Fine. When we’re all equals in the eyes of the law.
Proposition 8 was not about agreeing to disagree. If the law treated gay people equally with heterosexuals, I doubt any of us would give a rat’s ass what Rick Warren thinks. First we should be a nation of equals. Then we can all agree to disagree. Not before.
While it’s obvious that an invocation is just a prayer and that Warren is not part of the Obama administration, Warren taking the pulpit as some sort of olive branch to evangelicals and a show of unity and diversity is absurd and insulting symbolism. The fact that the Obama camp’s talking points mention a LGBT marching band’s presence during the official parade shows you how clueless (or calculating, you decide) these folks are.
A marching band is entertainment…
Gay people have always provided the entertainment for heterosexuals. And…we do their hair. And decorate their homes. And arrange the floral bouquets on their wedding day. It’s our function in life…
Of course, trying to avoid the hate when you’re a gay man is a little like trying to avoid the rain during monsoon season in India. I ran across this thread on Fark.Com…
People who have been enormously lucky in love, and think the only reason anybody is ever single most of their lives is because they haven’t tried hard enough to get out and mix, are like billionaires who think the only reason anyone is ever poor is because they don’t want to work.
So…We Removed The Brakes…And Damn If The Train Didn’t Jump The Tracks And Crash Anyway…
Via Atrios… The propaganda in the kook pews these days is the economic collapse was caused by liberals forcing banks to make mortgage loans to poor people. As Eric Hoffer once said, propaganda doesn’t fool people, so much as allow people to fool themselves…
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.
"Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories," California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.
Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.
"These mortgages have been considered more safe and sound for portfolio lenders than many fixed rate mortgages," David Schneider, home loan president of Washington Mutual, told federal regulators in early 2006. Two years later, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
The administration’s blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of a philosophy that trusted market forces and discounted the need for government intervention in the economy. Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s.
Emphasis mine. And…what was the trigger for that previous spurt of massive government intervention in the economy? Oh…right… The Great Depression. Much of the regulation that republicans have been fighting tooth and nail to eliminate was put in place in the 1930s, to prevent another one of those.
"We’re going to be feeling the effects of the regulators’ failure to address these mortgages for the next several years," said Kevin Stein of the California Reinvestment Coalition, who warned regulators to tighten lending rules before it was too late.
Many of the banks that fought to undermine the proposals by some regulators are now either out of business or accepting billions in federal aid to recover from a mortgage crisis they insisted would never come. Many executives remain in high-paying jobs, even after their assurances were proved false.
That needs to be fixed. I know a lot of folks are absolutely against the bail-outs. But if massive portions of the economy suddenly go dark we’ll be a decade or more digging our way out of this. But in exchange for…oh…not going to jail…the people who are responsible for this mess should at least loose their jobs. If train-wreaking the world economy isn’t incompetence then what the hell is?
“Nobody was prepared for this,” Mr. Rubin said in an interview. He cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as another example of someone whose reputation has been unfairly damaged by the crisis.
This seems like a pretty serious dodge here…
Yes, but not the one you think it is. Rubin, like a lot of the Bush-Reagan big money cronies, drank the deregulation kool-aid some time ago. He really thinks that unregulated capitalism is self correcting and self sustaining. He’s Still looking at what happened to the world economies through those ideological rose colored glasses. What’s happening now just wasn’t supposed to happen. They still can’t believe that it’s happening. And if the government they’ve been calling part of the problem not part of the solution for so long hadn’t started bailing their asses out, they’d be jumping out of windows now, just like they were during the Great Depression.
For generations now, ever since FDR, the country club class has been dispensing crap about how the Great Depression wasn’t really caused by their greed and excesses, but by the very government regulation that has kept us from having more of those massive boom and bust cycles ever since. The great middle class created in this country by the New Deal is something they sincerely regard as having been carved out of their hides and they hate it. They think we’re taking money from their pockets and they don’t see and don’t care that it was making the nation stable and the economy solid and strong for generations…strong enough for them to keep getting all the rich they want to get…just not as much or as fast. But this idea that taxes are theft, and regulation is socialism, not the cost of having a stable democracy and a stable economy, is like a religion to them.
So for generations now, the uber rich have been drenching the middle class with this fairy tale that the Great Depression was actually caused by…get this…Too Much government regulation, as opposed to the nearly none that allowed them to create worthless paper wealth on top of worthless paper wealth…just like…oh…what they did during the Bush years. They told the middle class that if the rich were only allowed to dismantle the New Deal, why, Everyone would prosper. But that crap was supposed to be just for the rubes to eat, while the rich ate the standard of living and the life savings of the middle class because they’ve thought all along that all that was rightfully theirs to begin with.
But some of the uber rich actually started believing they could have their middle class and eat it too. Sorta like the way they told us they could take the Social Security trust fund money and put it into the stock market and then there would be money in both the trust fund to pay for current benefits and money in the stock market too! See how one dollar magically becomes two? That thinking is how they got us into the current mess, and not coincidentally how they got us into the Great Depression once upon a time. Back then, the government regulated the banks to prevent that magic money from getting into the finance system again, and the uber rich have been trying to roll back those regulations ever since, because that prevented them from sucking money out of the banks…money that theoretically belonged to working class depositors. Oh sorry depositor…we loaned your life savings out to somebody…who loaned it out to somebody…who loaned it out to somebody…who bought stocks with it…
They began thinking they really could suck the money out of the middle class, and still have a middle class left to sell things to and keep the economy running. But…There is no free lunch. Really. There isn’t. Why…the Free Market will self correct…and the rising tide will lift all boats… No. It doesn’t. It sure didn’t during the Great Depression…that grand daddy of all boom and busts. And now that they’ve managed to gut most of the New Deal brakes that kept those huge boom and bust cycles from seriously crashing the economy…surprise, surprise….it’s all crashing around their heads again. And only that evil wicked federal government is standing between them and absolute ruin. And they’re begging it to step in and save them from…well…themselves. Schadenfreude.
And they won’t learn. Trust me…they won’t learn. At the end of some future day, when things are back to normal, or as near to normal as possible, they’ll still look resentfully out from their rarefied heights down upon the middle class, all the ticky-tacky homes with their ticky-tacky furniture and their ticky-tacky clothes and their ticky-tacky lawn ornaments, believing all that only exists because it was carved out of, and not there to save their sorry hides.
Toyota, one of the biggest car companies in the world, is often a name synonymous with quality. There is even a philosophy of doing business, called “The Toyota Way”, which emphasizes that the right result will come from the right process, and that solving the root problems brings the organization the greatest benefit.
This ‘Way’ is probably not communicated to its lawyers in great detail, which is why Desktopnexus, a site that provides desktop backgrounds, has been contacted by them. In perhaps one of the most wildly arrogant demands in DMCA history, Toyota’s lawyers are demanding the withdrawal of all wallpapers that feature a Toyota, Scion, or Lexus. The site’s owner, Harry Maugans contacted Toyota to clarify. He was told that all images featuring Toyota vehicles should be removed, even images with copyright belonging to others.
Speaking to TorrentFreak, Maugans said: “Their lawyer, Garrett Biggs, told us that if we wanted them to specifically identify their images, we would have to pay for them to do so”. Maugans also said he was afraid it would come to a lawsuit, fearing the attrition effect that is so common now in copyright disputes. Toyota, with cash assets of over $23 Billion can surely afford to spin out the legal costs in an attempt to bankrupt the site – the same strategy that is often used to ‘encourage‘ a settlement in RIAA cases.
Yet, Toyota has also been cagey. These demands have not been sent in the form of a DMCA notice. While sending such a notice would require the takedown, it also requires that the person sending the notice legally certify that they are legal representatives for the copyright holders at issue. Making a false statement is ‘punishable under penalty of perjury‘, which is not taken lightly in US courts.
This is a multi-billion dollar corporation, basically using the legal system to grind a small website owner into dirt. A good faith legal challenge would contain specifics about what which images were infringing and which ones weren’t. This is about corporate arrogance, less then greed, because there is no way Toyota is suffering financial loss from a fan website that is putting up wall papers for the use of other fans. It’s not even like the RIAA sending out takedown notices. At least what’s being illegally copied in that case is the actual product. A web site that allows people to freely upload and download their own photographs of automobiles isn’t stealing anything from Toyota. A Toyota copyrighted image, yes. But Toyota is telling them to take everything down, or be either billed or sued into oblivion.
I have a suggestion. How about people upload their images of broken down or wreaked Toyotas instead? Maybe Toyota would like it if all anyone ever saw of their products on the Internet were images of broken down, rusted, junked abandoned or wreaked ones instead.
And just to get my digs in…I looked at a Lexus back when I was thinking about trading in the Accord. I looked at two different Acura models, the new Accord, the Lexus ES, and the (then) new Mercedes C300. I’d have bought any of the Acura’s before I’d have bought the Lexus. Yes, the Lexus was the more sumptuous of the lot, but that cushy comfort came at the expense of everything else an autombile is supposed to be, including road feel, performance and handling. It Looked nice. And it felt nice too. Until you sat in the Mercedes and right away you noticed how much more solid the German car was. The Mercedes, the Accord and both the Acura’s ran rings around it on the highway, and I have never experienced anything like the Mercedes at high speeds, or on twisty backroads. And mine’s only a ‘C’ class. A Lexus sedan is worth the money, only if you care more about the upholstery then the way it drives.
Hundreds of people rallied outside a theatre in Sacramento today in support of the artistic director who resigned over his stand on Proposition 8.
After 25 years with California Musical Theatre, Scott Eckern, a BYU graduate and distinguished alumnus, has left his position as artistic director because of how he voted.
Ticket holders, donors and friends rallied outside the theatre supporting Eckern.
"Freedom should be respected, and they haven’t respected his freedom to do what he would with his funds," said supporter Jaynie Dufort.
Freedom? Like…freedom to marry? That freedom?
Look…it’s simple. You kick me in the face, I will not work with you. I will not shake your hand. I will not walk in your door. I will not patronize your business. I will not give you my hard earned money, just so you can take it and buy a knife to cut my ring finger off. Don’t kick me in the face one day lady, and then expect me to forget you did it the next.
"This is a witch-hunt," said Lance Christensen, who says he’s a regular patron of the theater and took off work to show his support for Eckern.
Witch hunt…did you say? Witch hunt? Like telling everyone that homosexuals are going to storm the schools and start recruiting everyone’s kids? That kind of witch hunt? Like telling everyone that their ministers will be thrown in jail if they don’t marry same sex couples? That kind of witch hunt? Witch hunts like this …?
The woman continued to poke at my face with her sign and call me "nasty." Genuinely disturbed by the complete lack of rational behavior I’d seen up to this point, wanting to look into her face and possibly connect on some level with her as a fellow human being, I pulled a corner of the sign down away from my eyes and asked "why are you calling me nasty?"
That’s when she attacked, clawing, grabbing and then shoving. I didn’t fight back; she was much bigger than me. Calling me a "nasty fucker" and threatening to kick my ass, she pried my phone out of my hand and tried to break it in half while her friends egged her on.
Please note that I never touched or threatened her in any way (unless you want to consider my pulling the edge of her sign out of eye-poking territory a threatening gesture).
As she grabbed at my phone, I stood there stunned, not really sure what to do. One of the counter-protesters (the woman who you see saying "No on Prop 8" towards the beginning of this clip) quickly intervened and calmed the attacking woman down enough that I felt safe enough to try to take my phone back. After a second or two of grappling, she let go and went back to screaming at cars from a lawn chair near the side of the road.
(Big love and gratitude to the kindly counter-protester who pleaded for calm. I don’t think my phone would have survived without you!)
I stood there for another minute or two, checking the phone’s applications for damage. One of the other sign-wavers, a teenage boy standing nearby, leaned over and whispered "fuck you, dyke."
Even though I wasn’t hurt besides a small scratch on my hand, and my phone was okay, being attacked definitely shook me up. I was a bit tearful. Call me naive, but I never thought I’d actually be in physical danger just for shooting footage of their activity and pulling the edge of a person’s sign out of my eyes. Verbal insults, sure. But attacked by an anti-gay activist? In one of the most queer-friendly neighborhoods in the bay area? Yikes.
The man holding the "Vote No" sign noticed that I was in tears and approached me. We hugged to a chorus of jeers, exchanged some reassuring words, and I turned to leave. Someone called after me: "keep crying, and keep walking."…
James Dobson dedicated his radio program today to explaining his sudden decision, which we mentioned earlier, to go to California this weekend to join Lou Engel, Tony Perkins and others for a massive "The Call" rally of prayer and fasting in the name of saving "traditional marriage."
In the clip below, Dobson has just explained that he received a letter from Rev. Jim Garlow, one of the leading organizers of the "yes on 8" movement pleading with Dobson to attend and, after reading it, felt God’s hand on his back telling him to attend "The Call." Dobson chokes up explaining that despite having been on the go for weeks and being exhausted, he knew God wanted him there. Dobson had to call his son to tell him he couldn’t babysit for his grandson this weekend as planned and his son Ryan then confirmed that God wanted him in California instead. Dobson could barely keep it together when he explained that "the Lord must be involved in this" and then hands over the program to Garlow, who also gets choked up and speaks of their level of spiritual desperation and their constant "crying out to God" to save California because they are "watching the destruction of Western civilization."
The destruction of Western civilization. The destruction of Western civilization. The destruction of Western civilization. You people spewed a torrent of venom on people whose only crime was being in love and wanting to get married, and now you’re complaining that we’re angry. Bullies always complain when their playthings start fighting back don’t they? It’s so…unfair. We’re supposed to just accept our station in life, as their punching bags.
I know…I know… We were supposed to just keep crying and keep walking, weren’t we? You didn’t think there would be any hard feelings the morning after, because homosexuals don’t have any feelings. We’re all so…flighty. We were supposed to just go back to cutting your hair, redecorating your homes and waiting on your tables. Fine. Hello…I’ll be your server tonight. My name is Fuck You.
The blowback from last Tuesday’s passage of Prop. 8, which prohibits same-sex marriage in California, has hit the California Musical Theatre, a major nonprofit stage company in Sacramento, following the revelation via the Web that its artistic director gave $1,000 to back the state constitutional amendment.
Among those weighing in with dismay over Scott Eckern’s donation are Tony winners Jeff Whitty, who wrote the book for "Avenue Q," and Marc Shaiman, composer and co-lyricist of "Hairspray." Shaiman said Tuesday that he phoned Eckern on Friday to protest, then e-mailed more than 1,000 contacts to alert them about the donation.
"Of course it’s his right to donate the money," said Shaiman, who was disappointed that Eckern, a California Musical Theatre employee since 1984 and its artistic director since 2003, had benefited from last season’s touring production of "Hairspray," then piped money to a cause the L.A.-based Shaiman deplores. In their conversation, Shaiman said, "he basically gave me that thing we’re just sick of hearing — ‘these are my religious beliefs, but it’s nothing personal’ " against gay people. "I don’t want to hear that anymore. I just told him I’m disgusted at that use of money that came in some way from a show I created." (Update: The “Hairspray” production at California Musical Theatre last August was not a touring production, but one mounted by CMT itself. A touring version of “Hairspray” was seen at the theater in 2004.)
Whitty, whose "Avenue Q" is scheduled to play the Sacramento theater in March, was among those alerted by Shaiman’s e-mail. On Monday, he wrote in his whitless.com blog that "like Marc, I’ll work to prevent CMT from producing any of my future shows with Mr. Eckern at the helm. To me, he’s one of those hypocrites who profits from the contributions of gays … but thinks of us as ultimately damned."
Emphasis mine. Religious beliefs are the all-purpose excuse for doing anything you want to your neighbor, except loving them.
Via Pam’s House Blend… The jackass artistic director of a California music theater who donated money in support of Proposition 8 has made a statement…
I understand that my choice of supporting Proposition 8 has been the cause of many hurt feelings maybe even betrayal. It was not my intent. I honestly had no idea that this would be the reaction. I chose to act upon my belief that the traditional definition of marriage should be preserved. I support each individual to have rights and access and I understood that in California domestic partnerships come with the same rights that come with marriage.
I definitely do not support any message or treatment of others that is hateful or instills fear. This is a highly emotional issue. I have now had many conversations with friends and colleagues and I now have a better idea of what the discrimination issues are, how deeply felt these issues are and I am deeply saddened that my acting upon my religious convictions has been devastating to those I love and admire… I am deeply sorry for any harm or injury I have caused.
Intent. Intent. "It was not my intent." What it was, was one-thousand dollars.
So just how do you support forcibly divorcing devoted, loving couples, without intending harm? So you’ve had "many conversations with friends and colleagues", have you? And now you "have a better idea of what the discrimination issues are", do you? Swell. Just swell. But you couldn’t have talked with those "friends" and "colleagues" about this first could you. You took a thousand dollars of money you earned on the backs of their talent, and you cut their ring fingers off with it, and now you’re telling them you didn’t mean any harm.
Is it a conscience you’re missing, or a brain? How would you feel if all your "friends" and "colleagues" voted to undo your marriage? Your religious convictions, was it? That would be the religion that said, Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You? That religion?
Intent. Intent. If the road to heaven is paved with the hopes and dreams of your "friends" and "colleagues", you can’t say you didn’t intend to walk over them to get there. You knew what you were doing. You just didn’t think other people’s hearts mattered more then paradise. But what paradise did you think you were walking toward, whose road was paved with other people’s hopes and dreams of love? Are you a greedy bastard for Christ, or just an idiot?
[Update…] Apparently…he has now quit his position at the theater. I guess he had to have figured all those "friends" and "colleagues" just wouldn’t work with him anymore after this. One thousand dollars isn’t pocket change.
Oh…and apparently his sister is a lesbian "in a committed relationship". Nice guy.
Bitterness generated by the bruising battle between Betsy Markey and Marilyn Musgrave apparently lingers days after voters decided the winner of the 4th Congressional District.
Incumbent Republican Musgrave, who lost to Democrat Markey by a 56 to 44 percent margin Tuesday, has yet to call and congratulate Markey on her win.
Musgrave also hasn’t conceded the race, said Markey spokesman Ben Marter. "She has yet to admit defeat," he said. "It’s a little bizarre."
Calls to Musgrave’s campaign and congressional office went unanswered Friday.
And Now…A Word From Some Useless Fucks Who Need To Just Go Away Now…
This came in the mail just a little while ago. And here I thought I wouldn’t be hearing any more from these folks…
Dear Bruce,
This has been an incredibly difficult week for Californians who are disappointed in the passage of Proposition 8, which takes away the right to marry for same-sex couples in our state. We feel a profound sense of disappointment in this defeat, but know that in order to move forward we must continue to stand together as one community in order to secure full equality in California.
In working to defeat Prop 8, a profound coalition banded together to fight for equality. Faith leaders, labor, teachers, civil rights leaders and communities of color, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, public officials, local school boards and city councils, parents, corporate law firms and bar associations, businesses, and people from all walks of life joined together to stand up against discrimination. We must build on this coalition in order to achieve equal rights for all Californians.
We achieve nothing if we isolate the people who did not stand with us in this fight. We only further divide our state if we attempt to blame people of faith, African American voters, rural communities and others for this loss. We know people of all faiths, races and backgrounds stand with us in our fight to end discrimination, and will continue to do so. Now more than ever it is critical that we work together and respect our differences that make us a diverse and unique society. Only with that understanding will we achieve justice and equality for all.
Dr. Delores A. Jacobs
CEO
Center Advocacy Project
Lorri L. Jean
CEO
L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center
Kate Kendell
Executive Director
National Center for Lesbian Rights
Geoff Kors
Executive Director
Equality California
This is all well and good…especially the part about not putting all this on African-Americans. Yes, they voted heavily for it, but they didn’t put four out of very five dollars into the kitty for Proposition 8 either. They didn’t get it on the ballot. They didn’t donate vast amounts of logistical support for it.
But…leaving all that aside… You know…you folks lost the fight...
I worked for both the No on 8 campaign and the Obama campaign this year and cannot tell you how far apart those two were in style and substance. One was top down, the other bottom up. Ironically, it was the presidential campaign that was the grassroots model, not the state-level proposition campaign. As soon as I started working for the No on 8 campaign I was amazed at the level of scripting: "don’t say ‘civil rights,’ don’t say ‘constitution,’ don’t say ‘gay.’" I couldn’t believe it.
One of the most brilliant things about the Obama campaign was that they didn’t expect callers and canvassers to be policy wonks. They just said "tell your story, let people know why you’re voting for him. Connect with people." I can’t help but feel at this point that if the gloves were taken off we could’ve helped people get a grip on the real issues at stake here, which I happen to think is a matter of soiling the state constitution.
What was even more confounding was the No on 8 campaign’s decision to stay away form polling places at churches and schools. First of all, most polling places are at churches and schools, and second, that mentality buys right into the Yes on 8 brainwashing campaign that same sex marriage is going to corrupt our morals and our children. This idiocy was obvious to everyone that I worked with on the campaign. What was going on with the leadership upstairs?!!!
I don’t think I’m the only one who gave you a lot of money I couldn’t really afford who is wondering now why you let a substantial lead over the yes vote when this campaign started just…evaporate. So why don’t all of you to just shut your traps now and stay out of this. I’d rather watch ten hours of James Dobson gloating then one second of you pathetic milksops lecturing us about respecting the people who just cut off our ring fingers. You don’t bring a handshake to a knife fight.
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