May 2009
Senate Approves Coburn Gun Amendment…in Credit Card Bill →
washingtonindependent.com
The Senate on Tuesday night easily passed an amendment to credit card reform legislation that would allow concealed weapons in national parks. The vote was 67 to 29.
The question now is this: Will a controversial gun proposal attached to popular underlying legislation be the poison pill that sinks that larger bill? That’s been the case with legislation allowing the District of Columbia a voting representative in Congress, to which the Senate attached language scrapping many of Washington’s strict gun control laws. As a result of that gun amendment, the DC-vote bill remains stalled in the House months after it passed the upper chamber.
Okay, I understand guns and our desire, as Americans, to ensure our rights to bear arms is not infringed. But seriously? This is fucking ridiculous. Twice now, Republicans have inserted non-germane gun amendments into bills. This was considered a “must-pass” credit card bill which underwent extensive bi-partisan negotiations between Senators Dodd (D-CT) and Shelby (R-AL) only to be thwarted by this stupid amendment. Yes, it passed overwhelmingly in the Senate, but it’s going to be stripped in conference and then we’re back to square one to get to fucking 60 votes in the Senate on the reconciled bill. This, just to score cheap political points with the gun lobby and to appease an ever shrinking and increasingly irrelevant political party? I hate Washington sometimes. Get your heads out of your ass and actually focus of governing, you twats.
EDIT: This post has nothing to do with my position on guns or gun control and everything to do with a fucked up political process.
So if you were Crazy Tom Coburn/Grandma McConnell how would you have poisoned this bill?
Play
Jesse Ventura is pretty cool.
How was this dude passed over for a post in the administration?
Ex-Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live last night for a thoroughly entertaining 20-minute interview. In it, Ventura said he’d been waterboarded, called for the legalization of drugs, threw his hat in the ring for ambassador to Cuba and called Norm Coleman a hypocrite.
Libertine slutty gay NPR (oh I have stories, yessiree) protects evil gay Republicans. →
pamshouseblend.com
“Outrage,” is a stupid movie. Outing gay republicans and pointing fingers at their purported hypocrisy (whilst totally discarding the wishes of said gay republican’s constituents) is a silly sideshow at best.
haha. that meatloaf video is so epic.
EPIC!
Meatloaf inspired me to play D&D yesterday in Jr. High with that video.
Red State/Blue State, Kirk/Spock
Blue State:
The New Yorker: … we get more of Zachary Quinto… He alone prepares the gray matter. Bowie-thin, solemn but not humorless, tacitly quoting Sherlock Holmes, and nipping around like a sixties groover in his skintight costume, he wipes the floor with Kirk, while making time for a Vulcanizing smooch with Lieutenant Uhura (Zoë Saldana), the resident linguist… Beyond that, however, Quinto is the one person here who may leave teen-aged viewers more perplexed than puffed up; he somehow rebukes the movie’s whole obsession with backstory and immaturity by seeming riper and wiser than the charmless folly that is spun around him.
The Stranger: The casting is perfect… especially, Zachary Quinto’s eerily spot-on Spock.
Salon: It took me a while to warm up to Pine’s Kirk. His bland handsomeness just can’t match the compelling strangeness of Quinto’s Spock — but that’s the point.
Red State:
Redstate: James Tiberius Kirk is back. For those who like to give the middle finger to the world of the politically correct, buy two tickets, and settle in for a great show. Parents who want to teach their children examples of leadership and courage — and sacrifice, take the whole family. James Tiberius Kirk has always been a leadership role model, a character of great courage and vision and purpose.
Jonah Goldberg via NRO: Literally, in every scene Nimoy’s Spock — “Spock Prime,” as he’s called in the credits — makes the movie worse, the plot less plausible, the experience less enjoyable. Everything Spock says and does lowers the IQ not just of Spock, but of everyone in earshot, including his fellow cast members, the writers, the director, the audience, and the movie-theater ushers. The black hole of Leonard Nimoy’s Spock is so staggeringly asinine, so stupefyingly insulting to the audience’s intelligence, if the movie could achieve escape velocity from its gravitational pull it would slingshot back in time to an age when Teri Garr wore mini-skirts, Klingons were just white guys with brown-shoe-polished faces, and William Shatner’s hair was his own.
Newsbusters: Naturally, Obama is the logical Spock, the smartest guy in the room, with “cool, collected” brilliance. Robert Gibbs is teamed with Lt. Uhura simply as “communications chief.” No dig at the failure that is Gibbs is given by Newsweek, of course. Ben Bernanke is Scotty because he’s warning of the troubles ahead. Tax cheat Timothy Geithner is Nurse Chapel because he’s a “dependable helping hand.” Axelrod is Checkov merely because he “sets the course.” I already mentioned Limbaugh as the eeeevil Klingon.
The Newsbusters was a waste of time response to a horrid Newsweek article. Both are covered by Jim Newell of Wonkette.
I thought i would find more Conservative reviews proclaiming Kirk > Spock, but i ended up mostly seeing Spock is Obama or an ass, or from non-retarded conservatives a disdain for the comparision. Goldberg’s anti-Spock unhinged and emotional rant is the best, even better then the artsy smear given by the New Yorker.
Capitalism is Somewhat Retarded. Which is fine. →
www1.realclearpolitics.com
Arianna Huffington is overly verbose and not usually very insightful. This isn’t so bad, and it matches the thinking I have on the now over(?) finanical crisis. Does this mean I too am verbose and not very insightful? I will never understand our desire NOT to punish the guilty or demote the sloppy.
Arguments Against Interracial Marriage and Same Sex Marriage →
vfm.typepad.com
GREAT side-by-side comparison of arguments against interracial marriage from 1948-1967 and how they so closely resemble arguments being made against gay marriage today.
Examples:
- Against God’s plan
- Unnatural and unhealthy
- Slippery Slope
- Breakdown of society
- Biological conception
- Frowning founding fathers
- Traditional marriage would be degraded
- Adverse effects on children
Yup. It’s all there. Check it out.
“When people of the same race marry, they cannot possibly have any
progeny, … and such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid
their marriages.”
(Source: A judge in a Missouri case, quoted in Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, May
19,1996)
??
NY Assembly to vote on Gay Marriage, today
ALBANY — Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell wants desperately to persuade his colleagues to legalize gay marriage. Here is how he has pursued Republican Assemblyman Greg Ball’s vote:
He stopped Mr. Ball’s parents while they were visiting the Capitol, and asked them to urge their son to back the measure. He cornered Mr. Ball in a statehouse elevator, and taunted him: vote for same-sex marriage, or you won’t get invited to my engagement party.
Mr. O’Donnell has even told Mr. Ball, a square-jawed former Air Force captain, that he was “the best looking guy in the Assembly, and he owed it to the gays to vote yes.”
“Did I think that overt flirtation was going to get Greg Ball to vote yes?” Mr. O’Donnell recalled. “Didn’t know. But I was going to try.”
He has helped gather nearly 90 votes in the 150-member Assembly, which is expected to easily pass the bill. But he is also using the Assembly vote as a way to pressure members of the Senate, where the legislation’s fate will be decided, and demonstrate to wary senators that there is support in their districts for the bill.
haha. True Story: over inauguration weekend I saw Danny O’Donnell in a bar two blocks away. He looked at me and reached out to shake my hand saying “Hi, Danny O’Donnell.”
My response was “I know who you are.”
He looked at me dumbfounded then I reminded him that in 2004 I staffed him in Fort Lauderdale while he was campaigning for Kerry at several bear gatherings. Great staffing gig or greatest staffing gig?
There was a bit of a tuffle around the first of the year in the state senate. conservative latinos (3 i think) in NYC were threataning to caucus with Republicans if the Gay marryin bill came up. was that ever resolved? the D’s have a very very small lead in the Senate.
Snake hidden in toilet bites man's penis →
news.yahoo.com
Doctors fear he may develop Aspbergers-like symptoms.
OH MY GOD. This is seriously a legitimate/irrational/now-rational fear of mine. DEAD SERIOUS. Right up there with falling up concrete/brick stairs and knocking out my teeth.
CRINGING RIGHT NOW.
there was a cheezy ass satanic horror movie in the 80’s, little demons or something was the name. anyway one of the scenes, this dude is taking a dump and one of the demons that are gremlin small bites his ass. the guy jumps off the toilet and then all these demons come out the bowl and kill him. I now need to find that movie.
24% of Americans know what Cap-and -Trade legislation is. →
rasmussenreports.com
Rasmussen is a Republican and an ok pollster, below Gallup, way above Zogby. Rasmussen does some internet polling but not like Zogby does.
Here’s the top of Rasmussen’s poll:
1) Does the cap-and-trade legislation address health care reform, environmental issues, or regulatory reform for Wall Street?
17% Health care reform
24% Environmental issues
29% Regulatory reform for Wall Street
30% Not sure
2) Suppose Congress had to choose between passing health care reform or passing legislation to address global warming. Which is more important to pass?
69% Health care reform
15% Global warming
16% Not sure
NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence
National Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters
Conducted May 7-8, 2009
By Rasmussen Reports
This is a CNN/Opinion Research -which is about as accurate as Rasmussen- poll I sent to my overlords last week:
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. April 23-26, 2009. Adults nationwide.
“Which of the following statements comes closest to your view of global warming? Global warming is occurring and the federal government can take steps which would slow the rate of global warming or eventually stop it altogether. Global warming is occurring but the federal government cannot do anything to slow it down or stop it. Global warming is not occurring.” N=1,005 (Form A), MoE ± 3
Government
Can Slow, Stop 54%
Government
Can’t Slow, Stop 27%
Is Not
Occurring 17%
Unsure 2%
“A proposal called ‘cap and trade’ would allow the federal government to limit the emissions from industrial facilities such as power plants and factories that some people believe cause global warming. Companies that exceed the limit could avoid fines or higher taxes by paying money to other companies that produced fewer emissions than allowed. Would you favor or oppose this proposal?” N=1,014 (Form B), MoE ± 3
Favor 44%
Oppose 51%
Unsure 5%
If favor ‘cap and trade’:
“Do you think the ‘cap and trade’ proposal would reduce global warming, or do you think it would help reduce air pollution in general but would not affect global warming directly?”
Combined responses to this question and preceding question. N=1,014 (Form B), MoE ± 3.
Favor:
Reduce Global
Warming 18%
Favor:
Reduce
Air Pollution 23%
Oppose 51%
Unsure 8%
Seriously, there needs to be a long and public debate about Global Warming. Waxman should probably set this aside and deal with Health care reform.
Linda Sanchez (D-Non-Ho, CA) To ruin the only fun part of Internets →
volokh.com
That’s what a House of Representatives bill, proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others, would do. Here’s the relevant text:
Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both….
[“Communication”] means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; …
[“Electronic means”] means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.
