yarrrrrrrr

My pirate name is:

Iron Mary Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Impeach President Bush Now

Impeach

President

Bush

Now

The part that really says "petulant jackass who doesn't actually give a rat's ass about anything other than power" is the part where he threatens to stop all CIA interrogations of suspects if he doesn't get to torture people. And the "clarity" bullshit has to stop. There's been 50 years of work on understanding, very clearly, what does and does not violate the Geneva conventions on this issue. It's very clear now. The idea that this legalisation of torture effort is some sort of attempt to "clarify" anything is a giant lie. Do not let that abuse of language, history, and American principles stand. It was torture when the Soviets did it; it was torture when the Hussein regime did it; it's torture if we do it. Period.

19 minutes left to vote

Voted today; walked to the polling station. This'll be one of the last times I do that, as King County is going all-mail in 2007. I have generally been opposed to this, as well as to electronic (touchscreen) voting, but with one positive exception: you have an absolute, unavoidable paper trail. To wit: yay!

Today I have another reason for being for it. They had an example touchscreen in the polling place for what they'd go to otherwise. It's a... wait for it...

Diebold touchscreen.

Of course. To wit: fuck no, and I repeat, fuck no. No easily-hackable, trivially openable, 30-second reprogrammable, malfunctioning, vote-shifting, built-for-fraud Diebold machines, period. So yay, going to mail-only balloting, I guess. Personally, I like the old-school fill-in-the-oval paper system we have now. It works just fine.

Turnout is very low. I suspect a few of the fundamentalist asshat judicial slate will get in as a result. To wit: dammit. But it'll be a while until we know, most of the ballots expected to be cast are expected to be cast via paper mail.

Today's (Tuesday's) Miles: 2.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1325.2
Miles out of Rivendell: 860.2
Miles out of Lothlórien: 405.2
Miles to Rauros Falls: 3.8

Yes, the walk to the polling station and back was rather tiring. But here I am, there and back again. And I even took my backpack (with a jacket and umbrella in it in case it got rainy and such) so I even had some cargo with me, making things heavier. And since I figured out I was holding my shoulder to avoid excruciating pain no longer there and stopped doing that, it's been hurting less. Go fig.

A couple of more articles that I didn't include in my previous post because I already had four and these aren't as to the point (click through for full articles):

[Canadian computer engineer] Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan -- where he never has been -- and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found. O'Connor concluded that "categorically there is no evidence" that Arar did anything wrong or was a security threat.

Another version in another paper:

OTTAWA, Sept. 18 — A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

If you're for the kind of routine torture the President wants, this is what you're supporting. There's plenty of fault on the Canadian side in this, but it was the US who shipped him off to torturetown.

I'll end on a flower picture, to cleanse the palette:


Teacup Rose and Wall

Today's Cultural Warfare Update

I've been warning about this since the mid-90s, when I started tracking this stuff; the fundamentalist movement is now veering sharply towards opposing all forms of birth control, and yes, they mean it. Check the starred items below; even traditionally more normal conservative publications like National Review are starting to give web space and press time to anti-contraception activists.

Focus on the Family email ACTION ITEM: Keep Madonna's "Crucifiction" video off the air;

Focus on the Family: preventing non-profits (specifically churches) from engaging in partisan political activity without losing their tax-free status is an attempt "to Silence Pastors and Churches" - amusingly, these were back to back in one Focus on the Family email update;

Focus on the Family reports that Illinois Supreme Court to take action regarding a state parental-notification abortion law;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to demand passage of an amended Defense Authorisation Bill which would eliminate non-sectarian requirements of pastors in mandatory military events; where this comes from is the religious harassment that became a serious ongoing problem at the Air Force Academy; this is part of their general attempt to reverse the new rules and allow proselytization at mandatory military events again;

FotF is pleased that the new FDA head's nomination (Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach) has been blocked by Jim DeMint (R-SC); DeMint says he won't let Eschenbach's nomination go forward without a flat statement from Dr. Exchenbach announces that he will pull RU-486 from the market; compare and contrast this to the endless ranting about opposition to Bush judicial nominees;

Blogger in rural Ohio writes about being denied access to emergency contraception because she's not married; removing this kind of Moral Judgment Of You is a part of why many people want to make it available over the counter, and why the theoconservative movement wants it banned outright, so they can make that Moral Judgement Of You;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to defeat a citizen's initiative to overturn South Dakota's comprehensive abortion ban;

Focus on the Family condemns gay parents going to PTA meetings as couples, declares "such activism doesn't belong in school;" meanwhile, their national school efforts continue apace;

Focus on the Family: Conservatives Out-Birthing Liberals; you've seen this for a long time in Palestine and Israeli conflicts, "we'll out-breed them and take over"; the theoconservative movement has been moving towards this for a while here, too;

Concerned Women for America ACTION ITEM to support PERA, calls PERA the "best opportunity" for the theoconservative movement this session of congress; PERA is the bill that changes Federal law so that losers in religious discrimination laws don't to pay legal fees; they're calling it an "anti-bullying bill";

CWA applauds reintroduction of an anti-abortion bill in Congress;

CWA promotes anti-marriage-rights DVD, "What God Has Joined Together," put together at Patrick Henry University (a leading evangelical school noted particularly as of late for sending more interns to the Bush white house than any other college); it's intended to bolster Virginia's anti-GLBT state constitutional amendment coming up this fall;

CWA ACTION ITEM for international calls to the chief of police of Jerusalem - intent is to demand that the police ban the city's GBLT pride march; it was already denied permit once; includes talk with Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the Union of Orthodox Rabbis and Jews for Morality - he's American - who says that allowing a GBLT parade and tourism in Israel will "homosexualise" the middle east, inflame the Arab world ("the homosexualisation of the middle east, via Israel, which could really offend the world Arab community, who could say that America and Israel are exporting the homosexual culture to the middle east, and this could be a significant security problem for Jews world wide, an even Americans."), offend god, end civilisation; he talks about "the end times," and so on;

Agape Press complains about ineffectiveness of GOP leadership for not confirming every Bush judicial nominee; Jan LaRue (CWA) claims that not confirming Bush's nominees supports terrorism against the United States, particularly nuclear terrorism;

***** National Review runs column condemning emergency contraception (Plan B) by Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD. Economics, who is apparently an anti-contraception activist - or at least is a headline speaker at the Pro-Life Action League's "Contraception Is Not The Answer" conference this fall;

***** Pro-Life Action League's description of the "Contraception Is Not The Answer" Conference (September 22-23, 2006) describes contraception as a failure, claiming it "ushered in widespread promiscuity, divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, single parent households and abortion" and says it will "show that contraception is, indeed, the taproot of abortion";

Families Northwest event one: the "Fall Dinner;" they're less loud about it than most, but they are firmly anti-abortion rights and work with louder, more political groups; they've been quiet for a while but are picking up again; they're also running a cruise ship (?) down to Mexico for a week, with stops at a variety of typical destinations and a variety of speakers and talks;

Families Northwest press release supporting ruling that anti-marriage law in Washington State is not unconstitutional;

Families Northwest's chair, Jeff Kemp, writes happily about the Supreme Court upholding Washington State's, says they are "playing offense, not defense";

Canada Family Action Coalition says it's "time to fight the good fightback" and fight to end GBLT rights and fight Muslims;

Gay men try to enlist in the marines as protest action in Shreveport, Louisiana; refuse to leave, are arrested;

American Airlines stewardess and pilot threatens gay honeymooning couple with terrorism-based flight diversion for touching (more extensive description in article);

American Family Association's Agape Press has several anti-GBLT articles, also includes a neat article where Ohio's Ken Blackwell will spend much of his campaign attacking his divinity-degree opponent as anti-Christian (and a left-wing extremist), particularly for his opposition to mandatory prayer in public schools;

AFA/Agape Press reluctantly goes along with Federal court ruling against Missouri teacher-lead public-school prayer;

Five-point Calvinism making inroads in Southern Baptist Convention minister ranks as the race to who-can-be-most-extreme continues;

CWA wonk Warren Throckmorton says gender dysphoria / gender identity disorder being recognised by schools is an attempt by "homosexual" groups to "promote their own political agenda";

AFA/Agape Press story on Maryland sex ed. programme; they want GBLT-related material entirely out except for some statements about the "ex-gay" movement;

American Family Association ACTION ITEM to send one million pieces of email to NBC to demand they not show Madonna's "crucifixion" video; also to send mail to local affiliates with the same message;

defendMarriage.ca ACTION ITEM against "Little Black Book" which they call "Same Sex Indoctrination."

( Articles, excerpts, and partial transcriptions below )

in other, less important news

They see me bobbin'
And dancin'
Defendin'
My nest my cage from you and BRAKBRAKBRAKBRAK!
Can't you see I'm a noisy birdy!
Can't you see I'm a noisy birdy!
Can't you see I'm a noisy birdy!
Can't you see I'm a noisy birdy!
My squawkin' so loud
I'm screamin'
They touchin'
My food and see now how they're making me go;
Can't you see I'm a noisy birdy!
Can't you see I'm a noisy birdy!
Can't you see I'm a noisy birdy!
Can't you see I'm a noisy birdy!

...

Clearly, that whole head-injury link to parrot-related doggerel thing is still active.