This designated smoking area is just mean

More video of sexist GOP badgering of Keystone XL pipeline opponent at house hearing chaired by Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE)

There's a petition to get house members Lee Terry (R-NE), Bill Johnson (R-OH) and Billy Long (R-MO) to apologize for their disrespectful behavior to Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska. Lots of luck with that...
     Bill Johnson represents Ohio's 6th district, including Steubenville and Billy Long represents the 7th district of Missouri, including Joplin and Springfield. Charles P. Pierce, in his Esquire Blog, referred to Rep. Johnson of Ohio as a pipsqueak of a 'ho in the pocket of the extraction industries. More here.

Photo: NSA's Star Trek bridge replica built by Gen. Keith Alexander with your tax dollars; doors make 'whoosh' sound when they open and close

Also: Harvard professor says NSA is completely out of control.

From Glen Greenwald's Guardian expose:

But a perhaps even more disturbing and revealing vignette into the spy chief's mind comes from a new Foreign Policy article describing what the journal calls his "all-out, barely-legal drive to build the ultimate spy machine". The article describes how even his NSA peers see him as a "cowboy" willing to play fast and loose with legal limits in order to construct a system of ubiquitous surveillance. But the personality driving all of this - not just Alexander's but much of Washington's - is perhaps best captured by this one passage, highlighted by PBS' News Hour in a post entitled: "NSA director modeled war room after Star Trek's Enterprise". The room was christened as part of the "Information Dominance Center":

     "When he was running the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, Alexander brought many of his future allies down to Fort Belvoir for a tour of his base of operations, a facility known as the Information Dominance Center. It had been designed by a Hollywood set designer to mimic the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a 'whoosh' sound when they slid open and closed. Lawmakers and other important officials took turns sitting in a leather 'captain's chair' in the center of the room and watched as Alexander, a lover of science-fiction movies, showed off his data tools on the big screen.
     "'Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard,' says a retired officer in charge of VIP visits."

Warren Buffett on budget threats: 'Markets only expect politicians to act irrationally for a certain length of time'

Nevertheless, the Oracle of Omaha and most successful large invester of the 20th century thinks prolonged obstructionism on lifting the debt ceiling is "disturbing" and not moving forward would be "pretty damn dumb."

Love the adherent, hate the religion: Mrs. and Mr. Steve Young give some encouragement to progay LDS group

During Prop 8, while LDS stake presidents, who hold the power of "temple recommends" over Mormons, were "encouraging" them to write generous checks to the compaign to end gay marriage in California, the Young family had, like, five "No on 8" signs surrounding their house.

FBI: marijuana possession (not 'distribution') arrests outnumber those for violent crime

Iowa GOP Rep. Tom Latham, who just slashed Ag Dept. food stamps program, got $313,776 in farm subsidies

From The New Civil Rights Movement:

Rep. Tom Latham Republican–Iowa 3rd District
Total Farm Subsidies Received: $313,776
Net Worth: $2,315,175 to $7,650,167

Trick question—which doesn't belong with the others: 15-year-old, boy, pantless, backseat, priest, Craigslist, Penn State campus

Pennsylvania's Lackawanna County, where the below incident happened, recently passed an ordinance banning all religious advertising on public transit in order to stop a local atheist group from running the ad above.

Bishops of the Diocese of Scranton since 1988, left to right: Joseph C. Bambera, appointed 4/26/2010;
Joseph Francis Martino, appointed 7/5/2003; James Clifford Timlin, appointed 4/24/1984

      Via JoeMyGod: "The Times-Tribune of Scranton reported that Paulish, 56, has been reassigned 15 times by the Diocese of Scranton after being ordained in 1988 and has had three separate leaves of absence. The diocese did not respond to the newspaper's requests to explain the reassignments and absences."


(Via @str8grandmother)

Keith Olbermann invokes Fellini to explain Nebraska football coach's latest imbroglio

Also: Finally! A U.S. athlete who refuses to compete in Russia!
Also: Does the U.S. national anthem violate Russia's gay propaganda law?

"Peliniesque" "La Dolce Nebraska" "Satyricornhuskers" — brilliant. And we don't even like sports, not that this has anything to do with athletics.

Jeff Fortenberry backs outrageous bill allowing bias against legally married gay couples — and unwed straights

Fortenberry (in the preposterous hair), cosponsor of the
constitutionally dubious MARFA, meets with Nebraska
Bar Association members. He voted for the Ryan budget,
slashing social programs but leaving military spending
untouched, cut taxes for the wealthy while raising them
for the poor, voted for the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and
warrantless wiretapping, and has a perfect rating by an
anti-immigration organization. Fortenberry's numbers
are 202-225-4806 (D.C.), 402-438-1598 (Lincoln),
402-397-2064 (Norfolk) and 402-727-0888 (Fremont).
Why not call him and find out why he's supporting a law
(HR 3133) with gross equal protection flaws, a law which
allows federal workers to sue the government if they are
disciplined for not doing their job, a law which allows some
hospitals to refuse visitation from same sex spouses of dying
patients, and a law which allows federally-funded homeless
shelters and rehab programs to turn away LGBTs.

The bill cosponsored by Fortenberry targets married gay couples but masquerades as MARFA, the "Marriage and Religious Freedom Act." (Other cosponsors are at the bottom of this post — check to see if your representative is among them.)
     It was introduced by Idaho GOP Rep. Raúl Labrador, a Tea Partier elected in 2010 with the support of the Mormon Church. The text of the bill is here.
     The usual right-wing cultural warrior suspects are behind the bill: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council, and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

     Here's what Zack Ford of ThinkProgress wrote about the bill:

According to... HR 3133, there would be no consequences for any organization or individual that chooses not to recognize a same-sex marriage:

The Federal Government shall not take an adverse action against a person, on the basis that such person acts in accordance with a religious belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.

     In other words, the bill would create special religious protections only for people who oppose same-sex marriage or premarital sex. Under the guise of “religious freedom,” this bill specifically endorses one particular set of religious beliefs without concern for any others, a pretty clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
     The consequences of this legislation would be immense, such that a few individuals could short-circuit the rights of gay and lesbian couples across the country. Given its prudish inclusion of opposition to premarital sex, these consequences could likely apply to many straight couples as well. Here are a few possible examples of the potential for abuse:

• Businesses could refuse to provide leave for an employee to take care of a sick same-sex spouse.
• Federal workers processing tax returns, visa applications, or Social Security filings could refuse to do their job if it meant providing benefits to a same-sex couple.
• Federally funded programs like homeless shelters and substance abuse programs could turn away LGBT people.
• A church-run hospital could refuse to provide visitation privileges to a married same-sex couple without fear of endangering their tax-exempt status.

The Washington Blade added this:

     Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, called the bill “a sweeping Trojan Horse proposal” that would undermine constitutional protections...
     Lanae Erickson Hatalsky, a lesbian and the Third Way’s director of social policy and politics said "... the bill as written isn’t just limited to married same-sex couples, but would allow federal beneficiaries to discriminate against anyone who’s had sexual relations outside of an opposite-sex marriage...contravening the Bush-established policy of “Charitable Choice”, which says that when a program is federally funded, a religious organization may not turn people away.
     That means a government-funded health clinic could be able to refuse to provide prenatal care to an at-risk pregnant woman because she is unmarried. Again, that goes against our longstanding principle that when taxpayer funds are involved, an organization must serve all comers.”

Dale Carpenter of the Volokh Conspiracy, a libertarian blog, opened Fortenberry's legislative can of worms and counted them (emphasis added):

...The “Marriage and Religious Freedom Act” (MARFA), that would prohibit any “adverse action” by the federal government against any ”person” who acts on the basis of a religious belief opposing same-sex marriage or opposing sexual relations outside of opposite-sex marriages. “Adverse actions” include action by the IRS to strip a group of favorable tax treatment, like tax-exempt status. But it also includes actions related to employment, accreditation, grants, contracts, or benefits otherwise available under federal law. And it broadly prohibits “discrimination” against those who oppose same-sex marriage and non-marital sex. “Person” includes nonprofit and for-profit corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies. MARFA raises very interesting questions of statutory construction, public policy, antidiscrimination law, and potential applications and burdens for married same-sex couples. It also raises potential Establishment Clause issues in its partiality toward certain religious doctrines (i.e., applying only to those who oppose, rather than favor, same-sex marriage for religious reasons). After United States v. Windsor, there are also potential Equal Protection problems in MARFA’s targeted protection of acts motivated by opposition to same-sex marriage.

Here's what the Human Rights Campaign thinks of Fortenberry's bill (emphasis added):

The purpose of the legislation introduced today is simply to let federal employees, contractors and grantees refuse to do their jobs or fulfill the terms of their taxpayer-funded contracts because they have a particular religious view about certain lawfully-married couples – and then to sue the federal government for damages if they don’t get their way. For example, if passed, the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act would permit a federal worker processing tax returns, approving visa applications or reviewing Social Security applications to walk away from their responsibilities whenever a same-sex couple's paperwork appeared on his or her desk. It would also allow a federally-funded homeless shelter or substance abuse treatment program to turn away LGBT people. Despite the cosponsors claims, there is no evidence that federal programs have or would discriminate against individuals because of their religious beliefs about marriage. Protections against discrimination based on religious belief are explicitly and robustly provided under the First Amendment and federal nondiscrimination statutes.

Here's what the ACLU thinks of Fortenberry's bill:

Religious liberty is a fundamental American value. It guarantees us the freedom to hold any belief we choose and the right to act on our religious beliefs, but it does not allow us to harm or discriminate against others,” said Ian Thompson, American Civil Liberties Union legislative representative. “The proponents of this legislation seek to reincarnate DOMA and, in doing so, perpetuate discrimination against lawfully married same-sex couples and their children. Gay and lesbian couples raise children, vote, and pay taxes just the same as everyone else, but this legislation would allow these couples to be treated differently based on who they are, giving a free pass to federal workers, recipients of taxpayer-funded grants and contracts, and others to discriminate against lawfully married couples.

Other House cosponsors of H.R.3133: Joseph Pitts, Vicky Hartzler, Mike McIntyre, Steve Scalise, Trent Franks, Mark Meadows, John Fleming, Dan Lipinkski, Scott Garrett, Jim Bridenstine, Steve Daines, Charles Boustany, Michele Bachmann, Ann Wagner, Chris Collins, Stevan Pearce, Tim Walberg, Diane Black, Randy Hultgren, Paul Broun, Gregg Harper, Bill Cassidy, Kevin Cramer, Robert Aderholt, Mick Mulvaney, Rob Bishop, Todd Rokita, Mark Sanford, Tom Marino, Billy Long, Tom Graves, Pete Sessions, Bill Flores, Jeff Duncan, Jim Jordan, Randy Weber, Bill Huizenga, Marlin Stutzman, Jack Kingston, Doug LaMalfa, Cynthia Lummis, Matt Salmon, Tom Cotton, Mike Kelly, Jeff Fortenberry, Andy Harris, Jeff Miller, Kerry Bentivolio, Ralph Hall, Mike Rogers (AL), Doug Lamborn, Steven Palazzo, Keith Rothfus, David Phil Roe, Jason Chaffetz, Louie Gohmert, Chris Stewart, Chris Smith, Steve Chabot, Steve Southerland, Walter Jones, Kevin Brady

Finally, a U.S. athlete who refuses to compete in Russia — Tim Tebow!

Wikimedia Commons photo of
Tim Tebow stiff-arming air

RIA Novosti, which is currently running a rigged Olympic boycott poll on its English language site, reports that Tim Tebow has turned down a million bucks from Mikhail Zaltsman to play two games for his American rules football team, the Moscow Black Storm.
     Zaltsman, a gracious loser, said that if it was Tebow's decision and not his agents', then he is very upset and in that case, "we don't want him in our team anyway. We are looking for the people who pursue their dreams, not the ones who talk about it."
     Zaltsman complained that Tebow's agents would only let Tebow come to Moscow as a motivational speaker.

The best defense is a good offense

Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics much improved by nerds

Russian news publication Ria Novosti, offers English readers an AFA/NOM-style poll on Olympics boycott: three no choices, an undecided, and one yes choice

The poll is here for now, but we've no idea how long it will be up. At left is how it looked at about 5:30 am CST, today.

Steubenville, Ohio's U.S. Rep., Bill Johnson, launches sexist attack on Keystone XL opponent Jane Kleeb; Esquire: Johnson a 'pipsqueak of a 'ho' for Big Oil

Yesterday, Charles P. Pierce, in his Esquire Blog, wrote:

Jane has worked tirelessly with the farmers in Nebraska to raise the semi-important question of why they should give up their lush farmland to a Canadian company that lies its ass off, and has demonstrated the environmental conscience of the average locust. On Thursday, she got to appear before a House committee, where she was badgered and belittled by a pipsqueak of a 'ho in the pocket of the extraction industries.

ThinkProgress noted the outrageously sexist tone in Johnson's bullying interrogation, during which he warned Kleeb to answer either "yes" or "no" and wanted to know if she was the female in her husband's "woman-owned business." (Kleeb isn't. Johnson couldn't have checked before?)

When she was permitted to speak today, the witness challenged Republicans’ overestimated jobs and economic benefits. Asked about the couple hundred temporary jobs the pipeline may create, Kleeb replied, “Yes, let’s put them to work! You don’t have to wait five years for this project, put them to work on the backlog of infrastructure jobs that you guys continue to block as the Republican Party!”

Jane Kleeb's written testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee is here.

Lee Terry, Adrian Smith voted to slash food stamps benefits by $40 billion for the next 10 years

Nebraska Congressmen Adrian Smith and Lee Terry have voted to strip $40 billion from the food stamp program for the next 10 years. Here's a show-and-tell before the vote by Democrat Jackie Speier, which is relevant because Adrian Smith was one of the congressmen invited to the Ireland junket that she mentioned.
     Of course we won't know how expensively Adrian Smith was wined and dined until he submits a travel disclosure form for the trip, assuming he went.
     Odd that the food stamp threat to the federal budget seems to loom larger for Terry and Smith than the $70 billion in taxes that Apple (to name just one company) avoided because of corporate tax loopholes advanced by the GOP, which Reps Terry and Smith have done little-to-nothing to close.

Iowa Rep. Steve King, who spent $3,588 on lodging and meals on recent Russia junket, votes to cut $40 billion from food stamp budget

Here's what the Des Moines Register wrote in an editorial published before King and Iowa Rep. Tom Latham voted to slash food stamp benefits for the next 10 years:

Ron Shaich, CEO of Panera Bread, is paid about $3 million per year by the restaurant chain. This week, he’s getting a taste of what it’s like to be one of the 48 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps. He’s taking the “SNAP Challenge” by trying to eat on only $4.50 per day, the average benefit amount for food stamps recipients.
...To see whether the poor are really eating like kings, these lawmakers should participate in the SNAP Challenge, too. Iowa’s two House Republicans, Steve King and Tom Latham, could see first-hand how the 420,000 Iowans who rely on food assistance get by on an average of $4 and change per day for meals.
This would be a great exercise for King, who has loudly advocated for cuts to the program and is apparently growing accustomed to finer dining. He spent $3,588 on lodging and meals during a six-day trip to Russia earlier this year, according to the Congressional Record. If he instead used that same amount of money to subsidize a SNAP Challenge, he could eat for 881 days. Heck, if allocated to the challenge the equivalent of the total amount spent on the trip, including transportation, he could keep himself in SNAP meals for 16 years.

Hellbeast homophobe Mel Gibson probably won't like this Braveheart parody clip

Via JoeMyGod comes Buzzfeed's Copyranter posting of this promotional ad for Queer Lisboa, an LGBT film festival.



     Related: Gibson was born in Peekskill, NY. His nutcase, reactionary dad, who has a genius IQ, was the 1968 Jeopardy! Grand Champion who, after receiving $145,000 in a railroad work injury settlement, moved his family first to Ireland, then Australia in large part to keep his sons out of Vietnam. Other famous Peekskill natives: Stanley Tucci and Paul (Peewee Herman) Reubens.
     Aside: Even though he can be kind of a dick, AKSARBENT likes Russell Crowe much better than Mel Gibson, just because he made "The Sum of Us" (see hilarious clip below) and because he's a better actor, though neither is talented enough to even approach Heath Ledger territory.

Video: Italian lawmakers support LGBT inclusion in antidiscrimination law by sucking face in parliament

This is totally why we should have more LGBT-friendly legislators in the Nebraska Unicameral. From the video's description:

     A group of Italian lawmakers interrupted a parliamentary debate on Friday to engage in a same-sex kissing demonstration in support of expanding the country's anti-discrimination law to include the LGBT community. According to The Local, the new measure, which expands a 1993 law to ban "crimes motivated by homophobia or transphobia," passed in the Chamber of Deputies in a 354-79 vote, but is not expected to make it through the Senate of the Republic, generally considered the parliament's "upper house."
     But dozens of members of the M5S party — short for MoVimento 5 Stelle, or Five Star MoVement — cut discussion short on Friday when they stood up and began kissing each other, while others held up signs calling for "more rights" for LGBT Italians.

New Russian 'documentary' claims gays raise kids to molest them; cites University of Texas Regnerus study

 James Nichols, writing in the Huffington Post:

...Allegedly produced by a group called "Healthy Young Generation -- Healthy Russia," the video also claims that gay people live 20-30 fewer years than "normal people," 60 percent of children raised by same-sex couples struggle with their sexual identity, and the likelihood of contracting HIV from a gay person is 4,500 times more likely than a "normal person."
    The film also cites the controversial 2012 study from Mark Regnerus, a University of Texas professor, as the source for many of these statistics...

John Aravosis, who posted the video on his blog, wrote this about the Regnerus study citation:

      Even more troubling, the video bases its adoption-child-rape assertion on a debunked faux-scientific “study” from Mark Regnerus, a religious right researcher whose “gay parenting” study was roundly rebuked for only including two kids who actually grew up with gay parents.
     Yes, a whopping review of 2 children makes a scientific “study” of gay parenting.
     The “study” was also called “bullsh*t” by an auditor after it was published.

Pope Francis to critics preoccupied with abortion, gay marriage and contraception: You're obsessed

Read the entire interview here

We thought Pope Francis' interview (conducted in Italian) with the U.S. Jesuit magazine, America, and simultaneously published in various translations by Jesuit publications in 16 countries, was quite remarkably frank and entirely worthy of the considerable worldwide attention it has received.
     Though AKSARBENT agnostics have no investment in the Roman Catholic Church or any other, we cannot hide our surprise over the first pontiff in our lifetime who betrays a firm connection to cultural reality. Here's part of what he said:

     The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. We have to find a new balance, otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.

     We had assumed, at first, that Francis' well-publicized excommunication of the dipped-in-gold papal throne and his refusal to occupy the papal apartment at the Vatican (not as luxurious as you think, he says) were pure PR.
     But Francis seems to be the real thing, if a pastoral Jesuit is the real thing.
     When he describes himself as a sinner, it doesn't come across as the pro forma protestation of the RCC's CEO, but genuine. And while his occasional, unsolicited telephone calls to letter writers may be a publicist's dream, they are also evidence that he at least skims his mail.
     AKSARBENT does not doubt that the reactionary core of the College of Cardinals is horrified at what they have elected, but these are the sleepwalking sycophantic deadwood that Fellini mocked in Roma's outrageous ecclesiastical fashion show scene (below; you're welcome!), not that we at AKSARBENT would ever stoop to such a bitchy allusion to Pope Benedict's penchant for Prada.



     Unlike his staff, Francis sees the anger of those who have left his church and knows how hard it will be to try to lure them back.
     In Europe, atheism is like a huge global warming ice melt, dripping down off the backs of Scandinavian first responders.
     But Francis is more than a mere pragmatist who clearly sees the coming train wreck; he seems to be a genuinely candid and spiritual man, whom we already respect more than John Paul and his empty, Popemobile roadshow extravaganzas.
     Love the adherent, hate the religion, we always say — especially if the adherent becomes the first pope to unabashedly admit in public that he likes the art of the provocative Carravagio. (Well, did you evah!)
     Of course, an educated Jesuit like Francis is probably well aware of the role Renaissance painters played in the Catholic Church's ploy to use art as a weapon against Protestants to keep the allegiance of the illiterate. (See documentary below.)
    

Above: Caravaggio's first and second iterations of the Inspiration of St. Matthew, which the priests of Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi removed from the altar. Marchese Vincenzo Guistiniani charitably bought the first painting, took it home, and Caravaggio painted another, with no bare feet appearing to come out of the picture frame, no guiding angelic hand implying that St. Matthew was illiterate, no provocative sheer gown or pursed lips for the angel, who was moved an arm's length away, all in accordance with issues of indecorum and erotic imagery clearly addressed in the 25th decree of the Council of Trent.

Mormon Church now lobbying for carve-outs to let businesses and individuals in Hawaii deny service to gay couples

As the Aloha state moves toward marriage equality, the Church of Latter Day Saints sent out the following letter to its Hawaiian followers:

We have received a number of questions in the last few months regarding proposed legislation that would redefine the relationship and nature of marriage in Hawaii.

      As members of the Church we should be actively engaged in worthy causes that will affect our communities and our families. This legislation will directly affect both. Members are encouraged to study this legislation prayerfully and then as private citizens contact your elected representatives in the Hawaii Legislature to express your views about the legislation. As you do so, you may want to review “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” and other Church publications available on the Church website at lds.org. You may also wish to consider donating your time or resources to one of the community organizations addressing this issue.

      Whether or not you favor the proposed change, we hope that you will urge your elected representatives to include in any such legislation a strong exemption for people and organizations of faith. Such an exemption should:

      — Protect religious organizations and officials from being required to support or perform same-sex marriages or from having to host same-sex marriages or celebrations in their facilities; and

       — Protect individuals and small businesses from being required to assist in promoting or celebrating same-sex marriages.

      This is an important issue. As you stake presidency, we urge every family to discuss this issue together and then respond as you feel appropriate. Thank you for your support and faithful service. We pray that the Lord will bless and protect you and your families always.”

     What this means is that the Mormon Church wants a loophole to let wedding photographers and cake bakers to discriminate against gay couples. Of course no such loophole exists to allow, say, gay wedding planners to discriminate against homophobic Mormon couples as LDS followers remain a protected class within the law.
     In Nebraska, gay couples have been strangers to the law for 12 years due to the dominant role the Mormon church played in passing 416, a constitutional amendment which outlawed gay marriage, domestic partnerships and civil unions in Nebraska. LGBTs in the Cornhusker state, even if legally married in other states, have no next-of-kin rights to visit their partners in the hospital or to bury them. Nor may they adopt each others' children, thanks to well-funded Mormon political activism.

Boxer Ken Norton, whose upjab sent Ali to the hospital with a broken jaw, is dead at 70

It was congestive heart failure; he had a stroke last year. Norton also played the title role, albeit without star billing, in the Blaxploitation flick Mandingo, depicted in the lobby card below picturing Perry King (left) with Norton.

Will our "type 0" civilization evolve to a "type 1"?

AKSARBENT thinks this is fascinating, but doesn't buy the terrorists-resent-diversity argument, which seems to be a variation of the terrorists-resent-our-freedom trope. Terrorism is a guerilla way of striking back at superpowers who wield drone attacks and political assassinations and economic blackmail as foreign policy options.

Gallup: 55% of Americans have heard of Russia's antiLGBT laws; 13% approve, 69% don't

Gallup operations center, Omaha

Fifty-four percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Vladimir Putin, 19% a favorable opinion and 26% don't know who he is or have no opinion. Survey results are here:

Self-promotional genius James Franco now manufacturing his own scandalous paparazzi photos

Obviously Franco is doing this for the exposure, since he could fake the pictures, have a third party sell them to Perez Hilton, split the money, and then start an indignant twitter fight with Hilton about the violation of his privacy, which is what AKSARBENT would do.

Whitney Houston's prerecorded, national anthem Super Bowl performance during the Gulf War vs. the one Conan O'Brien had removed from YouTube

With its eight million views and a jingoistic dash of military worship, Whitney Houston's lip-synched performance of the national anthem is probably the most viewed on YouTube. (We were afraid to look at the view total for Roseanne Barr's virtuoso stylings.)
     But if you want to see a real response, not a manufactured one, check out the 2010 NFL opening game performance.
     The crowd was stunned, gap-jawed, joyous, amazed and transported by Colbie Caillat's rendition of something it had collectively heard a thousand times before.
     Caillat took tens of thousands of people by their lapels and made them listen to Francis Scott Keys' words, and by the time she reached "bursting in air" they were cheering the freaking national anthem (not a performer's showy embellishments.)
     Don't get us wrong: we at AKSARBENT are NOT fans of the enforced veneer of patriotism peculiar to American sports as effected by the obligatory prelude of the Star Spangled Banner at every damn hockey, football, baseball and basketball, game. In our darkest moments, we wonder if even chess tournaments are really safe from this shit.
     It's nothing personal, Mr. Keys. Criticism of the SSB as war mongering is just stupid; after all, the lyrics depict America as an underdog fighting for its place in the world during the crushing bombardment of Ft. McHenry after the Brits burned down the White House, not the swaggering, economically bullying, spymaster Internet overlord of much of the planet that the U.S. is now.
     Those were the days.
     An different version of this performance was taken off YouTube by Conan O'Brien's company, Conaco. The sorry saga of that was recounted by Whiteout Press in a piece called "Censoring the National Anthem for copyright violation."
     Huh? you might say. Yup: even though the words and music are public domain, the mechanical rights, performance rights and publishing rights for the SSB are not, which is why Major League Baseball "owns" Roseanne Barr's version and the NFL "owns" Whitney Houston's. A lawyer explains that stuff here.
     Anyway enjoy the performance below before Conan O'Brien strikes again.

Teaparty carpetbagger Al Ringgenberg, who wants to outlaw gay marriage in Iowa, now running for Council Bluffs City Council

Spelling-challenged "Col. Al" Ringgenberg, who moved into the area in 2011 to challenge Mike Gronstal, a bid rejected by Iowa voters, now wants a seat on Council Bluff's City Council, a town whose name we assume he can now spell correctly, which was a problem in his last campaign (see below).
     Col. Al has a lot of military legal experience that we're sure can be put to good use in Council Bluffs.

Following Operation Allied Force, Al was promoted to the rank of Colonel. He was once again separated by duty from his family, assigned in early 2001 as the senior legal advisor to the Headquarters of the NATO Stabilization Force in Sarajevo, Bosnia. There, Colonel Ringgenberg helped to track down and arrest war criminals from the civil war and genocide in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and throughout the former Yugoslavia. During his tenure, the list of war criminals turned over for justice included the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. 

     Wow! The above description doesn't exactly claim that Col. Al dragged murderous Serbian thug Slobodan Milosevic to justice by the neck with a knife between his teeth — that would be bragging. But it doesn't rule it out, either.
     Fortunately for CBers, Col. Al's experience is not limited to the military and AKSARBENT will let him explain that in his own special way: "I traveled abroad lend a hand to young missionaries"

Blog Under the Golden Dome  noticed last Bastille Day that Ringgenberg spelled "Council Bluffs"wrong on his website. It was corrected the next morning, but when UTGD noted the correction,
it noticed that "Gronstal" was misspelled too. By 4:07  that afternoon Gronstal's name was
also corrected. Ringgenberg evidently outsources unpaid proofreading to the little people.

Ringgenberg is no friend to gay Iowans. Here's what AKSARBENT wrote about him last year:

"Colonel Al" on marriage equality:

As an attorney, I strongly oppose the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court that redefined marriage under the Iowa constitution. Judges are supposed to interpret law under the constitution. Judges must not rewrite the constitution to meet a political agenda. The voters of Iowa reacted last November not because we’re bigots, but because the constitution belongs to us. I support an amendment to the Iowa constitution that restores marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Senator Gronstal, as the majority leader, blocked that constitutional amendment referendum before the voters. Voters have a right to decide how their constitution will protect marriage and the family.

Former Air Force lawyer
Al Ringgenberg, who pro-
secuted 100 courts-martial,
presumably while not
wearing a flight suit.
(Campaign website photo)

AKSARBENT thinks that "as an attorney," Ringgenberg shouldn't accuse the Iowa Supreme Court of "rewriting" the Iowa constitution to meet a "political agenda" when what actually happened is that a statute was struck because it failed the equal protection test of Iowa's constitution. Every judge on the bench agreed — so much for a supposed "political agenda." Nothing in the constitution was "rewritten." Ringgenberg said judges are supposed to interpret law under the constitution. That is exactly what the Iowa Supreme Court did with the remaining marriage statutes and directed other judges to do as well. And Ringgenberg, who is supposed to be a lawyer, has a problem with this?

If "Colonel Al" is too busy pandering to fundamentalists to have bothered to read the Iowa Supreme Court decision in its entirety, would it be too much to expect him to at least take 15 minutes from his efforts to misrepresent the decision and at least skim the Cliff's Notes 6-page "executive summary" that the court provided to explain why it did what it did — assuming he's as interested in light as he seems to be in heat.

OK Gov. Fallin forbids state's National Guard from processing military benefits for same sex couples

Despite a Pentagon directive to do so, Oklahoma GOP Gov. Mary Fallin has ordered the National Guard in her state to stop processing requests for military benefits for same-sex couples.
     Oklahoma National Guard Spokesman Col. Max Moss said his state's Guard had been processing benefits for same-sex soldiers just like straight couples until Gov. Fallin's office ordered a stop Sept. 5.
     Now same-sex Oklahoma National Guard couples will have to go to federally-run Tinker Air Force Base for benefit requests.
     Said Stephen Peters, president of the American Military Partner Association, in a statement:

"Since the governor of Oklahoma has decided to join Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana in playing politics with our military families, we need immediate and decisive action from the administration and the defense department in affirming that all military spouses, regardless of sexual orientation, will be treated equally,"

Now that Johnny Weird isn't going to the Olympics, can you please take him off my TV?

Here's a timeline of Johnny Weir's recent mendacity:

• 9/1/2013: Deadline for registering for Nationals to qualify for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics passes without Johnny Weir registering
• 9/11/2013 to Keith Olbermann: While this is a beautiful thing for fans over the world that want to see the Olympics live and for the athletes like myself who are hoping to compete there...
• 9/16/2013: Johnny Weir tells Queerty "If I'm lucky enough to qualify for the Olympics, I will bring the usual Johnny Weir."

And an excerpt from John Aravosis' disgusted dissection of Weir's on-air pronouncements

     Then, just when you thought Johnny Weir couldn’t be a greater idiot than he’s already proven himself repeatedly to be, Weir actually has the audacity to claim that situation gays face in Russia is the same one he faces in New Jersey, because New Jersey doesn’t recognize his marriage.
     Johnny, the day anti-gay vigilantes kidnap you, beat you, torture you, force you to drink urine, and the American government ignores the crime because they just don’t like the fact that you’re gay, then we’ll talk about the equivalence between Russia’s horrific treatment of its gay and trans populace and the fact that Governor Christie can’t decide whether he thinks you should be able to get married.