Saturday, April 14, 2012
Ex-University of Nebraska heterosexual supremacist, Dr. Paul Cameron, asked if homophobes are gay
From Dr. Paul Cameron's Wikipedia entry
(footnote superscripts deleted):
Paul Drummond Cameron (born November 9, 1939) is an American psychologist and sex researcher. While employed at various institutions including the University of Nebraska he conducted research on passive smoking, but he is best known today for his claims about homosexuality. After a successful 1982 campaign against a gay rights proposal in Lincoln, Nebraska, he established the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality, now known as the Family Research Institute (FRI). As FRI's chairman, Cameron has written papers associating homosexuality with perpetration of child sexual abuse and reduced life expectancy.
In 1983, the American Psychological Association expelled Cameron for noncooperation with an ethics investigation, although by his own account he had resigned from the organization the previous year. Position statements issued by the American Sociological Association and Canadian Psychological Association have accused Cameron of misrepresenting social science research.
...In 1980, Cameron left the University of Nebraska and took up private practice as a psychologist in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1982, when the Lincoln City Council asked residents to vote on a proposal to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, Cameron led the opposition as chairman of the Committee to Oppose Special Rights for Homosexuals. Despite his earlier moderate position on teenage relationships, Cameron had come to take a hard-line stance on the topic of homosexuality. He has stated that his approach, emphasising the harms he believed to be caused by homosexual behavior and its acceptance, was influenced by his work on the "lethal" behavior of smokers.
During the campaign in Lincoln, Cameron delivered a speech at the University of Nebraska Lutheran chapel. This drew much attention after he stated that a four-year-old boy had suffered a brutal homosexual assault in a local mall. [Gateway Mall — AKSARBENT] Police were unable to confirm the incident, and Cameron acknowledged that he had heard the story only as a rumor. On May 11, Lincoln voters rejected the proposed measure by a 4–1 margin.
Friday, April 13, 2012
LB1161: Unicameral preapproves TransCanada pipeline route, sight unseen
Bold Nebraska directs our attention to this Huffington Post examination of TransCanada's new divide-and-conquer tactic.
Incidentally Bold Nebraska has published a list of the legislative perps who passed LB1161 — basically everyone in the Unicameral except Mike Flood, Ken Haar, Rich Pahls, Anette Dubas and Danielle Conrad.
Incidentally Bold Nebraska has published a list of the legislative perps who passed LB1161 — basically everyone in the Unicameral except Mike Flood, Ken Haar, Rich Pahls, Anette Dubas and Danielle Conrad.
 |
| Sen. Jim Smith, of Papillion, sponsor of LB1161, which helps TransCanada trample property rights of Nebraska ranchers and farmers through abuse of eminent domain. Smith's law exempts oil companies that apply during 2012 from complying with Nebraska's new Major Oil Pipeline Siting act. Smith claims, with a straight face, that his law wasn't unconstitutionally written specifically for TransCanada. |
The person most responsible for the TransCanada sellout is "family values" senator Jim Smith of Papillion, sock-puppet-in-chief in Nebraska for the radically right-wing billionaire Koch Brothers, whose properties will benefit from the TransCanada pipeline. He wrote the original bill.
Smith is the Nebraska State Chairman of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group funded by the Koch brothers, to get bills written by corporate lobbyists passed in state legislatures.
What reactionary legislation has ALEC pushed? Stand Your Ground? Check. Prison privatization? Check. Union busting? Check. Discriminatory Voter ID laws? Check. The list goes on and on. (On Wednesday, fast-food giant Wendy's joined McDonald's in ending its ALEC membership. Previously Pepsi, Coke, Kraft, Intuit, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation all announced that they were jumping ship.)
Not far behind Sen. Smith is Beau McCoy, who, contrary to the below graphic, isn't entirely in TransCanada's pocket; after all, he has to spend some time doing the bidding of the despicable Alliance Defense Fund, and for heaven's sake, there are only so many hours in the day. | |
| Graphic via Bold Nebraska |
Ann Romney, "victim"
Slate sidesteps the Fox News drivel and cuts to the chase:
Ruth Marcus, whose take on the story is only slightly spoiled by her own friendship with Rosen, explains why clutching pearls and condemning the pundit is the wrong response.Dressage is a sport of seven-figure horses and four-figure saddles. The monthly boarding costs are more than most people’s rent. Asked how many dressage horses she owns, Mrs. Romney laughed. “Mitt doesn’t even know the answer to that,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you!”
Rosen’s fundamental point — that Ann Romney’s experience is far from typical, that she has not grappled with the economic and family issues that face many women today — remains true. You don’t have to be a combatant on either side of the Mommy Wars to recognize that Ann Romney’s privileged life experience is not typical. She’s never had to worry about the price of a gallon of gas as she filled up the Cadillacs...
New Barnes & Noble Nook can be read in the dark
Although the Sony PRS-700BC was the first to have a built-in night light, B&N has still beaten Kindle to the punch.
Fox shouldn't sue over the Gawker mole —
if it knows what's best for it
"It's always awkward for a news organization to take the position that information or opinions shouldn't be shared," he says. "Also, if Fox decided to sue, they would have to explain how and in what amount they suffered financial harm from this employee's conduct; that's never easy, and it might require Fox to publicly reveal some information about its marketing, viewership and revenues that it might prefer to keep to itself."
Snackman speaks
He is also the subject of the best-turned phrase AKSARBENT has heard this week: Somehow, Mr. Sonder, who was a Rhode Island state wrestling champion at 189 pounds in high school and does architecture at 200...
Why haven't Alaska authorities arrested Jim Minnery?
Jim Minnery, the too-slippery-by-half head of the Alaska Family Council and leader of the anti-LGBT, anti-Prop 5 group, Protect Your Rights, has basically indicted himself of election fraud. Mel Green of Bent Alaska reminds her readers of the applicable Alaska statutes:
As Bent Alaska readers are already aware, on February 17, Minnery sent out an email to the “Protect Your Rights” group (also sent to his Alaska Family Council mailing list) stating explicitly:
Jim Minnery, of the Alaska Family Council
and of anti-LGBT group Protect Your Rights.
Minnery wrote an email blast/facebook
post telling people they could register and
vote on election day, even in precincts in
which they didn't live. Later he said he was
real sorry about that and blamed a city clerk's
office underling whom he couldn't name for
the bad info. What he didn't say was that
less than 45 days earlier, in another email
blast, he told voters to be sure to register
30 days in advance of the election (which
was true). Deceit may run in the Minnery
family — here's Jim's cousin Tom Minnery,
trying to fool Minnesota Senator Al Franken.
“Sunday, March 4th is the LAST DAY [emphasis his] you can register to vote in the April 3rd Election.”On April 4, he sent out an email entitled “Humble Pie,” in which he confessed to sending out a mailer instructing people to vote on election day; that Anchorage had same day voter registration. “I should have done more research before sending out the Action Alert,” he confessed in the letter. “I am willing to own up to my mistakes.”Under Alaska state law, [AS 15.56.035] it is a class A misdemeanor for an individual who “knowingly solicits or encourages, directly or indirectly, a registered voter who is no longer qualified to vote under AS.05.010” – which necessitates that voters must be ”a resident of the state… in which the person seeks to vote for at least 30 days just before the election”.Minnery needs to be held accountable. The free pass afforded him by elected officials and the media is irresponsible. Mistakes happen, as does forgiveness. But so, too, should media scrutiny and due process of law.
Child celebrities opposing Kirk Cameron (CCOCK)
NSFW unless you work, like, on a maritime dock.
In November of 2009, Cameron used his faded celebrity to help evangelist Comfort hawk a "special" edition of Darwin's Origin of Species. Here's what Wikipedia said about that (footnote references removed):
In November of 2009, Cameron used his faded celebrity to help evangelist Comfort hawk a "special" edition of Darwin's Origin of Species. Here's what Wikipedia said about that (footnote references removed):
According to Comfort's website, "Nothing has been removed from Darwin's original work", but Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, noted that Comfort deleted four chapters by Darwin that described the evidence for evolution, adding that two of the omitted chapters, Chapters 11 and 12, showcase biogeography, some of Darwin's strongest evidence for evolution.[21] She wrote that Comfort's foreword is "a hopeless mess of long-ago-refuted creationist arguments, teeming with misinformation about the science of evolution, populated by legions of strawmen, and exhibiting what can be charitably described as muddled thinking."
On his website, Comfort said that the four chapters were chosen at random to be omitted in order to make the book small enough to be affordable as a giveaway, with the absent chapters available for download, and that the missing chapters were included in the second edition, which had a smaller text size that made printing the entire book as a giveaway affordable. The second edition still lacks Darwin's preface and glossary of terms. The National Center for Science Education arranged a campaign at colleges across the US to distribute an analysis of the Comfort introduction, a one page flier and "the NCSE Safety Bookmark" in the shape of a banana, a reference to Comfort's use of a banana in one of his arguments for the existence of God.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Ask a Mexican: Why do Hispanics deny that George Zimmerman is Hispanic?
Gustavo Arellano answers your pointed questions!
Dear Mexican: Why do Hispanics deny that George Zimmerman is Hispanic? He did nothing wrong and has been crucified in the media — La Raza cannot bow down to the race baiters and race traitors that call themselves African American leaders!
Brown and Down
Dear Wab: This column is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not ¡Ask a Hispanic!, but I'll play, only because negrito-hating pendejos like you need to get smacked down. No Latinos deny that Zimmerman is half-Peruvian, and the reason we're joining African American leaders in vilifying him is because Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, a story of racial profiling gone horribly wrong that our respective communities know far too well. Wish there was a joke here — oh, wait, it's your tortured logic. ¡Gracias!
Dear Mexican: Why do Hispanics deny that George Zimmerman is Hispanic? He did nothing wrong and has been crucified in the media — La Raza cannot bow down to the race baiters and race traitors that call themselves African American leaders!
Brown and Down
Dear Wab: This column is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not ¡Ask a Hispanic!, but I'll play, only because negrito-hating pendejos like you need to get smacked down. No Latinos deny that Zimmerman is half-Peruvian, and the reason we're joining African American leaders in vilifying him is because Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, a story of racial profiling gone horribly wrong that our respective communities know far too well. Wish there was a joke here — oh, wait, it's your tortured logic. ¡Gracias!
Steve Jobs email may doom Apple defense against ebook price fixing scheme suit; in wake of Justice Dept. action, Amazon slashes ebook prices
Book publishers, petrified that Amazon.com would wreck their wholesale bookselling model with agressive ebook pricing, adopted an agency model with Apple to regain pricing control over their wares, which was perfectly legal. What was not was conspiring amongst themselves to do so, which the Department of Justice alleges they did in multiple meetings in private dining rooms at exclusive New York restaurants without the presence of their lawyers.
Jobs is quoted in the complaint as having said at one point during the negotiations: “We’ll go to [an] agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30 percent, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway.”
The suit notes: “Apple saw a way to turn the agency scheme into a highly profitable model for itself. Apple determined to give the publisher defendants what they wanted while shielding itself from retail price competition and realizing margins far in excess of what e-book retailers then averaged on each newly released or bestselling e-book sold.”
Under the agency model, the publisher would set the price and the retailer would be required to maintain that price. Thus, the publishers could end Amazon’s $9.99 e-book discount sales by simply setting the price higher.
Trial of Paris Anding in killing of Marcellus Andrews:
a fight of estranged couple that had little to do with either Andrews or Anding
In day two of the trial of Paris Anding, accused of killing Marcellus Andrews with one swing of a red baseball bat to the back of Andrews' head, testimony revealed a running series of confrontations between Anding's friend, Michael Snow, and his baby mama, Tudia Simpson, Marcellus Andrews' friend.
From Jeff Reinitz of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier:
From Jeff Reinitz of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier:
Snow and Simpson were allegedly in a vehicle chase that ended when Simpson smashed out the back window of Snow’s Delta 88 with a rake. Simpson and her cousin, Nakita Wright, then approached Snow at Phillips’ home. Andrews drove the two, according to Wright.
After that incident got defused, Snow, Phillips, Anding and others then showed up at Wright’s Cottage Street home at about 12:45 a.m. Phillips allegedly yelled gay slurs at Andrews, who was looking after the house while Simpson and Wright walked a block over to investigate a commotion.
The two heard the yelling and returned to the house.
Black Hawk County Attorney Tom Ferguson said a number of fights broke out, and Anding swung a red baseball bat, striking Andrews in the back of the head. Andrews fell to the ground, and Jeremy Lowe then allegedly kicked Andrews in the head.
Andrews died a few days later at the hospital.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Waterloo, Iowa jury seated in trial of alleged killer of Marcellus Andrews
Note: to read all AKSARBENT posts on this story, click on the "Labels" entry at the bottom of this post.
In the below video, you'll once again see Waterloo Safety Services Director Dan Trelka saying, in respect of the Waterloo PD's refusal to bring hate crime charges, "What does it matter? We all bleed red."
Evidently, since Trelka personally disagrees with the rationale of more severe sentencing for hate crimes, which, unlike other crimes, can terrorize communities, he simply ignores them, thereby single-handedly vetoing their raison d'etre. Isn't that wonderful?
AKSARBENT could understand prosecutors being hamstrung by the refusal of witnesses to be willing to credibly testify that Paris Anding uttered homophobic hate speech and therefore not bringing hate crime charges, but Trelka is so arrogant that he doesn't even bother to offer a credible excuse for refusing to take advantage of an opportunity to send a message to gay bashers.
In the below video, you'll once again see Waterloo Safety Services Director Dan Trelka saying, in respect of the Waterloo PD's refusal to bring hate crime charges, "What does it matter? We all bleed red."
Evidently, since Trelka personally disagrees with the rationale of more severe sentencing for hate crimes, which, unlike other crimes, can terrorize communities, he simply ignores them, thereby single-handedly vetoing their raison d'etre. Isn't that wonderful?
AKSARBENT could understand prosecutors being hamstrung by the refusal of witnesses to be willing to credibly testify that Paris Anding uttered homophobic hate speech and therefore not bringing hate crime charges, but Trelka is so arrogant that he doesn't even bother to offer a credible excuse for refusing to take advantage of an opportunity to send a message to gay bashers.
Voting irregularities: is Alaska Chicago North? Accusations that anti-gay churches and political groups outside Anchorage bum-rushed precincts
Shannyn Moore published the following in Mudflats and as a Compass opinion piece in last Sunday’s Anchorage Daily News:
Bent Alaska's Mel Green learned that the woman who ran the temp service overseeing election workers was a member of a church actively working to defeat Prop 5:
Dan Wheeler, a city attorney for Anchorage, who serves at the pleasure of just-relected anti-Prop 5 Mayor Dan Sullivan, issued a conflict-of-interest-free media advisory of his own, insisted that voters denied their right to cast ballots weren't really disenfranchised because earlier voters represented them adequately unless it can be proven that later voters wouldn't have voted the same way, due to the "rule of proportionality," which he found in a 1989 Anchorage city attorney opinion citing Hammond vs. Hickel.
Eric Christopher Adams, writing in the Alaska Dispatch, scrutinized Wheeler's logic:
Is it possible that the strategy which worked so well to scotch the
Anchorage equal rights ordinance in 2009, was adapted to also scotch
the Anchorage Equal Rights Initiative — Prop 5 — in 2012? Is it
possible that Minnery and the Anchorage Baptist Temple’s Jerry Prevo, again, bused in people from the outside the Municipality?
In any case, one theory that could fit the facts we have so far might posit an organized effort to bum-rush the precincts with the high levels of questioned ballots, leading to ballot shortages. It was simply a matter of exploiting a weakness in the standard election procedures about how the number of ballots distributed to the various precincts — a weakness that the Municipal Clerk’s office had never figured for a weakness, because it had never been challenged before by so many people casting questioned ballots before.
If someone planned such a bum-rush to take place at multiple precincts — say, about 43 percent of them — simultaneously, during the after-work rush to the polls, a bottleneck would be created: the clerk’s office would have to contend both with too few staff and with high city traffic to resupply all the affected precincts — all that on top of the confusion and overwhelm that workers at the precincts would be feeling with the unanticipated problems.
All such a plan would require would be someone with the inside knowledge of how ballots were distributed to the precincts, in order to know how best to bum-rush them.
Is that what happened?
Here's an account from Mudflats of the ballot mayhem: Election 2012 Gone Wild: The Saga at Precinct 830The election on Tuesday was nothing short of outrageous. At press time, we understand that more than half the reviewed precincts didn't have enough ballots for voters. People were unable to vote even after, in some cases, making stops at three and four polling places. The law requires the city to print enough ballots for 70 percent of registered voters. The actual turnout this week was in the vicinity of 27 percent. So where were tens of thousands of unused ballots?...In 2004, more votes were cast than the official statewide totals. In George W. Bush’s case, the district-by-district tally was 292,267, but his official total was 190,889, a difference of 101,378 votes.
In that year’s U.S. Senate race, Lisa Murkowski received 226,992 votes district by district, but her official total was 149,446, a difference of 77,546 votes.
There has never been an adequate explanation of the fact that also in 2004, 20 of 40 state House districts had more ballots cast than they had registered voters. Turnout in 16 of those districts was more than 200 percent.
We’re still using the same Diebold AccuVote machines that California decertified for a pattern of glaring anomalies.
Bent Alaska's Mel Green learned that the woman who ran the temp service overseeing election workers was a member of a church actively working to defeat Prop 5:
Mona McAleese, Labor Services Manager for ESS Labor Services (per her Linked-In profile), is a long-time member of Chapel by the Sea, according to a testimony from McAleese from February 15, 2009 on Chapel by the Sea’s website.Linda Kellen Biegel, writing in The Mud Flats, – ESS was contracted because the new electronic timekeeping program “couldn’t handle it.” As a result of the company’s demands for private information, many long-time pollworkers quit. This allowed ESS to hire their own people.
McAleese’s affiliation with both ESS and Chapel by the Sea may be completely unrelated to the problems of this election; but the connection is nonetheless worth taking note of: Chapel by the Sea was of the top three contributors to Jim Minnery’s anti-Prop 5 “Protect Your Rights” group. Chapel by the Sea has also figured in election night accounts:
- There are reports of information radically different from historical election procedures being given to poll workers, then subsequently to voters:
- My colleagues told me that around 5pm they were very low on ballots so called the Clerk’s troubleshooter for more. 45 minutes later the Troubleshooter showed up with more ballots, and with an armful of Questioned Ballot envelopes.
- The Trouble shooter said that the Clerk’s office wanted those newly arrived ballots to ALL be voted as a QB, with the voter signing the QB Register, placing the ballot into the QB envelope, and dropping the evnelope into the QB box.
- The poll workers were instructed to tell Registered Voters that they were not allowed to sign by their name in the Register, and that even though they were registered, they must vote their ballot as a Questioned Ballot.
- So, all voters who entered between 6pm and 8pm were counted as QB;s only, whether or not they were on the Register. Most people were dismayed and complained; one can assume they were on the Register.
- There are reports of voters never receiving their absentee ballots, even though they applied for them well within the time frame.
- There are persistent rumors of a bus or busses coming from the Valley carrying people to the polls. Further investigation is required.
- There are persistent rumors from voters and poll workers recognizing folks as Valley residents who registered in Anchorage for this election. Again, a full investigation is required to determine if that is the case and if so, how many precincts are involved.
- To date, we have been given no proof that the Muni was in possession of the required number of ballots…just their word. Where are the photographs of these stacks of unused ballots?
We apologize to the community. We had sufficient ballots, but did not allocate enough of the ballots to the individual precincts, given the turnout and number people who voted outside of their precincts. The use of an outside payroll vendor was not a factor.
 |
| Dan Wheeler (photo source) |
Eric Christopher Adams, writing in the Alaska Dispatch, scrutinized Wheeler's logic:
Mel Green ruminated at length in Bent Alaska:Here's a simple explanation of "proportional allocation." Let's say your precinct ran out of ballots at 5:30 p.m. Prior to running out of ballots, 55 percent of votes had gone in favor of a proposition and 45 percent had opposed a proposition. Based on the 1989 legal analysis, votes that were not cast because of a ballot shortage would be "generally allocated" by that same proportion -- 55/45. So voters who turned up after 5:30 p.m. but were turned away would be divvied up based on how those voting from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. had voted.Is that a fair standard or application of the law?"Absolutely not," said ACLU of Alaska Executive Director Jeff Mittman in an interview with Alaska Dispatch Monday afternoon."The supposition of proportional allocation is absolutely ridiculous. To presume that the demographic of voters who showed up between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. is the same demographic that would show up from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m." is preposterous, Mittman said.Who votes mid-day? Retirees, senior citizens, voters predisposed to certain values, Mittman contended. And who votes late in the day? Young voters, professionals, people with different values and ideologies."To presume you just somehow 'up the vote' for one side or the other just makes everything worse," Mittman said. "It takes a highly problematic election and makes it a grossly problematic election."We already know voters were disenfranchised" with 53 of 121 precincts running out of ballots, Mittman added. "This is a fact."
 |
| Jim Minnery, of the Alaska Family Council and of anti-LGBT group Protect Your Rights. Minnery wrote an email blast/facebook post telling people they could register and vote on election day, even in precincts in which they didn't live. Later he said he was real sorry about that and blamed a city clerk's office underling whom he couldn't name for the bad info. What he didn't say was that less than 45 days earlier, in another email blast, he told voters to be sure to register 30 days in advance of the election (which was true). Deceit may run in the Minnery family — here's Jim's cousin Tom Minnery, trying to fool Minnesota Senator Al Franken. |
In any case, one theory that could fit the facts we have so far might posit an organized effort to bum-rush the precincts with the high levels of questioned ballots, leading to ballot shortages. It was simply a matter of exploiting a weakness in the standard election procedures about how the number of ballots distributed to the various precincts — a weakness that the Municipal Clerk’s office had never figured for a weakness, because it had never been challenged before by so many people casting questioned ballots before.
If someone planned such a bum-rush to take place at multiple precincts — say, about 43 percent of them — simultaneously, during the after-work rush to the polls, a bottleneck would be created: the clerk’s office would have to contend both with too few staff and with high city traffic to resupply all the affected precincts — all that on top of the confusion and overwhelm that workers at the precincts would be feeling with the unanticipated problems.
All such a plan would require would be someone with the inside knowledge of how ballots were distributed to the precincts, in order to know how best to bum-rush them.
Is that what happened?
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Iowa Rep. Steve King is 'Mr. Right' for GOP Veep, says Stephen Colbert
Colbert to Iowa Rep. Steve King: "I was a cornpacker. And I know that term is offensive to some people because cornpacker is a derogatory term for gay Iowan. I would like to apologize to representative King — I have since learned the correct term is cob gobbler."
That's why I insist that no one at the Rapport tell me their sexual orientation, from the lowliest intern to my cameraman, Julian. Right Jules? Alright. Say Hi to the wife and kids for me!
So, I say, 'You go, Steve King!' And I assume this means you won't be telling us whether you're gay. Although coming up with a great excuse to keep everyone in the closet is a pretty big hint!(Via Towleroad)
Reddit: Man on subway breaks up a fight without interrupting his snack
Or, as the Reddit commenters say, "Snack Man does not give a fuck about your petty squabbles."
Monday, April 9, 2012
Short Takes:
The NSA is building the country's biggest spy data center in UTAH
Robert Reich's Mitt Romney fable
A history of Cornelius Crane (Chevy) Chase's obnoxious behavior; 14th-generation WASP New York performer called a "starched heap of mitochondria"
Mudflats has an interesting and exhaustive rumination on Anchorage's chaotic municipal election, which seems to have been gamed by conservatives to defeat the LGBT protection initiative, Prop 5, except that bond issues passed — which rarely happens in Alaska when the conservative base is aroused. Hmmm
`
Towleroad spotlights Outsports' most recent post, which wonders why NU continues to allow assistant football coach Ron Brown to foster a team environment hostile gay players. (17th item or you can cut to the chase here.)
Carl Siciliano, Executive Director of Ali Forney Center, an LGBT shelter for homeless gay kids, responds to intimidating letter by New York City
Democrats ask House Speaker John Boehner to back off his ‘Direct Assault’ on gay veterans
Iowa's GOP Rep. Steve King was the National Organization for Marriage's go-to guy according to secret memos released by Maine court during inquiry into NOM's refusal to comply with campaign disclosure laws there. Other memos outlined covert schemes to pit gays against blacks and $120,000 budgeted to find people willing to denounce their gay parents on camera. Des Moines Register: With the help of King, the marriage group “robo-called the entire state – more than 250,000 households” to ask Iowans to call their legislators and to see “if we could call back and ask them for money.”
Tim Tebow attacks athletes humble enough to insist they're not role models: 'Yes you are. You're just not very good ones.'
 |
| Celebration's Pastor Lori Champion and pastor Joe Champion, former LSU football player and current board member of Oral Roberts University. |
The venue was an outdoor Easter extravaganza staged by the four-location Celebration megachurch, located in the Austin, Texas "metroplex" (take that, Dallas!) where, according to the AP:
Media access to the event was tightly controlled inside the roped-off field. Reporters were required to have an escort when walking through the crowd, and photographers were not allowed inside during the service. Television cameras were allowed to record only a portion of Tebow's speech, and no live video streaming of the service was permitted.
Bob Kerrey hit by more attack ads by astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, funded by billionaire right-wing Koch Brothers
"Not in my house" ad: Alexander Burns at Politico has the details of the Billiionaire right-wing Koch Brothers attack on Bob Kerrey through the astroturf group they fund, Americans for Prosperity:
Americans for Prosperity has already engaged in election fraud in Wisconsin that was so blatant even English language Russian TV reported on it...
The national conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which has spent several hundred thousand dollars pummeling the former senator on the air over the last few weeks, is up with a new spot this weekend. The commercial, produced by the GOP admakers at the Strategy Group for Media, is a twist on Kerrey's own advertising -- which features ordinary Nebraskans welcoming the Democrat back to his home state.
Americans for Prosperity has already engaged in election fraud in Wisconsin that was so blatant even English language Russian TV reported on it...
Sunday, April 8, 2012
CBS' Mike Wallace dead at 93
Wallace died Saturday night, CBS has announced. He was a genius at grilling subjects in a manner just personable and folksy enough to keep them from ending the interview. Only Barbrara Walters, who chooses to chase ratings through titillation rather than substance (though she can do both) comes close. In 1967, a year before it started 60 minutes, CBS aired a one-hour documentary, The Homosexuals, narrated by Wallace, who didn't want to do the project until he saw the rough cut.
From the Wikipedia entry on the documentary:
From the Wikipedia entry on the documentary:
Lars Larson, the first interview subject, was infuriated after seeing the finished program. He had been led to believe that the episode would present a far more positive picture of American gay life. Larson, whose interview had been altered to make him seem less happy, filed a formal fraud complaint and withdrew his release.
"They had some rather nasty, angry anti-gay people on there who were treated as professionals," he said. "I had no problem with Harry Morgan or Mike Wallace because they were thorough. But obviously others in the decision-making process were truly upset with homosexuality. They saw it as a threat to the human race and were out to kill as best they could." Jack Nichols was fired from his job as a hotel sales manager the day after the program aired.
For his part, anchor Mike Wallace came to regret his participation in the episode. "I should have known better," he said in 1992. Speaking in 1996, Wallace stated, "That is — God help us — what our understanding was of the homosexual lifestyle a mere twenty-five years ago because nobody was out of the closet and because that's what we heard from doctors — that's what Socarides told us, it was a matter of shame."
However, Wallace was at the time of broadcast close friends with noted designer James Amster (creator of the landmark Amster Yard courtyard in New York City) and Amster's male long-term companion, men whom Wallace later described as "a wonderful old married couple" and "[b]oth people that [he] admired".
Despite this personal knowledge, Wallace relied on the American Psychiatric Association's categorization of homosexuality as a mental illness rather than his own experience in creating the episode. As recently as 1995, Wallace told an interviewer that he believed homosexuals could change their orientation if they really wanted to.
Russian Orthodox Church makes $30,000 watch of its homophobic leader disappear via Photoshop, but forgets reflection
The $30,000 (at least) Breguet watch on the wrist of wealthy Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill I, was digitally removed on the church's website, but they forgot the reflection. The omission has been widely ridiculed by Russian bloggers.
The Russian Orthodox Church is a supporter of former KGB operative and increasingly repressive Russian political leader Vladimir Putin and a vociferous supporter of a a new St. Petersburg law levying draconian penalties for producing any book or periodical that contains, say, a mention of same-sex marriage or a same-sex relationship — unless the book or periodical is sold at an adults-only bookstore. Public displays of affection among same-sex couples would also be an offense. For gay or lesbian parents, simply living with their children might be a breach.
(Via JMG)
Video: businessman Thomas Kinkade dies in CA at 54
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| Kinkades website |
His Media Arts Group company was taking in $32 million per quarter from 4,500 dealers 10 years ago before he took it private. In 2010 Kinkade's manufacturing business, Pacific Metro filed for Chapter 11. In 2009 the LA Times reported that the FBI was investigating Kinkade on suspicion that he fraudulently induced investors and then financially ruined them.
Aside from lithographs frequently augmented with hand-painted "highlights" — and sold at extra cost — Kinkade marketed other products such as his books, plates, snowglobes and rugs. Housing developments in California and Idaho have been built based on the appearance of homes in his paintings.
Some art critics have described his work as "tacky."
Gloria Steinem at 77
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Television portrayals of women todayWomen are portrayed as ornaments. The media shapes our views of what we can be. Part of the backlash says, if we just changed our bodies, society would be fine. I'm not trying to demonize these people. I don't know the Kardashians or Snooki. But what is going to happen to Snooki later in life? She is a joke.The GOP's war on womenThe Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment before the Democrats did. What's happening now is about a relatively small percentage of religious and economic extremists that have taken over the party.The younger generationI tell young women: Listen. Speaking, telling the truth and listening is the key. Sometimes a mom will come up to me and say her teenage daughter doesn't know who I am. I don't care if she knows who I am. I care if she knows who she is.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Fallout continues in wake of chaotic Anchorage election; Jim Minnery, antiLGBT group Protect Your Rights accused of election tampering and election fraud
Anchorage's Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander wants a city attorney to investigate the fiasco. The ACLU wants an independent investigation. In the meantime Bent Alaska published a letter from Christina Logan accusing Jim Minnery of anti-LGBT group Protect Your Rights of election tampering and election fraud in the following excerpt:
While I don’t personally feel that the cost of an “election re-do” would change the outcome of the election, I do feel that it is imperative that every vote be counted, and questioned ballots be carefully verified before being either counted or discarded and that this process be monitored and verified by unbiased witnesses.
The actions of Jim Minnery and the Alaska Family Council, through social media outlets, knowingly and fraudulently incited unregistered voters, and, by the Municipal Clerk’s Office own assessment, voters from outside the municipality of Anchorage to attempt to vote in the April 5 election. These actions quite possibly contributed to ballot shortages and disenfranchisement of legal registered voters.
I demand that Jim Minnery and the Alaska Family Council be investigated by the Anchorage Assembly for election tampering and election fraud.
I support the ACLU’s call for an outside investigator to be appointed by the Anchorage Assembly. I feel that Mayor Dan Sullivan and the city attorney have an extreme conflict of interest in investigating this election, as he was one of the candidates. The same is true for Assemblyman Paul Honeman, member of the Election and Ethics Committee.
(Bent Alaska added the following clarification to Logan's letter.)
While Minnery heads up the Alaska Family Council, he is also the chair of “Protect Your Rights — Vote NO on 5,” the group under whose auspices he actually sent out misinformation on April 3. Bent Alaska has seen no indication that Alaska Family Council as an organization participated in promulgating Minnery’s April 3 misinformation.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Homophobic GOP Nebraska Attorney General broadly insinuates that homophobic GOP opponent is a (heterosexual) pedophile
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| The Don (left) and Jon show. Two of Nebraska's nastiest GOP politicians are vying for Ben Nelson's Senate seat. |
In 2005, Bruning's current opponent, former AG Don Stenberg, blamed Democrats for liberal judges, gay marriages, abortion and other "social ills."
This week Bruning was criticized by his rival's campaign manager of being "offensive beyond words" for Bruning's "repeated references to a 62-year-old man [rival Stenberg] and a 14-year-old [Bruning's daughter, Lauren]."
Bruning and Stenberg are GOP primary rivals for retiring Senate Democrat Ben Nelson's Nebraska seat. Stenberg's campaign evidently tried to follow the private twitter account of Bruning's daughter and was blocked.
Stenberg said he doesn't manage his twitter account. His campaign uses software to seek out twitter accounts; his campaign manager, Dan Parsons, said the program searches for twitter accounts to follow by keying on words such as "Bruning" and "Stenberg."
Parsons said that "may" be how the teen received a request. He also said that Bruning deliberately used his own daughter to launch a "disturbing personal attack." Then he noted that if the issue is about age, Bruning himself appears to be following teens — including a 16-year-old girl — on his Twitter account.
At a debate in Gering, Bruning asked, "Why does a 62-year-old man want to follow a 14-year-old girl on Twitter?" He also said his daughter found Stenberg's request to access her Twitter feed "kind of creepy."
Later, Bruning said he never meant to imply that Stenberg had improper designs on his daughter.
Similarly, AKSARBENT denies in advance any insinuation that Bruning and Stenberg are both either bags of dirt or scorpions in a bottle. As well as all suggestions that it hopes they both sue each other into penury and afterward contract debilitating diseases which render each incapable of speaking anything ever again. Also, their campaign managers. Any such conclusions are entirely the mistaken and speculative inferences of the readers of AKSARBENT which, like Jon Bruning, denies responsibility for anything it says.
BYU students make some It Gets Better videos
There isn't enough money in the world to bribe AKSARBENT into stepping foot on the BYU campus and we wonder if the LDS overlords aren't giving gay students just enough extra leash to con the rest of academia into thinking the place is gay-tolerable. But whatever. Here's another video.
Hey National Organization for Marriage! AKSARBENT found videos of people talking about their gay parents for you — for much less than $120,000!
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| NOM President Brian Brown at NOM/Family Leader rally to attack gay families in Des Moines, Iowa 3/20/2012 |
The state of Maine, suing the National Organization for Marriage in an attempt to compel it to obey the law in respect of disclosing its donors, unsealed confidential NOM documents exposing its sinister strategy to pit gays against blacks and got an unexpected bonus: documents showing that NOM actually budgeted $120,000 to locate children willing to "speak" about their gay parents on camera. (Page 25 in above-linked PDF.)
My word! $120,000 is more than enough to install a heated, in-ground swimming pool in the five-acre, million-dollar, mini-estate Brian Brown occupies in Great Falls, VA.
NOM could save all that money just by posting YouTube videos from the Family Equality Council!
Of course, FEC features videos of kids who aren't denouncing their gay parents, and that's probably not how Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher, Mormon-founded NOM and its very wealthy, but still-anonymous* heterosexual-supremacist donors roll.
*Except for Mitt Romney, whose cleverly-laundered donation to NOM was just disclosed.
Kids today: gay assimilation and the death of Judyism: 'Immortality just ain't what it used to be;' Robert Lelux weeps for his people
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| Judy Garland, 1956 |
Last weekend, Robert Lelux took a gay friend in his 30s to a preview performance of “End of the Rainbow,” Peter Quilter’s play starring Tracie Bennet
about the final days of Judy Garland.
In the course of that invitation, Lelux asked his friend if he was a Judy fan, and he said, “No, but she was good in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ”
That, Lelux noted, is the kind of answer one might expect from Tim Tebow.
In the course of that invitation, Lelux asked his friend if he was a Judy fan, and he said, “No, but she was good in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ”
That, Lelux noted, is the kind of answer one might expect from Tim Tebow.
Very possibly related: gay character Max in season finale of ABC's Happy Endings.I asked, “Did your mother ever listen to Judy albums around the house?”“She liked ’80s hair bands. Poison, Aerosmith, Journey. But I bet my great-grandmother listened to her.”I asked, “Is this a dagger I see before me?”“What?”“Nothing.”“Personally I like Joni Mitchell,” he continued. “She’s real. Not so dramatic. Down to earth.”Who wants down to earth, I wanted badly to respond, when you can be transported over the rainbow? Instead I asked Brodie if he’d ever heard gay guys refer to themselves as “Friends of Dorothy?”“Why would they do that?”
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