My friend John Amato at Crooks and Liars got profiled Sunday in the LA Times Magazine.
Archives for 2005
Someone Start a Media Campaign Fast Before We all Catch the “Gay”
It looks like Cliff Kincaid over at Accuracy in Media is trying to give Neil “Muleback Mountain” Horsley a run for his money in the stupidest quotes contest for 2005. What, you might ask, is bothering our heroes at AIM? Anti-Bush bias? The liberal media? Janet Jackson’s nipple?
Nope. The dearth of anti-homosexual lifestyle campaigns in the media:
Have you noticed that many news organizations, in honor of former ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings, have embarked on a quit smoking campaign? So why don’t our media launch a campaign advising people to quit engaging in the dangerous and addictive homosexual lifestyle? Life-threatening sexually transmitted diseases among homosexuals are on the increase.
***That’s performing a good public service. But let’s take this humanitarian impulse one step further. We would suggest that ABC News take on another dangerous practice—homosexuality. The latest reports indicate a rising pattern of sexually transmitted diseases nationwide. The 2005 estimate for syphilis cases is the highest in a decade, and the number of gonorrhea cases will exceed any other year’s count since 1993. Federal officials attribute the increases mostly to HIV-positive homosexual men having sex with one another. The practice is called “serosorting.”
The practice shows the dangerous and addictive nature of the homosexual lifestyle. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the homosexual men are HIV-positive, they simply cannot stop having sex with other men. So they are still having sex, this time with other HIV-positive men. They think this is “responsible” sex. But they are increasing their risk of acquiring other sexually transmitted infections, including new resistant strains of HIV.
It appears that the homosexual lifestyle is as addictive as smoking.
I hope Cliff and his buddies act fast, because although I have been interested in women my entire life, without quick action by the media in the form of an anti-gay lifestyle campaign, I might catch a nasty and deadly case of the “gay.” Last night I almost watched an old episode of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” but thankfully came to my senses and decided to watch the much more heterosexual “Boston Legal.” But for fate, I might have started to get addicted to the gay lifestyle.
You can’t make this shit up.
Someone Start a Media Campaign Fast Before We all Catch the “Gay”Post + Comments (58)
Yet Another Plame Update
Via Memeorandum, this explosive news:
Newspaper columnist Robert Novak is still not naming his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush.
“I’m confident the president knows who the source is,” Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. “I’d be amazed if he doesn’t.”
“So I say, ‘Don’t bug me. Don’t bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.’ “
It was Novak who first revealed that Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA. Wilson had angered the Bush administration when he accused it of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat before the war.
Disclosing the identity of a CIA agent is illegal; the disclosure set off a furor in Washington, resulting in an ongoing investigation by a special prosecutor and the indictment and resignation of Lewis Libby, the chief aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Woodward, a Washington Post editor, recently disclosed that he, too, had been told by an administration figure about Plame’s secret identity — probably, he said, by the same source who told Novak.
Novak said his role in the Plame affair “snowballed out of proportion” as a result of a “campaign by the left.”
But he also blamed “extremely bad management of the issue by the White House. Once you give an issue to a special prosecutor, you lose control of it.”
Hrmm. Tom Maguire investigates the possibilities.
*** Update ***
Folks, if you are going to Maguire’s place from here, knock off the horseplay. When DougJ does that crap here, it is funny. But quit doing it at Tom’s place and other places I link to, because you make me look bad. Jeebus. And you know what I am talking about.
An Open Call
Time to update the blogroll, and over the next few weeks I will be preening away those blogs which are now defunct from the blogroll. If you find one, let me know.
Also, if you are missing and deserve to be there (or know of someone who is, let me know- for some reason the Belgravia Disptach was missing until recently). I use my browser for my own surfing, and needto do this from time to time to keep things current.
Cory Maye, the War on Drugs, and Your Eroding Civil Rights
If I were smarter and more articulate, I would have written this Sebastian Holsclaw post over at ObWi:
The latest compilation of research on the Maye case can be found at this post on TheAgitator. This case solidifies my dissatisfaction with the drug war and how it has peeled away our civil rights. A number of things really bug me about this case. I’m not going to discuss it purely as a matter of law, but rather as a matter of justice. I’m going to attempt to examine how it fits it to our understanding of the interaction between citizens and the US government.
The War on Terror still appears to be a piker when it comes to diminishing our rights when compared to the hideous and unwinnable War on Your Neighbor War on Drugs.
Also, check the Agitator for some news updates in the Cory Mayes case, in particular this post (but really, just go to the top of the page and start scrolling).
Cory Maye, the War on Drugs, and Your Eroding Civil RightsPost + Comments (9)
Diebold Pulled from Florida County
This is interesting. According to the BradBlog, a Florida county has removed their Diebold voting machines after it was proven they could be hacked (Update- my bad- BBV provided the following quote):
A test election was run in Leon County today with a total of eight ballots – six ballots voted “no” on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thomson and by Harri Hursti voted “yes” indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked.
At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A “zero report” was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes.
The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied “ender card” was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.
Correct results should have been:
Yes:2 No:6
However the results tape read:
Yes:7 No:1
I really do not see why these machines are needed. I used them in the last few elections, and they were convenient and easy to use. but if they are not secure, and they do not leave the voter confident that his/her vote is safe and will be counted, we shold not be moving forward with them.
Last night in Morgantown, the League of Women Voters held a debate on the purchase of these machines for Mon. County. I will check around tosee if I can find what came out of the town hall/meeting.
BTW- Leon County is one of ‘those’ 2000 Florida election counties.
I am an idiot. See the comments as to why.
Another Mideast Lunatic
Gotta love Holocaust denial- it separates the crazies from the non-crazies real quick:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escalated his anti-Israeli rhetoric Wednesday, calling the Holocaust a ”myth” used by Europeans to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.
His remarks drew swift condemnation from Israel, Germany, France and the European Commission. Germany said the remarks would affect upcoming negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, and European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso said Iranians ”do not have the president, or the regime, they deserve.”
Ahmadinejad last week questioned whether the Nazi destruction of 6 million European Jews during World War II occurred and said Israel should be moved to Europe. He also provoked an international outcry in October when he called for Israel to be ”wiped off the map.”
But Wednesday was the first time he publicly denied the Holocaust. Touring southeast Iran, Ahmadinejad said that if Europeans insist the Holocaust happened, then they are responsible and should pay the price.
”Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets,” Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in the southeastern city of Zahedan.
”If you committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?” Ahmadinejad asked rhetorically.
”This is our proposal: if you committed the crime, then give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them so that the Jews can establish their country,” he said, developing a theme he raised in Saudi Arabia last week.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the remarks ”shocking and unacceptable.” He said the German government had summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires to make ”unmistakably clear” its displeasure.
Another crazy SOB running the show in that cesspool of a region.
From the comments:
Yep. And this opinion is shared by Almadinejad’s Shi’ite brethren in Iraq, folks who are about to win the most seats in their new Parliament.
And for this we sacrificed the lives 2,100+ American servicepeople and half a trillion dollars in national treasure? So far?
More bad polling info for Bush Bobbleheads. Appears the Dems are showing some good numbers going into the 2006 midterms. And in “blue” states the Dem lead is a full 20 points. Blue state GOPS must be crapping their silk britches.
Sheer nonsense, for obvious reasons. The notion that the crazies running the show in Iran are reflective of free and open elections, and will be duplicated in Iraq, is patently absurd. I systematically reject this nonsense.