taking back the city

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDGzB82bIZc


new snow patrol. awwwwwwwwwwwwsome.

cnn does something worthwhile

great t-shirt. oh, and there more "breaking news" shirts here.

personally, i want one of these to use as a duster for my computer table.

What the channel you're watching says about you

way to go, um, Jesse Ventura?!?!

wow...that professional boy builder entertainer-turned-governor that isn't Arnold actually made some sense and while schooling Pat "why is he still on TV" Buchanan on the MSNBC:

Ventura: “Well, first of all, I made a statement when I was governor and stand by it today. Love is bigger than government. Who the hell are we as a government to tell people who you can fall in love with? I think it‘s absurd that fact it‘s even being debated. 

Reason #577 CNN Blows

"Next on the Situation Room, an iguana gets caught in a net..."

Stay classy, CNN.

NY police on Pope watch snatch river beaver.... no, really.

great headline, reuters.  

NY police on Pope watch snatch river beaver

New York police guarding the United Nations during Pope Benedict's visit on Friday made a rare discovery and rescue -- of a beaver struggling to swim past the world body's headquarters.

Soon after the pope left the United Nations, police harbour and scuba units patrolling the East River spotted the four-foot (1.20 metre) long, 40-pound (18-kg) animal. Beavers have only recently returned to the city with the first sighting of one in more than 200 years made in February 2007.

Lt. John Harkins, commanding officer, NYPD SCUBA, said in a statement that the animal had been tilting unnaturally and showed "laboured breathing." After securing it in a safety noose the officers pulled it aboard their vessel.

"It has pretty big claws," Harkins said of the beaver which will be taken to an animal hospital.

McCain Booed on the Anniversary of MLK's Death

In the 80's, McCain voted against MLK Day as a holiday.  Not a big surprise right?  But now, he no longer thinks this...kinda like his position on torture and tax cuts except sans all that bigotry.  Anyways, he decided to talk about this in a speech on the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's death.  In Memphis.  Outside the hotel Dr. was shot at.  In the pouring rain.  Really bad idea.  He gets deservedly booed:

and what's with all the umbrellas, ellas, ellas, eh, eh, eh?  damn you, Rihanna.

McCain doesn't know Shiite

Granted, I'm no foreign policy genius, but even I know that Iran is Shiite and loathes the Sunni al Qaeda. How is this not HUGELY important news?! Imagine if Sen. Clinton or Obama said this; it'd be all over the news for weeks.

Come on Senator McCain, at least get your facts right when you're trying to hype up war with Iran. Via wonkette:

Nobody understands the military and the Middle East like John McCain does, because he invented them. He also invented calculus, and the Cleveland Steamer, and the French poetry form known as the villanelle. But today we will be talking about Sunnis and Shias, which John McCain also invented, back when he was a young pup hanging out with Mohammed. It's been so long that McCain has forgotten which is which!

Today he told reporters that Iran was training al Qaeda fighters and sending them into Iraq. This is hilarious because of course Iran is Shiite and al Qaeda is Sunni, so they hate each other.

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate."

Joe Lieberman quickly intervened, suggesting that Iran is training Shiite extremists and sending them into Iraq. So there you have it, old foreign policy wonk and most-credible-war-on-terror-guy McCain can't remember which religious sect aligns with which ancient hatred, because he is senile.

Deportation of gay Iranian temporarily halted

From BBC News:

The home secretary is to review the case of Iranian homosexual teenager Mehdi Kazemi, who has said he will be executed if forced to return to Iran.

The UK rejected his first asylum plea, but Jacqui Smith has now granted him a temporary reprieve from deportation while she reconsiders his case.

Mr Kazemi, 19, had failed to gain asylum in the Netherlands.

Homosexual acts are illegal in Iran and Mr Kazemi's boyfriend had named him as his partner before his own execution.

Ms Smith said: "Following representations made on behalf of Mehdi Kazemi, and in the light of new circumstances since the original decision was made, I have decided that Mr Kazemi's case should be reconsidered on his return to the UK from the Netherlands."

Urgent meeting

Following the announcement of a review, the Liberal Democrat MP for Southwark and Bermondsey, Simon Hughes, pledged to support Mr Kazemi if he was returned to the UK.

"I hope Mr Kazemi will now come back to Britain where arrangements are already in place for an urgent meeting with him, his family, specialist lawyers and myself to prepare a new application to the Home Office," he said.

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay rights group Stonewall, said the group was "delighted" that the home secretary had "listened to the representations that were made in this case".

"There are overwhelming reasons why people should not be deported to Iran in the current circumstances and it is important that Britain is seen as a safe haven," said Mr Summerskill.

Campaign cause

The teenager's case has become a campaign cause for gay rights activists across Europe.

More than 4,000 gay men and lesbians have been executed in Iran since the Ayatollahs seized power there in 1979, according to human rights campaigners from the country.

Mr Kazemi came to London in 2005 to study English but later discovered that his boyfriend had been arrested by the Iranian police, charged with sodomy and hanged.

Mr Kazemi fled to the Netherlands after the Home Office rejected his case late last year.

Hillary's "3 AM" ad girl....Obama supporter?!

yeah, not only supporter, but a precinct captain for Obama. so, obviously, the footage of her used in the ad is way old, but it;s still pretty great to hear her call Hillary a "fearmonger"

Obama's Open Letter to the LGBT Community

Well, better now than never, Senator. Personally, I find his position of wanting to leave it up to the states to decide how many or what specific civil rights LGBT folks have downright awful and reeking of pandering. Not to mention how reminiscent of the calls for states' rights in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. If equality is a "moral imperative," why would you let Gerogia or Vermont or Utah decide how equal LGBT people are to everyone else? Anyways, at least he's at long last finally "talking" about the issues:

I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans.

Equality is a moral imperative. That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.

The next president must also address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When it comes to prevention, we do not have to choose between values and science. While abstinence education should be part of any strategy, we also need to use common sense. We should have age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception. We should pass the JUSTICE Act to combat infection within our prison population. And we should lift the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. In addition, local governments can protect public health by distributing contraceptives.

We also need a president who’s willing to confront the stigma – too often tied to homophobia – that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. I confronted this stigma directly in a speech to evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, and will continue to speak out as president. That is where I stand on the major issues of the day. But having the right positions on the issues is only half the battle. The other half is to win broad support for those positions. And winning broad support will require stepping outside our comfort zone. If we want to repeal DOMA, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones – and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career. I brought this message of inclusiveness to all of America in my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention. I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign – from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached.

Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary.

Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country. To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.

Happy President's Day!

(lower the volume if surrounded by impressionable youths...or not)

There Will Be Milkshakes

ok, enjoy this until this "I drink your milkshake" becomes the next endlessly referenced quote a la anything mike myers did as that 007 satire guy who shagged everything...cause you know it will...but in the meantime, it's hilarious:

It's Not an American Election Without Voting Irregularities!

hmmm, zero votes for Obama on Supecalifragilistic Tuesday in Harlem and 80 of NYC's election districts? Yeah, I'm sure it's just a "clerical error." Via NY Times:

Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city...On Feb. 5, Mrs. Clinton carried 61 of the state’s 62 counties but won Brooklyn by a margin of less than 2 percent. Because delegates are awarded proportionately on the basis of the primary vote in each Congressional district, Obama supporters expressed hope that if the official count continued in their favor, they might gain an additional delegate or two.

Washington Post Hails John McCain As Hobbit King Of The Potomac

Last night, America elected its first co-presidents of Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia: a charismatic young senator, and some sort of midget goblin.
via wonkette

god supports obama over clinton

...or maybe god is simply pissed at hillary supporters. mind you, i did not create this map, it's all the fault of the new york times, those morally bankrupts heathens of far-leftism. actually, gawker took two nyt maps and superimposed them, but lets be trendy and blame the times anyway!

*note: obama won alabama, but hillary won each county in that state with a recorded death from tuesday's storms.

super tuesday thoughts

so, i will be off later today to vote in the primary, and for once it will mean something. my good friend (and sorkin pal) meredith sent me a wonderful piece she wrote, and i feel the need to share it with y'all:

Hello my fellow friends and family - thought you might be interested in what I came up with at 11:30pm last night when I couldn't sleep:

My version of the (almost) perfect world. It's simplistic and idealistic, I know, but whatever. It's my (almost) perfect world. It is what I say it is. FYI - I limited myself to the "real" world, so while I would like to see a female president in my lifetime, I don't think there's anyone in U.S. politics right now that really fits the bill (and that includes Billary) and therefore I had a choose a different "perfect" president.

Enjoy!


In my (almost) perfect world, Al Gore would be president. Because we need a president who already has an Oscar, an Emmy and a Nobel Peace Prize. We need someone who actually cares about more than his (or her) political agendas.

John Edwards and Barack Obama would be Co-Vice Presidents. Because in my (almost) perfect world, I say two people can get twice as much done. Then maybe the VEEP wouldn't be such a do-nothing position.

Bill Richardson would be Secretary of Energy and Joe Biden would be Secretary of State. Mike Gravel would have some kind of Cabinet job because I like crazy Alaskans.

The Clintons would drop out of public life and retire to fight with each other for all eternity.

The Axis of Evil - Bush, Cheney and Rove - would be in jail in The Hague, on trial in the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The county would discover that, in a wonderful little twist of irony, Larry Craig and Rick Santorum have been having a secret affair for years.

All overtly radical right-wing media would be shut down - Rupert Murdoch would be bankrupt, Bill-O and Rush Limbaugh would be forced off the air and have permanent pieces of duck tape slapped across their mouths.

Education would be free and universal all the way through high school. Schools would be palaces, with the best equipment and technology. Competition for teachers would be fierce. Teachers would have passion and high salaries. There would be a national curriculum that still gives each state, school district and school its own flexibility and creativity. Classes would emphasize world history and culture, languages, math, literature, science, art and music. Creationism would be laughed at and everyone would recognize Darwin and evolution.
Every single citizen would have free and quality health care. No one would ever be turned down for coverage based on their ability to pay. Prescriptions for seniors and low-income citizens would be covered by health care and no one would ever have to choose between paying rent or buying medicine. Preventative care would help stop most emergency cases before they became emergencies. Stem-cell research would thrive and flourish and medical professionals would have all the funding they needed to eradicate diseases.

There would be no threats to a woman's right to choose. Abortions would be safe and legal (as they mostly are now) and free from radical attacks. Schools would be required to teach more than abstinence only in sex ed classes. And with the proper education about safe and effective birth control, abortions and teen/unwanted pregnancies would be less frequent because people would actually use the birth control.

Marriage would be possible for any two people who wanted to get married, regardless of their gender. Gay and lesbian couples would be afforded the same rights and privileges as any hetrosexual couple. "Family values" would actually value the family, in any form the family happened to take.

The U.S. would ratify the Kyoto Protocol and take serious and significant steps to reverse global warming and protect the environment. American cars would have better gas mileage, people would strive to reduce their own carbon footprints and the naysayers would be silenced. ANWR would be protected from drilling and the U.S. would develop alternative energy sources and ween itself off Middle Eastern oil.

There would be no such thing as the NRA and the U.S. would have strict gun control laws. It would be nearly impossible for anyone (besides law enforcement officials and the military) to own or buy a gun. Wal-Mart and Kmart wouldn't be allowed to sell bullets.

The War in Iraq would end. The U.S. and its allies would defeat the Taliban and Al Queda in Afghanistan and establish stable local governments (i.e. governments made up of the people of that country, not U.S. military forces) in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. would devise of policy to diplomacy over war and would never again invade a sovereign nation that had not attacked us first. It would use the military to help with humanitarian missions, esp. in Darfur (and possibly in Kenya and Chad).

There would be a multi-nation, multi-religion world peace summit to address issues and problems, especially in the Middle East. While world peace may not be achieved in my (almost) perfect world, the U.S. would at least try to get fighting countries to listen to each other. A real effort would be made to establish a Palestinian state. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wouldn't be allowed to speak publicly unless he had something constructive and helpful to say. Radicals and/or fundamentalists of ANY religion who would seek to harm people whose faith disagreed with theirs would not be tolerated.

No one, in any part of the world, would be discriminated against based on race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or political views.

And Britney Spears would finally get her act together and behave like an adult and mother, but no one would be paying attention because they're all too busy with more important things.

in memory of st. rudy of 9-11...

wonkette has complied the top 6 rudy "i'm running for president of 9/11" giuliani sept. 11 references in honor of his now-imploded campaign. i know, how can you pick just six out of...well, at least 911 of them...oh rudy...

6: After Rudy placed sixth in the Iowa caucus, all the newspaper and teevee reporters wanted to know if this in any way “worried him,” it being sixth place and all. But he told the New York Daily News that it didn’t, although another time in his life something else happened and, indeed, he was worried: “None of this worries me - Sept. 11, there were times I was worried.”

5: After Hillary sobbed like a little whore in New Hampshire, the folks at MSNBC wanted to know if the Mayor of Everything ever sobbed. And he did, at the various 9/11 funerals! Was this because of the death surrounding him? Or was it then when he realized he could turn this into a lucrative “security” firm as well as a failed presidential bid?

4: When Rudy’s firewall in Florida collapsed — other humans forgot he existed after a while — he knew just the trick to win over those similarly one-track-minded Floridians: mention that 9/11 and hurricanes are both bad things, and that he should be the president by default.

3: Muslims are torturing, killing, Americans are dying, a religion bastardized, fires, mayhem, planes, illegal guns, Iran, nuclear weapons, fear, fear, jihad, Al Qaeda, no freedom, rape, Muslim rape. Image of World Trade Center rubble. Rudy’s best ad.

2. Rudy was on fire one night before the John Birch society, which drinks as much if not more blood than Rudy on a Saturday night. He let it all out:

“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!” Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”

1. In September — the same month that 9/11 happened several years ago — an “independent, non-denominational grass-roots campaign to raise $10,000” organized a special “theme” for its fundraiser: it requested $9.11 donations for a delightful fear party. The Giuliani team distanced itself from the private event after, you know, the media heard about it, and they even returned the $9.11 donations after many weeks. This may not have been Rudy himself, but nothing more accurately described the Giuliani Campaign’s basis for existence, ever.

she's like the black patti labelle!

the view's resident conservative town fool (and i don't mean that hassleback chick), sherri "i'm not sure if the world is flat cause i'm too busy feeding my kid" shepherd has once again made joy behar look like a nobel laureate:

mitt let the dogs out and looked like an idiot

nothing good ever comes from referencing the baha men on mlk jr. day. nothing.

later....

At a King parade in Florida Mitt Romney offered advice to African Americans. “Teach kids they should get married before they have babies and encourage the formation of families. It’s an enormous advantage to kids.”

hucabee pulls a rick "man-on-dog" santorum

just when you thought the national political arena was safe from more gay marriage is like bestiality analogies, along comes mike huckabee:

"Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic."

this from a guy whose kid hung a stray dog, ya know, to death...maybe he should worry about that kind of man on animal action and the family value of teaching your kid not to kill dogs.

c-span makes a "new" error

no wonder he got so few votes in new hampshire...who votes for the senator from mexico?

what's finishing sixth in iowa feel like?

“None of this worries me - Sept. 11, there were times I was worried.” - Rudy Giuliani

ok! enough already, let just make him president of 9/11 and be done with it.



btw, nicely done young-people-who-love-the-obama...that was quite something...on to nh and maybe some more clinton-thwomping?

top 10 quotes of the year

as listed in the Yale Book of Quotations:

10. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history."
-- Jimmy Carter, interview in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 19


9. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
-- Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., describing Sen. Barack Obama, quoted in New York Observer, Feb. 4


8. "[I have] a wide stance when going to the bathroom."
--Larry Craig, senator from Idaho, explaining why his foot touched that of an undercover policeman in a men's room (as noted by the interviewing policeman), June 11


7. "I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody [Vice President Dick Cheney] who has a 9 percent approval rating."
-- Harry Reid, senator from Nevada, remarks to the media, April 24


6. "There's only three things he [Rudy Giuliani] mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9-11."
-- Joseph Biden, senator from Delaware, comment at Democratic presidential debate, Oct. 30


5. "I don't recall."
-- Alberto Gonzales, U.S. attorney general, repeated response to questioning about firing of U.S. attorneys, congressional testimony, April 19


4. "That's some nappy-headed hos there."
-- Don Imus about Rutgers University women's basketball team, Imus in the Morning radio broadcast, April 4


3. "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."
-- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, at a Columbia University appearance, Oct. 10


2. "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children."
-- Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen USA, responding to a pageant question about why one-fifth of Americans are unable to locate the United States on a map, Aug. 24



1. "Don't tase me, bro!"
-- Andrew Meyer, University of Florida student who had been questioning Sen. John Kerry, being dragged away by campus police using a Taser stun gun, Sept. 17

hey, the south africa is in the news unrelated to miss teen s. carolina

...but it's not really a good thing...via wonkette:

Because there are hardly any pressing problems left in South Africa with which its government must deal, two weeks ago President Thabo Mbeki (on the left) signed into law a bill that makes it a criminal offense for teenagers under 16 to “kiss, touch or rub up against each other in public.” They probably did this in some sort of half-assed effort to stop the spread of AIDS in South Africa, since they don’t really want to get into things like comprehensive sex education and massive condom distribution programs and whatever, not that Mbeki believes that HIV causes AIDS anyway. This was, in fact, also the rule at my high school, and I was warned for holding my boyfriend’s hand under the lunch table and then given detention for whispering in his ear and it definitely didn’t stop me from having sex, so take that lunchladies and stupid government leaders! What did keep me from getting pregnant/diseased from said sexing, though, was the extremely comprehensive sex ed classes that were required by the State of New York and taught without embarrassment by our teacher. But, hey, a new law criminalizing teenage PDA is sooo much better.

Once again: abstinence only education doesn't teach you how to not have sex, it teaches you how to not have safe sex. also, i hope they don't have crowded buses or subways in cape town...otherwise you could commit about 10 crimes on your way to work by unwillingly rubbing up against some random guy with the strange hat...