The more I see, the more I like

Why do we continue to validate HRC?

Are we that desperate for a veneer of inclusion that we pony up millions to an organization that doesn't represent us in any meaningful way?

As far as their lobbying effort goes, it's beyond parody or joke. It's pathetic. Their public face amplifies the perfidy and prevarication that we've come to expect in society to levels of ridiculousness that even a right-wing radio host would find embarrassing.

Thinking that after a ten year hiatus, I could fight from within more effectively than without, I re-joined HRC in November 2007, but have never received any acknowledgment of my application nor fee payment. Repeated inquiries have produced nothing.

Nothing is what HRC brings the gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual communities. They are a glitzier, drug-free version of an endless circuit party - sucking up $41,000,000 in 2007, and paying out a whopping $8,902,000 in lobbying and advocacy.

Don't be fooled by their "program services" items of "Public policy & training," or "member education and mobilization."

Those items are self-promotion and fund-raising. Big parties, fees to celebrities who can feel good about supporting "gay rights," and magazine advertisements that have a hint of civil rights and lots of requests for more money.

I assert that we would all of us be better off ceasing to validate HRC in the blogosphere, by ending our support of their parties and dinners, and ceasing to sport their bumper stickers. They clearly are NOT in favor of equal rights; they're interested in SAYING that is their mission while raising as much money for self-aggrandizement as possible.

Awesome new BMW ad

This is terrific. Ever wonder what goes on inside of a piston in your car? Now you will know:




Created by OnePlusYou

A Martin Luther King wrap-up

So, it was the fortieth anniversary of Martin Luther King's death in 1968. A number of articles about Dr. King, his mission and where we are now with respect to that mission are here:

A Los Angeles Times article about Dr. King's anger over economic inequality.

Before 1965, King was upbeat and bright, his belief in white America's ability to change by moral suasion resilient and durable. That is the leader we have come to know during annual King commemorations. After 1965, King was darker and angrier; he grew more skeptical about the willingness of America to change without great social coercion.

Following right after that, a current Christian Science Monitor article about how the tax code can be sensibly used to promote economic equality without punishing or forfeiture.

And here is a letter that Dr. King wrote while he was in the Birmingham city jail. This shows us what a national leader was like forty years ago versus today.

We're overall losers in this situation.

Bush Vows To Make It Up To Country Somehow

From this morning's Onion

WASHINGTON—Amid allegations that his thoughtless and insensitive decisions have damaged his relationship with the nation, President George W. Bush vowed Monday that he would, starting now, "make everything better."

"This time I'm serious," Bush said. "I am ready to make a fresh start if we can just put the past behind us. I promise."
Enlarge Image Bush

Bush swears that this time he's really going to pay attention to all 280 million U.S. citizens, and try to do right by them for once.

An estimated 35 million citizens listened to the president's televised remarks while silently crying behind locked bathroom doors.

Though Bush told all Americans they owed it to him to give him one more chance, he admitted that there was no excuse for his mishandling of national affairs.

"Things have just been so crazy at work lately," he said.

During the 14-minute address Bush acknowledged that he and the country had drifted apart. He accepted some of the blame, but stressed that it was partly the American people's fault, and went on to chide them for not giving him an opportunity to explain, not standing behind him, and failing to understand his "very real" need for unchecked executive authority.

"My job is stressful," Bush said. "Trust me, things will calm down in a few months once I don't have to deal with it anymore."
George Bush Slideshow

George W. Bush

The president, whose approval ratings have dropped steadily in recent years, said he had no idea how bad things had gotten until he found out that an overwhelming percentage of Americans didn't even bother responding to an opinion poll this month about his recent $3.1 trillion budget proposal.

Bush has since taken steps towards reconciliation with the American people, including promoting a promise to help alleviate the fiscal woes the U.S. has faced in recent months. Bush said he knew that the $300 he intended to give to every citizen "couldn't possibly make up for how [he has] governed," but nevertheless asked the nation to have faith in him.

"I know it's not much, but it's a start, right?" Bush said. "And it hasn't always been bad. Doesn't this remind you of that other $300 rebate I gave you in 2003? You always forget all the times I'm a really great president. We have really had some wonderful moments."

"Cut me some slack here, for Christ's sake," Bush continued. "I'm trying. I really am."

In addition to providing economic relief, Bush said he has taken other measures to strengthen his bond with the nation. According to the president, his newly proposed warrantless-wiretapping bill will greatly broaden the reach of his personal attention to the American people's needs and put him in a position to be more directly involved in their lives.

The president concluded by imploring the nation to help him rectify the situation, stressing that he always has America's best interests at heart but cannot be expected to improve things all by himself.

"You have to realize that everything I do, I do for you," Bush said. "Do you think I like denying health care to underprivileged children, or plunging the country deeper and deeper into debt? Well, I don't, and I hope someday you'll understand that. In the meantime, I'm asking the American people to try to meet me halfway on this."

Despite Bush's seemingly conciliatory stance, public response to Bush's promises has been frosty at best. Cato Institute policy scholar Brian Whitaker echoed the sentiments of many Americans, calling Bush's recent overtures "too little, too late."

"We want to believe that he's finally going to be the president we always wanted, but we've given him so many chances," Whitaker said. "I don't think we can handle another disappointment. Maybe it's time to realize that President Bush will never be the head of state we need him to be."

"Then again, maybe our expectations are unfair," Whitaker added. "He seemed so sincere this time. He wouldn't abuse his executive powers if he didn't care about us, right?"

Whitaker predicted that the nation will likely move forward and try to forget Bush, though it may be difficult for Americans to ever trust a president again. He said the current crop of presidential contenders offers little in the way of an alternative to Bush, but maintained that "at least Barack Obama listens to us."

April Fool!

Very snarky

I still like the Red Rocket, though.

Both hilarious!

Which appeals to you?

Hm. Jobs, economic support for "the people, by the people, of the people," and cutting back on corporate welfare... versus



Safe from whom? Churchill's speech about defending the beaches? Since when has that been a problem? If we're all living in tents, our military destroyed, our national treasury empty, couldn't they just .. buy tickets on airlines and come in and buy us out? Why invade?

Nabbed from Daily Kos

Are YOU in favor of W's third term?

Thanks to Daily Kos' and their very creative readers/contributors for this big smile this morning.

After years of sitting on my butt at home

It's weird. I've been going out now for weeks on end, to Galveston, here, there, to a movie, to dinner - it's been so long since I've had a steady companion to spend my time with. My body rather resists - it's been inert for so very long.

This morning, up at 6, out the door at 7, picked up Robert at 7:40 and we went up to Rusk, which is about three hours northeast of Houston to ride the Texas State Railroad.

We rode in my car, and left the interstate at Huntsville, headed east on a succession of Farm to Market roads, with many twists and turns, mostly on two lane undivided pavement.

You know, it just isn't hard work to drive a car on an urban interstate. Even on an interurban interstate, it's not a challenge. Up and down curving hills, with blind corners, no shoulder, on a two lane road - THAT'S work. It was fun. We had my Delphi Nav200 unit on the windshield and Robert's Garmin on the dashboard (he was insisting that his was superior.) The Delphi quickly proved that it would get us LOST, not there, telling us to turn left or right while the Garmin kept telling us "no, stupid, just keep going straight ahead."

We gave up on the Delphi when we realized that not only were its directions poor, it had the wrong true road speed (my speedometer is NOT inaccurate, it's HYPER accurate) and generally had a bad attitude. It is going back into Bram's car now.

The weather was movie-perfect. We zipped along like no one was on the road (mostly because no one was on the road) and pulled up at the Rusk Depot of the Texas State Railroad with 45 minutes to spare before they chuffed out.



Robert insisted that we should pay extra for the climate controlled tickets, and we boarded the combine car which sits in the middle of the train, and dropped our lunch cooler off in the baggage/concession area then headed into the small seating area in the combine car. You can see the combine car just to the left of the depot here:



We were the only people seated in the combine car; everyone else was in one of the other six coaches. After a cab tour (which was more like a cab drive by greeting) of the steam locomotive, we settled in and the train headed off for the 24 mile ride to Palestine.

Being the only ones in the combine car, we enjoyed a very peaceful environment (aside from the rocking back and forth, the traffic back and forth to the concession stand, where Cracker Jacks were the most popular necessity) and arrived in Rusk about ninety minutes after starting for lunch.





Robert had packed a cooler for us, so we sat in the perfect weather under some shade trees and waited for the sign to re-board the train back to Palestine. The engine makes a big "Y" around the depot to turn itself around, and we were perfectly positioned to watch this operation.





Robert walked over to drop a few coins on the rail for the locomotive to smash for a souvenir (I have my penny from his trip up there last weekend.) The locomotive, nor the crew seemed to be much interested in mashing flat our increasingly valueless coinage.





After recoupling to the train, we re-boarded and took our seats again in the combine car. The trip up had been so peaceful - just me and Robert hanging out, talking about whatever we talked about - I was really hoping for solitude again. People walked through but somehow we had an air of exclusivity - people kept saying "this must be a private car or something."

We did pretty darned well until about twenty minutes into the journey back, and a fellow who was loud with his speaking (and his movie camera) brought his daughter into the car and tried to sit her down. Frankly, she wasn't very interested in it. She kept trying to go back to whence they had come. He tried to leave her in the car and retrieve the rest of his tribe, but she had skipped out on him by his return.

He corralled her and got her seated in the pair of seats directly behind us and began chatting her up about nothing (but in a dominating voice.) Robert, as casually as you could imagine, says "Sir? Sir? Are you planning on sitting there for very long? This is a private car, you know. The climate controlled tickets are for the cars behind this one."

And he GOT UP AND TOOK HIS DAUGHTER AND LEFT APOLOGIZING. Uh, I nearly spewed I was choking from trying not to laugh out loud.

What a hoot.

A short time later, some young kids came into the car and sat in some of the seats. We worked to not allow them into consciousness, and they were very well behaved. I kept expecting the guy to come back with his daughter, but he never did.

The trip back was much shorter. It was something - there was no phone signal at all after we left Rusk, and hardly any the whole day. As we were leaving, we noticed that their rail yard had a bunch of equipment that looked interesting, so we peaked around. An old Southern Railroad business car - hmm. Doesn't that need to be in my garage?

The whole day was weird. I should have had a sense of deja vu all day, given that I spent my boyhood growing up with a nearly identical steam excursion railroad in my grandparent's back yard.

And, it wasn't like that. The whole steam thing didn't make me connect to how I felt when I was eight or eleven, and the whole train thing just didn't send me upriver emotionally like it always has. It was a whole new experience, and it was all about hanging out with Robert. Not what we were doing, just that we were doing something.

It was great. It really tells me that the most important things in life are the memories that you create with other people, not what you buy, what you have or what you've seen.

Don't you just love the smell of regulatory napalm in the morning?

Read this terrific article about the developing re-regulatory "storm" in Salon magazine online.

More on creating time with people important to you and proof that the French are weird

It was very clear to me yesterday, we could have been sitting in a hot tub, in a beach resort, my living room - any would have sufficed. It was having nine non-stop hours with no distractions that gave the day its meaning.

"I don't get it..." said a French businessman over lunch on Friday. "In
fact, I don't think any of us get it. You've got a guy – the governor of
New York – who hires a prostitute. He gets caught and has to resign. But
the President of the United States lied to the American people and started
a war in which thousands have died...a war that is so expensive it
threatens to bankrupt the entire nation. How come he doesn't have to
resign? Strange system."

This was just the coolest thing to see

Okay, so I'm an airplane dork. But, this really made my week.

Why I like reading Josh Marshall's TPM

Josh Marshall writes/manages the news site "Talking Points Memo," which has been honored with new journalism's highest quality award (not bad for a BLOG, huh?) based on their work to reveal the information and the depth of the current administration's US Attorney purge.

Here are one of his blog poster's thoughts today about our three presidential candidates, the financial crisis and what's NOT being said. I think that it's something that should be reviewed, and then those questions asked of the candidates. You will have to do it, though, the media won't ever do it.

TPM Reader SW's lament ...

I am appalled, though not surprised, at the complete silence by the candidates on the last few days' events on Wall Street and the world's stock, bond and currency markets. This has far more effect on all of our futures than racist comments by the oxygen deprived brains of some old political or spiritual leaders. I know why Clinton and McCain are not talking about it: too many of their biggest supporters had too much to do with what happened, and benefited from the deregulation of the past twenty years for which both (and their allies) had a great deal of responsibility. (Remember that Hillary stood by while her colleague Chick Schumer killed the bill to tax hedge fund managers, who ear scores of millions every year, at income, rather than capital gains, rates.) What about Obama? Is he not up to the task of educating people about what the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act did to the markets many Americans poured their retirement and college savings into? Does he know that the Federal Reserve is about to bail out bankers, investors, and outright thieves who helped drive down the dollar, and brought the credit markets to a near standstill? Does he understand the problem? I wouldn't know.

Seventy years ago Franklin Roosevelt was able to explain this country's and the world's financial crises to a far less educated, and less accessible, American public. That today's candidates are unwiling, or unable to do so, is alarming. Maybe if the media first tried to understand the problems, then asked the proper questions until answers were forthcoming or it was clear the candidates are afraid to ask them, political coverage would be more than the extreme sports coverage it has turned into.

Two weeks, holy cow

I think that this is the longest I've gone without entering a blog post in .. well, since 2003.

Lots going on, I guess. Work has been consuming, and personal growth work has been consuming a lot of my time. That, and, for the first time since Tex Johnny died, I've had a regular playmate in R. It's been GREAT having someone who wants to spend time with me, just hanging out, having fun, doing things - I NEARLY played Frisbee (tm) golf with him today - but had a prior commitment. Uh, hello? Me? Flying kites on a beach? Playing Frisbee (tm) golf? Answering the phone on a late Friday afternoon and agreeing to go to a movie on 90 minutes' notice?

This is just not the "me" that I've known.

I've just juiced some of Jeremy's left over fruit that needs to be used or will be as sour as he is - Just made a lovely cocktail - one jigger vodka, one juiced ruby grapefruit, one juiced small orange, and one juiced blood orange over ice in a highball glass. YUM!! I'm calling it a Blood Diamond Greyhound.

There's something I haven't posted about - Jeremy. He's still gone - totally out of contact. I packed all of his things up last week, and it's neatly sitting on the garage shelves. He's either finally gone off and killed himself, is being supported by some new person I'm unaware of, or has wandered off to another place and time.

In any of those outcomes, he's chosen to leave his things behind and to refrain from any adult conversation. Once his fruit left in the 'fridge is consumed, and after April 25 (the date I told him I was going to hold his possessions through,) he will be only a faded memory.

I have my guest room back, however. Today, I re-hung pictures in there and cleaned. Again. More, actually.

Brought home a carpet steamer/shampooer from church - we didn't know we had it and didn't know if it worked or not. I cleaned it all up today, and it works - it's just not getting the carpeting wet. Hm. I intend to use it on the stairs, the landings and the bedrooms to get all of the Jackie/Jeremy residue out. More will be attempted later tonight.

Back when I bought my iPod, I also bought a Kuda USA phone pad to hold the iPod in the Red Rocket. It's languished here these last weeks, and yesterday - I finally decided to try to install it myself. And, it WORKED beautifully. I installed the clip holder to the pad (myself, thank you) and got the whole thing working.

I also cleaned up the car, cleaned the garage, bagged up the recycling and took it out, pruned the hibiscus on the courtyard, cleaned the kitchen (a never ending story,) and did the church thing.

Now, I'm watching "break up" or whatever that Jennifer Anniston movie is. What was it that Brian said? "Even when Jennifer Anniston is offstage you can hear her acting suck."

And, the rich art buyer guy in the movie looks JUST like my favorite porn star. i can hardly wait for the credits.

NBC only allowed this played once. I wonder why?

Voter excitement

I went with Guy to vote today in the Texas primary. Obviously, we were voting early.

The news media and the blogs have been talking about how busy this primary has been in early voting - from the harrisvotes.com website, here is how busy...

Through last night, 114,473 people have early voted in Harris County.

In the 2004 primary election, 160,904 total people voted. That means that through yesterday, nearly as many people have voted early as voted at all in the 2004 primary.

In the 2006 General Election, 601,186 total people voted. In the 2004 General Election, 1,088,793 total people voted.

If you're circulating that schlock about Obama

That schlock specifically that Obama isn't patriotic, here are some points for you to consider, courtesy of Bill in Portland Maine, whom I think is so awesome that I give him money every month to keep writing.

Bill's words:

Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday
by Bill in Portland Maine
Tue Feb 26, 2008 at 04:51:51 AM PST

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Poll questions CNN should ask next

Sunday the Most Trusted Name in News asked on its homepage: "Does Barack Obama show the proper patriotism for someone who wants to be president of the United States?"

Here are some other poll questions they should ask:

When George W. Bush puts his hand over his stomach during the national anthem, he seems to be signaling that America is a piece of chewed-up food headed straight for the crapper. Is this proper patriotism?
-

Mike Huckabee says the Constitution needs to be amended to reflect God's standards, including, we assume, stonings for adultery. Is this proper patriotism?
-

John McCain says we should stay in Iraq for a thousand years "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed," even though anyone with a pulse knows that Americans (not to mention innocent Iraqis) are still being wounded and killed over there every day and will continue to be killed and wounded for as long as we're there. Does McCain show the proper patriotism by advocating this kind of head-in-the-sand foreign policy?
-

When a Republican politician wears an American flag pin on their lapel that was made in Communist China, does this show the proper patriotism?
-

When President Bush says "we do not torture," and we find out that we really do torture, is this proper patriotism?
-

When Republicans try to scare Americans half to death by lying about the ramifications of the expiration of the "Protect America Act," is this proper patriotism?
-

When the White House guts the Fourth Amendment by enlisting the phone companies to abet the most blatant and illegal form of warrantless eavesdropping and then demanding retroactive immunity for them, is this proper patriotism?
-

When the vice president tells a senior United States senator to "Go fuck yourself" on the Senate floor, is this proper patriotism?
-

When a United States senator grabs a microphone and calls a brown-skinned American citizen "Macaca," and a crowd of his Republican supporters laughs and applauds, is this proper patriotism?
-

When one of the most prominent Republican lobbyists working in Washington says the United States government should be "drowned in the bathtub," is this proper patriotism?

Gosh, I could come up with these all day long. Take the poll.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Peak oil news round up

A fun peak oil news round up.

Had some fun this weekend - Friday night went to see the Carmina Burana at Houston Symphony, which was great - probably the best thing I've ever seen at Houston Symphony. Saturday I hung out with Bram, had the new sofa/love seat delivered, then went to see Joe Rogan with the str8 man I'm hopelessly in love with. Yesterday was all church, and then had a handyman over to put together my new garage shelves and plan out my courtyard remodel.

Pictures!!