and the twist of the gay marriage issue, which many believed to be a manufactured distraction to keep the public’s mind from the more universal issues like the war, the economy, the terrorism,

is that the party who has the most to lose is exactly the party who seems to be showing their hand of intolerence and dare i say hate because of the alleged non-issue.

The AP reports that Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. would disagree, “If you support … a mother and a father for every child, you are a hater. If you believe that men and women for 5,000 years have bonded together in marriage, you’re a gay-basher. Marriage is hate. Marriage is a stain. Marriage is an evil thing. That’s what we hear. People who stand for traditional marriage are haters, they’re bashers, they’re mean-spirited, they’re intolerant. … Well, we’re not.”

and unlike most of america, most of the senate is not in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages, but the president and his posse of neoconservative congressional leaders seem to want to kamakaza their agendas on the american public despite whatever political losses they are sure to continue to rack up.

“This is a dramatically bad step for the president.” Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, told CNN. “He might get a little bump in the polls for a few days, but we all remember in 1992 when Pat Buchanan declared a cultural war on the country and it led to the defeat of the first President Bush. This is not a way to win an election — it’s a way to divide the American family.”

“We can’t sugarcoat this,” he said. “This amendment was written by the radical right in an attempt to make sure gay and lesbian families who want tax fairness won’t get it.”

Meanwhile the president on saturday continued to call traditional marriage “the most enduring human institution,” when everyone knows how laughable and phony that bullshit is.

the most enduring human institution, above love, above even fear, is hate.

certainly not marriage, and definately not marriage between a man and a woman. particularilly american men and women who are currently breaking their “until death do us part” commitment at a rate of 50%.

drive from the beach down the ten freeway, go north up the 405 and then east to hollywood on the 101 and you tell me how many new people you want to marry and then tell me how many new people you suddenly hate.

personally im not interested in the united states fostering any more of the most enduring human institution, im interested in the land of the free actually doing something unsual in human behavior and that is to accept something different.

and if the moralists in dc want to keep their jobs they better figure out a way to appease their party and their constituants without pissing off those humans who think that marriage between two people is a private personal choice that the government has no business meddling with.

the president’s only hope is to crack open the bible on tv and read from the passages that he thinks denounce homosexual activity, slam the good book and say something like,

“there it is, the Lord’s word. im a God fearing american and i believe in the Word. and either you do too and you’re with us, or youre in rebellion against the bible and against us.”

he was courageous and firm when he dragged us into war, it would be curious to see if he holds the same convictions when it comes to the morality behind what he considers the most enduring human instititution.

anti + burn sizzle bleed + gorilla mask

seriously, no bullshit, cuz a few of you love to bullshit. a few of you love to see old muhammad there, the champ, shaking around like hes gotta dance, and you act like every move he makes is a miracle.

i love champ. dont get me wrong, cuz a few of you love to get me wrong. but sometimes i get the feeling that you let someone else do your thinking. but am i crazy to think that if i ended up being this kickass dude. the symbol of masculinty and strength, that i would rather just sit in my rocking chair and keep the effects of parkinsons to myself.

theres probably something wrong with me for not wanting to be on tv like that, but we’ve always known theres something wrong with me.

still i want to know what im supposed to learn from him.

that will cant be broken. that humanity is deeper than appearences. that strength is in the heart. that we still havent cured everything yet. that life is precious and should be lived to the fullest every second of the day.

am i a dick for sorta getting that already?

ali’s life is so complex i doubt any of us will ever come close to understanding even a day of it. born poor, rose, won, triumphed, led, said fuck you to the war, went to jail, returned and won again, and again, and then the fall, and then the sickness, and then the olympic torch, and now this.

is the message to keep fighting all the way to the end. that life isnt about rocking chairs when youre the greatest of all time.

that living means living even in the late rounds

tired

beaten

mush.

that truly living means having one more

rope a dope

left in ya.

and then

pow.

dos boheinde and seymore + raymi posted my poster + lost in hype

but then says she cant because of her boyfriend. who’s not even her real bf. its so complicated.

everything in hollywood is drama. have i ever told you that?

so few people are banging the people that they should be banging, and i will tell you this right now, most these hos should be banging me. and yet im banging the keyborad.

shes tall. thin legs. almost not even there. whisps of legs. she wraps them around me and throws her head back and eyes roll in the back of her flawless face and her mouth opens and she says the best things.

and we go at it. and it doesnt end. pictures fall from the walls. stars fall from the sky. universes implode on itself and then regenerate.

and then we eat chimmy changas. or however you spell it.

oh look at this. now shes im’ing me saying she doesnt want to cheat. she wants to cheat. and its not cheating anyhow cuz she wants me. im not being conceiting, im being real. she wants it and she should. its great and it always has been.

problem was there was no hollywood drama and the bitches in LA first of all, are crazy, but secondly are not satisfied unless theres drama in the hizzy and this lonely beastie doesnt play that shit. im like mary j, no drama.

how hard is it to pick up the phone and go, ring ring ring, hey tone wanna bone? sure hottie. come over and bring some chicken. and then drink and eat and bone and drink and eat and bone and pass out? pretty easy.

am i the only sane person in this city?

i think i am.

me, i dont know, i think id not only keep shaq, who still has a year on his contract, and tell kobe to blow me, and trade his ass for vince carter tracy mcgrady shawn marion or somewhoe who sees the value of playing with the biggest baddest bigman ever.

similarilly i see the value of having me around. problem is all these girls want to tie me down. they all want me to be their man. exclusively. and i dont mind being someones boyfriend if im feeling it. and i wont unless i do feel it. and that turns some hot chicks off. but i wont commit to anything unless i know i can commit. call me crazy.

which im sure you would if you see this shit that wants me but wont have me because i wont play the fools game.

im feeling sick again.

you cant go down again.

i wish the cubs would win.

i suck at everything.

in other news tonight is baseball’s allstar game and i sorta wanted to watch it alone anyway.

sunrise times + sceithire + jennifer

with me, they start snooping around in my closets, under my bed, in my crawl spaces, up in my shit.

im not exactly what theyre looking for as my panty collection is clearly marked, as are my boxes of loveletters, and autograph wall.

and yet they continue to seek.

what they will find is that i have hoards of old electronic equipment. dvd players, hard drives, vcrs, video camera equipment, radar detectors, old ISDN modems.

and of course they ask why i still have the old stuff and i usually say its because i cant part ways with a dvd player whose only fault is it doesnt play the discs, to which they look at me like im crazy, which i am, which they know, but which theyre just starting to realize as to the depths of my insanity.

but now i see where Offic Depot is working in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard to promote electronic recycling this summer.

“From (this) Sunday to Sept. 6, Office Depot will accept computers, monitors and most other peripherals, digital cameras, copiers, fax machines, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and TVs 27 inches or smaller. Customers can recycle one product per day. A PC and its peripherals count as a single item.” USA Today reports.

Office Depot, the second-largest office supply company in the US, who earlier this year committed itself to more green business practices. On March 25 they agreed to The Paper Campaign where they promised to:

� Phase out all paper products coming from rare and vulnerable forests, forests containing exceptional biodiversity values, forests subject to unsustainable management, and forests that have been illegally logged

� This phase out will mean a movement away from sourcing its paper from three of the world�s remaining endangered forest areas, including the Southern United States, the Boreal forests of Canada and the forests of British Columbia

� Achieve an average of 30% post consumer recycled content across all paper products it sells

� Phase out products from industrial forest operations that convert naturally diverse forests to monoculture plantations

� Commit to not sourcing its paper from areas that natural forests have been replanted using genetically modified trees

intelectualize + treacher + leah

and before steve dahl there was disco.

there is a Lord and sometimes the good Lord puts the right people in the right places and everything works out.

the Lord in this example put Steve Dahl, the original “shock jock” in chicago at the same time that Bill Veeck was the owner of the Chicago White Sox. the white sox were the second fiddle to the cubs even 25 years ago, and Bill Veeck was an innovator even before then.

but in 1979 all the stars aligned for a double header against the detroit tigers. veeck had invited Dahl who had just been hired by the hard rock station WLUP “The Loop” to help promote an “Disco Demolition” night.

the way i remember it, if you brought in a disco album you got in for thirty three cents, and if you brought in a 45 you got in for 45 cents, but other people remember you getting in for 98 cents with a record as the Loop was 98FM.

“I was dreading the whole thing,” Dahl said later. “It seemed to me if I drew 5,000 people, I would be parading around in a helmet and blowing up records in what looked like an empty stadium.”

But the joint was filled with 50,000 rock fans who were hyped up for the festivities that were to take place inbetween games.

Comiskey Park at the time was hailed as being Chicago’s Biggest Tavern, as they served hard booze all over the park. you could get two shots, a beer, and a dog, just as easilly as you could get cotton candy.

after the first game had ended, Dahl marched out on the field and several boxes of disco records were wheeled out behind him. the crowd went nuts. the summer of 79 was the peak of disco fever, but for rock fans it was a low for what they loved.

the chant Disco Sucks echoed through the 70 year old stadium after Dahl blew up the first box of records.

the chant grew louder when he blew up the subsequent boxes.

and when he exploded the last, huge crate of records the drunken crazed crowed errupted and swarmed the field and started a near riot in the stands, setting everything they could on fire which wasnt difficult as Comiskey was built of wood.

Dahl, Harry Carry, even some of the players and managers pleaded with the crowd to calm down but disco apparently sucked and if it took a new Chicago fire to prove it then it was going to go down, and it was going to go down right there on the south side.

kids who couldnt get into the sold out event climbed the fences and there were too many people for the security to deal with, fires blazed in the seats, and the long haireds and their led zeppelin music won.

“I grew up when people were marching for civil rights, marching against the war,” said Michael Veeck, head of White Sox promotions at the time, and Bill Veeck’s son. “I didn’t think they would be marching because they hated the Bee Gees.”

the white sox had to forfeit the second game as both teams sped away in their sports cars, and rock and roll would live to see another day, while disco’s future had on that night, 25 years ago, seen its inevitable end in an evening that howard stern in all his glory has yet to eclipse.

jason v + one reaction + mc brown

starring Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire

directed by Sam Raimi

the food poisoning subsided in the late afternoon so my sweet love and i risked it and went to westwood to catch the four o’clock showing of spiderman at the historic mann village theatre, which is rarely full, and this afternoon was no exception.

there was us and two other couples and four old ladies.

even though i hadnt eaten anything since a glass of juice at dawn, i still had my eye zeroed in on the mens room and was glad that nobody would be in my way.

but sam raimi, kirsten and toby’s sole expression of awe sent me into another world another time another place entirely. the world of spider-man.

sami raimi is one of my favorite directors. evil dead 2 is a classic that i saw in westwood weeks after it had come out. to have someone as talented and creative and darkly funny as sam raimi on a big budget comic book blockbuster like this is a match made in heaven. it is the real success of this franchise.

and the writing is good. and the special effects are flawless. the music sucks but kirsten is gorgeous and the colors are perfect and sam knows how to deliver the goods.

and it’s funny. and the antagonist is strong, and quick and fast and tough. all the things that are important to a good story. and kirsten is a babe.

and america there are lessons there for everyone.

it got a little heavy.

but it was alright.

on the greg vaine scale of reviewing films i give spider-man 2 a good good good.

– – – – –

box office mojo reports that spidey ($45 mil) nearly doubled second-place weekend finisher anchorman ($28), and king arthur in third was almost half of that ($15 mil).

but in fourth, remarkably is Fahrenheit 9/11 who earned $11 million last weekend while only showing on two thousand screens. spider-man, to add perspective was on 4,166 screens, anchorman was on 3,091 screens.

F-9/11 was on fewer screens than any other film in the top ten. the notebook, white chicks, dodge ball, the terminal, shrek 2, and sleepover were all on more screens than michael moore’s documentary, and all got beat by him.

in the three weeks that its been out, the award winning film has earned over $80 million in the US.

meanwhile yesterday in the UK it broke their opening day record for a documentary by raking in $2.4 million over the weekend.

the controversial film is on pace of breaking the $100 million mark in the US, which would be a first for a documentary.

darren + the detox + bunnie + pic of the day

Maj. David W. DiNenna is one of the MPs accused of abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He was given two General Officer Memorandums of Reprimand, which is far less than Spc. Jeremy Sivits (one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge), PFC Andrew J. Sting (one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge), PFC Jeremiah J. Trefney (eight months in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge).

Several others are awaiting their court martial (Sgt. Javal S. Davis – Abu Ghraib

PFC Lynndie R. England – Abu Ghraib, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II – Abu Ghraib, Spc. Charles Graner Jr. – Abu Ghraib, SPC Sabrina Harman – Abu Ghraib, Maj. Clark A. Paulus – Camp Whitehorse, Sgt. Gary P. Pittman – Camp Whitehorse).

US News & World Report today posted some of the some of the annexes that are included in the Taguba report, for it was prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.

DiNenna, the S-3 operations officer for the 320th Military Police Battalion at Abu Ghraib during the summer and fall of 2003, wrote several chilling emails that are now seeing the light of day.

Here is is the PDF, and here are some excerpts:

November 2, 2003

Have you ever experienced about 80 prisoners standing in line at 2130hrs at night, cold, and being told that the vendors do not have any more food? Well this is becoming an nightly routine, and because I was there I can tell you it is a very unpleasant experience. Why is it so difficult to bring enough food? That is what the MP (soldiers) are asking every meal due to the fact that they, not you, or me, have to deal with it every day. So I guess my question is who in the hell can fix this so that we can at least give the soldier the basic necessary tools to guard prisoners without them having to worry about a riot, fight, or other related problems in the compounds during meal times.

November 5, 2003

At the 1600 meal for the prisoners, the caterers were short well over 100 meals. SFC Bedene, S-4, gave the caterers the morning count of 3950 meals even though there were roughly 3700 prionsers on ground. Still the caterers came up short over 100 meals. This is happening on a daily basis.

November 7, 2003

As you know we had a very serious riot last night[…] this is an unstable situation[…] I have been to many prisoner riots since March and I can tell you that last night was one that could have turned real bad real quick[…] We must reduce the population real quick […] Please forward this to whoever can expidite the process

As you can see from the below SIR, the issues are that there are many Security Detainees that have been held for long periods of time and 1)NOT interrogated yet, or 2) have been questioned months ago and are still being held.

from a different email sent a half hour later…

The situation here is now critical. Last night we had a significant riot[…] we need the dogs. We have the housing for the dogs and handlers (the engineers are building kennels).

many more acounts here, a fascinating and terrifying look at iraq’s most infamous prison as the shit was going down. via Metafilter who, in their discussions this evening, have sorta missed the point of the testimony.

randomfrost + splink‘s trip to afghanistan has been squelched + sk smith

Chops ‘Fuck’ from PBS Show

PBS is usually a little slower to the trendy behavoir of commericial television, but the new Richard Dreyfuss cop drama is jumping on the (self-)censorship bandwagon, and the grey-haired star isnt happy to be caught in the jaws of conservativism.

“The new FCC regulations represent an unacceptable assault on our First Amendment rights, on everyone’s First Amendment rights, an act unworthy of a free country, an act of censorship,” Black told the critics. To underscore the irony of the required bleeping, Black added: “As for the word ‘f—,’ I stand with Vice President (Dick) Cheney, who recently used the word on the Senate floor and who said sometimes you have to use it unapologetically because it makes you feel better afterwards.”

Dreyfuss, speaking via satellite from New York, where he is starring in “Sly Fox” on Broadway even as he battles pneumonia, called the required deletion of the words “a real-world moral and ethical battle with grimly wrongheaded un-American types who play pick and choose when they define our freedoms of speech and religion as it fits their particular political needs.”

He added: “Officeholders should remember that we are not children and shouldn’t be patronized or protected from ourselves.”

– via Jeff Jarvis’ Buzzmachine

Who knew they said fuck on pbs in the first place?

the bulls won

the day the bulls called bullshit + two years ago with the bulls + raymi’s back

FCC Boss Launches Blog Aimed at High-Tech Industry

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has started his own Web log, or blog, to reach out to the high-tech community and bypass the scores of Washington lobbyists who typically skulk around his office.

Powell, who wants to avoid regulating new technologies like Web-based telephone service for fear of stifling innovation, said he started the blog to encourage the high-tech industry to get involved because its past practice of flying under the radar to avoid regulations would no longer work.

“Regulated interests have about an 80-year head start on the entrepreneurial tech community when it comes to informing regulators what they want and need, but if anyone can make up for that, Silicon Valley can,” he said in his first blog comments posted Thursday morning.

“I am looking forward to an open, transparent and meritocracy-based communication — attributes that bloggers are famous for!” Powell said, adding he wanted to get out of “the Beltway Washington world where lobbyists filter the techies.”

He specifically asked bloggers to send in their thoughts on the coming transition to digital television and possibly using airwave frequencies between television stations for new wireless services.

But, in typical blogger fashion, replies covered subjects well beyond his inquiry, including the FCC’s recent crackdown on indecent antics on radio and television.

“Simple question for you: Why is Howard Stern’s discussion of anal/oral sex fineable, and Oprah’s isn’t?” asked one Tony Pierce.

The FCC recently proposed fining stations that carried Stern’s show that included an explicit discussion of sex. The agency is also looking into talk show host Oprah Winfrey’s discussion about sex during her TV program earlier this year.

Regulations limit airing such talks to late-night hours.

Others did stick to the subject, questioning Powell about getting telephone companies to turn on unused fiber optic cable in order to cut prices for high-speed Internet. Some chastised the FCC chief for reaching out only to Silicon Valley.

Andrew Schwartzman, a public interest lawyer who has crossed swords and won a court battle initially halting Powell’s attempts to relax media ownership limits, also chided the chairman for not seeking input on other issues.

“I wish he would do the same outreach with the public interest community,” he told Reuters. Powell was criticized during the FCC’s review of media ownership limits for not holding many official forums for public input on the rules.

Powell attended some discussions but the agency held only one official event. The FCC is now holding official hearings on how radio and television stations are serving their local communities.

FCC officials were not immediately available to comment on how often Powell would be interacting on his blog. It can be found at http://www.alwayson-network.com/

thanks to jeff jarvis for the link, else i wouldnt had known my comment had been quoted.

msnbc ran it + cnn/money ran it + even express india in india ran it