Death toll now at 63,114

Jesus Christ. Read the rest of this post...

Bush continues vacation while over 50,000 die

Now that's the true meaning of Christmas. Watch 50,000 people die and don't lift a finger to help because you're too busy enjoying Christmas at your ranch to get involved. My favorite line in the whole story is Bush's aides CRITICIZING CLINTON in an effort to defend Bush being AWOL throughout this monumental disaster. Yes, the world has suffered one of its biggest disasters EVER and Bush is more worried about Bill Clinton. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday night open thread

Back in DC. Sigh. Read the rest of this post...

Beautiful essay about Martin Luther King and what he'd have to say about gay civil rights

A really beautiful essay. With some history I had no idea about, or at least had only heard inklings of. One of MLK's top advisers was "a known homosexual." And in spite of pressure from just about everyone to drop the "homosexual," King stood by him, and kept him as a top adviser. Read this article. (Thanks to Larry Yates for bringing this to my attention in the comments to another post.)

The sight of the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., standing at the gravesite of her father with thousands of demonstrators to denounce gay marriage was painful and insulting. The Rev. Bernice King and the march organizers deliberately chose King's gravesite to imply that King might well have stood with her and them in their protest. Given her father's relentless and uncompromising battle against discrimination during his life, it defies belief that he would back an anti-gay campaign....

King risked much to work with and defend Rustin during the tumultuous battles of the civil rights era. He valued him as an ally and a major player in the struggle. He also believed that deeply embodied in the civil rights fight was a person's right to be whom and what he was. While King may have praised his daughter for having the courage and conviction to march for her beliefs, bigotry is still bigotry, whether it's racial or sexual preference. He would not have marched by her side.

Read the rest of this post...

Born-Agains not so holy after all

Barna research's findings on "born agains":

Born again adults who have been married are just as likely as non-born-again adults who have been married to eventually become divorced. Because the vast majority of born again marriages occurred after the partners had accepted Christ as their savior, it appears that their connection to Christ makes less difference in the durability of people’s marriages than many people might expect.

Evangelical Christians are just 7% of the national population and less than 10% of those who consider themselves to be Christian.

Born again Christians and adults who attend Christian churches are more likely than atheists, agnostics, and adherents of non-Christian faiths to buy lottery tickets.

So they aren't nearly as many as they claim (7% puts them at around the same number as gays, in my book). They don't even defend THEIR OWN marriages. And they're more likely to gamble with the lotto, which ironically, THEY above any other Christians (I believe) consider a grave sin. That means they're hypocrites, or at the very least, they don't adhere to Jerry Falwell's version of being an evangelical Christian. Read the rest of this post...

Kerry sucked

It's about time someone said it. While the Democratic party is only SLOWLY beginning to discuss "what went wrong," there has yet to be a realization that there was a party-wide breakdown this past year. It wasn't just "the gays," but the anti-gun folks, the women's group, the enviros and everybody else dropped the ball. At least in those communities, the recriminations are slowly starting to begin (in the gay community, they've begun big time).

But what hasn't begun to any appreciable level is the discussion of what share of the blame Kerry has for our loss in November? Yes, some folks have discussed it in this forum, etc., but as far as national politics goes, articles in the paper, etc., there is a definite dearth of discussion about Kerry's role in our downfall. And I want to know why.

As for my part, here's what I see as the symptoms of the problem:
- Over the past year - hell, over the past 3 years since Sept 11 - progressives, liberals, Democrats, whatever, have been afraid to fight back hard. The anti-gun folks, the women's groups, the enviros, the Democratic party, and John Kerry did not play hardball with the GOP.

Anyone remember how Daschle responded to Bush's preposterous plan for a $1.6 trillion tax cut (pre-Sept 11) by counter-offering a $1.3 trillion tax cut? Ooh, how brave of him - and this when Bush was falling in popularity and the public was overwhelming opposed to additional tax cuts. That's called a lack of balls and a lack of vision as to who we really are as a party.

As for Kerry, he seems like a nice man, but he didn't fight back. He kept trying to win this election based on the facts, based on the issues. If he only got his "plan" out to the American public they'd realize he was the better man and vote for him. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. You have to present your plan, and then fight like a bastard to destroy your opponent. Bush understood this, Kerry did not.

Now let's talk about Kerry's waffling. Yes, Virginia, Kerry was a waffler. From gay issues to abortion to the war in Iraq, John Kerry had no idea who he wanted to be. And it showed. Everyone I knew was able to present a more coherent explanation of Kerry's position on Iraq than John Kerry himself. Whether the man was a waffler in life, or simply became a waffler in trying to appease the American people, he didn't sound like he had any real opinions at all about any of these topics, and that troubled me, and it CLEARLY troubled the American people.

Face it. He was a shitty candidate. My question is why it's ok to talk about everyone else who screwed up but not Kerry? Read the rest of this post...

No honeymoon for Georgie

Boo hoo. Apparently the American pubic isn't very enchanted with King George. Yeah, well too bad. You voted for him. Can't wait to see him crash and burn for the next four years. If the Dems play their cards right - and they won't - Bush could blacken the name of Republicanism (and Reaganism) for years to come. But like I said, the Dems - the current crop of Dems - won't have a clue how to take advantage of this. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday open thread

Wow. 44,000. Puts things in perspective. As someone mentioned in the comments to another post, how long do we think it will take before Falwell notes that the Tsunami "chose" to kill mostly Muslims at Christmas? Read the rest of this post...

Pathetic Bush Administration Response to Tsunami Disaster

DEATH TOLL RISES TO 44,000
Bush Administration Response? $15 million

How Christian is George W. Bush? Evidently not very. In one of the largest natural disasters in recent years, the Bush administration response of $15 million is the equivalent of what George Bush spends in Iraq in TWO HOURS. That's right, at $177 million a day in Iraq, $15 million is a pittance. Those are great Red State Values.

What would Jesus do? I expect that he would have spent more time and money trying to help people in a natural disaster than the pathetic response the Bush administration has provided.

Democrats should be on television right now calling on the Bush administration to do right in this human disaster. That's what I call Blue State Values. Read the rest of this post...

Expected GOP party leader Ken "I'm afraid to say I'm hetero" Mehlman congratulates new openly-gay head of DC GOP

(Did you think I'd forget Mehlman Mondays?)

Apparently Ken has known the openly-gay new head of the GOP in DC for "several years." From the stories I've heard, Ken seems very comfortable with gay men, and seems very welcoming of gay people at the highest levels of the GOP. Funny that with such a high comfort level around openly-gay Republican politicos Ken still refuses to publicly comment on his own sexual orientation, going so far as to refuse to say on-the-record if he's even straight.

Wonder how the radical right feels about Ken's ongoing outreach to the homer-sexuals? Read the rest of this post...