VLADIMIR: We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Barack comes.

ESTRAGON: And if he comes?

VLADIMIR: We’ll be saved.

(Beckett…slightly altered…)

Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2011 17:12:57 -0400
From: Bruce Garrett
To: ombudsman@washpost.com
Subject: The furor

You write…

Liberals and conservatives don’t talk to each other much anymore; they exist in parallel online universes, only crossing over to grab some explosive anti-matter from the other side to stoke the rage in their own blogosphere.

Followed almost immediately by…

Rubin was hired by Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Post, to be an opinion blogger who would appeal to conservatives and people who want to follow conservative politics. She does.

He hired her in other words, to do for the Post readership what you are bellyaching that blogs are doing to their readers.   You’d think that the newspaper of record in the nation’s capital would set a higher standard for itself.   You’d think.

Maybe your publication should consider the possible consequences of enabling political echo chamber vitriol itself.   You are giving it a legitimacy the blogs could never hope to accomplish.

—
Bruce Garrett
Baltimore, Maryland.

Haitt hired Rubin because he knew she’d stoke right wing vitriol.   And he hired you because he knew you’d make excuses for that.

In 1997, the state of Florida made it a felony for someone who is HIV positive to have sexual intercourse without telling their partner. Now…what do you think that means in a state that very specifically defines sexual intercourse only as vaginal sex between a man and a woman.

Correct…

Case overturned because of narrow definition of sex

Last month, the court of appeal overturned a Bradenton woman’s conviction for exposing her female partner to HIV because the sexual acts were between two women. The law “does not apply to her actions,” the 2nd District Court of Appeal said.

The ruling applies statewide, meaning gays and lesbians cannot be convicted of hiding their HIV status from their sex partners, at least for now. Neither can anyone who only engages in sexual acts that do not fit the state’s legal definition of intercourse — “the penetration of the female sex organ by the male sex organ.”

So when Sarasota County authorities arrested an HIV-positive man this week on charges he had anal and oral sex with a 14-year-old boy, the sexual battery charge may stick, but the HIV charge will not…

This reminds me of another case, I think it was also in Florida, where it turned out a man could either not be charged by the state or not be sued by his estranged wife for adultery, because his sexual dalliance was committed with another man not another woman. In this case the oversight was, as the article notes, “…a glitch in the statute that nobody noticed before…” I can’t imagine why.

Well…yes I can. The thinking here clearly is that if we’re written out of the law then they don’t have to worry about some activist judge finding that we have these things called “rights”. So as far as the law is concerned in Florida, only heterosexuals have this thing called sex, and for that matter only when one man’s penis is entering one woman’s vagina. At some point they may also want to specify the missionary position for further clarity.

Le Dance Pathetique…as choreographed by Uptown Sports Management…

Un…

Very sad to read Sean Avery’s misguided support of same-gender ‘marriage…

Deux…

Legal or not, it will always be wrong…

Trois…

To clarify. This is not hatred or bigotry towards gays…

Quatre…

It is not intolerance in any way shape or form…

Cinq…

I believe we are all equal…

Six…

But I believe the sanctity of marriage is between one man and one woman…

Sept…

This is my personal viewpoint…

Huit…

I do not hate anyone.

Le Curtian…Applaus a vous…

Le Update Encore un Père skunk de pew…

“It’s sad. I mean, my personal position is that I do not support gay marriage, and I think it’s wrong, as well. It’s not politically correct to, I guess, give your opinion about a thing like that. It’s politically correct on the other side, for people to say, ‘sure, I support gay marriage.’ But the majority, I think, of Canadians would say that they don’t agree with gay marriage – that man and woman were created to be married, not man and man or man and horse, you know?” -Don Reynolds, father of Todd Reynolds, original tweeter and vice-president of Uptown Sports Management, as quoted in The National Post

Le Yikes! Le kittee quel terrible odeur!! Scram a vous!!!

The only thing that leaps out at me upon viewing President Obama’s “long form” Hawaiian birth certificate, is it looks structurally a lot like my California one. I’m guessing they all used the same ready-made government forms company back then. Oh…you want our Form 417B rev-c62-1011-A product. We have a special on that this week…purchase a million and you get a handy desk calendar embossed with your initials free of charge…

Well…I for one was expecting a sheet of paper at least five or six feet in length given all the fuss.   Some progressive commentators are alternately wondering why Obama gave in to the kooks and why he would want to put this particular republican clown show to rest.   Hahahaha…you can never shut up the kooks.   This is beautiful actually.   Here’s what’s going to happen: the kooks will, as they always do, simply reinvent their conspiracy theories, come up with new ones that explain why the old ones were right all along, babble even more loudly that Obama isn’t an American, is really a secret Muslim, is bringing atheism and shara law to the U.S., and thereby drag themselves even further into insanityland and the republican party with them since that’s essentially their base now.   What’s the RNC going to do…them them to STFU?   They can’t…they’ll loose a critical part of their base they can’t win elections without: the lunatics.

What Obama just did was poke a stick at the kook nest while acting all presidential and everything and all the democrats have to do now is pass the popcorn and sit back and watch.   Bet he does it again right before the GOP convention too.

[Update…]   On Twitter, Atrios shouts “Huzzah…the kerners are back.”   Yes…they’re questioning the typewriter lettering.   See…I told you…

Looking at my server logs I see the recent release of the trailer to the coming Atlas Shrugged movie (part 1…and I’m not the only one guessing that the John Galt speech will probably amount to nearly the total running time of part 3…) has brought more then a few readers to my little corner of the net.   More specifically this post.   Cool.

I think the movie has at least a fighting chance of not being completely horrible that The Fountainhead never did, largely because the Atlas Shrugged movie has an advantage The Fountainhead didn’t; that Ayn Rand is dead and so she can’t fuck with the producers. But it still has the deadly problem of bringing Ayn Rand characters to life and seldom outside of the pornography industry have characters been drawn that are so deathly one-dimensional.   Rand’s characters are little more then slapped together hand puppets she waves around in her morality plays.   They’re not there to tell you anything about life and existence and what it is to be human, they’re there to let Rand create a world of her own where she could take revenge on everyone and everything in the real world she hated.   But this is something people who have never actually read Atlas Shrugged need to see for themselves.

I am all about giving Atlas Shrugged its moment on the silver screen.   Especially the part that takes place in Galt’s Gulch.   If nothing else, that scene alone will convince a lot of people who might be otherwise bamboozled by it, that Rand’s claim to intellectual fame is pure hokum.   I walked a reference back to one blog’s link to my post and found a link to this which is an even more priceless take-down of Galt’s Gulch then I could have ever done.   But you would expect a farm boy to see the fundamental stupidity of it even more clearly then a kid from the suburbs like me…

The most egregious example of this comes in that pile of pap that Glenn Beck shucks like the Bible’s smarter, prettier sister: Atlas Shrugged. I have desire to go into a list of why that book is a pile of shit, at least not right now. But there is a moment in it that so completely sums up everything that is wrong with the Tea Party/Randite/Libertarian worldview that it is breathtaking in its elegant stupidity. It is when Dagny Taggart finally gets to Galt’s Gulch, and it is a breathtaking panorama of loveliness with fertile fields and little houses, and people fishing and etc. It’s para-fucking-dise. And John Galt himself leads Dagny around showing her all the wonderful things they’ve done. And there are oil pipes in the mountains, and fields full of…stuff (She’s not much for details, our Ayn.) And it’s the most hilarious moment in the book, because you realize, at that moment, that Ayn Rand has no clue how the world works.

See, I grew up on a farm. And I’m familiar with the sheer, bloody amount of work it takes to run a farm. Notice, I am not saying build a farm. Building a farm from scratch is an almost impossible undertaking. (Which is why *gasp* the pioneers did it all together in groups. No payment expected, just help out when its their turn. Buncha commies.)

Certainly, a few years after this project got started, they would still be on the frontier edge of starvation, desperately going hungry in the winter so they wouldn’t have to touch their seed corn for the next year, anxiously scanning the skies for clouds. Living in one room cabins. Of course, Rand handwaves this by essentially giving them cold fusion, but even so, it Doesn’t. Work. Like. That.

It is at that moment that you realize Rand probably never did a day of real work in her life.

And when you hear the Tea Partiers, or Glenn Beck naively parroting her back as if her words were found in the desert, cut into the living rock by the invisible hand of Adam Smith himself, it is worth remembering that a lot of them haven’t done an honest day’s work in their life either.

You need to read this whole thing.   I had this image of this blogger, who grew up on a farm, reading this…

“…Since the time I saw you last, I have designed and manufactured just one new tractor.   I mean one – I tooled it by hand – no mass production was necessary.   But that tractor has cut an eight hour workday down to four hours on” – the straight line of his arm, extended to point across the valley, moved like a royal scepter; her eyes followed it and she saw the terraced green of hanging gardens on a distant mountainside – “the chicken and dairy farm of Judge Narragansett” – his arm moved slowly to a long, flat stretch of greenish gold at the foot of the canyon, then to a band of violent green – “in the wheat fields and tobacco patch of Midas Mulligan” – his arm rose to a granite flank striped by glistening tiers of leaves – “in the orchards of Richard Halley.”

…and breaking into fits of hysterical laughter.   An Eight Hour Workday?   An Eight Hour Workday???

Right there is Rand, and her cheerleaders on the lunatic right in a nutshell.   Many of those right wing billionaires massively funding faux grassroots political movements like the Tea Party and poisoning the national dialogue with a variety of pseudo think tanks inherited their wealth.   Below them are rank after rank of winger nutcases who have never had to work a day in their lives and never bothered to explore the world outside of their gated communities.   They have not clue one how to earn a living.   Theirs was essentially given to them and I suppose one of the reason the rest of the human world frightens them so much is they know we can survive just fine without them while they wouldn’t last a season without their trusts and hedge fund portfolios.   They love Rand for her righteous assurance that only selfishness and greed are truly moral, that the true evil is to care for your neighbor and that somewhere in the Colorado Rockies is a beautiful fairy tale land wherein we who work for our living are the ones who cannot live without the likes of them.

There’s a lot of comment and some righteous snark going around the net over the Atlas Shrugged trailer.   Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution writes, “Hank Rearden’s line about only wanting to earn money comes across as either a parody  of Gordon Gecko  or as something worthy of Gecko’s parody.”   Since Gordon Gecko is a fictional character I can’t really make the comeback that Gecko got his greed is good lines from Rand and that he is the embodiment of her ideas, but it’s a fair guess that the writer who put those words in his mouth either had Rand in mind or some Wall Street asshole disciple of hers.   Some of the thread comments are delightful like “Dagny drives a Camry?”   But I particularly liked, “Anyway, since the passing of Leni Riefenstahl I can’t imagine anyone being able to give Atlas Shrugged the cinematic treatment Rand no-doubt believed it deserved.”

Yeah…   If I could wave a magic wand and travel back in time to when both women were still alive, I’d get them both to agree to make the movie of Atlas Shrugged somehow without Rand being aware of who the director really was and Riefenstahl not being aware of whose book she was making a movie of.   Then with the finished product absolutely delighting them both I’d then pull back the curtain and introduce them to each other, hand them each a knife, close the door and take bets on which one gets out alive.   Bet I could make back both the production costs and the time-travel costs selling DVDs of the fight.

What is life without regret? Via Alvin McEwen, here’s one I’ll take to my grave…

Paul Cameron : ‘ Prop 8 trial was lost because supporters were scared to use my work’

In September of this year, [Paul] Cameron posted a long, rambling diatribe on his web page of his organization, The Family Research Institute, entitled Prop 8 Decision — Triumph of ‘Scientifically Proven Sameness’.

Cameron’s theory that Germany didn’t loose World War I it was stabbed in the back by Jews and traitors at home the Proposition 8 defense lost because they didn’t use the good stuff, is one you had to see coming the moment the trial ended. The anti-gay industrial complex lives in its own world, its own mutually self referencing echo chamber, where all their comfortable conceits regarding heterosexual superiority are never allowed to collide with the slightest bit of cold hard reality. The instant they had to come out of that world and explain themselves in a court of law all their cherished fairytales went up in smoke.

Here’s a cartoon I did at the time…

It was a moment gay Americans had been waiting decades for. The sight alone, of so many straight media pundits scratching their heads at how utterly empty the anti-gay position actually is when you look at it closely was intensely satisfying. Oh…did you think they were arguing in good faith…? But if you even tarried momentarily with the thought that this might cause the kook pews to reconsider things a bit, ask themselves an uncomfortable question or two about what they know and how they know it, perhaps even feel a twinge of shame over what they’ve been doing all these years to innocent people, you do not know the breed.

No, they fled right back into the echo chamber at speeds that would have made Einstein’s jaw drop, and started bellyaching that the rest of the world Can’t Handle The Truth…

To be sure, homosexual activists have been building a ‘scientific case’ that homosexuality is irrelevant to marriage or successful child rearing — and also unrelated to child molestation, etc. — by publishing quasi-bogus conclusions appended to empirical studies in the journals of the major psychiatric professions, or by getting these associations to make exculpatory pronouncements. Consistent with Judge Walker’s legal argument, most of these studies purport to ‘prove’ that the outcomes and consequences of homosexuality are no different than the outcomes and consequences of heterosexuality.

Since a trove of such studies exist, then if what ‘science’ is is what gets published in peer-reviewed professional journals or declared by professional associations, the homosexuals ‘win.’ After all, homosexual sympathizers have generated more pro-gay conclusions based on social science studies than conclusions in studies that refute their ‘proof.’

And Guess Who Happens To Possess such a treasure trove of studies that refute their ‘proof’. Go on…guess…

We at Family Research Institute (FRI), of course, have ‘skin in this game.’ As researchers, we have published more extensively on homosexuality in peer-reviewed scientific journals than any one else on ‘our side.’

Peer-reviewed scientific journals like Psychological Reports which is to peer review as due diligence was to banks during the mortgage bubble. Or as Jim Burroway put it…

Of the thirty-four articles he’s published since 1986, all but five have appeared in the relatively obscure Psychological Reports. The others appeared in the journals Omega, Adolescence, Journal of Psychology, and the Journal of Biosocial Science. All of these journals rank very poorly among social science journals according to Journal Citation Reports, which measures the importance of a journal according to how often articles in that journal are mentioned in other journals — and thus its “impact” among social scientists. All of these journals rank in the lower half among social science journals. Most of them, including Psychological Reports, rank near the bottom.Psychological Reports claims to be a peer-reviewed journal, although editor Doug Ammons adds that “no reviewer has a veto right.” This is in sharp contrast to other, more respected peer-reviewed journals which will refuse to publish an article if serious objections are raised during the peer-review process.

Psychological Reports also differs from the other more respectable journals in another very important way: it charges its authors a fee $27.50 per page to publish. That’s why most professionals dismiss Psychological Reports as a “vanity journal,” one that will publish just about anything as long as the author is willing to pay the fee.

Let’s hear it for peer review. I mean…what’s more peer then a wad of cold hard cash?

So Cameron’s complaint is that Proposition 8 lost at trial because the defense was too afraid to put him on the witness stand, where he would have stood up for Real Science not fake Social Studies Science and swept everyone off their feet with such scientific brilliance even teh gay would have had to admit He Speaks Truth About Homosexual. I for one, truly regret this. I will go to my grave sorry Paul didn’t get his day in court. Really. Honestly. It would have been so absolutely Wonderful to watch Olson and/or Boies cross examine him. A pair of lions ripping apart a hapless gazelle while Maggie Gallagher watches with a look on her face like she’s about to vomit.

In my dreams I can just picture it happening…starting with “Mr. Cameron, do you recall speaking to a group in Lincoln Nebraska during the time that city was considering adding sexual orientation to their human rights ordinance? Do you recall telling them that a 4 year old boy had his genitals almost severed during a homosexual act in the restroom of the Gateway Mall…?”

“In a court of law you’ve got to come in and you’ve got to support those opinions, you’ve got to stand up under oath and cross-examination. And what we saw at trial is that it’s very easy…to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature, or in debates where they can’t be cross-examined. But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. And that’s what happened here. There simply wasn’t any evidence, there weren’t any of those studies. There weren’t any empirical studies. That’s just made up. That’s junk science. It’s easy to say that on television. But a witness stand is a lonely place to lie…” -David Boies

Damn. Life just isn’t fair.

Le Dance Pathetique…as choreographed by Carl Paladino…

Un…

Now, in addition, I have a nephew…I have people working for me who are gay.

Deux…

Never had a problem with any of them…

Trois…

…never had a problem in any sense with their lifestyle…

Quatre…

…and we’ve talked about it often.

Cinq…

I talk to them about the discrimination that they suffer and I’m sensitive to it.

Six…

The discrimination that they suffer is very, very difficult and I’m totally sensitive to it.

Sept…

I want to clearly define myself. I have of no reservations about gay people at all…

Huit…

…none.

Neuf…

I feel that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

Dix…

That’s not how God created us and that’s not the example that we should be showing our children.

Onze…

I don’t want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option.

Douze…

I oppose the homosexual agenda, whether they call it marriage, civil unions or domestic partnership. Marriage is between a man and a woman – period.

Le Curtian…Applaus a vous…

Scanning my server logs, I see someone hit my site today with the following Google search string…

why are democrats not defending themselves against republicans

I think the answer is Because they are democrats, but what do I know…

Le Dance Pathetique…as choreographed by Florida Governor Charlie Crist…

Un…

I’m a live and let live kind of guy…

Deux…

I think if partners want to have the opportunity to live together, I don’t have a problem with that…

Trois…

And I think that’s where most of America is.

Quatre…

So I think that you know, you have to speak from the heart about these issues.

Cinq…

They are very personal.

Six…

They have a significant impact on an awful lot of people…

Sept…

…and the less the government is telling people what to do, the better off we’re all going to be.

Huit…

….partners living together, I don’t have a problem with.

Neuf…

Question: Now that you’re trying to occupy the political center, are you still in favor of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage?
Governor Crist: I feel the same way, yes, because I feel that marriage is a sacred institution, if you will.

Dix…

But I do believe in tolerance.

Le Curtian…Applaus a vous…

Le Dance Pathetique…as choreographed by Iowa GOP candidate Jeremy Walters…

Un…

homosexual ‘GAY’ is not of God!!!!

Deux…

The Holy Bible says if your ‘GAY’ homosexual they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Trois…

This tells me a lot so should we kill them NO. They Need to ask God to forgive them of their sins and mean it turn away from it.

Quatre…

They also need to know that when it says that their blood shall be upon them that tells me it is AIDS.

Cinq…

That how I feel.

Six…

It’s offensive to them because they know it’s the truth.

Sept…

Truth does hurt.

Huit…

I am not against people having a gay lifestyle, and the statements made on Facebook have been taken the wrong way.

Le Curtian…Applaus a vous…

Le Dance Pathetique…as choreographed by Larry Klayman at World Net Daily…

Un…

I am not a homophobe.

Deux…

gay and lesbian people have made significant contributions to our society…

Trois…

…and should be respected as fellow citizens and children of God.

Quatre…

…but I also believe firmly in my heart, as do the majority of Americans, that they should not have any role in raising children.

Cinq…

Nor do I believe that they should be married.

Six…

…what they do among themselves in the privacy of their homes is also their business.

Sept…

But when a society loses its ethical and moral underpinnings and renounces traditional Judeo-Christian or, for that matter, common-sense universal values, it is the beginning of the end of that culture and its civilization.

Le Curtian…Applaus a vous…

Oh look…a message from the Social Security Administration asking me to review my annual statement which they have helpfully enclosed as a ZIP attachment.     Three messages actually.   Addressed to three different mail accounts of mine.   One comes from…

inetnum:               212.232.0.0 - 212.232.7.255
netname:               DIGCOMM-PPPOE
descr:                   PPPoE Pool
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country:               RU
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tech-c:                 SDV452-RIPE
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mnt-by:                 MNT-DIGCOMM
source:                 RIPE # Filtered

person:                 Denis Shatskikh
address:               per. Kupyansky 7, Voronezh, Russia
mnt-by:                 MNT-DIGCOMM
phone:                   +7-473-265-4114
nic-hdl:               SDV452-RIPE
source:                 RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to '212.232.0.0/20AS13178'

route:                   212.232.0.0/20
descr:                   Digital communications, LTD
origin:                 AS13178
mnt-by:                 MNT-DIGCOMM
source:                 RIPE # Filtered

One from rcdelectric.com and one from…

inetnum:               114.108.192.0 - 114.108.255.255
netname:               SKYBB8-PH
descr:                   SkyBroadband
country:               PH
admin-c:               VMDB1-AP
tech-c:                 VMDB1-AP
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remarks:               Used for broadband
mnt-by:                 APNIC-HM
mnt-lower:           MAINT-SKYBB8-PH
mnt-routes:         MAINT-SKYBB8-PH
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remarks:               This object can only be updated by APNIC hostmasters.
remarks:               To update this object, please contact APNIC
remarks:               hostmasters and include your organisation's account
remarks:               name in the subject line.
remarks:               -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
changed:               hm-changed@apnic.net 20080521
changed:               hm-changed@apnic.net 20100507
source:                 APNIC

route:               114.108.200.0/22
descr:               SKYBroadband-Resi
origin:             AS23944
mnt-by:             MAINT-PH-SKYBB8
changed:           cmgalicia@skycable.com 20080718
source:             APNIC

route:                   114.108.192.0/18
descr:                   SKYBroadband
origin:                 AS23944
mnt-by:                 MAINT-PH-SKYBB8
changed:               cmgalicia@skycable.com 20100226
source:                 APNIC

role:                 Vanessa Maria Dolores Bueno
address:           409 P.Guevarra Street cor Ibanez San Juan City
country:           PH
phone:               +63-2-6369276
e-mail:             vcbueno@skycable.com
admin-c:           VMDB1-AP
tech-c:             VMDB1-AP
nic-hdl:           VMDB1-AP
mnt-by:             MAINT-SKYBB8-PH
changed:           hm-changed@apnic.net 20080521
source:             APNIC
changed:           hm-changed@apnic.net 20080521

I had no idea the Social Security Administration used the services of so many different companies to stay in touch with its account holders.   The enclosed ZIPs didn’t set off my anti-virus software either.   No I didn’t open them.

Also, a notice from DHL about the package I must have forgotten that I ordered…

The courier company was not able deliver your parcel by your address.

You may pickup the parcel at our post office personality,

The shipping label is attached to this e-mail.

Please print this label to get this package at our post office.

This one comes from the DHL offices at…

inetnum:               95.84.32.0 - 95.84.63.255
netname:               SAN
descr:                   Network of Saratov branch of OJSC "Volgatelecom"
country:               RU
admin-c:               AVB35-RIPE
tech-c:                 AVB35-RIPE
status:                 ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by:                 MNT-SAN
source:                 RIPE # Filtered

person:                 Alexey V Bogdanov
address:               JSC "VolgaTelecom", Saratov Branch Office
address:               Mirny pereulok 11/13 410000 Saratov Russia
e-mail:                 avb@san.ru
phone:                   +7 8452 757575
nic-hdl:               AVB35-RIPE
source:                 RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to '95.84.0.0/18AS39229'

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Another ZIP attachment that didn’t set off my anti-virus.     Also…I got an email greeting card! From my dearest anonymous friend at…

inetnum:           117.192.0.0 - 117.255.255.255
netname:           BSNLNET
descr:               NIB (National Internet Backbone)
descr:               Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
descr:               8th Floor,148-B,Statesman House, Barakhamba Road, descr: New Delhi-110001
country:           IN
admin-c:           NC83-AP
tech-c:             CDN1-AP
remarks:           IP Addresses for Multiplay network
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remarks:           This object can only be updated by APNIC hostmasters.
remarks:           To update this object, please contact APNIC
remarks:           hostmasters and include your organisation's account
remarks:           name in the subject line.
remarks:           -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
changed:           hm-changed@apnic.net 20070801
mnt-by:             APNIC-HM
mnt-lower:       MAINT-IN-DOT
status:             ALLOCATED PORTABLE
source:             APNIC

role:                     NS Cell
address:               Internet Cell
address:               Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
address:               8th Floor,148-B Statesman House
address:               Barakhamba Road, New Delhi - 110 001
country:               IN
phone:                   +91-11-23734057
phone:                   +91-11-23710183
fax-no:                 +91-11-23734052
e-mail:                 hostmaster@sancharnet.in
e-mail:                 abuse@bsnl.in
admin-c:               CGMD1-AP
tech-c:                 DT197-AP
nic-hdl:               NC83-AP
mnt-by:                 MAINT-IN-DOT
changed:               dnwplg@sancharnet.in 20030120
changed:               hm-changed@apnic.net 20071227
source:                 APNIC

role:                 CGM Data Networks
address:           CTS Compound
address:           Netaji Nagar
address:           New Delhi- 110 023
country:           IN
phone:               +91-11-24106782
phone:               +91-11-24102119
fax-no:             +91-11-26116783
fax-no:             +91-11-26887888
e-mail:             dnwplg@sancharnet.in
e-mail:             hostmaster@sancharnet.in
admin-c:           CGMD1-AP
tech-c:             DT197-AP
tech-c:             BH155-AP
nic-hdl:           CDN1-AP
mnt-by:             MAINT-IN-DOT
changed:           dnwplg@sancharnet.in 20030120
changed:           hm-changed@apnic.net 20071227
source:             APNIC

This one did set off the anti-virus.   Project managers take note: this is what happens when you outsource your software development projects to India.   Outsource to the Russians instead, they’re Much Better.   And you can trust them now that they’re not communists anymore!

I’m beginning to regret my decision to buy a small chest freezer for Casa del Garrett last year. First it was my nephew, who went from a small, husky kind of kid into a lean and really handsome young man, simply by relentlessly cutting out all the processed food products from his diet.

He didn’t go vegetarian, but every bit of meat he eats nowadays he buys as cuts from the meat department, not as a frozen ready-made entree, and he cooks it up himself.   Same with all his veggies…no frozen entrees, no canned or packaged this or that.   Nothing ready-made in his diet.   Nothing.   Everything he eats starts with the basic ingredients and he cleans, cuts and cooks it all himself.   And it made a big, no, an Amazing difference in his body mass and energy levels.

I’ve tried to learn from his example, but old habits die hard.   I still, for instance, feed from the bags of ready made french fries I keep in my chest freezer.   But since I went to visit my brother last year, and saw with my own eyes what my nephew’s no-processed-foods diet has done for him, I’ve stopped buying TV dinners and other frozen entrees.   That’s huge for me.   I am old enough to remember when TV dinners came in aluminum trays, and they’ve been an absolute staple of my diet for decades.   No more.

Just last night I discovered another reason to keep crap like that out of the kitchen: you never know who’s making what you’re eating…

Gay battle heats up in Holland

HOLLAND, Mich. – A community group that is trying to make Holland more accepting of gay people planned to meet Wednesday, July 28, to decide how to respond to a full-page advertisement in the local daily newspaper that one of its leaders said included “blatant untruths” about gay people.

See the ad in its entirety here.

The ad, which was sponsored by the Family Research Council and Request Foods and published July 23 in The Holland Sentinel, made reference to efforts toward broadening the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The Holland City Council has referred the measure to its Human Resources Commission for review.

The ad stated that “pro-homosexual activists” were trying to give Holland gays and lesbians “special protections” under employment discrimination laws and called homosexuality a choice that is “harmful to individuals and to society.”

The ad contained the usual FRC lies about gay people.   Alex McEwen over at Huffington Post details some of it…

To recap, The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality is a fraudulent piece of work with many problems in regards to veracity including:

1. Ten Myths repeats the lie that the Robert Spitzer study proves that homosexuality is changeable, excluding the fact that Spitzer has said on more than one occasion that his research was being distorted.

2. Ten Myths utilizes the work of   the organization National Association for   Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). The website Truth Wins Out calls NARTH   a discredited “ex-gay” fringe organization that peddles fraudulent “cures” for homosexuality.

3. Most importantly, Ten Myths intentionally distorts information to make it seem that negative behaviors, i.e. drug and alcohol abuse, are indicative of the LGBT orientation. The pamphlet accomplishes this by citing data in regards to the LGBT community and such negative behaviors while omitting the fact that much of the data places the blame on homophobia for these negative behaviors.

I’ll only note in passing the FRC ad says on the one hand “homosexuals experience considerably higher levels of mental illness and substance abuse then heterosexuals.   A detailed review of the research has shown that “no other group of comparable size in society experiences such intense and widespread pathology.”   And yet…   “Research shows that homosexuals actually have significantly higher levels of educational attainment then the general public, while the findings on homosexual income are mixed.”   You have no idea how hard it is to be a pathological drug addicted substance abusing ivy leaguer and still manage all that hedge fund money.   I just don’t know how I do it.

But note their sponsor.   Request Foods is one of those zillions of faceless little sub-contractors to the big food companies, whose products could be anywhere in the food chain and you, the consumer won’t necessarily know it because they keep their client lists a Very Big secret.

What is known so far, is that Campbells Soup is one of their biggest customers.   But if you’re thinking that Request’s CEO Jack DeWitt is just a wee bit misinformed about his gay neighbors, some basically decent fellow who just happened to witlessly buy into FRC’s steaming anti-gay crock-o-bigot-shit, let me show you the product Jack is proud to call his very own: Mary Ellen’s Blessings at Home Frozen Entrees…

The frozen entree that comes with a little family blessing “table talk” card that families “can use to start discussions during mealtime.” Sweet!

The Mary Ellen’s brand and family of products are the brainchild of Request Foods President, Jack DeWitt and his wife Mary (Mary Ellen DeWitt). “Mary always wanted our family to be together at dinner time. It’s where many of life’s lessons are learned. We would share our feelings and make time for one another, even on the busiest days. People are so busy today, taking kids to soccer practice and band concerts. Dinner ought to be a time when everyone can sit and talk and enjoy a healthy meal together,” explains Mr. DeWitt.

The “table talk” cards were developed by Dan Seaborn’s ministry Winning at Home, whose primary focus is to provide every family the joy of “winning at home.” Seaborn is an international speaker, author, radio commentator and pastor. “With all the studies affirming the importance of family development, Request Foods, with its introduction and expansion of Mary Ellen’s Blessings at Home, is in the forefront of a rising new strategy to assist and strengthen families,” Seaborn said.

It’s not just the food that’s processed, sterilized, pre-packaged and frozen, it’s the piety.   Pity the poor kids whose parents buy this…food product.

The response to Mary Ellen’s Blessings at Home has been incredible! John from Illinois says: “As a single father of two teens, many times I don’t find time to prepare a good meal. I serve frozen meals at times to help with meal planning and time management. We found the product similar to a recipe we enjoy. I will continue to buy your product, as it is a food item we would buy anyway, but now we have the thoughts on the cards to look forward to. I’m off to check out your website, imagining how many families will be blessed by your message and how many will turn to God because of your witness.”

Joe from Georgia writes: “My wife and I were doing some grocery shopping in Wal-Mart and picked up one of your entrees. We got home and opened the box and out popped this card with Scripture on it. I was amazed I read it to my wife and began looking closer at the box. It had one of my favorite Scriptures on it (Proverbs 3:5-6). We enjoyed the meal, and we will be going back for more of Mary Ellen’s entrees because we were so impressed that you and your company have the courage to be open about your relationship with Christ. You’re a witness to others who desperately need to hear about Him today. It was good to be reminded that I need to order my day so my family and I can have some quality time together at the dinner table.”

Well if I was a kid in those households I know I could hardly wait for dinner time…

…to End.   But Request Food’s motto is We make your brand…Better...   So I guess even Jesus’s own words can be improved through the latest techniques in processed food manufacture.

Request Foods is one of the nation’s largest custom-prepared frozen food companies. Their mission is to honor God in all they do, to help people develop, and to pursue excellence. “It is our hope and prayer that Mary Ellen’s Blessings at Home entrees will bring busy families back together to share the blessings of a home-cooked meal and the fellowship of each other’s company,” said Mr. DeWitt.

I have a suggestion.   If you want to bring families together Mr. DeWitt, you can start by healing the wounds you’ve been gouging with your bare hands into families with gay family members.   Then start healing the wounds you’ve slashed into your community.   We are your neighbors Mr. DeWitt.   Stop spitting in our faces.   At least stop expecting us to thank you for saving our immortal souls while you’re teaching our families to hate us.

And…if your goal is “to encourage confident, creative team members by demonstrating respect for every individual”, and that “maintaining a supportive working environment enables everyone to work to their utmost potential”, you can start by assuring you gay employees they won’t be tossed out of a job simply because they are gay, and further, that you don’t actually think they’re the human garbage that FRC ad and its supporting pamphlet says they are.

And…if you want your “…team members to think of their positions as gratifying and enjoyable.” you can at the very least tell your “team members”, your gay employees, and their co-workers, that they’re not working for you just to earn you money to give to the FRC so they can spit in their faces.

And finally…how does someone turn the bible into a collection of frozen entree dinner time fortune cookies and lecture their neighbors about the quality of their private lives with a straight face?   You got lucky numbers on the backs of those cards too?   I strongly suggest you pay a little less attention to the care of your neighbor’s souls Mr. DeWitt and start looking hard at your own.   It’s clearly been neglected for a long, long time.   In fact it’s looking a tad…frozen.

(Cross Posted over at Truth Wins Out)

Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin catches a little bird tweeting…

“You know a counterfeit is a counterfeit when the happiness and freedom it initially promised ends up leading to deeper bondage…”
– Tweet from Exodus International president Alan Chambers

As Jim says, those of us who have watched the ex-gay movement know the language and what Alan is calling “counterfeit” there is what anyone capable of seeing the people for the homosexuals would call love…except of course homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex. Our relationships, the lives same-sex couples make together, the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows that are the stories of lives lived together in love and contentment…it’s really just fakery on our parts. And not very good fakery at that. We’re just, as Orson Scott Card once put it, “playing at house”. A second-rate counterfeit of the real thing only heterosexuals are capable of. That rush of delight when the one you love smiles into your eyes…the way your heart beats a little faster when they take your hand in theirs…it isn’t love. Perhaps it was the meatloaf.

Nice. So let me see if I understand… He can just flat-out deny the authenticity of our intimate relationships and that’s his godly prerogative. But when we deny the authenticity of his unctuous “love” for us homosexual reprobates…when we question whether gay people entering into opposite sex relationships is a healthy thing, let alone an honest thing, let alone a decent thing, let alone “change”… well then We’re being hateful.

But I suspect a lot of gay people who’ve spent some time in Alan’s little corner of the Anti-Gay Industrial Complex, and came out of it more heart-wounded then they went in, a tad lighter in the wallet and just as gay as when they signed on the dotted line, can say they know a few things now that they didn’t know before about what a deeper bondage feels like. And…counterfeit change, counterfeit heterosexuality, counterfeit psychoanalysis, counterfeit piety, counterfeit sympathy, counterfeit support…and especially counterfeit “love”.