Leroy Greer is a bit of a romantic. He sent a dozen roses and a teddy bear to his girlfriend, with a card reading "Just wanted to say I love you".
Unfortunately the florist sent the receipt to his wife.
How…romantic…
Now the luxury car salesman from Missouri City is suing the firm for $1 million for "mental anguish" caused by the mix-up and his resultant divorce.
The affair was laid bare after his wife received a receipt from 1-800-flowers.com.
Bereft of bouquet, she called the company and requested more information, which not only included the damning card message but the girlfriend’s name and address.
She faxed the receipt to her husband at work with her own note: "Be a man! If you got caught red handed then don’t lie."
Divorce proceedings followed swiftly.
Ya think?
Mr Greer blamed the florist for his divorce and insisted it had told him no receipt would be sent to his home.
No Leroy…it wasn’t the flowers. It’s the thought that counts.
An Australian farmer who thought he’d found his perfect soulmate online got a nasty surprise when he travelled to Mali to meet his fiancée – a reception committee of "machete-armed bandits" who held him for almost two weeks demanding an AU$100,000 ransom.
Des Gregor, 56, flew last month to the impoverished African nation’s capital Bamako in search of "Natacha" and a dowry of AU$100,000 in gold bars, Reuters reports. However, he was picked up at the airport by a carload of ne’er-do-wells who whisked him to an apartment full of armed men.
The kidnappers gave Gregor "a good belting" and threatened to chop off his arms and legs unless his family coughed the aforementioned ransom. He recounted: "I was tied, bound by the legs, and that was only probably for a couple of days because they knew that I was going to cooperate. There was always one bloke sleeping at the door, there was no way out."
The gang’s plan unravelled after 12 days when Oz and Mali police duped them into letting their hostage enter the Canadian embassy to collect the cash.
Tales From The Best Health Care System In The World…(continued)
Funny how the same people pushing "free market" solutions to the health care crisis in the U.S. are also the same ones pushing these Religious Exemption laws that allow individuals to refuse to give health care regardless of what their employer’s policies are…
A federal judge’s ruling this week upholds the right of Illinois pharmacists to refuse to dispense emergency contraception.
…
Several pharmacists employed by Wal-Mart and Walgreen Co. have been disciplined for either refusing to dispense Plan B or for refusing to promise that they would dispense emergency contraception if asked.
U.S. District Judge Jeanne Scott denied a request Tuesday by Wal-Mart to throw out a lawsuit filed by pharmacist Ethan Vandersand. Scott sided with Vandersand, who had claimed he was legally protected from discipline by the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act when he declined to dispense Plan B.
Vandersand, who lives in Bluffs, formerly worked at the pharmacy in Beardstown’s Wal-Mart. He was put on unpaid leave after he refused to fill a Plan B prescription requested by a nurse practitioner at Springfield’s Planned Parenthood on behalf of a female patient in February 2006.
Wal-Mart had contended the state’s right-of-conscience law doesn’t cover pharmacists. Walgreen Co. has made the same argument in other Illinois lawsuits filed by fired pharmacists.
But Scott wrote in her ruling, "The statute prohibits discrimination against any person for refusing to provide health care because of his conscience."
Emphasis mine. Note that the law doesn’t limit a person’s right to refuse to give health care to contraception. It can be health care for Anything, according to this judge. Picture someone who has AIDS and needs their medication to keep their viral count low. Picture some religious right bigot behind the counter turning them away because those medications enable homosexuals to escape the consequences of their sin.
Picture that happening to…hell…just about anyone who isn’t living their lives according to the god of the fundamentalists: who isn’t one of their tribe.
You need to keep something in focus here. Take a look back on the history of the rise of the religious right. Abortion was one of their hooks to get votes and money, when school desegregation wasn’t cutting it anymore. Then Anita Bryant showed them how much more effective the homosexual boogyman was, and they’ve been running with it ever since. But this fight has been going on for decades now, and the religious right got involved in politics along with the secular right over school desegregation…and more specifically, loosing their tax exemptions for their segregated private schools. That’s the mindset here. You have to keep that in focus. Abortion…The Homosexual Menace…these are just tools to keep the voters angry. The real agenda, is dividing America into haves, and have-nots. Guess which side of that fence you’re on.
These conscientious objector laws are ultimately about building that fence of have, verses have-not. It isn’t just contraception, and it isn’t just health care. It’s about building that fence. Everything is about building that fence.
Because we don’t deserve the American Dream. This is not our country. It’s theirs. We just work here.
(Frederick, Colorado) A Catholic priest faces an indecent exposure charge after jogging in the nude about an hour before sunrise.
The Rev. Robert Whipkey told officers he had been running naked at a high school track and didn’t think anyone would be around at that time of day, a police report said.
He told officers he sweats profusely if he wears clothing while jogging. "I know what I did was wrong," he said in the report.
So he’s a Catholic priest…and he’s jogging…naked…in the predawn twilight…Around A High School Track… Yeah…I’ll just bet he has a sweaty little problem alright…
Via Pam’s House Blend… You could just about predict the reaction from the kook pews when several democratic candidates for president announced they’d participate in a debate on Logo about gay issues…
After all who could argue with the intellectual, philosophical, economic, national security, and social conscience expertise of a network that prides itself on the number of different ways a human being can have engage in sexual behavior while at the same time avoiding good old fashioned marital sexual intercourse?
…
What will happen is that each of these candidates will have to also later face the same "faith-based" audiences that they have been attempting to woo in recent weeks. Heaven forbid, but Obama might even have to make a follow up appearance in Rick Warren’s pulpit to announce the results of his most recent AIDS test. And what will they have to say then?
See here is the unrelenting truth, put as plainly as humanly possible:
Homosexual behavior and Christianity do not mix. From the standpoint of theory, theology, doctrine, and practice the two are totally and completely incompatible; as are adultery, pornography, bestiality, pedophilia, pre-marital sex, incest, cross dressing, multiple partner orgies and the list goes on. So the candidates can not have it both ways.
The truth is Democrats are not now nor have they ever been interested in seriously committed faith based voters.
So says Kevin McCullough over at TownHall.Com. Meanwhile…back on the side of all that is Godly and Righteous, the republicans are showing the rest of the nation just what it means to be morally upright…
NEW ORLEANS — New allegations tie Sen. David Vitter to a high-priced brothel in his hometown, days after he publicly apologized for his connection to an alleged prostitution ring in Washington, D.C.
Vitter (R-La.) acknowledged being involved with a D.C. escort service that federal prosecutors say was a prostitution ring.
On Tuesday, former madam Jeanette Maier said Vitter was once a client of her Canal Street brothel. She pleaded guilty to running the operation in 2002. Vitter won his seat in the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Maier described Vitter as a "decent guy" who appeared to be in need of company when he visited the brothel.
"As far as the girls coming out after seeing David, all they had was nice things to say. It wasn’t all about sex. In fact, he just wanted to have somebody listen to him, you know," Maier said in an interview with the Associated Press.
Tonight I got confirmation from a solid inside source who has no ideological ax to grind. The source said [Sen.] Vitter was a client at Canal Street, and provided some additional details that shed light on Maier’s comment that there was “more to the business than sex”. [Update: Based on her comments about Vitter not having “unusual predilections”, I would interpret this comment to mean something like companionship and social interaction rather than fetishes… etc.] These details are not for the faint of heart, either.
We’re talking about, among other things, Diaper Fetishism. That’s right folks, according to a trusted inside source, Vitter was well known among other Canal Street Brothel patrons to like diapers as well as other bizarre “fetishes”. I don’t have much more info than that from my source, except that some of the other patrons at the brothel included a well known business-minded New Orleans Republican and a well known Democratic ex-governor. There are many other well known patrons who never held public office, too. You’ve probably heard various names floated about.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love that New Orleans has more than its share of sex fetishists and preeverts who can’t come missionary. This ain’t a vanilla town, kids.
But the thought of Vitter prancing around in a dipey is a bit jarring, especially since I’m changing those nasty things every day.
During the Clinton impeachment scandal, Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt placed an article in his magazine offering up to $1,000,000 for information on sexual indiscretions by Republican officials. Flynt received evidence that Livingston had strayed outside of his marriage and he was preparing to publish this information. Livingston got word that the article was pending. During debate over the impeachment resolution on December 19, 1998, Livingston surprised everyone by stepping down as Speaker-elect and announced he would resign from the House in May1999. He was succeeded by David Vitter…
The writings of the Founding Fathers are very instructive on this issue. They are not cast in terms of political effectiveness at all but in terms of right and wrong — moral fitness. Hamilton writes in the Federalists Papers (No. 65) that impeachable offenses are those that "proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust."
In considering impeachment, Vitter asserted, Congress had to judge Clinton on moral terms. Decrying the law professors’ failure to see this, Vitter observed, "Is that the level of moral relatively [sic] and vacuousness we have come to?" If no "meaningful action" were to be taken against Clinton, Vitter wrote, "his leadership will only further drain any sense of values left to our political culture."
You don’t say, David. Gosh…three cheers for moral leadership. And…prostitutes who are worth every penny they charge. Especially the ones who know how to dress a man in diapers.
Today, looking back, Jeanette is not the least bit ashamed of the business she built. "There is a need for prostitutes," she says. "We balance everything out. We let a guy live out his fantasies."
Some of the fantasies at the Canal Street Brothel got a little rough. For those who liked that kind of stuff, there were whips, chains and a lot of leather. Jeanette says that most of the clients who wanted to be dominated were Republicans. She cracks a smile, then adds, "They wanted to be spanked and tortured and wear stockings–Republicans have impeccable taste in silk stockings–and these are the people who run our country."
"We’ve got 20-some investigations that all look good," Flynt said during a news conference at his Beverly Hills office.
"We have got some high-ranking Republican and Democratic members of the Senate and the House," he told reporters. "If I get just a couple of those phonies out of there, maybe it will be a step forward."
I’m laughing in your face Kevin McCullough, and all the rest of you pusillanimous sexual perverts over at Town Hall. Sex is a beautiful, thrilling, wonderful part of being alive and being human, and it isn’t Godlessness that’s writing all these sordid headlines now, and it isn’t moral relativism and wasn’t the dirty hippies and all their free love. This is what you get when you drag this vital part of the human identity into the gutter like it was dirty laundry, not one of this life’s pure and perfect joys. When you teach people that sex is a sordid, squalid, dirty thing, don’t be surprised when they act it out in sordid, squalid, dirty ways.
The author Mary Renault once said that politics, like sex, is an expression of the person within. If you’re mean and selfish and cruel it will come out in your sex life and it will come out in your politics when what really matters is that you’re not the sort of person who will behave like that. So what have we here? The party of Greed Is Good, and Sex is 90 Percent Evil, Except When It’s Between A Married Man And Women For Making Babies. And the brothel owners are saying they like to be dominated and spanked and tortured. And…wear silk stockings. And…diapers. And I’ll not endure lectures on how unnatural my sex life is from the likes of your kind Kevin.
While you all claim in websites, protests, in organizations, or coalitions, to want to help people who are “trapped in homosexuality,” you seem to be more concerned with sticking your nose in my business, and telling me the way you think I should live, along with who I am.
Whoops! Sorry. What this guy actually wrote was…
While you all claim in websites, protests, in organizations, or coalitions, to want to help people who are “trapped in the ex-gay movement,” you seem to be more concerned with sticking your nose in my business, and telling me the way you think I should live, along with who I am.
Sorry about that. Really. Meanwhile (again via Ex-Gay Watch…), PFOX is still battling the Montgomery County Maryland Board Of Education to insure that the only things taught in sex education classes about homosexuals and homosexuality are what the ex-gay movement wants taught. Not that they want to be telling anyone how they think they should live mind you…
Fred Clark’s Slacktivist bloggot an R rating from the same nutty blog rating thing that gave me my NC-17. Fred is a liberal Baptist and one of the most decent people I’ve ever met. He regularly tackles spiritual and theological issues on his blog, and he’s been doing a really killer ongoing review of the first book in the Left Behind series. His blog got the R for excessive use of the words Missionary, Hell, and Death. Oh…and Dick…but that Fred says, was in a post about the Vice President.
So the San Diego Padres, in a gesture of good will to the gay community, hosted a pride night at yesterday’s game. Given that many gay couples go to the games are families with kids, the Padres cheerfully offered to give their kids 14 and younger free Padres floppy hats. Of course you just know this made the kook pews go nuclear…
What began as a few angry parents in San Diego, has now turned into a major blunder on the part of the political powerbrokers within the Padres administrative offices. However, the Padres are not backing down. They are choosing the side of homosexuality over the protection of kids, as well as the rights of parents to choose when they teach their kids about sexuality. Parents at the July 8th game will be forced to explain homosexuality, lesbianism and transsexuality to their little boys and little girls because of the celebration of gay pride during the Braves-Padres game.
Rally organizer James Hartline hopes that educational flyers being distributed to families coming to the ballpark will discourage parents from bringing their children inside of the stadium where they will be exposed to radical elements of the homosexual movement. Rally sponsor Scott Lively, President of Defend the Family International, hopes that the Christian response to the gay pride celebration at Petco Park will serve as a catalyst for awakening parental responsibility in a very sexualized culture.
…"We will not abandon these kids to the destruction of homosexuality," says Dennis Martinez, a former national skateboard champion. A committed Christian and well-respected minister among America’s troubled youth, Martinez decided that he could not allow his ministry or its employees to compromise their commitment to Christ.
As boycotts go, yesterday’s protest at Petco Park flopped – like the hats.
Objecting to the confluence of two promotions at last night’s Padres game – “Pride Night,” a group event for local gays and lesbians, and a team giveaway of floppy hats to children 14 and younger – several Christian and conservative groups called for a public protest and boycott of the game.
Roughly 75 protesters showed up outside Petco Park’s front gate dressed in red T-shirts emblazoned with the message “Save Our Kids.” They handed out fliers. A few attempted to talk with Padre fans as they arrived for the 5:05 p.m. game that was nationally televised on ESPN.
“We’re here to inform parents, to warn them about what’s happening inside (the ballpark),” said James Hartline, a self-described Christian activist who directed the protest. “Bringing together homosexuals with baseball and kids is beyond bounds. We’re trying to get people to turn around, not go to the game, and we’re succeeding.”
If so, it wasn’t readily apparent. Official attendance for the game was 41,026, just short of a capacity crowd for the 42,685-seat ballpark.
And…oh look James…it wasn’t just the gay fans who were ignoring you…
“Values start and are taught in the home. Just because you see a bum on the street doesn’t turn you into a bum,” said Robert Davila of El Cajon before walking through the gates with his wife and two young children.
Not that gay people are bums…but you get the idea. Gay isn’t something you catch like a cold. But the subtext here, as always, isn’t that simply seeing gay people would turn the kids gay, but that gay people are predators that children should be taught to be afraid of. The better to make them fear and loath their gay classmates as they get older. The better to make them fear and loath themselves if they are gay. That’s what the Save Our Children slogan has always been about, ever since Antia Bryant used it back in 1977.
You can see why the bigots were bursting a vein over this. If gay and straight can sit down together with their families and enjoy a baseball game together, what next?
Six months after raising the curtain on their gourmet coffee shop in the beachside Indian Harbour Place shopping center, Laurie and Jim Hall decided to offer live music on Friday and Saturday nights.
The performers, normally duos, mainly covered songs written and made famous by other musicians. There was no cover charge, no pay for the musicians, no limit to how long patrons could sit on a couch with their coffee, playing chess and enjoying the music.
No problem.
Then a few months later, music industry giant ASCAP started calling and sending letters saying East Coast Coffee & Tea was in violation of copyright laws. The fee to continue the music was $400 a year.
"At the time, the shop was losing money, so we had to break it up into payments," said Laurie Hall. But the Halls paid, and the music continued.
Six months later, other music copyright companies began calling the Halls and demanding money. Most days there would be three or four phone calls from each company, Hall said. Finally, unable to afford the fees, she had to call most of her musicians — those who did not play original music — and tell them they would not be allowed to continue performing.
This aggressive — but legal — posture being taken by music licensing companies has the potential to unplug live music in many restaurants, bars and coffee shops in Brevard County.
Doesn’t this sound vaguely familiar? First they agree to payoff the one guy…and then another guy shows up demanding money…and then another…and then another…
Andrus, the owner of Lou’s Blues, said he has had many run-ins with the copyright companies over the years.
"It started 15 years ago when I had a guy come out to our other place, Cantina dos Amigos, and play Mexican music on his guitar on the patio," Andrus said. "They came after me for money. Are they really sending royalty checks to the songwriter in Mexico?"
Andrus said he pays BMI and ASCAP about $3,000 a year but is ignoring the smaller companies that seek royalties from him.
"There are so many damned companies you don’t know who to pay," he said. "One guy called and said I had to pay him if I played any gospel music at all. It’s really a mess."
…
And in no way do the songs have to be performed live, or even on the radio, to elicit calls for royalties.
Andrus said a friend of his who owned a restaurant that did not feature music was contacted by a company looking to charge him because it owned the rights to a Hank Williams Jr. song, "Are You Ready for Some Football?" The song preceded every "Monday Night Football" telecast, which the restaurant carried on its televisions.
What next? A shakedown of street performers who play for tips? If the music companies had their way you wouldn’t be able to whistle a tune in public without paying them royalties.
…and want to help them to be everything that God intended for them to be when He created them.
Quatre…
This being the case, we have no desire with the following information to try and attack or hurt someone…
Cinq…
…involved in homosexual sex.
Six…
Quite the contrary
Sept…
…our intention is first to try and help to set them free from the sin of homosexuality and the subsequent tragic consequences associated with homosexual sex – this is an act of love.
Huit…
Our society has been attacked by homosexual activists at every quarter, lying to us about the reality of homosexual sex while they are FULLY AWARE of this sin’s implications and dangers – FULLY!
At the nadir of his presidency, George W. Bush is looking for answers. One at a time or in small groups, he summons leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to the White House to join him in the search.
Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I’m facing? How will history judge what we’ve done? Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?
These are the questions of a president who has endured the most drastic political collapse in a generation. Not generally known for intellectual curiosity, Bush is seeking out those who are, engaging in a philosophical exploration of the currents of history that have swept up his administration. For all the setbacks, he remains unflinching, rarely expressing doubt in his direction, yet trying to understand how he got off course.
Well when you nail your compass needle down, staying on course is pretty much a matter of dumb luck George. And while dumb you are, dumb and lucky you never were. Otherwise your rich father and his cronies wouldn’t have had to save you from from jackass self over and over again.
These sessions, usually held in the Oval Office or the elegant living areas of the executive mansion, are never listed on the president’s public schedule and remain largely unknown even to many on his staff. To some of those invited to talk, Bush seems alone, isolated by events beyond his control, with trusted advisers taking their leave and erstwhile friends turning on him.
"You think about prime ministers and presidents being surrounded by cabinet officials and aides and so forth," said Alistair Horne, a British historian who met with Bush recently. "But at the end of the day, they’re alone. They’re lonely. And that’s what occurred to me as I was at the White House. It must be quite difficult for him to get out and about.
That’ll happen to people who would rather have sycophants then real friends. You’re the golden boy, right up ’till the moment you’re not. Then you’re nobody.
(London) A senior Church of England bishop says floods that have caused widespread damage in the UK are the result of God’s wrath on a permissive society that endorses gay rights.
"We are in serious moral trouble because every type of lifestyle is now regarded as legitimate," the Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, told the Sunday Telegraph.
"In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as ‘the beast’, which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want," he told the paper, adding that the introduction of recent pro-gay laws undermines marriage.
"The sexual orientation regulations [which give greater rights to gays] are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God’s judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance."
Dow is a leading church conservative.
"Conservative" being a euphemism for "Witch Doctor"…
The Bush Administration crack down a couple years ago on broadcast indecency was usually taken to be a bone tossed at it’s fundamentalist base.
That’s not a reference to crack cocaine you drooling morons! You’ll never see me advocating the use of that poison here. And why the hell (whoops…I said it again…dang…) is the word "gay" something impressionable kids shouldn’t be exposed to? I’m a gay man. Right? Okay…fine. Gay. Gay. Gay. Gay. Now I have 32 instances of the word to count against my poor blog. Oh…and five for crack. Uh…six. Aw…fuck it . Whoops.
But you know what…this is exactly the kind of jackass way the MPAA rates movies anyway. So I guess you won’t be seeing ads for The Story So Far in your local newspaper’s movieguide anytime soon…
WHITE CLOUD — A Newaygo County man could spend another weekend behind bars if he doesn’t take care of his yard.
David Burch says he tried to seed the yard last fall but it wouldn’t take root. This all stems from a contractor who failed to sod the yard in the first place. Now a judge is saying, do the yard or do the time.
"The people who work at the court, at the jail, thought it was funny," Burch said. "They said there had to be more. I said, ‘No, it’s just because I don’t have grass growing.’ They said, ‘You’re in here for that?’"
He claims he is not skirting the law. Burch said the contractor for his new house is responsible for the lawn. But a White Cloud city ordinance states otherwise.
"This has been in the courts for over a year," said White Cloud Police Chief Roger Ungrey. "I believe Mr. Burch has made an attempt. He did bring me in some receipts for grass seed."
But when it didn’t grow, a county judge ordered the yard planted. It never happened. Again this April – no sprouts. Then, in jail, an inspiration. Burch is sodding his yard with donated turf.
They’ve been having a drought in White Cloud by the way. Say…you think that might have something to do with why his grass isn’t growing…? Just curious. They must see things differently up there. Maybe they’ve never experienced a drought before and they’re not sure if that means you have to conserve the water you still have or not. I mean…here in Baltimore when we had our drought you pretty much had to let your lawn go brown or else you got fined. Having a green lawn was considered evidence that you were watering it illegally.
So I’m picturing this poor man finally getting his lawn taken care of so he can stay out of jail, only to then be fined for watering it. But at least it’s a city ordinance and not a Home Owner’s Association he’s at the mercy of. If it was an HOA they’d be suing him for not using the right kind of grass seed too probably. He’d have had to submit seed samples to the Architectural Review Committee before planting for DNA analysis, and maybe provide them with architectural renderings of what his new lawn would look like so that the Board Of Directors could pass on it first.
This blog is powered by WordPress and is hosted at Winters Web Works, who also did some custom design work (Thanks!). Some embedded content was created with the help of The Gimp. I proof with Google Chrome on either Windows, Linux or MacOS depending on which machine I happen to be running at the time.
