Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Virginia United Church of Christ church hit by arson, anti-gay graffiti - blog entry includes link to news article, previous blog entry at the same site mentions earlier anti-gay vandalism hits at other UCC churches in Virginia, following the "Still Speaking" inclusiveness-oriented ad campaign;

A reasonably interesting blog post that I include mostly because the writer has thoughts similar to mind w.r.t. dealing with an opponent with orthogonal rules sets - "Violence and Agency"; read the whole thing if you read any of it;

Not normally in the scope of this bulletin: the new spin that Karl Rove exposing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent was _good_ (even though he didn't do it, of course) and that he should get a medal for it (even though he didn't do it) is so audacious that even in an era where words mean nothing and expediency rules everything, I find it breathtaking;

I saw this before, but the version I saw then didn't have the raw letter texts - now that there's a version that does, I'll post it: Pope Benedict, when still Cardinal, agreed with assertions that Harry Potter novels are spiritually corrupting;

Focus on the Family, other fundamentalist groups oppose effort to ban Federal Government workplace discrimination against gayfolk - it's an attempt to put the Clinton-era rules back into place by Congress - includes action item (ACTION ITEM);

Focus on the Family action item urging letters against Johnson & Johnson ad targeting gay consumers (ACTION ITEM);

FotF whinging about news coverage not being positive enough forwards President Bush;

FotF newsbrief supportive of Kenneth Tomlinson's political interference at PBS;

FotF newsbrief on the Supreme Court nomination fight;

FotF newsbrief - New Jersey senators won't support anti-abortion nominee;

FotF newsbrief - "angry" Arlen Specter behind push to open more lines of stem cells for research;

Concerned Women for America doesn't want Gonzales to be nominee to replace O'Connor;

CWFA condemns bill that would project Federal employees from on-the-job discrimination based on sexual orientation;

California school district settles anti-gay student harassment lawsuit;

Kentucky school district facing lawsuit over failure to comply with previous settlement over anti-gay harassment of students;

Washington Times on Santorum's book, which criticises working women, claming women staying home and not working would solve many of society's ills;

Augusta Free Press report on the importance of a woman as nominee;

Family Research Council demands USAID dismiss all groups which support birth control in international family planning (ACTION ITEM);

Rick Santorum again blames Boston "liberal" culture for the Catholic church's pedophiliac priests and accordant scandal. Whatever happened to blaming the criminal?

( Transcripts and excerpts )

the opposite of good

Medium-format film + plastic Hong Kong camera = art, apparently:

http://shop.lomography.com/holga/

I can see the attraction of the raw simplicity, I admit. And the camera itself seems kind of, well, hysterically funny. How many cameras ship with electric tape to seal off the light leaks? Mmmmmm, devolution.

In stupid and bad news, Anna's long-time penpal friend Yngvar current, correct, up-to-date Norwegian passport that he uses to go everywhere else in the world has been rejected by the US for not being machine-readable, so his trip out here got bounced as he was trying to get on his flight from Norway. He can't get a new one for weeks, and there's no emergency visa for tourists, so the whole trip is called off.

He's out the plane ticket, too. At least, so far; the airline and travel agency keep sending him back and forth to the other company. Nice.

At least the house got a halfway decent cleaning out of it.

In still more news, annathepiper has to have more thyroid surgery, but she's already talked about that. At least it's coming before before our health insurance coverage degrades in September. (Must remember to go to meeting about that on Thursday. That'll be fun.)

We also have a GIANT hornet nest on the roof of the house and none of the "22-foot spray!" hornet death makes it more than about halfway there, which means they're really about 12 feet. Lying hornet-death fucks. I wonder how they justify "up to 22 feet" on the can? Assume a 50mph tailwind?

<later>

And it's unreachable from any point I can get to with any of the stuff I have, and it's not even hornets, it's wasps. Fucking wasps.

Anyone got any suggestions? It has to go.

Finally, I'm still looking for a way to test this Palm Zire 71. Anyone with a Universal Bus power charger or base unit out there? Please? I'd like to see whether it works. Fry's did have one, but not open, and they didn't want to open one given that there was no (zero) chance I'd buy it right now. (This changes in September.) Thanks.

In better news, three more plants are opening flowers, so I'll be able to add to my queue of flower pictures, of which this journal has not enough. Here's today's:



( And a second one, for bonus )

not a good day in a not very good week

Also, Stella's, the Italian restaurant next to the Metro? Gone. Closed now. Fuck.