Post... Apocalyptic| Why Now? Why Rapture?| Seal the Deal| What's in Store?| Coming Soon?

The Millennium has passed...

...but the Armageddon-mongers haven't.

Sanford Hoped to Reconcile Wife to Maria



Try it; you might like it
(HP)
"In early 2009, after Jenny Sanford discovered the affair, the couple went into counseling. She has told The Associated Press that he asked her several times to visit the mistress... and she refused.

"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day." Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate."


— Gov. Mark Sanford

More about Mark's other women

Abandoning the concept of a nuclear family altogether, Sanford explains why he shouldn't resign, saying he "finds interesting", the story of King David, the story of a man who had eight wives, not counting his numerous concubines.

Admitting this week that there were other dangerous liaisons with various women throughout his marriage and political career, Sanford finds biblical precedent for his family situation, pointing out that his life appears to track with that of Judaism's most admired mensch.

"About an hour after Jenny Sanford talked of her pain and feelings of betrayal, her husband brushed aside any suggestion he might immediately resign, citing the Bible and the story of King David.

"What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily — fell in very, very significant ways, but then picked up the pieces and built from there," Sanford told members of his cabinet.

Read more about Mark's identification with King David

Let's STOP mincing words.

The question isn't whether Mark Sanford values family, it's how many families he values.

This is just MORE hypocrisy from the Rapture-panic party arguing that same-sex marriage is dangerous because it could lead down the slippery slope to LEGAL polygamy.

This wistful Gentile mensch is essentially an emotional polygamist preaching nuclear family values to everyone else.

"It's as though we're looking at a completely different person, one we didn't know existed," Sen. Larry Martin (R-Pickens) said of Sanford.

Sanford and his family, his political associates, see this as some kind of heroic struggle instead of the hypocritical lifestyle of a man who simply wants it both ways... to play the part of a judgmental Christian conservative role model for moneyed religious interests... and also to live as a polygamist desert king in the Levant, duplicity his wife and political associates could live with until he was outted by the mistress's boyfriend and cornered at the airport by a reporter.

I'm pretty sure Jenny didn't like it, so she should have call him on his social conservative hypocrisy WHILE he was lining up with the likes of Palin, Bachmann, Ensign, and Vitter to declare themselves guardians of America's families and marriage.

Sanford resigned from his leadership position in the Governors Association, only after he was publically outted by others, not because his relationships with other women were known by his wife and political associates...supporters who still saw him as leadership material in spite of these transgressions against what he professed to be THE fundamental elements of both his life and the life of all of man-kind.

"I do think he can be an effective leader,” said his former chief of staff and friend for more than 30 years, Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort. "I don’t think he should resign."

Evoking the many wives and concubines of King David in order to heep his grip on leadership colors his expanding litany of pseudo-wives. This man feels entitled, philosophically allotted the women and power that he's gotten, and I'm really not all that inclined to argue that he might have a point if he wasn't such a hypocritical liar and judgmental jack ass about everybody else's particular and peculiar decisions about love, sex and family.

"We’ve heard from some people in recent days who separate the bedroom from the board room. I don’t," said Sen. Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson

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Cold Comfort...

...for a community that revels in visibility battles over prescriptive language, Obama's backroom maneuvers give LGBT groups nothing to fundraise about, no cause célèbre to swaddle in a gay flag and nurture as a victim of intolerance.

"Obama added that he was working with the Pentagon, as well as Congress, to end 'Don't Ask Don't Tell.' He called this period a 'transition' toward that end but said it had to be done pragmatically, so the new policy works in the long-term."

— Obama, speaking to LGBT movement leaders

Read more

Too many LGBT people will be left feeling unsatisfied and clammy after repeal of DOMA and DADT... after passage of ENDA and the hate crimes bill gives them no more reason to feel good about themselves than they already have.

"We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."
Since there is no elegant ratification of an amendment to the Constitution, one reemphasizing that "This Means Everybody!"... what other process is there but incremental passage of legislation?

What is there besides successive stages that will never really satisfy a community that clings to a pseudo-mythology regarding the glorious day daddy will say it's okay to be gay and everybody listens?

Unless the LGBT community learns to celebrate the occasional incremental success as raucously as it laments injustice and occasional setbacks, there will never be any feeling of accomplishment this generation can internalize as self-identification with citizenship.

"Gibbs did emphasize that when Obama faces re-election in 2012, DADT will have been repealed."


There will be no one event, after which the gays can say, "Now, we're accepted."

Obama is saying something when he tells us it's not for him to tell you to be patient...

"...anymore than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago.

"But I say this: We have made progress, and we will make more. And I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises that I made, but by promises that my administration keeps."

The LGBT community is expecting an emancipation proclamation that will make the world a safe place to be gay all at once.... and it's not going to happen. It can't happen, and holding Obama to that expectation is unfair to him and the people you convince that such a situation is even possible.

Celebrate the incremental successes, the repeal of DOMA and DADT... passage of ENDA and the hate crimes bill, because no single advance can deliver what we're looking for all at once.

"I'm not sure we should be applauding the president for passing the buck, however eloquently he is while he does so."
— Dan Savage, sex advice columnist



LGBT leadership will sell its community short if it should never celebrate until the battle is completely won.

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Requisite Filipino prison tribute to Jacko



"A tribute performed by 1,500 CPDRC Inmates on June 27, 2009 in memory of Michael Jackson. Completed in 10 hours after receiving word that the King of Pop passed away. May he always be remembered. 'Ben' and 'I'll be there' were sung by Michael when he was still younger! 'We are the World' was composed and organized by MJ."

Visit the site

The drag nuns were a nice touch.

Visit the site

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What Can I Do to Help?

Robert Reich asks us to consider policy before identity, details instead of slogans, and progress before taking credit.


The Big Guy minces words.(Salon)
"People who voted for Barack Obama tend to fall into one of two camps: Trusters, who believe he's a good man with the right values and he's doing everything he can; and cynics, who have become disillusioned with his bailouts... cap-and-trade pollution permits... seeming reversals on eavesdropping... and squishiness on a public option.

"In my view, both positions are wrong. A new president — even one as talented and well-motivated as Obama — can't get a thing done in Washington unless the public is actively behind him."


— Robert Reich, little guy, big idea

Read more

Although my power of persuasion is more often dissuasive, I've been annoying people left and right, stranger and known, friend and foe, about the details of reform, instead of getting bogged down in securing my identity as a cynic, misfit, outsider, or radical.

Those roles are moving targets when single-payer orthodoxy can just as easily add up to federal subsidy of megalo-conglomerate corporate scions skiing down private runs in Switzerland. We're Gay Shame one day... hetero-normalist marriage-monger the next, because we want to win without knowing who we really are.

"As FDR said in the reelection campaign of 1936 when a lady insisted that if she were to vote for him he must commit to a long list of objectives, 'Ma'am, I want to do those things, but you must make me.'"

Go here to amplify the health insurance horror stories that make reform important.

The left is easily disheartened, if you don't speak their peculiar language, so much so that web comment sections are awash in single-payer supporters scorching public option people, and lowering cost takes a back seat to what we should call the plan to do so.

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Somewhere, Kenneth Lay is Saying...

"...do the honorable thing, Bernie. Fake your death. No one will begrudge a widow a private ceremony with a closed coffin."

Sentenced to 150 years, Madoff has spared the wife and kids.


Ruth and Ruthless $2.5 million goes a long way in proson.(HP)
"The jailed Madoff already has taken a severe financial hit: Last week, a judge issued a preliminary $171 billion forfeiture order stripping Madoff of all his personal property, including real estate, investments, and $80 million in assets Ruth Madoff had claimed were hers. The order left her with $2.5 million."

"I am embarrassed and ashamed," she said. "Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years."


— Ruth Madoff

Read more about Ruth's near miss with justice.

Somewhere, Kenneth Lay is saying...

"Bernie, there's a secure, undisclosed penthouse in Dubai with your name on it... right next to mine... across from the one keeping Cheney's man-sized safe... safe."

Either way... after all, $2.5 million will go a long way, buying favors for Bernie in the penitentiary.

Read more about Bernie's sentencing.

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Dowd Has a Shtick, and She's Sticking to It

"Sanford can be truly humble only if he stops dictating to others, who also have desires and weaknesses, how to behave in their private lives.

The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon — Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed — stop being two-faced."


— Maureen Dowd, Op-Ed Columnist NYTimes

Read more on Sanford, Enseign, Vitter, et al.

Dowd rarely has a point someone else hasn't already made, but this time she repeats a great one. The question isn't whether Mark Sanford values family, it's how many families he values.

It's just more hypocrisy from the Rapture-panic party arguing that same-sex marriage is dangerous because it MIGHT lead to legal polygamy.

Still... does Dowd EVER criticize a guy without taking a shot at his junk?

I think not.

"In a weepy, gothic unraveling, the South Carolina governor gave a press conference illustrating how smitten he was, not only with his Argentine amante, but with his own tenderness, his own pathos and his own feminine side.

"He got into trouble as a man and tried to get out as a woman."


Obviously, her signature jab at a man's masculinity is college-level rhetoric and embarrassing to read in a NYT opinion piece, but at least we expected from her, so you can skim the inevitability of it while looking for a more salient point... just in case she has one you didn't already read in someone else's column just last last week.

She's repetitive, and she borrows a lot... like a lot of us do... but she gets paid to do it.

Color me envy.

Read more

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The Indirect Prophesy of Tim Pawlenty: Premonitions of Hypocrisy and Pain

"Any time you have leading figures who are engaged in behavior that's sad and troubling and hypocritical, other people are going to look at that and say, 'Hmmm, they don't walk the walk.' And so the words and the actions don't ring true."

— Minnesota's Republican Governor Pawlenty

Read more about Pawlenty's Whack at Sanford

If there's ANYTHING we've learned during this endless parade of Republican hypocrisy-mongers out to burnish their crazy conservative cred on the shredded hope of their fallen, it's that a Rapture-ready End Times denizen like Pawlenty is most likely standing in line somewhere behind Sanford on a long walk of shame to a stage in front of the news cameras.

Here, Pawlenty joins the ranks of those who claim not to see the 50% divorce rate has ANYTHING to do with the institution of marriage... and he lines up with Tribulation-crazy lady Sen. Michelle Bachmann as they pledge to support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Minnesota.



See more of that crazy day

A comment like that can come only from someone completely out of touch with facts on the ground.

We need to realize these guys push legislation and proclamations that are better suited for characters who don't even intend to be here once they're disappeared in the twinkling of an eye... Raptured right when their bombs drop from the sky.

But... what if YOU're Left Behind?

The Rapture-panic party would withhold from us accessible healthcare, food safety, public education, and even basic human companionship... everyday necessities the heaven-bound simply don't believe WE'LL need when THEY're Taken Away.

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Assimilated LGBTs on the Cusp of Ironic Acceptance

"Krambuhl, who was sipping lemonade enriched with vitamin V, said the mainstream might be overrated.

"'There's nothing to be gay about any more,' he lamented.

"A lot of people here aren't gay or lesbian at all," said Rick Collins, a computer consultant from San Francisco. "We've become somewhat assimilated, I guess."


Read more about how boring it is to be gay these days.

Crowds gathered on Pink Saturday, among Dykes on Bikes and beer-bongs. Once fierce, the LGBT community implores mainstream leadership to acknowledge its newly adopted brand of normalcy... while an indistinct sense of ennui, name-brand things, and married couples with children settle on a community that seems to realize that it left behind its soul in exchange for acceptance.

When all is said and done, the world wasn't changed by the gays as much as the gays were changed.

Read more

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So-called Centrists Balk at Challenging Insurance Industry Status Quo

"I do not think this is helpful. It doesn't move me one whit," Feinstein said. "They are spending a lot of money on something that is not productive."

— Sen. Feinstein (D-CA)


Have you looked at the surveys, DiFi?

MOST of us are spending a lot of money that is NOT productive.

Healthcare NOW... instead of insurance that never pays.

Read about Feinstein misjudging where the middle is.

"The strategist, who asked for anonymity because he was criticizing colleagues, said: 'These are friends of ours. I would much rather see a quiet call placed by Rahm Emanuel saying this isn't helpful. Instead, we try to decimate them?'"

— Anonymous sell-out

IF Rahm has made the call, it ain't working.

If he hasn't made the call, why not?

Make it happen, since it's as easy as a phone call from Rahm. Get these influence-peddling political favor-mongers to side with public healthcare, and there will be no need to decimate so-called friends.

Put up or shut up and get out of the way.

Read more about scared strategists also misjudging the middle.

"I get an election certificate from the people of Oregon," said Sen. Wyden, whose bipartisan health bill picked up its 14th co-sponsor last week. "As far as these ads are concerned, I pay them no attention."

— Sen. Wyden (D-Delusion)

The ads are neither FOR you nor TO you, Wyden. They're ABOUT you.

They're FOR the people of Oregon... who ARE paying attention... and YOU don't get that certificate you're taking about until AFTER they've decided if the ads are relevant or not.

Whether you think they are or not is practically immaterial.

Read more about Wyden misjudging the middle

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AP Still Pushes the So-called Surge

"Iraq nearly slipped into civil war in 2006 and 2007, and tens of thousands of people died in attacks between Sunni extremists such as al-Qaida and Shiite militias and death squads. It was brought back from the brink by a huge inflow of U.S. troops in 2007 in what became known as the surge"

Read more on Iraqi pull-out

NOT

We already know the so-called surge in Iraq was a ruse to soothe Rapture-ready fanatics in America. It was nothing more than political cover for planeloads of cash the Bush administration dropped off on shrink-wrapped pallets... along dusty, Baghdad back roads... where tribal warlords picked it up in the back of rusty, well-armed Datsun pickup trucks.

Local elders used US taxpayer cash to employ their young, hungry militiamen to simply chill, to relax in the form of the Anbar Awakening.

The surge was cover for socialized peace. We know that.

Now... in Afghanistan...

"...former Pakistani intelligence officials say a deal's underway for Hekmatyar to call for an end to his Afghan insurgency, and be allowed to live above ground in Saudi Arabia with a budget of $85 million. At least one Afghan government official confirmed that a deal with Hekmatyar was being assembled."

Read more on Afghanistan truce

And, you know what I think.

The Obama administration's going to pay the Taliban to stop fighting. They're going to employ the Bush administration's socialized, Anbar-peace process, and disguise it as a military build-up to subdues an enemy... just so America's Tribulation-zealous Apocalypse-mongers "feel heard".

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Gay Exorcism in Connecticut



I thought the gays were totally into ...exorcizing...

(B'dump-bump, ((((ching!))))

...but I don't think it worked.

A straight man's shirt would have come un-tucked, with all that wrasslin' around for the Lord.

Fastidiousness under fire is a sure sign of the Tribulation.

As it happened in Connecticut, it's fair to say the passage of same-sex marriage does NOT make "the gay" alright for SOME people.

Oh, by the way, Happy Pink Saturday.

Read more on the biological argument


GayDar: Not just for gays.
"A man's chance of being gay is pretty low to begin with -- perhaps as low as 2% (lowered from 10% by researchers in the early 1990s). So having one older brother ups the chance to only about 2.6%.

"What it might mean: Psychological influences are probably not at work, because the pattern holds even for gay men who weren’t raised with their older brothers. Instead, the mother's womb might be key."


Read more on the biological argument

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Ben, the two of us need look no more...



"Ben" was my formative experience of Michael Jackson, and it left everything else that came afterward as somewhat of a diversion from my core impression of who he was. The rest was too aggressive by comparison.

Along with "These Boots are Made for Walkin'", by Nancy Sinatra, the song "Ben" made made a big impression on who I grew up to be.



Michael Jackson eventually grew up to be Ben and died hunted, wounded, and afraid, and I grew up somewhat afraid of what the world could do to a person like him.

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With Sanford OUT! Romney Runs?

A problem like Maria?
Not for Mitt!
(YouTube)
"Besides: Romney is a high profile supporter of 2010 gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman; she talks him up regularly in her campaign events, reminding supporters she worked for him at Bain Capital. Sets him up in a big delegate-rich state like CA pretty well, especially if she comes out a winner, some say.

"'Everybody naturally looks back to people who ran before,' says one Whitman backer. 'He always knows he can do bigger and better. He can run a company or a run the country."


Read more

Bush ran a company and a country... right into the ground.

When will the Rapture-ready GOP see the difference between a CEO and the executive branch of the US government?

One of them works for a BOARD of directors that has essentially appointed her or him to do their bidding for an extraordinary amount of money in no way commensurate with results.

The other works for a cabal of cronies who have essentially appointed her or him to do their bidding for an extraordinary amount of money not commensurate with results.

You don't want anyone coming into office with that much commensurate experience.

Besides, is work experience in the financial industry REALLY what we're looking for in a leader these days?

Don't we already have too many of them running the show as it is?

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Critics of Camp Not Clear on the Concept


Huffpo Poll: Craziest Queen!(AP)
"Yet another reason why gay people will NEVER be taken seriously."

This is like saying the nice normal people who participate in Carnival will NEVER be taken seriously, just because they're dressed in crazy, sexualized costumes, that clowns ruin everything for everyone.

How can you hold a whole people hostage to YOUR impression of what some clownish celebrants make of themselves on their cultural holiday?

Leprechauns! Elves! ...and Faeries!

Oh, my!

If you're upset by the genderbending... then you've missed one of the major points of 40 years of gay pride... entirely. It doesn't affect you.

It's like the kid in school who can't cope in any civil way with the classmate who's a sissy.

So what?

He's a sissy! Get over it, and get on with your OWN life, instead of trying to ruin someone else's.

Why be so freaked out over crazy costumes... like the Rapture-panic crowd that wants to cancel Halloween because it's demonic?

It's a parade.

Relax.

Have fun.

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See Senator Conrad (D-ND) Flip on Healthcare. Flip, Conrad! Flip!

"Conrad ticked off the areas of agreement that were reached Monday. 'National structure: I believe to be effective there has to a national entity with state affiliates and those affiliates have to have the ability to regionalize. I think his concern there can be addressed,' said Conrad.

"'Second, he believes there needs to be national purchasing power. I think that's a good point that the national entity would be able to do purchasing on behalf of the state and regional affiliates and on behalf of the national entity itself.'"


Remember when cooperatives were another word for commie?

Sen. Conrad can call it a co-op if he wants, but if it's a fully funded public program regulated by the federal government, I don't care if he's mincing words over state and regional affiliates.

One of the right-wing's favorite whipping boys for socialized medicine has state affiliates.

http://www.nhs.uk/
http://www.wales.nhs.uk/
http://www.scot.nhs.uk/
http://www.n-i.nhs.uk/

If we're starting to talk semantics... calling the national public healthcare option something Conrad can swallow while saving face... he's making progress.

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Fox News Viewer Emails To Shep Smith: "You Don't Belong Here"

Mr. Smith said, "There's a lot of money in opinion, and those guys are fascinating, terrific entertainers.

"This is a news organization. There can't be a Fox News without news."


One harassed news anchor in a zoo full of opinionated Armageddon-mongers does not a news organization make. Poor Shep is the token who risks a lot to present normalcy at FOX Noose, albeit to little effect in the big picture they present.

Besides, Murdoch's more liberal offerings are to liberalism what poppies are to the Islamofascist war against the West: the cash crop.

Ultimately, many of us are to blame, because we consume plenty of other FOX products that keep FOX Noose swinging, shows like the Simpsons, Lie to Me, Doll house, Fringe, Life on Mars, Fire Fly, Futurerama, Buffy, X-Files, Glee, Family Guy, Slumdog Millionaire, X-Men, Ice Age, Borat, Once, Marley and Me, Juno, Waitress, Little Miss Sunshine, The Darjeeling Limited, 28 Days Later, The Last King of Scotland, Garden State... and so on and so forth.

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