2011's Hottest New Reality Show

Scientific Question of the Day: Is Your Child a Prehomosexual?

Great: Turks Prefer Mideast Over Europe.

Boston Herald is running an article about John Kerry's disdain for the Tea Party. Quoted in the article are two of my favorite and often linked to bloggers, Prof. Glenn Reynolds and Prof. William Jacobson. I particularly like:

"I think the Tea Party couldn't ask for any better publicity than to be denounced by a millionaire for dodges paying taxes on his yacht."

Glenn notes in the above link that he couldn't have said it better himself (it's a joke, because he said it. Good one, Glenn LOLZ!).

The Last Psychiatrist gives his take on the Inez Sainz NY Jets affair. It's very interesting, and he probably had better things to say than I did. I've only read two of his posts so far, but his style is entertaining and his posts often contain good laughs. Thanks to commenter HP for the tip on this blog.

You can't please everybody all the time: Chris Christie Blasts Jersey Shore. LEAVE SNOOKIE ALONE! No seriously, leave her alone, she's got herpes. Snookie and Vinnie fire back at the haters. I laughed at the mental image of the snookster drinking coffee and reading books in Barnes and Nobel. In said mental image, she's always reading the classic "Goodnight Moon."

GOP leader John Cornyn, has been getting a lot of flack from social conservatives over his plans to speak at a gay republican event. Intelligently enough, he understands that fully embracing social conservatism will alienate people like me. Choice quotes:

"Mr. Cornyn, who has been on the receiving end of anti-establishment anger, argued that the Tea Party had helped Republicans in one important respect, by moving the debate away from social issues. While Tea Party supporters tend to be socially conservative on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, most say they don't want to talk about them... 

"As I've traveled," he said, "I've talked to a lot of folks who are basically independents who say: I'm fine with the Republicans as long as we're talking about fiscal responsibility. Where I go off the reservation is when you talk about social issues."

He's got that right, in my case and in the cases of many others. I don't care what your personal view on gay marriage or abortion is as long as you don't try to legislate on it. Chris Christie, for example, is pro-life, but I don't care because he has said he would never take action in pursuit of those beliefs. That's why Christine O'Donnell bothers me; she seems pretty cooky, I wouldn't be surprised if she thinks the President was born in Kenya, which is not something I want in an elected representative. Also, she plays politics like a liberal; the identity politicking has already began as she screams the gender-card. Part of what I hate about the modern left is the identity and victimhood politics. Libertarianism and to some extent, conservatism is about content and substance, not superficiality and group identity.

The GOP will never win with young voters if they keep the social conservatives as the backbone of their support. There was a new episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia tonight, and it was about gay marriage. Aside from being hilarious, the episode really made the anti-gay crowd look stupid. I understand that you're religious and that's fine, but the Bible also says it's ok to beat your slave to death, so long as he dies two days after the beating and not immediately. Fundamentalism is bad when you're adhering to millennia old doctrines.

Politics as usual... that's why we've got to vote these fuckers out and change their concept of what's considered "usual."

Most absurd idea for a reality show to date. I mean, it's already so ridiculous that I won't be surprised if the next big thing is about a family of gay albino werewolves who are competing in a wedding planning competition where the grand prize winner gets to star in the new Balto movie. When that show gets made, I want my cut. They'll call the competition The Ididhernot.

I wonder if his Wolfmother noticed he was gay back when he was a prehomosexual pup?

NYT Really Hates the Tea Party. From Allah, "The New York Times' idea of bipartisanship: Democrats and Republicans joining hands to crush conservatives." I've said it before that the media will only ever praise a conservative for acting like a liberal (2000 McCain ringin' any bells?), and will only ever shit on a Democrat if it becomes apparent that the story is so mainstream that they can't hide from it anymore (John Edwards affair ringin' any bells?) or if the liberal is not acting liberal enough. I've said it particularly of John Stewart, for his only criticism of the left is that they aren't left enough. But John Stewart is an entertainer and comedian, not operating under the guise of impartiality.

Time Magazine considers Everybody Draw Mohammed Day to be gratuitously provocative. I consider Time Magazine to have it's head up it's ass. Have they even looked at what was being drawn of Mohammed? South Park merely wanted to show the prophet, not doing anything in particular, but comedy central chickened out. The creator of EDM Day and myself both drew the most inoffensive pictures you could draw on MS Paint. I guess standing up for free speech is just a gratuitous provocation these days.

More hateful tea-party anti-Republican violence here and here. You'd think with all the hate and rancor towards conservatives these days that the conservatives were in power... I find it rather odd, considering the house, the senate, and the executive branch are completely run by Democrats with a supermajority.

California's most anti-semitic public school: U.C. Irvine. It has quite the track record.

The future is here, and it's awesome: Spray-on Clothing. I kinda want that shirt.

Surprise: Joaquin Phoenix's meltdown was a hoax. But does a hoax have any meaning if nobody cares?

The Lesson of Jacob Maged. I don't really care too much for George Will, but this is a pretty good article and definitely worth the read.

I told my girlfriend I was going to get her a gun, so that if she ever got harassed, she could feel confident and protect herself. She said that in Taiwan, where she's from, people don't do that. They don't own guns in Taiwan. I asked her what she'd do if a group of muggers tried to attack her. Her response was that she'd call that police. Here's another reason to arm yourself, and remember that sometimes the police can't get there in time (even if you warned them in advance that you were being held hostage, as is the case in the article). 

Allah has been toting this video as "The manliest ad in political history." It's pretty manly, but it doesn't do it for me the way D-Petes' AG commish video did. He's too sober I think.

Comments

[HP]

Gotta chime in on the gay marriage thing, because I think you miss the point a little bit.

Personally, I'm against it - coming from a Christian standpoint, I believe marriage should be between a man and a woman. But - and this is the point - that's entirely beside the point.

Because coming from an American standpoint, marriage should be about a church. It's a religious thing, and always has been. Not a government thing. People talk about "separation of church and state" with this, and whether or not the government should allow it, but the fact that we're talking about government preventing or allowing any kind of marriage means we're already well past the separation of church and state discussion.

Give us civil unions. Make the legal part - who gets any kids, how shared bank accounts work, how much taxes you pay, et cetera - be tied to a contract between two legal adults (and by "legal" I mean of age and independence enough to be signing contracts for themselves). Then let people get married in whatever church they want for that personal touch.

Bottom line is, keep legal contracts and religious conventions separate. If you tie those together, then one way or another you're treading on somebody's beliefs.

[The Viking]

You're right, HP, I was off point. I have said in the past that marriage is a religious thing, and that states should just give civil unions to consenting adults. I should stick with that haha.

I remember the first time I heard the gay marriage issue being talked about, I thought it was silly. I distinctly remember thinking, "If a person's religious institution doesn't believe in marrying them, how can they get married?" This was before I knew marriage was a state thing as well as a religious ceremony. Gay couples should get the same benefits straight couples get from the state, and whether or not they can get married should be up to the religious institution they are part of.

[Brian]

I agree in some accord to the gay marriage thing. I can honestly say I'm a little split on the idea of it being legal. But basically, I figure if it makes people happy, what's the issue?
Where I want to comment on is talking about marriage being a religious thing. Well, it is... and it isn't. The problem is, marriage became a state issue because of divorce. So you say, just let them decide on a contract or prenup? Well, you can't say that and also say marriage is merely a religious matter. Why? Because from a purely religious standpoint, there is no divorce. The church won't allow you to stand up there and say, "... until death do us part... unless we decide otherwise, during which we will follow the provisions of paragraph 2.1 in this contract we both have previously signed..."

Churches can't rule on civil settlements. Well, they could as a 3rd party moderator, but it would still be up to the two divorcees to agree to terms and then self-impose said terms. Therefore, because of divorce, marriage MUST be a state regulated facet of society.

Likewise, in a society that leans towards state and religion being separate, and demands freedom of religion (as it should), there is only one way that society can collectively recognize a marriage, that is if it's state regulated. For instance, can you ever see the military accepting a document of the Catholic Church as a marriage certificate, thereby give that person his increase in BAH w/dep pay? And what about insurance companies giving married discounts, or other corporations offering married or dependent related benefits to their employees? They can't be relying on religious authorities to certify a marriage.

Anyway, I agree with your thinking in principal, but we have to understand the WHY of our society. Just like in the military and our ridiculous rules, there is always a WHY to that rule, i.e. some idiot didn't do something right, and got killed, now we have this rule. In this case, the WHY is divorce. In the society, just as in the military, these SOPs, for lake of a better term, are hard to replace with new concepts.
Just my two cents.
Love the blog btw.
-B

[HP]

If it makes people happy, what's the issue? The issue is that it would be the government forcing me to accept something that's against my religious beliefs.

[All the legal aspects to marriage] - these are all the reasons for a civil union. The whole point is that every instance where you point out that it would be inappropriate for the organization to accept a document from the church...you're right. They shouldn't. But where it would be weird for the military to accept a Catholic document, it's just as weird for them to accept a state document certifying a religious practice.

Basically, in the eyes of the military, the insurance companies, the law, and anything else you want, being married should be no different than having a live-in girlfriend. If you break up with her, she doesn't take have your stuff. You don't have insurance discounts. And she sure as hell doesn't have a dependent ID or get on your PCS orders or get you bigger BAH. Want any/all of the above? Get a civil union.

Churches can't rule on civil settlements, and they don't need to. Just like marriage, let a church handle divorce however they want (look at the Catholics - their view of divorce is already far different than civil). But for any and all legal aspects, get a civil union; the church needn't be involved at all.

Just like in the military, SOPs can be updated to work better in a world that's changed since they were written.

[The Viking]

Thanks Brian, I appreciate that. I think they should just replace the word "marriage" with "civil union" for all straight couples. Then they should legalize civil unions for gays, and both gays and straights would have to go to their religious institution of choice to get "married." That's just my opinion though, and I realize a ton of people disagree with that.