, sorry, Joe, we can’t tell you anything.
One hour turns to two, two to four, four to six. Your wife is dying and no one she loves is there.
Finally, in the eighth hour, you reach her bedside. You are just in time to stand beside the priest as he administers last rites.
Your wife is dead. Her name was Lisa Marie Pond. She was 39.
It happened, Feb. 18-19, 2007, except that Pond’s spouse was not a man named Joe, but a woman named Janice. And there’s one other detail. Janice Langbehn who, as it happens, is an emergency room social worker from Lacey, Wash., says the first hospital employee she spoke with was an emergency room social worker. She thought, given their professional connection, they might speak a common language.
Instead, she says, he told her, "I need you to know you are in an anti-gay city and state and you won’t get to know about Lisa’s condition or see her" — then turned and walked away.
Now consider what the legal status of that couple would be in a hospital run by a "religious organization", as many increasingly are, within the scope of your…compromise. Oh…I know…just tell the ambulance driver not to take your dying spouse to the closest available emergency room if it’s owned by a church.
Right. Something like this happens and that artifice of civility you’re trying to prop up comes crashing right back down in flames again Jonathan. And what we see in the wreckage, once again, sickeningly but clearly…very clearly…is how much your new found friends hate us, how bottomless that hate is. And…oh by the way…they hate you too. You knew that, right?
I have a question Jonathan. Who do you think you are talking to? Someone who can see a human being when they look at homosexuals? Someone who wants the same decency and common civility to flourish in society, and nurture the best within its citizens? Are you smoking crack? Are you drunk? Did banging your head against that impenetrable wall that is Blankenhorn’s cheapshit bar stool prejudices for years make you simple? Read your own goddamned newsprint jackass. The open sewer that is your pal’s conscience is right here, laughing in your face:
Whatever our disagreements on the merits of gay marriage, we agree on two facts. First, most gay and lesbian Americans feel they need and deserve the perquisites and protections that accompany legal marriage. Second, many Americans of faith and many religious organizations have strong objections to same-sex unions. Neither of those realities is likely to change any time soon.
I’m sorry…you’ve been "discussing" this issue with Blankenhorn for…how long now…? And finally…Finally…you get him to agree with you that "gay and lesbian Americans feel they need and deserve the perquisites and protections that accompany legal marriage"…? Well that’s a giant step forward all right. Look at that goddamn it! Just look at it! He isn’t agreeing that we need anything whatsoever, let alone the perquisites and protections of marriage, but only, and grudgingly, that we Feel like we do. I suppose Janice Langbehn was only pretending to be in anguish while her spouse was dying. But then don’t we all. Someday Jonathan, if either you or your husband find yourselves in that same situation, you’ll pretend to feel anguish too. It takes a lot of practice to mimic how attached heterosexuals are to their spouses and their families, doesn’t it Jonathan?
You’d think a civilized, let alone civil society would recognize such a basic human need. Certainly your pal Blankenhorn believes it does. But there’s the rub. Homosexuals aren’t human. They don’t need marriage, they only feel like they do. I guess because we’re jealous of how heterosexuals have real human needs and we don’t, or something. And you think that this is an improvement over whatever it was that he was thinking about gay people before you started having your discussions with him? What could that have possibly been? That we were only making noises about marriage to hear ourselves talk? Either you’ve never really looked down into that Pit that is the human capacity to hate, or you’ve been staring into it for too long. Either way, you just don’t seem to appreciate, or care, how much damage your bigot pal and his fellows in the kook pews have done to American society, let alone to civility.
A compromise…you say? I have a compromise for you. It’s called the constitution of the United States. That first amendment thing? What it doesn’t give your pal is the right to drop his church onto my back, or yours, or anyone else’s. He can build his church. He can worship in it. He can live his life as he sees fit. And all that America ever asked of him in return, is that he give his neighbor the same right. The compromise used to be this: in the public square, we were all equal, if not in the eyes of God, then at least in the eyes of the law.
Your pal and his neighbors in the kook pews absolutely despise that idea. And they have been waging a relentless scortched earth war against that American compromise for generations. How do you agree to compromise for the sake of preserving civil society with people who think being civil to heathens amounts to condoning sin? How do you agree to compromise for the sake of preserving civil society with people who believe that the basic premise of America is itself evil? They don’t call it a nation where Christians have freedom to worship…they call it a Christian nation. What is the compromise between those two things? I’ll tell you what it isn’t: The United States of America. Liberty and justice for all? Yes. So long as "all" means just the folks in the pews of Blankenhorn’s church. Civility doesn’t mean you have to allow your neighbor to sin. Why…that’s just the opposite of civility…
Meanwhile, back in Utah…another doomed search for common ground goes on…
A legislative committee defeated the last in a group of gay-rights bills presented to Utah lawmakers this year. As was the case with the others, committee members said the bill was not necessary and voiced concern about the law opening the door to gay marriage.
The bottom line is most conservative lawmakers just don’t believe any of these bills just address civil rights. Instead, the Common Ground bills were viewed as a "threat" to traditional marriage.
The last Common Ground bill would have affected medical visitation and inheritance. Changing the law could affect people outside the gay community as well. But the focus—and concern—was predominantly centered on gay rights.
They can’t even let same sex couples visit their spouses in the hospital. Civility anyone? Common ground? Here’s your common ground…
Today, the Utah state legislature “dealt a final blow” to the last of five gay rights bills taken up under the Common Ground Initiative, when it defeated a bill that would have granted gay couples rights of inheritance and medical decision-making. Yesterday, the state House rejected bills that would have allowed gay adoption and protected gays from housing and employment discrimination.
Last night, Utah’s local ABC station received leaked portions of an interview with state senator Chris Buttars (R), which will be highlighted in an upcoming documentary on Proposition 8. Buttars is an outspoken opponent of gay rights; in the latest interview, he compares gays to alcoholics and Muslim terrorists, and warns that gay people are “probably the greatest threat to America.” Some excerpts from the interview:
– To me, homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion. And you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts! But I don’t care.
– They say, I’m born that way. There’s some truth to that, in that some people are born with an attraction to alcohol.
– They’re mean! They want to talk about being nice — they’re the meanest buggers I ever seen. It’s just like the Moslems. Moslems are good people and their religion is anti-war. But it’s been taken over by the radical side. And the gays are totally taken over by the radical side.
– I believe that you will destroy the foundation of American society, because I believe the cornerstone of it is a man and a woman, the family. … And I believe that they’re, internally, they’re probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of. Yep, the radical gay movement.
He also said that gay people have no morals…that "It’s the beginning of the end. Oh, it’s worse than that. Sure. Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide." Oh…and bragged that he’d killed every bill in his judiciary committee that so much as smelled of gay rights. When this blew up in the media, the Utah Senate took swift action. They removed Buttars from his chairmanship. Oh…but not because they disagreed with him mind you…
"I want the citizens of Utah to know that the Utah Senate stands behind Senator Buttars’ right to speak, we stand behind him as one of our colleagues and his right to serve this state," [Senate President Michael] Waddoups said. "He is a senator who represents the point of view of many of his constituents and many of ours. We agree with many of the things he said. …We stand four square behind his right [to say what he wants]."
Waddoups refused repeatedly to clarify which of Buttars’ opinions are shared by himself or Senate leaders.
Emphasis mine. And to further clarify…
He said the decision to remove Buttars from the committees was ultimately his own as president, a move he made so the Senate could function smoothly. The judiciary committee, in recent years, has heard most of the bills dealing with gay and lesbian rights, and removing Buttars from his position would remove the "personalities" and focus on the issues, Waddoups said.
This was a PR move. They weren’t disgusted with the man…they just wanted him to stop saying to publically what they all believe. That homosexuals are not human beings. That homosexuals are destroying the world.
Civility. Common Ground. So you got Blankenhorn to agree that homosexuals Feel as though they need the protections of marriage did you Jonathan? Wow. Peace in our time. Do let us know when you’ve got him to the point where he agrees that we Feel a human heart beating in our chests. That would be…awesome.
A House committee rejected Rep. Jennifer Seelig’s HB160, which would have offered two, unmarried cohabiting adults — including same-sex couples — rights of inheritance and medical decision making for one another.
Nope. We can’t even allow same-sex couples to have inheritance rights, or make medical decisions if one is incapacitated. Let alone protect gays from job discrimination, let alone allow them to adopt. No common ground there. Same sex couples need to consider this carefully when planning trips that might take either or both of them into or through Utah. Getting sick or injured could be just the beginning of your nightmare in Mormonland.
I’m going to have a heart attack from this surprise.
Strong comments against the gay community were made recently by Utah senator Chris Buttars during work on the documentary "8: The Mormon Proposition" just a year since he called a black baby a "dark, ugly thing" on the Utah State Senate floor.
He compared gays to radical Muslims and suggested they may be America’s greatest threat, likening gay rights to "the beginning of the end." Although the footage has only been seen by Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate, some audio has been released.
Buttars describes gays as having "anything goes" morals, and "the meanest buggers" he’d ever seen; some comments were too graphic to include. He also takes credit for "killing" every bill related to gay rights in the Utah State Senate since 2001.
"What is the morals of a gay person? You can’t answer that because anything goes."
"They’re probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of."
Common ground. You folks out there just keep right on searching for that common ground. And when some gay basher splits your head open because he’s been told that gays, with their anything goes morality, are the greatest threat to America, you’ll have found it. Common ground.
Jim Burroway makes a good catch I’d missed when looking at the new anti-gay ad campaign created by Campaign Secrets…the one that shows an unseen gay sniper putting a family and more specifically their little children in the crosshairs. This one is good…it really says it all…
By the way, we also learn that public schools no longer celebrate Father’s Day. Wait a minute. That couldn’t be because it’s celebrated on the third Sunday in June while school’s out, could it? Naah, it’s a much better story when it’s all the gays’ fault.
Dig it. Never mind that Father’s Day happens after the school year ends…just remember that the homosexuals have forced schools to stop celebrating Father’s Day.
Now…this kind of crap may actually fool a lot of people, not all of whom necessarily want someone to feed them pre-fabricated lies about gays they can pass around without taking responsibility for it. Some people will actually hear this and think…Wow…the gays took Father’s Day out of the schools… But you know goddamned well the people who made that ad knew that it was horseshit, and almost certainly so did the folks who bought it. And it’s a safe bet that its target audience doesn’t care if it’s truthful or not.
There’s your moral crusade right there. There’s your righteousness.
The Fine Art Of Inflaming Violent Passions Toward Homosexuals
Via Pam’s House Blend…and as of now racing across the net like a fire. West Virginia Christianists are gearing up for a push to enact an anti same-sex marriage amendment in their state. As always, it isn’t enough to simply make a case for heterosexual supremacy. They have to demonize gay people too. Their latest ad starts out with the image of a gay sniper putting a heterosexual family, and more specifically their little children, in the cross hairs. They are being targeted, to be gunned down, by some the homosexuals. Here’s a screen shot:
Bear in mind that this ad is running in a state that’s maybe only a tad less armed to the teeth then Texas. And the message of this particular sequence is crystal clear: The homosexuals are going to kill your family, starting with your children. Of course they’ll insist its only a metaphor. They don’t mean that homosexuals are Literally going to kill your family. Naturally all the West Virginians who see this ad will understand that.
This is what gets gay people killed in this country every year. And make no mistake, the people creating and the people running these ads are well aware of that fact. But we are not so much human beings as cockroaches to them. They want us gone. They want us eliminated. If the state won’t do what Leviticus commands, then maybe Bubba will…
The video is below. The sniper shot comes in at about .53 seconds. Then it’s another four minutes plus warning everyone about the threat the homosexuals pose to families and children. In 1977 Jerry Falwell stood beside Anita Bryant, who was then fighting to have Dade County’s anti-discrimination ordinance repealed by popular vote, and told a room full of reporters that “A homosexual will kill you as soon as look at you.” Now they are, almost literally, telling people in West Virginia that we do in fact intend to kill them, and kill their children. Gay people are going to die because of this ad.
Pam over at the Blend notes this same group who made the ad…Campaign Secrets…also created an attack ad against the AARP back in 2005. AARP’s crime back then was opposing Bush’s plan to let the stock market play with your social security pension money. To discredit AARP, Campaign Secrets cooked up this little gem:
Dig it. The AARP is wrong about social security, because it hates our men in uniform and loves faggots. That, literally, was the message.
Some time ago the Bay Shore Gay and Lesbian Center for Youths was vandalized. Its front door was broken and its van had its tires slashed, its windows busted out, and its sideview mirrors mangled.
Today I read that arrests in the case have been made and…surprise, surprise, the police have in their impartial wisdom determined that the vandals had not a prejudiced bone in their bodies after all…
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy called the vandalism at a Bay Shore gay and lesbian center for youths an "attack against the gay community."
Gov. David A. Paterson dispatched the state’s commissioner of human rights to visit the site and deliver a message calling for acceptance.
And the Suffolk County Police Hate Crimes Unit investigated last week’s incident as a hate crime.
It turns out the vandalism at the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth Center was not a hate crime after all, police said Tuesday.
What a relief to know that! Because…er…because… Well because the police just say so…
Police declined to say what led them to determine the crime was not bias-related.
I see. Three men and a woman, two of them 21 years old, one 20 and one 19, decided to slash a van’s tires completely at random. And then they broke out all its windows. And then they mangled the sideview mirrors. And then…again completely at random, they decided to break out a door that only happened to belong to the same group that owned the van. Just…on a lark… It had nothing to do with the fact that the van had the Long Island LGBT Youth center logo on it. And that door…it was just a coincidence that it also happened to be the door to the Long Island LGBT Youth center. There was no anti-gay animus involved here. Take our word for it. Because we insist you take our word for it.
Police arrested three men and a woman, all from Bay Shore, Monday in connection with the vandalism and charged each of them with second-degree criminal mischief. None of the four was charged with a hate crime.
Mischief…
Mischief…
But seriously…what more could attacking homosexuals amount to anyway, other then mischief? You say "hate crime" like its a bad thing…
[Update…] Reports are coming out now that two of the suspects were former clients of the center, who had been asked to leave for an as yet unspecified disruptive behavior…more then three years ago.
Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 01, @10:45PM from the hitch-hiker dept.
An anonymous reader writes
"While doing a weekly scrub of my Windows systems, which includes checking for driver updates and running virus scans, I found Firefox notifying me of a new add-on. It’s labelled ‘Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant,’ and it ‘Adds ClickOnce support and the ability to report installed .NET versions to the web server.’ The add-on could not be uninstalled in the usual way. A little Net searching turned up a number of sites offering advice on getting rid of the unrequested add-on."
The unasked-for extension has been hitchhiking along with updates to Visual Studio, and perhaps other products that depend on .NET, since August. It appears to have gone wider recently, coming in with updates to XP SP3.
Dig it. Microsoft is not only trying to modified everyone’s Firefox browser, they’re doing it surreptitiously And in a way that makes it difficult for most home users to undo.
People switch to Firefox, largely because they are concerned about the many security flaws in Internet Explorer. So what does Microsoft do? Instead of making a better web browser, they infect the one people are turning to in order to have a more secure computer. Here’s what I think: Microsoft didn’t do this simply to get its .NET technology into Firefox whether users wanted it or not…they did it to make users who are afraid to use IE, afraid to use Firefox too. Because now you have no idea what new security holes Microsoft has opened up in Firefox. This is an absolutely brilliant bit of Microsoft FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt).
Somehow, I don’t think this is going to win them any fans. Somehow I don’t think Microsoft gives a damn either. Microsoft will never change its predatory behavior. It needs to be broken up.
[Update…]
Some Microsoft droids on Slashdot are bellyaching that…well gosh, Adobe installs plug-ins onto Firefox and so does Sun in the form of its Java plug-in and golly a bunch of other software makers do that too so what’s so bad about Microsoft doing it? You people just like to hate on Microsoft is all. Which of course conveniently ignores the reality of Microsoft’s ownership of the operating system and the fact that this Firefox plug-in is being delivered in an update to the fucking operating system.
Microsoft’s position for years has been that its browser (Internet Explorer) is part of the operating system and cannot be separated from it. Fine. Swell. Great. Really. But Firefox is not part of the operating system. So Windows updates need to leave it the fuck alone! Or…at minimum…ask first. I realize that asking is not part of the Microsoft vocabulary though…
…Just really preoccupied with the house. On Wednesday I discovered that a leak in the roof, near the back of the house by the chimney, that I thought had been taken care of was back with a vengeance. Between that and other more routine maintenance here at Casa del Garrett I’ve been away from the den computer more then usual.
And…I really don’t feel talkative right now…for some reason…
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Just a glimpse into the far-right psyche. The two biggest ticket items that have leaped into public consciousness discrediting parts of the stimulus package have been family planning and STD prevention. Both have been blaring Drudge headlines. Now, this is technical stuff and I don’t doubt that there’s merit to the case against portraying these as in some way necessary counter-cyclical emergency funding.
But why is it the GOP is so easily galvanized by sexual panic? Weird, if you ask me. This is the budget we’re talking about here. Even there, they reach, like the exhausted tacticians they are, for the culture war. And it isn’t reaching back.
The republicans became the party of culture war when they gave the nomination to Nixon. This is what people continue not to get about them…even now, amidst the horrific train wreckage of the "free market economy" republican domination of the federal government was supposed to usher in. Oh…they betrayed their principles, did you say? No. Absolutely no. They did nothing of the kind. All that small government free market stuff was just the window dressing, over a core that was entirely, completely, absolutely about culture war. When they finally got the power they craved, they set to work implementing their vision. Yes, it is an unmitigated disaster. But you have to understand that it was always going to be that.
They didn’t care about the economy…they cared about elbowing science out of the classroom and out of government in favor of their nutty religion in which Jesus says to hate the stranger, obey the authorities, and that the rich will inherent the earth. They didn’t care about the deficit…they cared about keeping women, people of color and homosexuals in their place. They didn’t care about national security…they cared about rolling back decades of constitutional law that said all Americans were entitled to equal justice, equal rights, to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness. They didn’t care about fighting terrorism…they cared about fighting the 60s all over again, and winning this time.
In Goldwater they had their last honest small government candidate. Nixon gave them culture war, which they embraced with gusto. Why? The darkies weren’t drinking from the fountain marked ‘coloreds’ anymore. The kids weren’t passively going off to die in a war nobody understood, and what was worse, they weren’t cutting their hair. And more horrifying then all of that, the women were going off the Miltown pill and going on the birth control one instead and asserting their sexual equality. Suddenly you couldn’t make jokes about women drivers anymore. And then the faggots started marching.
Something had to be done. Nixon was the one. That he turned out to be a crook, should have been a warning. But the first thing you have to understand about culture warriors, is they have no inner sense of morality, of right and wrong. That is why they fight tooth and nail to keep their world from changing around them. They have no brakes, so they need fences and guardrails. That, and the privilege that comes with being on top of the cultural ladder, even if you’re at the bottom of the economic one. White. Male. Protestant. Heterosexual. You got it made pal…drink up. In a world where people are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, or the shape of their own genitals or that of their lovers’, then what becomes of the privileged?
The joke after the last Republican convention was that you didn’t see any black or brown faces in the crowd until it was all over, and the cleaning crews came out. So what about all that Big Tent talk? What about all that reaching out to minorities and stuff? For real? Why…the same Goddamned thing that happened to all that small government stuff. It wasn’t important. It wasn’t what the party is about. The party is about the culture war. Of course the first thing they had fits about in the stimulus plan was the family planning items. Do you still think, after the last eight years of it, that they even saw the rest of it? I sure hope you don’t think that since Bush went down in flames they went down with him. They sure didn’t go down with Nixon.
Timothy Kincaid over at Box Turtle Bulletin, has the party line vote on the first of the so-called "common ground" bills put forward in Utah. These bills actually do very little to insure equal rights for gay and lesbian citizens…almost the bare minimum you could imagine. The first of these to come to a vote, simply made it possible for financial dependents, other then legally married spouses, parents and children, to sue if their breadwinner suffers wrongful death. Keep in mind that these so-called "common ground" bills were introduced after the passage of Proposition 8, when the Mormon church’s staggering level of involvement became widely known, and the Mormon leadership, while in the glare of the public eye, averred they had no problem with extending gay people many of the rights of marriage…just not marriage itself.
Many of us found that statement interesting, since nothing was stopping them from giving gay Americans in Utah those rights and gay Americans in Utah have damn few if any. The only places as bad to be gay are the deep south
The bill failed along party lines. Republican verses democrat? Oh my, no…
Let me be clear. There is no legitimate reason to exclude those who rely on someone for their livelihood from suing should that livelihood be taken away due to the wrongful actions of another. If a woman is killed directly due to the reckless or wrongful actions of another, why should her partner who stays home and raises the kids not be able to sue?
Chris Buttars, Mormon
Lyle Hillyard, Mormon
Mark Madsen, Mormon
Michael Waddoups, Mormon
The three non-Mormons either voted Yes or were absent.
As Kincaid notes, this fits pretty well with recent polls showing that Utah Mormons are hugely against granting their gay neighbors any rights whatsoever, other then maybe, possibly, the right to breath. So long as they don’t flaunt it.
Expect the Mormon church to claim it has no influence over the state legislature. They’ve shown repeatedly that they can look you right in the eye, smile, and lie through their teeth. Your hopes, your dreams, every smile you ever gave the one you love, and every smile you ever received in love, and placed somewhere deep within your heart: these things are their stepping stones to Godhood. Nothing else matters to them. Nothing. They will walk over your every hope and dream, and grind them into dirt, for that promise of Godhood at the end of the road.
I know…I know… But there are Mormons who don’t hate their gay neighbor… Yes. And they are either silent or they are on the road to excommunication. We, that is America, saw it all during the battle over Proposition 8. There are no Mormons who are not on board for the war on gay Americans…only Mormons who are about to leave, or be shown the door.
I’ll Take The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same For 1000 Alex…
Via Brad DeLong… Now I see that the republican bellyaching over contraceptives is even more dishonest then just their usual crude sexual mores posturing…
Bad Faith Economics: As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s opponents aren’t arguing in good faith…. John Boehner, the House minority leader, has already made headlines with one such shot: looking at an $825 billion plan to rebuild infrastructure, sustain essential services and more, he derided a minor provision that would expand Medicaid family-planning services — and called it a plan to “spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives.”…
Emphasis mine. And it get’s better…
[T]he bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created…. It’s as if an opponent of the school lunch program were to take an estimate of the cost of that program over the next five years, then divide it by the number of lunches provided in just one of those years, and assert that the program was hugely wasteful, because it cost $13 per lunch. (The actual cost of a free school lunch, by the way, is $2.57.)…
Nice. They keep this up throughout the recession and they’ll be lucky if they get more votes next election then Lyndon LaRouche.
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