Friday night open thread

Sci-fi Friday rocks. Read More......

CNN: Anti-gay anti-AARP ad, photo was stolen

Crooks and Liars, our newest best friend in blogistan, has the video and the transcript.

USA Next is clearly not happy. Read More......

Crooks and Liars forces Bob Novak to issue a correction on TV

Woo woo. He's still evil, and still tried to twist it his way, but Crooks and Liars has been beating the drum on this issue for a week, along with the Democratic think tanks, and they won :-) You can watch the video of Novakula issuing his correction here. Read More......

A judge's family is brutally murdered, and the religious right spews crap like this

Yesterday, a Chicago judge's mother and husband were brutally murdered, excecution style. White supremacists are suspected. It got me wondering why people would so hate judges.

Then, today, I received this email from the religious right propaganda organ AgapePress:

Judie Brown of the American Life League says the court-ordered starvation of the brain-injured Terri Schiavo is the latest evidence that liberal judges are trying to take on the role of God. "The problem with the court system is that they are moving closer and closer to condemning severely disabled Americans, as a group, to death," she says, "and that ought to frighten everyone."

That got me wondering. I knew the religious right regularly went out of its way to dehumanize gays and lesbians to the point where Katie Couric, our own Dorothy in real life, asked in the days following Matthew Shepard's murder whether the religious right's anti-gay rhetoric didn't add to a climate of hate that overall helps encourge violence against gays.

That then got me wondering what else the religious right has publicly said about judges, and whether a climate of hate against judges is being created in America. Here's what I found doing just a cursory look.

Gary Bauer:

'A radical political agenda is being forced on the American people by un-elected, left-wing judges who are intent on remaking our country,' he says.

AgapePress:

"A conservative Christian activist says a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is proof that many of this nation's judges are on a quest for a religion-free America. Earlier this week, the high court refused to consider the appeal of a judicial ban on cadet-led mealtime prayers at Virginia Military Institute.... Vision America president Rick Scarborough says the effects of the VMI ruling will be far-reaching. For one thing, he fears the nation is in danger of raising up a generation of military officers without religious values. And he believes by such rulings, the United States is pitting itself against God."

Family Research Council:

Gay Activists and Liberal Judges are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage.... same-sex marriage would logically lead to marriages based on polygamy, incest, and pedophilia."

FRC email 10/22/03:

This is how important the fight for America's judiciary has become: we're now dealing with activist judges who are determining who among us is permitted to live, and who will be left to die.... The time to take back our judiciary has come. Innocent lives are depending on us.

Jerry Falwell email, November 20, 2003:

"militant jurists"

American Center for Law and Justice email, 3/13/03:

They want to see activist judges appointed - and confirmed - who will re-interpret the law to fit their own political agenda. It's an aggressive campaign ... and it's one of the most outrageous and dangerous I've seen in many years!

ACLJ email, 3/3/04:

It is clear that existing state and federal laws may not keep activist judges and local officials from marrying same-sex couples ... even if it means they are committing a CRIME!

AgapePress:

The Christian Defense Coalition spokesman points out that the decision by activist judges that the most innocent of all life is not protected has resulted in the ongoing, legalized murder of 3,000 unborn babies in the U.S. each day.

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., chief sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment:

"Our nation has a set of activist judges in Massachusetts and a rogue mayor in San Francisco. It is evident that they will openly aid and abet the homosexual lobby. These events over the past week clearly show that gay activists will skirt the law to create a new privilege that has never existed in this country."

Republican National Committee:

In an e-mail message, Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, confirmed that the party had sent the mailings. "When the Massachusetts Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage and people in other states realized they could be compelled to recognize those laws, same-sex marriage became an issue,'' Ms. Iverson said. "These same activist judges also want to remove the words 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Stephen Bennett, "ex"-gay and spokesman for Concerned Women for America, emai:

four tyrannical judges have taken MA -- as well as America -- hostage and their immoral ruling may change the course of history of our great country - forever. The destructive impact that "gay" marriage will have on the entire nation is unimaginable.... The Bible talks of tumultuous times past - and future - when governments directly opposes the law of God. As the apostles said, "We should obey God rather than man." We are at such a time in America.

Read More......

Religious right trying to ban Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue

UPDATE: My bad, link was wrong, it's good now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Every heterosexual Republican man (and lesbian) out there can kiss my happy ass. You voted for these nuts, they spent years dehumanizing gays, other minorities, Christians they don't agree with, and Muslims, and you all sat back and thought "eh, doesn't concern me."

Well guess what. Now they're coming after your happy ass (well, or your favorite model's).

...The president of Michigan's American Decency Association is encouraging Christians not to stand by while disguised pornography gets a foothold through local checkout stands. Bill Johnson says now that the yearly Sports Illustrated "Swimsuit Edition" is in retail outlets everywhere, it is an opportunity to let those stores know the magazine's special edition does not agree with Christian standards and values. Johnson suggests believers ask store managers to remove the issue altogether or at least place it out of sight of young children coming through the stores. Also, he adds, "It's important to tell the manager you're a regular shopper and that you have other friends who, if they were made aware that the store is carrying this magazine, you're certain they would stand together with you." Johnson says the kind of exhibition of women as sex objects that takes place in the popular sports magazine's swimsuit issue should bother Christians, because that is the starting place for the lust that drives millions into eventual addiction to hardcore pornography.

The road to fascism and theocracy does not involve announcing that "tomorrow we shall become a one-party state and those who disagree will be put to death." It arrives, with all apologies to Carl Sandburg, like the fog, on little cat feet. Read More......

Friday Orchid Blogging

Paph. Yerba Buena 'White Cap' AM/AOS x Twin Saints 'Devine'



Bought this one a few weeks ago when I got the one I showed you guys last week. This is almost 5 inches across. It too is a "bulldog"-type paphiopedilum :-)

Enjoy. Read More......

Oops

AP

A freed Italian hostage was injured and an Italian intelligence officer killed Friday after a U.S. armored vehicle fired on a car in which they were riding in Iraq, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.

Too early to know for sure whether our troops were really to blame, or whether the Italians didn't adequately signal who they were, etc. Nonetheless, this journalist's captivity was a big story in Italy. This doesn't help our public relations one bit. Read More......

USA Next admits photo was stolen for anti-gay anti-AARP ad

From today's Portland Tribune:

Montini [USA Next's Web consultant] said his company apparently failed to obtain the rights to the picture. USA Next, which took out the ad, and The American Spectator, on whose Web site it ran, both said they thought rights had been properly obtained.

Translation: I didn't realize when I shoplifted the goods, and snuck them into my pocket, that in fact I hadn't paid for them yet.

More from the Portland Tribune:

Montini first said he believed someone on his staff had properly obtained rights to the photo. But in an e-mail Tuesday to the paper's photo department, Montini said: "It looks more and more like we did make a mistake and ran with the ad prior to getting your approval."

On Monday, after the flap over the photo had begun, Montini tested the newspaper's photo-sales policies and submitted an Internet request and payment to buy a similar but not identical photo for private use. Virginia Meyers, the Tribune photo assistant who monitors photo Web sales, called him to ask for what purpose he was using the photo. At that point, he said he was only checking to see how the paper?s policy worked, and Meyers refunded his money .

On Tuesday, after Montini had been told by Meyers by phone and via e-mail that the paper would not sell him the photo for use in an ad, he tried another tack. He sent $600 - the typical fee for such commercial use of a photo - through PayPal, the electronic money transfer system, in payment for using the photo. The money was quickly refunded in full via PayPal because the newspaper would not grant permission for an ad agency to use a photo in this way.

Translation: Monday afternoon we told CNN that we most definitely bought the picture from a reputable vendor, even though at the same time we were desperately and quietly looking in to HOW to buy the picture.

Now, from yesterday's Washington Post:

Buzz off, responds Charlie Jarvis, the group's CEO. "They ought to be suing all the left-wing blogs for circulating this [ad]. That's who they ought to be asking for an apology," he told us.

USA Next claims it purchased the photo from the Portland Tribune, which photographed the men at a public ceremony. But the newspaper told us yesterday it has no record of selling the photo to anyone.

Jarvis, a former Interior Department official in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, calls the men's protest "silly" and "a diversionary tactic."

Translation: Even though it's now Thursday, and my staff tried unsuccessfully to buy the photo days ago, I'm still telling the media that we ALREADY bought the photo legally.

Then this from today's Portland Tribune:

Jarvis, from USA Next, said he didn?t know the picture had been used without permission. He said the cost of photo rights is included in the fees USA Next pays to companies that produce its ads. He said he thought USA Next had properly paid for the right to use the Portland Tribune picture.

"That's stunning, absolutely stunning," Jarvis said. "I'm sorry that this happened. We hired this company to buy commercial rights for anything we use on our Web site. There will be beatings of a severe nature. In business terms that means fines and penalties. I'll have to go back to the group and find out what's going on."

Translation: I'm guilty as sin and not so cocky anymore. Oh yeah, and the couple has still not received any apology from Jarvis or USA Next.

For more background on the story:
- press release (As I've mentioned before, the couple and their attorney have hired me as their public relations guy to help with media, etc.) Read More......

Another conservative "journalist"

So why is it that the term "liberal journalist" means someone who has democratic sympathies but tries to keep them out of their work, whereas "conservative journalist" means someone who is a whore who tries every trick in the book to fake the news in order to snooker the public and win at all cost?

The sad part is that at the same time the conservatives are angry at so-called liberal journalists, they're proud as hell that their "journalists" aren't even trying, or even trying to appear, as if they're after the truth.

And every single one of you journalists out there who has sat back and written nothing about the GannonGuckert story has helped the rightwing further create an environment in which the definition of "journalism" now includes partisan propaganda hacks whose only goal is to corrupt the truth for political (and monetary) gain. GannonGuckert is being depicted as the conservative counterpart, counterweight, to YOU. I.e., he's equal to you in every way, simply that you're a liberal and he's a conservative. And they're getting away with it. He not only diminishes you, he diminishes the entire profession.

And your wonderful little correspodents' association couldn't care less. If you guys can't define who you are, what you are, what qualifications it takes to become one of you, then why are you even there in the first place? You would be the first profession on the planet that can't - or is afraid to - define what you are and what you do.

Think about that the next time you take a pass on this story. Read More......

For those who still try to claim that GannonGuckert isn't anti-gay

In his own words in a recent interview:

REPORTER: In an article you called Kerry potentially the "first gay president." Coming from a conservative writer, that reads as an attack; it might read differently coming from a gay activist writing for The Advocate. What did you mean by that? Do you think your critics are right to point out any hypocrisy on the basis of that statement? And did you feel that, in order to please a conservative audience, you needed to make somewhat-derogatory statements about homosexuality?

GANNONGUCKERT: I didn’t do any such thing, I wrote a solid article that few of the people making these allegations have even read. Are you telling me that Kerry wasn’t proud of the nearly unanimous support from the gay community? He did so much to pander to that constituency, even his kids appeared at pro-Kerry events sponsored by gay groups, so are you saying that his description as a champion of homosexual rights isn’t something that he would want to publicize?

That constituency? Homosexual rights? Self-loathing, much? Or are male hookers who are tops not really gay - kind of like blowjobs not being sex - is that the idea here? And what's wrong with Kerry's kids appearing at pro-Kerry events sponsored by gay groups? Is there some problem with gay events?

And there's more:

GANNONGUCKERT: The Republican Party appears to me to be much more inclusive than the liberal media wants to report. Those who do not embrace the entire pro-homosexual agenda are painted by the Left to be intolerant or homophobic, when in fact the Left has a radicalized position [on gay civil rights issues] not shared by most Americans, Republican or Democrat.

Now look, this guy's 15 minutes have long since passed. And I think with all of these interviews and his chest-thumping he's hurting his own credibility. But I do think that it's important to hang him with his own words because he keeps denying key points of this story, then turning around and confirming our worst fears publicly in another interview. So there you have it. Read More......

Day 4 of a publication trying to get access to the WH press gaggle

Here's the thing. It's now taken them 4 days of repeated failure, and finally the intervention of several big journalists, at least one who is trying to write a story on the fact that these guys can't get credentials. Suddenly, once the bigtime press is paying attention, these guys appear to be getting their pass.

So what does this lesson prove?

1. That small never-heard-of-ya online publications who try to get day passes to the White House DON'T GET THEM UNLESS SOMEONE BIG WEIGHS IN FOR YOU.

So the question is still begged, how did GannonGuckertGump get his own day pass repeatedly for two years? What big persona helped him? Read More......

Oil at $80 a barrel?

Brought to you by the friends of Bush. Read More......

The Daily Show does GannonGuckertGump again

You can watch it here.

Dino Ironbody goes undercover :-)

Read More......

Another brouhaha GannonGuckert was in the center of

Isn't that interesting, yet another little brouhaha that GannonGuckert was in the center of. Gosh, for someone with no background in journalism he sure did find himself at the center of a lot of things. Valerie Plame's CIA outing. Daschle's race in SD. Info about the war before it happened. Rathergate. Very interesting.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) believes the man who helped thrust her remarks two years ago comparing Osama bin Laden to American revolutionaries into national prominence is nothing more than a "double-agent" and a "phony plant."

Two years ago Mr. Gannon, born James Guckert, used his seat in the White House press room to put a national spotlight on Miss Kaptur when he asked former press secretary Ari Fleischer why the President had not commented on the "offensive remarks by Democratic Congressman Marcy Kaptur, who likened Osama Bin Laden to our founding fathers?"

Read More......

UNC profs fighting the wingnuts

The University of North Carolina is in negotiations with the John William Pope Center to receive funding for the creation of classes on Western Civilization. Huh? Like we are not already western-centric enough? Even with all of the classes taught in our universities about world cultures we still are so incredibly focused on the west and our own self-importance. Think about it. Columbus discovered the New World. How did he "discover" a bloody continent that was already inhabited by millions of people? How much do most of us know about the Arabs and their work in math and astronomy? Name the country that holds the record for being the most heavily bombed per capita and who bombed them? What about China and India? Are we really being saturated with information about their cultures and histories in school?

Burrying our collective heads in the sand and ignoring the outside world is not going to somehow make the world a better or safer place. If most Americans were fully aware of the actual impact of their own foreign policy, we probably would have a much different foreign policy.

If people do not support the UNC profs, look for another victory by the wingnuts and another step back into the dark ages. Public universities have lost a lot of funding in recent years so administrators have to whore around for money but this is certainly a new low. Read More......

Martha's out

She was released at 12:30AM and is off to her home in NY for home confinement. I give her credit for making the most of the situation and exploiting it to re-cast her image. I always thought of her as cold and not very decent but this period of Martha-bashing changed my opinion a bit. I'm not saying I would enjoy having drinks with her or think that she is suddenly a lovely person but she was clearly targeted because she is a high octane woman. Guilty yes, but in the context of what we have witnessed on Wall Street in recent years, truly a minor offense.

Anyway, few people could take such an unpleasant experience and turn it around the way she has. I'm looking for a major rebound from Martha and think she will be ten times as successful as she was in the past. Impressive. Read More......

Gnite

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