A tattoo or a nose ring?

So how about it being against school policy for *any* teacher to wear a wedding ring or have pictures on their desk? Link

The Republican "big tent"

New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino criticized gays Sunday, saying he didn't want children "to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option," compared to heterosexuality.

"It isn't," Paladino said at a stop in Brooklyn, New York.

A prepared version of his remarks obtained by CNN from New York affiliate NY1 said that "There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual," though Paladino did not wind up delivering that line.

Full story here.

Eat shit and die, Paladino. Few people deserve this said about them, but the world would be a better place without you. Feel free to leave it at any time.

The wave continues

Another day, another suicide of a gay youth. This time in Norman, OK.
This kid had to have been struggling with things for a city council meeting to be the final straw. But one of these days the conservatives out there will have to realize what its like for kids to see and hear constant, combined attacks from politicians, preachers, teachers, friends, and neighbors.


Seth Walsh
Asher Brown (Houston)
Justin Aaberg
Tyler Clementi

7/18 - Everyone wants immigration reform, unless...

Evangelical Christian leaders seem to oppose Obama on almost every issue that comes up. But it seems there's at least one topic where there is common ground - immigration reform. Glad to see that people are willing to compromise in the interest of the greater good. A NY Times article from Sunday discusses the rare confluence.

But as always, the Bible-thumpers feel the need to exclude some from their benevolence. The last paragraph:

"But Mr. Blackwell said the whole effort could implode if the final legislation extended family reunification provisions to same-sex couples where one spouse did not have legal status. For evangelicals, he said, 'That would be a deal-breaker.' "

7/20- Getting left behind

Sadly, the United States, which has traditionally been at the vanguard of human rights developments, finds itself falling behind in one of the great trends of human history.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/todaysbuzz/tuesday/sfl-072010-buzz-editorial-argentina-gay-rights,0,3275244.htmlstory

7/15 - Uniting Republicans and Islamicgovernments

What's one of the few subjects that could get a few members of the Republican part allied with Islamic governments? Gay rights, of course.

Congressional Republicans Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Trent Franks (R-Az) have rallied behind a coalition of Islamic governments urging foreign governments to oppose a U.S.-led effort to support a bid by an American gay and lesbian organization to gain full-fledged membership as a U.N. nongovernment organization.

Full article

Fox News Clips

Today, people can speak for themselves.

Sharron Angle, Republican senatorial candidate.

Christian group Family Research Council on sex ed.

Enjoy

Outrage of the Day - The US Military

So the President promised during his campaign to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell. A promise that was ignored during his first year in office, and is barely getting traction in the second. He could issue an executive order halting dismissals, but apparently that would be too aggressive. So Congress includes the repeal of DADT in the defense appropriations bill. With the caveat that it be studied, and then reviewed, giving the President, SecDef, and Joint Chiefs chairman the chance to override the repeal for any reason. But at least it's moving...

On to the survey. $4.4 million dollars to survey current military members on their thoughts on gay servicemembers. Oddly, I don't recall the military doing than when it was racially integrated many years ago. A survey that's offensive on its face. That actual gay servicemembers can't honestly answer without risking self incrimination. Let's ignore questions about its statistical viability and completeness and simply focus on the cake's icing:

The Pentagon is considering segregation of the military as one of the options on the table. In response to questions from reporters, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell clarified that the survey responses could lead the military to conclude that it would "perhaps need adjustments to facilities themselves," indicating that it is not outside the realm of possibility that... the military would consider segregating gay and lesbian service members in some way.

America's first black president, trying to repeal a law that 80% of the American public believes should go, leaves segregation and separate-but-equal on the table.

Outrage of the Day - The Presbyterian Church

I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and the parents are members still today. After years of studying and debating, the General Assembly decided this week to allow gay clergy to lead the church, but not to endorse marriage equality.

So if I understand this, the church now trusts gay people to lead and instruct them in spiritual topics, shepherding their immortal souls in the right direction. But allowing that same person a marriage license and associated benefits will destroy society.

Lame.

7/8/2010 - Sans outrage

Not a bad day, actually. The stupid woman in Hawaii compared gay marriage to incest today, noting that the state doesn't allow sibling and cousins to marry. Until someone challenged her on the cousins thing and she admitted she wasn't sure. Niiiiiice....

Partnered with a U.S. District court judge ruling the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. I'm now firmly convinced that the far-right Bible-thumpers will prevent equality in America virtually any time it's left up to elected officials and the voters. As with interracial marriage, the courts will have to do what legislators and the public lack the spine to acknowledge.

7/7/2010 - Outrage of the Day

Hawaii gov vetoes same-sex civil unions bill

Twice-divorced governor Lingle of Hawaii decided to pander to the bigots and veto the civil unions bill. Because it's "essentially marriage". In the same way that the water from the "colored" fountain tastes the same as that from the "whites only" fountain.

Two words: "Fuck" and "You".

No one likes IKE

Well, it's almost 5pm on Friday, September 12th. Houston is pretty much shut down waiting for hurricane Ike to arrive. Galveston looks very ugly at the moment - apparently the storm surge is category 4 sized even though the wind speed is 'only' category 2.

The track continues to head right towards downtown Houston, which is me. :-o I don't think I have to worry about any flooding, so the wind is the bigger concern. Hopefully the roof will hold - debris is the biggest variable. I've taped up the windows I'm most concerned about - south facing (although there's another 3-story townhome very close there and west facing.

Lots of load of laundry done - not that I need all the clothes, but I don't expect to have power on Saturday - folding and reading may be the only thing to do tomorrow. Soon I'll disconnect most of the computer stuff and put away. The largest tree in the backyard (a tall cyprus) now has some cables connecting it to the wooden fence.

This is going to be very interesting. I always thought I'd stay for a 1-2, leave for a 4-5, and a 3 was questionable. The fiasco that was the 'evacuation' for hurricane Rita shook that up. Now I'm wondering if Houston was too conservative and didn't evauate enough for Ike. Either way, I'm not in an evacuation zone, and the hurricane is a 2, so my brain still says stay. Having little to do today other than watch the TV coverage on every channel, though, introduces doubt. I'll know in 24 hours whether this was a good idea or not.

If the house is okay, then I'll be glad that I stayed. I'm sure the power will be out for most of the weekend and a drive to Dallas is still possible if the temperature gets unbearable.

Time to cook a little dinner - hot food might be rare for a while!

Electile Dysfunction

A coworker forwarded a joke email (with appropriate cautiousness) the other that I adopted as the new tagline on one of my email accounts:

"Currently suffering from Electile Dysfunction - the inability to
become excited by either of the 2008 presidential candidates."

A simple joke that almost perfectly summarizes my feelings at this point in the campaign. I don't consider myself a moderate (that's cop-out on so many fronts). Being fiscally conservative and socially liberal doesn't average out to moderate. Democracy often means picking the less offensive from among several options - this year even more so.

But the last several days have really taken things down a new road. Having trumpeted Obama's lack of experience (which is true), McCain picks a VP who's even less experienced? Odd. First reaction is that he's pandering to female Hillary supporters and hoping that he gets some gender votes. Whatever.

Then we learn that Palin is being investigated for possible abuse of power related to some state trooper brother-in-law. Odd that this didn't come up in vetting, but again whatever. Then we (I) learn that Palin has a new child with Down's Syndrome. Sad. And I wonder why she would accept a VP position knowing how much it will take her away from a child that will need so much help. Her keeping the baby despite knowing it would be disabled seemed to resonate with the right-to-life crowd. I respect both sides of that debate, and have no issue there either.

Then came today's revelation of her daughter's pregnancy. This sort of thing affects many families, and should be a private issue. Except in this case. Ms. Palin supports a ban on gay marriage. Ms Palin opposes giving benefits to same-sex couples. The Republican platform opposes gays being able to adopt children. All to "protect" "traditional marriage". One must assume that Ms. Palin will define the marriage of her 17 year-old, pregant, high-school-attending daughter as traditional and valid. All while preventing other tax-paying, loving, gay couples in America from being able to do the same.

Hypocrisy on her part, and hypocrisy on the part of fundamentalist/ultra-conservatives who may support her. Ironic that McCain's VP selection cemented my decision to vote for Obama (despite my misgivings about him), and it had nothing to do with Palin's lack of experience.

More reflection on Heath Ledger

It's been two days now and I'm still thinking about Heath Ledger's untimely death. And thinking about why it seems worse than other similar events. I never saw The Patriot (thanks to Mel). A Knight's Tale, The Brothers Grimm, and 10 Things I Hate About You are all disposable, as was Casanova. Brokeback Mountain is in a league of its own, but is only one film. So why does this seem different?

On reflection, it's not just his role in B.M., but how he talked about it in real life. He didn't fall into the "how heroic or dangerous it is" like others - it's just a great role. To me, that represents where America and the world should be (but aren't).

Goodbye Heath Ledger

Never met you, now I never can. I admire the choices you made - you will be missed.

Wet night in Houston

And not in the good kind of way. >;-)

Raining cats and dogs this evening, so I stayed in and chilled a bit. Survivor was boring as hell - they can tweak the editing to try and create some drama, but the last 2 weeks have been very predictable. That means boring.

More interesting was the debate of the Republican candidates on MSNBC. All ten, yes ten, of them. And that doesn't count Fred Thompson who's expected to announce in a month or two. I enjoyed the format more than debates of the past - hope the networks stick with that. Guiliani is the only one that I can see myself voting for. McCain is in second place, and the others are pretty much out of the running. The challenge will be for Guiliani will make it through the primaries when his core social beliefs (which I support) are so different than the extreme, core Republican base. If he's the candidate, I think he's electable nationally. If the far right-wingers push him out somehow, then I'm convinced that the Democatic candidate will win.

Politics started a little earlier in the week for me. The sister sent around a link to Duncan Hunter and asked for opinions. Which I provided. Probably the first time that she's realized that I'm moderate to left-leaning on social issues. A stark contrast to her very religious-based opinions on things in that area. No response yet to my last reply... it will be interesting to see where that goes (for several reasons).

Lots of press this week on the HD-DVD AACS master decryption key getting posted on the internet and censorship at digg.com. Part of me wishes I had gone to law school and focused on DRM. Of course, to make any money there would probably mean working for Hollywood - the wrong side of the debate. I have probably 300 DVDs sitting in a box packed away, since I've loaded the movies onto hard drives for more immediate and convenient access. And not every uploaded or shared a one of them. Wonder what Hollywood's take on me would?

Small moment of Zen

Had a small moment of Zen while running errands on Saturday. I had just stopped by the dry-cleaning place, and was driving down Shepherd to grab a sandwich for lunch. Beautiful day in Houston. I was debating opening up the sunroof in the Infiniti, listening to the satellite radio play the one hit from that Russian girl band a few years ago. The firemen were out doing the "give to the boot" fundraiser for MS or whatever, and all things seemed right with the world for just a minute.

I'm a very multicultural person who loves most things international, and I recognize that there are many, many things that America does wrong. Some of which I'm on the receiving end of and take very personally. But this weekend I was suddenly stuck by how much the U.S. represents where the world should be in the 21st century. For the most part, people get along. When they disagree, they usually argue and shout instead of blowing each other up. People can dress how they want, drive what they want, pick any career they want, live in any city or state they want. Maybe not financially, but there's not a legal/governmental/societal block to any of them. Others are free to disagree with any choice (house painted purple, gas-guzzling H1, whatever).

There are many examples of attributes of other countries and societies that I wish existed, or existed more strongly, in the US. But in their native locations, there are always local gotcha's that balance things out. Countries with more of a safety net for the elderly and homeless always have huge tax burdens that ripple through the country. Many have older and I think more mature cultures than America, but that has as many problems as benefits (ask me about my trip to India in March!).

Not sure where I'm going with this, if anywhere, but I'm a little less angry at America after the weekend - a good thing. Now if we could just get ride of all politicans from both parties, get a rationale energy policy in place, and get the rest of the world to shoulder some of the burden for maintaining global stability we'd be in good shape. ;-)

Interesting quotation

Saw this floating around in (of all places) a Big Brother thread on TivoCommunity:

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

I like that.

The work red-tape beard is still present as of this typing. I survived Capital Planning last week, and mid-year performance reviews, and the new desktop equipment should arrive tomorrow. That's the good. The flip side is that Lacy's leave of absence starts next week and we don't have a replacement lined up. And the kicker is that Merrell's second senior manager resigned last week - that's two this month. Both would affect me at least a little - one's the reporting guy, the other was production support. The worst is that Doug P. is interested in one of the spots. Can't blame him for looking for bump up - he certainly deserves it. That's a huge impact to me crew, though - yikes. I think we have a solution worked as of today and minimizes the damage. Fingers crossed.

It's been a wet one in Houston this week. Flash flood warnings again tonight, and 2-4 inches possible tomorrow. Wish some of this would go up to DFW - the family crew up there is starving for rain. Well, at least their yards are. It's been quite a damper on things, too. Too wet to mow the yard (not a bad thing). I'll be glad when Fall rolls around. Despite the weather (or maybe because of it), I'm trying to get back into the gym - twice this week so far. I was doing very good with this in 2006 right up until the Turkey trip.

Not a lot of movies since the last post. You, Me and Dupree was last weekend, and was okay. I generally like Owen Wilson. Disposable, but fun. TV is standard summer fare. The evil Fogal family got eliminated on Treasure Hunters. Amen. The talent-show things are really annoying me - they're all over the place. Thank goodness for Big Brother: All-Stars. I only watched during season 6 (last year), and don't know many of the people. And to be honest, this season hasn't been great ... until this week. The Power of Veto competition was insane this week - ending in Kaysar and George shaving their heads and George agreeing to eat slop for 60 days to stay in the game. That was topped by Evil Dr. Will's speech at the ceremony. Unbelievable. And from the internet stories and links, what CBS showed was the mild parts. Thank you Jokers Updates and YouTube. And a suggestion to CBS - your ratings might not be so low if you actually showed what was going on in the house instead of the cleansed/primped version. And how about putting the live feeds on a HDTV sub-channel?

Interesting to watch the teaser news clips today. Fox just ran a promo about Lance Bass of N'Sync coming out as gay, stating that he's saying "Bye, Bye, Bye" to girls. Followed by the Washingto Supreme Court reversing a lower court ruling declaring a gay marriage ban unconstitutional. Equal rights aside, the "Defense of Marriage Acts" label that gay marriage opponenets have chosen just bugs the crap out of me. The divorce rate in the US has never been higher - depending on where the stats come from, the likelihood of a new marriage ending in divorce is between 40 and 50%. My new brother-in-law is on marriage #3, and my cousin is going through a divorce from hell after the husband cheated on her throughout the 17 year marriage. The people trying to defend marriage need to start defending it against those who can already get married.

Enough seriousness for tonight...

Office rains...

and when it rains, it pours. Okay, so today is day #1 of Imran's leave of absence. Scheduled for 3 months (although it could be shorter) while his mom has surgery overseas, it's the first staffing pain in the ass. Soon to be followed by Lacy's leave on August 1 as she moves across country. Those were the knowns. But of course there's more. This afternoon after talking over some project stuff, Doug lets it drop that he saw the position in Merrell's group left open by Jimmy's departure two weeks ago and he's interested in it. So now I'm torn. From Doug's perspective, I don't blame him at all. He's insanely capable, and could do a good job in any spot. It's a bit of a stretch for him to jump into a senior project management spot directly from DBA work, but I'd bet on him. On the other side, I have issue with how Merrell runs her team. Frequently patronizing, oftern micro-managing, and just odd. And I can't help but take it personally when someone that works for me would consider that a better career spot. Enough of that.

This week is quite hot in Houston - the car thermometer read 101 yesterday when driving around, and that doesn't take into account the humidity. Really gets in the way of doing much outside of work and crashing on the couch in front of the TV. At least it's not as dry as Dallas - sounds like they're going to be even more rationed starting in August.

TV Review of the day: Treasure Hunters
Rating: two drinks

A summer-season ripoff of The Amazing Race with a little promise. The host is an emotionless zombie who was apparently too busy to actually be present for any tapings - all of his bits are delivered via video over the (queue product placement) MOTOROLA RAZR phone. The challenges, while not *that* difficult, are more challenging than the more recent AR series have had (the earlier Race's had more mental puzzles). TH also sports the team that became my most hated the fastest - the Fogals. This team (two parents, one daughter) lost me in episode 1 when the father (a preacher) waxed poetic about whether they would be able to lie during the course of the game. Ten minutes later he swam under another competitor who was struggling to tread water and stole the clue out of the box she was holding on to. Nice. Topped off by prayers imploring God to help them in the game. Like he doesn't have more pressing things to watch over. Their annoyingness has been reinforced on subsequent shows by the insanely dramatic whining of daughter Kayte (yes, that's how her name is spelled). But I'm still watching. :)

Movie Review of the day: Leeches!
Rating: An entire bottle of vodka

This gem was on Sci-Fi yesterday afternoon when I got inside after mowing the yard. Now I love a good, bad movie. Honest - Cannibal Women in the Avacado Jungle of Death is a classic, plus anything that's been overlaid by Mystery Science Theater 3000. According to the IMDB, Leeches was filmed in just 6 days, and it shows.

The basic premise has something to do with a college swim team taking steroids, and either the steroids create the leeches, or it makes the athletes taste good to the leeches. Either is just an excuse to show as much hot guy skin as possible. Swimmer in the pool, hot guy in the shower, dude swimming in the lake, etc. - it's probably the most homoerotic thing I've ever seen on basic cable. At one point I could see the fishing line that was dragging the "leech" around the corner. And the closeups when the college kids were being attacked were actually hand puppets. If you make it through to the end, watch the last scene where the survivor goes into the labratory and check out the camera angle combo with the skeleton and the tubing on the table. Hilarious.

A true gem for anyone who loves bad movies or wants to see college guy skin. Even then, watch with a strong drink in one hand. Truly unbelievable.