I haven’t any right to criticise books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.
- Samuel Clemens, in a letter to Joseph Twichell, 13 September 1898
eHarmony, that witless collection of fundies who discriminates against gay applicants, created a parallel website called Compatible Partners last year to settle a lawsuit brought by Eric McKinley, who claimed that the company regularly rejected gay applicants.
Now a second lawsuit has forced the company to merge the two sites into one, claiming that discrimination was still ongoing. Eww, the straights now have to mix with the gays.
eHarmony is owned by Xtian fundies with ties to Focus on the Family and other unsavory types. Not only does eHarmony discriminate against gays, they also reject people who admit to non-vanilla sexual preferences.
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court decided 5-4 that corporations, entities created to emulate a single person, have one more “right”–the right to contribute without limitation to political and referenda campaigns.
This quote is from Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority:
“Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy — it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people — political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence.”
Writing for the minority, Justice John Paul Stevens opines:
“The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.”
What does that mean? It means that, as far as the lotus-eaters of the Supreme Court is concerned, Citibank is the political equal to John Doe and Jane Roe.
Who the hell does the Court think it is kidding? Corporations now have no limit to financing the election campaigns for the sock puppet politicians that do their political bidding.
If Wal-Mart decides that labor unions should be outlawed in a given state, or a latter-day Enron decides to cook their accounting books out of the eyeshot of regulators, it can happen. And will.
Be afraid.
Very afraid.
Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, went behind a pay-to-view firewall three months ago. The paper spent $4 million for the website redesign and paywall setup.
Care to guess how many $260 per year subscriptions the paper has sold in those three months?
35.
The number of people in a large elementary school classroom.
I hope the New York Times gets this message.
Hooray!
Creation will be released in the United States this Friday! It’s about damned time.
Go see this movie.
Bill Gates, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has donated many millions of dollars to the fight against AIDS, particularly in third-world countries.
In a recent interview, Gates expounds upon the proposed law that the Ugandan government is considering:
“There’s a tendency to think in the U.S. just because a law says something that it’s a big deal. In Africa if you want to talk about how to save lives, it’s not just laws that count. There’s a stigma no matter what that law says, for sex workers, men having sex with men, that’s always been a problem for AIDS. It relates to groups that aren’t that visible. AIDS itself is subject to incredible stigma. Open involvement is a helpful thing. I wouldn’t overly focus on that. In terms of how many people are dying in Africa, it’s not about the law on the books; it’s about getting the message out and the new tools.” (emphasis mine)
It is already illegal to perform homosexual acts in Uganda, but the proposed law would dictate
Just what the hell should we focus on, Bill? That sounds like a pretty goddamned big deal to me.
P.S. Microsoft has a “big deal” going with the Ugandan government. Sounds like Bill doesn’t want to upset any apple carts. Or multi-million dollar deals.
Sidney Allen Elyea recently posted anti-Islamic flyers on utility poles in his area (St. Cloud, Minnesota).
Included in the flyers were cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed engaging in bestiality and sodomy, and Islamic crescents with swastikas inside them. The pictures were hung near a mosque and a Somali-run grocery store.
Mr. Elyea claims he’s exercising his right of free speech. (He’s being prosecuted for illegally posting material on public property–utility poles.)
Should Elyea be protected by the U.S. First Amendment?
“I will use them according to their dessert.”
“God’s bodkin, man, much better! Use every man after his dessert, and who would ‘scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.”
–Polonius and Prince Hamlet, Hamlet
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.”
“You see, they assumed that Man has a moral instinct.”
“Sir? I thought–but he does. I have!”
“No, my dear, you have a cultivated conscience, a most carefully trained one. Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not born with it, I was not born with it–and a puppy has none. We acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of mind.”
–Lt.-Colonel Jean V. Dubois, M.I., retired, from Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers
He voted down aid for Red Cross workers after 9/11, then immediately afterward sponsored a bill to approve a tax-subsidized bond for construction of a golf course.
He’s made a half-assed attempt at a smear at the President by making a sideways claim that his parents weren’t married when he was born.
He smiled and nodded when a rally member yelled, “shove a curling iron up her butt!” about his opponent Martha Coakley.
He claims he’s a moderate who agrees largely with Mr. Obama, while simultaneously reaching out to tea-baggers and seeks support from anti-immigration hate groups. He opposes health care reform, financial reform, and energy reform. The National Organization for Marriage, one of the most vehement anti-gay groups in America, is manning the phones for Brown.
He’s the darling of Faux News Network, and solicits for volunteers during their frequent interviews with him.
“As we celebrate his legacy, I’m reminded that his message is rooted in ideals and principles that the Republican Party has advocated since its inception. Today, our Party and the nation honors Dr. King’s dream by continuing his fight–the fight for all Americans to have an equal chance at the American Dream.”–Michael Steele, chairman, Republican National Committee
“He fought for liberty and equality because he knew they were God-given and he knew no government should be empowered to thwart our freedom.”–Sarah Palin, ex-governor of Alaska and fervent anti-health care reform campaigner
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”–Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
