Here, have some links and stuff

Virus encrypts data, demands ransom to decrypt; xR veterans may find amusement in that the payoff is supposed to go to an eGold account;

The housing bubble is toast. Those with whom I've been arguing in other journals until I gave up should feel free to investigate why this is important on their own.

The American Bar Association is launching its own investigation of President Bush's decisions to ignore legally-passed Congressional law via his own post-signature signing statements.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's oil minister said the world's biggest petroleum exporter has cut ouptut because demand has declined - except demand hasn't declined. Demand growth has declined. Not the same thing. They insist they aren't doing it for price manipulation purposes, and with oil at over $70/barrel, it does still strike me as unlikely that you'd be cutting production right now without an awfully good reason.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration continues to widen the use of torture by American forces, this time by implication out to the entire Army. This is the other shoe, the first being his assertion that he could declare the McCain Amendment banning torture null and void via a signing statement.


Tiny Bells

I don't normally do the book log thing, but since this book gets checked out from the King County Library System about three times a decade - you can tell because the old checkout cards are still in it, with dates! - I thought I would: The Politics of Cultural Despair, Fritz Stern, University of California Press, 1961. It's an overview of the historical grounding of the pre-Nazi Germanic theorists and writers - particularly Paul de Lagarde and Julius Langbehn, with a somewhat less convincing pair of chapters on Moeller van den Bruck - that made the Hitler regime's philosophical goofiness seem perfectly plausible in their era. Elements of the ideas - particularly the anti-rationalism - of de Lagarde and Langbehn are easily identifiable in American politics today, and in some cases the elements are enough similar that I can't decide whether it's just repetition of bad ideas or whether they might actually have been imported to the America midwest via German immigration in the late 19th century. I do know that Hitler wrote extensively in the late 1930s about the eventual necessity of invading America in order to recapture its German immigrants to reunite the Volk, and that was specifically for the purpose of recovering cultural losses. So. Regardless, it makes a lot of political elements of 1930s Germany make more sense to me. Recommended.

Today's Cultural Warfare Update

I think this is the largest single-day CWU ever; last Friday's was the largest two-day CWU ever. And this is with several of the sites slowing down a bit, and with a couple of the groups not being as heavily into the anti-marriage amendment as you'd expect; too many of them are unhappy that it isn't more virulently anti-gay, and doesn't ban civil unions as per the 2004 version.

In Washington State news, Tim Eyman didn't show up with anti-gay initiatives today. He showed up with his latest destroy-all-road-maintenance car-tabs initiative instead. He says he'll be in on Tuesday with the anti-GBLT signatures instead, and that he's awaiting a last shipment of petitions from Spokane. Tomorrow is the last day, so I guess instead of finding out today whether an all-church petition drive can get a referendum on the ballot, we'll find out on Tuesday, instead.

And now, today's news.

Official transcript of President Bush's radio address endorsing the anti-marriage "Marriage Protection Amendment"; "In our free society, people have the right to choose how they live their lives" - so we need an amendment against queer marriage. What the fuck? Seriously, this might as well have been written by the FRC;

Fundamentalist Mormons against "supposed-to-be conservatives," the American Family Association, and The Advocate on polygamy;

Focus on the Family's ACTION ITEM against marriage rights and for the anti-marriage Federal amendment;

FotF article (and ACTION ITEM) promoting the FMA/MPA amendment; apparently their Tuesday broadcast will have White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on, pushing the amendment;

Focus on the Family talking points against marriage rights;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to vote Alabama anti-marriage amendment in the PRIMARY ELECTION TOMORROW (Tuesday); also, what the hell is "Focus on the Family Alabama Marriage Amendment Committee"? Are they making individual committees for every anti-gay initiative out there now, or is there something in Alabama's political law requiring this? I dunno;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM for Pennsylvanians to contact their state legislators in advance of an anti-gay anti-marriage-rights amendment vote later this week;

FotF ACTION ITEM to support some form of either "obscene" or "objectionable" (they use both words) materials ban in Yellowstone County, Montana; they're voting on it in tomorrow's primary;

FotF article on sash-wearing gay Catholics being denied communion;

LA Times reports on disgruntled social conservatives unhappy with Bush's level of support for the anti-marriage amendment;

Concerned Women for America now says lesbians and gays don't just want societal approval, they're demanding approval from GOD;

Family Research Council's Tony Perkins "Joins 100 Black Pastors on Marriage";

FRC ad against Sens. McCain and Clinton in USA Today on the anti-marriage amendment; includes ACTION ITEM to support the amendment;

American Family Association article warning on the dangers of not passing the anti-marriage Federal amendment;

AFA outrage that a judge has ruled against Iowa paying Prison Fellowship to convert inmates to fundamentalist Christianity; it's the "InnerChange Freedom Initiative" and that is in fact what it did; Prison Fellowship is having to return $1.5M in taxpayer dollars they were paid by Iowa;

AFA article on last Sunday's planned "Marriage Protection Sunday" effort in Southern Baptist Convention and other churches; I don't know how this went, but I missed this particular article so am running it now;

AFA suggests that the government should regulate Google for dropping a right-wing news site as a news provider - and not, as the article implies but does not say, from its search results;

The anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund is appealing their case supporting a student wearing an anti-gay T-shirt to school; school officials banned it from the grounds on the ground that it is disruptive and attacks other students; ADF calls it religious discrimination;

AFA/Agape press on Tim LaHaye's last prequel in the Left Behind series, which I include only because it's funny. Also, an anti-birth-control pharmacist loses his firing lawsuit against Wal*Mart - he was dismissed not just for refusing to prescribe, but for violating Wal*Mart policy requiring him to get another pharmacist to do it; instead, he would leave customers on hold indefinitely and ignore customers who appeared in person;

Traditional Values Coalition condemns MPA, claims it "promote[s] civil unions" by not banning them; they want a much more strongly anti-gay amendment;

TVC runs the "queers don't want marriage, they want to destroy everyone" tape again;

TVC "Special Report" on why civil unions are just as bad as marriage rights;

Faith and Freedom Network says, "We don't know how many signatures we have, Tim Eyman hasn't told us";

Tim Eyman misses Monday appointment for anti-gay referendum signatures, turns in latest anti-roads-repair ($30 tabs) initiative instead; says he'll be back Tuesday after he gets a final batch of signatures in from Spokane; several non-fundamentalist church groups pledge to campaign to retain the GBLT basic civil rights law;

Canada Family Action Coalition runs American Life League press release attacking Planned Parenthood as a news article;

Tory MP Garth Turner (Toronto) lets Canadian Theoconservatives have it in no uncertain terms; “I have no time for groups in our society who try to force their morals, or their culture, on the rest of us"; Canada Family Action Coalition calls him a racist and anti-religious bigot; I don't know much about this guy, but I am sincerely enjoying how much he's making the theocons hate him. If only we had anyone down here with his spine.

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