I Didn't Say It ....

Rob Halford, openly gay heavy metal rock star, on Chick-fil-Antigay:

"Everybody in this country has the right to say what they think and feel and what best represents them. The people at Chick-fil-A have the absolute right to say and do what they want. It doesn’t matter that all of these people disagree with their opinion. The question was how would the people that agree with what that man said do to support the company and how would the ones against his anti-gay remarks protest. What you’re seeing here are the elements of the American Constitution in all of their glory. It’s a wonderful thing to see happening and talk about and the fact that everyone is discussing the gay rights issue is great. I don’t think that man thought too much about the business consequences of what he said, but I think he was standing for what he believes in. I don’t agree with him at all, but God bless the man. It’s as simple as that."

I, for one, agree with Rob.

Dan Cathy should be able to say what he wants, and believe what he wants, and we, the LGBT community and our allies, have those same rights. Like talking about Chick-fil-Antigay and their homophobic, hateful donations, and asking our allies to stop eating there.

Kiss-ins and graffiti aren’t the answer; they just draw more intention to Chick-fil-Antigay.

Stop eating there, and ask your friends to do the same.

Elton John, raging yet again about Madonna:

"Why is she such a nightmare? Sorry, her career is over. Her tour has been a disaster and it couldn't happen to a bigger cunt. If Madonna had any common sense she would have made a record like Ray Of Light and stayed away from the dance stuff and just been a great pop singer and make great pop records, which she does brilliantly. But no, she had to go and prove... she looks like a fucking fairground stripper. She's been horrible to Gaga."

Nothing worse than seeing a sixty-something fading queen dissing a fifty-something fading pop star. It’s like watching two twelve-year-old girls duke it out on Facebook.

It’s entertaining to a point and then it just gets old.

Bill Donohoe, Catholic League douchenozzle, on Mittsy Romney's lack of response on Chick-fil-Antigay:

"This is the most disheartened that certainly I’ve felt looking at this entire race. Social conservatives have to make up their mind whether they should just simply stay at home, or go out there and vote for Romney. I’m astonished that he couldn’t even come to grips with the question—leaving gays out of it—do we want the chief executives, the mayors of large cities trying to intimidate, using the power of government against private enterprises whose politics they disagree with? I think it’s a pretty simple issue. No one’s going to be allowed to speak at any great length on this issue [at the GOP convention]. All we’re going to hear is that marriage is between a man and a woman. That’s flatulent."

Boo-freaking-hoo. Mittsy didn’t get all hate and stuff for Billy Boy.

Boo-freaking-hoo.

Pat Robertson, on the Democratic Party's decision to put marriage equality in its platform: 

"About 2% of the population are homosexual, 1% of the population is lesbian. That’s a tiny group and every time this initiative has been brought to the ballot where the people have a chance to vote they vote overwhelmingly in favor of traditional marriage. For the Democrats to go out on that limb, it just seems like to me that they are further alienating themselves from the mainstream of America. If that’s what they want to do, fine, but it will mean the death knell of their party, it seems like to me, and of course that’s what they’re doing but maybe they have a death wish."

STFU Pat. You are the one who is out of touch. The tide is changing, just like the tide changed on every single other Civil Right of our time, and one day, soon, I hope, you’ll be sitting there, still on the wrong side, whining.

PS We're about 10% of the population. Sorry to tell you.....

Mittsy Romney, leaving a hardware store in New Hampshire and telling the crowd what he bought:

"Hardware stuff."

In related news, this out-of-touch 1-percenter, when leaving a grocery store said he’d bought groceries, and when leaving a drug store said he’d purchased drugs.

Moron. He couldn’t even take two seconds to look down at the bucket in his hand and see what his team had put in it for him.

Michelangelo Signorile, on the Chick-fil-Antigay flap:

"Some are saying we lost the battle with Chick-fil-A, even calling it a dismal failure. I don't believe any effort to point to homophobia is ever in vain, so I wouldn't go that far. When you're fighting bigotry, it's always an uphill battle. That said, there were problems with the strategy—or or rather, lack of strategy—in taking on Chick-fil-A. We allowed the opponents of LGBT rights to use the media to recast the issue as one about the first amendment….So yes, our enemies distorted our message and reframed the story. And we allowed them to do it....How did we allow it to happen? Because there was no coordinated effort on our side. The controversy was largely driven by blogs, social media and very loosely organized grass-roots activists, with no coordinated leadership. The city mayors and politicians calling for banning Chick-fil-A gave an opportunity for the right to reframe the story. The mayors backed off quickly after many on the left decided it wasn't a good idea….the damage was done. And there was no leadership on our side aggressively pulling the story back from the right's re-framing." 

Here’s the deal: read what Rob Halford said.

Dan Cathy has the same rights we do. Instead of railing against Chick-fil-Antigay, Don’t.Eat.There. With all the foot-stomping and the huffing and puffing and the kiss-ins, the focus turned away from the fact that the owners of Chick-fil-Antigay take the money that Americans spend in their stores and donate it to homophobic, anti-LGBT groups and we should just stop giving them our money.

Mika, British pop star, in 2009:

"I've never ever labeled myself. But having said that; I've never limited my life, I've never limited who I sleep with. So, whatever….Call me whatever you want. Call me bisexual, if you need a term for me...There are ways of being a role model without having to always having to establish yourself with a label. Let's say if you're a 16-year-old guy, and you're not sure about your sexuality, you should be as free as you want...Having a role model who makes you feel like it's alright to do whatever you want, without the pressure of a label, I think that's a good thing as well. I think there's a million different ways to do it, there isn't only one. And I hope I'm right."

Mika, British pop star, today:

“If you ask me am I gay, I say yeah. Are these songs about my relationship with a man? I say yeah. And it’s only through my music that I’ve found the strength to come to terms with my sexuality beyond the context of just my lyrics. This is my real life.”

It’s a process. Some folks need to take that baby step of not really being gay, but maybe just being open to a same-sex relationship, before they can fully admit, to themselves, and ultimately, to the world, that they are gay.

Welcome out, all the way, Mika.

Rush Limbaugh, fat-assed, drug-addicted, many times married blowhard, on the Chick-fil-Antigay flap:

"Now Christianity has to be banned, and that’s where this is all headed. All this stuff at Chick-fil-A, the target is Christianity, not Chick-fil-A. The target is freedom of religion. [With] Obama and Obamacare, the target is always freedom. When we’re talking about liberals, the target is always freedom. Dan Cathy, the head honcho of Chick-fil-A, he’s not making a political statement when he talks about the values the company believes in. It gets interpreted that way because the left has politicized gay marriage."

Um, Rush? You delusional gasbag. I never heard one single gay man or woman talk about the Christianity of Dan Cathy being the problem. We talked about how un-Christ-like he is for taking money from us and the giving it to anti-gay groups.

Don’t try and turn this argument to one about faith, because it isn’t about that.

And don't try to say it's about marriage equality.

It’s about funding homophobia and hate.

Plain and simple.

And that isn’t in the Bible, by the way.

Linda Harvey, "Christian" hate-monger, on the lifting of the ban on HIV+ people entering the US:

"The [2012 AIDS] conference was taking place in the U.S. for the first time in twenty-two years. Why? Because HIV-positive individuals had been banned from entering the U.S. but the Obama administration lifted that travel and immigration ban in 2009. So HHS Secretary Sebelius, ‘the HIV entry ban was a bad policy based on faulty science that ran contrary to America’s deepest values.’ She’s wrong, once again. Reckless sexual behavior is not a deep American value, except perhaps in Washington. The ban was a response to reality and the known attraction of some would-be immigrants to the U.S.’s liberal homosexual culture in certain cities. Opening our ports to HIV-positive people just invites an acceleration of the epidemic."

Oh, Linda, the epidemic has accelerated in the years of the ban. Women, Linda, are the most susceptible to contracting HIV these days. Southern women. The spread of HIV was never contained because we placed a ban on HIV persons entering this country; all that did was make the United States, the oh-so-progressive United States, look like some moronic, fearful country.

PS The move to lift the ban, while it occurred under the Obama administration, was actually started under the Bush administration. Yes, W started this, and he and his administration deserves our thanks for this one.

Howard Stern, on Chick-fil-Antigay:

"I don't really care what the political beliefs are of a corporation...When you’re in business, you don’t want to turn off anybody. It’s the smart way to do business, because while I’m not gay, I do support gay marriage... Because really what the guy is saying is 'oh sure anyone can eat here but our money and our beliefs are that anyone who wants to be married who is gay is wrong'. Now that's a pompous statement for a guy who makes chicken for a living....Don’t come out as a corporation against anybody. OK, if you want to come out against Hitler, I’ll back you on that. But, just keep your mouths shut."

Amen.

Random Musings

Chick-fil-Antigay.

My final word. I hope.

See, here’s my deal: Dan Cathy can be anti-LGBT. He has the right. He has the right to speak that thought and he has the right to give his money to groups that promote that thought, no matter how hate-filled I think they might be…and they are that hate-filled.

So, we protest right? We use our voices to tell people that Chick-fil-Antigay takes the money we spend on chicken and donates it to hate. That’s the good fight.

The bad fight is a kiss-in. What the hell did that do, except make it look like The Gays just wanted to go all kissy in the restaurant? What did the spraying of graffiti on a franchise do except make us look like vandals?

You wanna make a difference against a company that takes your money and spends it on hate? Stop.Eating.There. Stop giving them your money. Tell your friends and family and co-workers about their homophobia, but when you do kiss-ins and spray-paint their buildings all you do is give them more press.

Just stop.

Funny Tweet:

So there’s a new study that says homosexuality is in the eyes.

What?

Well, the study says that sexual orientation can be detected by looking at the pupils of our eyes:

For the first time, researchers at Cornell University used a specialized infrared lens to measure pupillary changes to participants watching erotic videos. Pupils were highly telling: they widened most to videos of people who participants found attractive, thereby revealing where they were on the sexual spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual.

Let me get this queer. This study found that they could tell I’m a big old queen because my eyes get wide when watching male-on-male porn?

Um…..duh.

Dan Vickery

Okay, I said I would probably never recap HGTV Shopping Design Star, and I will be holding true to that. 

But then HGTV goes and broadcasts something called Design Star: All Stars and, while I won’t be recapping I will be watching.

But….Hilari from the season that just ended is an all star? How does that happen? Bitch came in third place so how does that make her an all star? 

Sparkle Josh is an all star? Just by the fact that he calls himself Sparkle Josh means he shouldn't be on TV.

I think HGTV just sent out a mass mailing to anyone who’d ever been on the show and asked them to come back and the first six respondents got the invite.

Tom Vecchione

Still, Dan Vickery, who just missed winning in season four is back, and HGTV is kind enough to focus a great deal of attention, and camera time, to his cute little butt. It’s like they read my mind. And then they go and add some Mad Men-esque, Tom Vecchione, from season 5, and suddenly I cannot look away.

Little, muscular Tom and tall, lanky, sexy Dan.

Must see HGTV.

Must see Hot HGTV.

Funny Tweet:

The hot mess GOP convention. The Ron Paulettes threaten all sorts of fun, and now the party has come up with their list of speakers.

The good news? No Sarah Palin, because even her own party knows she a dimwit and an asshat and basically an illiterate fool. But, they have asked Grampa John McCain, who was oh-so-not successful four years ago against Barack Obama, so I expect he’ll do a little whining, and little backtracking on his Mittsy loathing.

And they’ve even offered a top spot to our own little Tea Party darling, South Carolina Governor, Nikki ‘I’m So Transparent’ Haley, who never met a lie she didn’t want to repeat, and Mike ‘Batshit Crazy’ Huckabee, one of the biggest rightwingnuts in the group; if you don’t count Florida’s Governor/Criminal Rick Scott.

It’s the GOP convention, people, or as I call it, Pander-To-The-Tea-Party-Palooza.

The Illinois Family Institute, the former home of Peter LaBarbera, has issued a call for parents to pull their kids out of the classes of liberal, or gay, teachers.

I see nothing wrong with that. I mean, years back my parents went to the school and pulled me out of classes taught by conservatives—

Oh, wait. That didn’t happen. See, my parents simply wanted the teachers who were best at teaching things like readin’, writin’, and arithmetic.

Gay or straight.

Thanks Mom and Dad for not being bigots.

The Mittsy Chronicles: Put Up or Shut Up

I love a good bitchfight. I loved when Teresa flipped the table on The Real Housewives of New Jersey and I love when the designers on Project Runway ‘throw someone under a bus’ on the catwalk. It’s fun.

So, I am loving the Mittsy and Harry Reid Show over Mittsy’s refusal to share his tax returns, something most people, including Mittsy’s father, think a presidential candidate should do if he has nothing to hide.

Reid speaks on the House floor, telling us all that he has a ‘source’ who says Romney paid no taxes for many years and Mittsy hightails to unfair and unbalanced Faux News and sits on Sean Hannity’s lap, moaning for Harry to stop. It’s fun, I tell ya, fun!

Mittsy: “Well, it’s time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry’s gonna have to describe who it is he spoke with because of course that’s totally and completely wrong. It’s untrue, dishonest and inaccurate. It’s wrong. So I’m looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources and we’ll probably find out that it’s the White House.”

Except, that even people who may like Mittsy, and there are some of you, are having trouble understanding why he doesn’t just show the tax returns. I mean, wouldn’t that end the argument once and for all. Just show the birth certificate….Oh, wait, that was another story. But, see, Obama showed the birth certificate, and other than a few crazies, it was accepted. So, if Obama can offer his ‘proof’ why can’t Mittsy? Show us the tax returns. It’d make Harry Reid look like a liar. It would score points for you with your constituents. So why doesn’t he do it?

Maybe Harry Reid is onto something: 

There is a controversy because the Republican presidential nominee, Governor Mitt Romney, refuses to release his tax returns. As I said before, I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for ten years. People who make as much money as Mitt Romney have many tricks at their disposal to avoid paying taxes. We already know that Romney has exploited many of these loopholes, stashing his money in secret, overseas accounts in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

Last weekend, Governor Romney promised that he would check his tax returns and let the American people know whether he ever paid a rate lower than 13.9 percent. One day later, his campaign raced to say he had no intention of putting out any further information.

When it comes to answering the legitimate questions the American people have about whether he avoided paying his fair share in taxes or why he opened a Swiss bank account, Romney has shut up. But as a presidential candidate, it’s his obligation to put up, and release several years’ worth of tax returns just like nominees of both parties have done for decades.

It’s clear Romney is hiding something, and the American people deserve to know what it is. Whatever Romney’s hiding probably speaks volumes about how he would approach issues that directly impact middle-class families, like tax reform and the economy. When you are running for president, you should be an open book.

I understand Romney is concerned that many people, Democrats and Republicans, have been calling on him to release his tax returns. He has so far refused. There is only one thing he can do to clear this up, and that’s release his tax returns.

Seems simple, no? I mean if you can prove beyond a doubt that a statement made by another party is an outright lie, wouldn’t you do it?  I mean, even if it turns out Mittsy paid a lower tax rate than his already unbelievably low 13.9%, at least he’d prove he paid taxes.

Now it just looks like he’s another rich guy paying nothing. Now it just looks like he’s the 1% who don’t think they need to pay their share. Now it just looks like he’s a liar.

Mittsy can’t release the returns, because of what they contain and Harry Reid—and most of us—know this, and so every time Mittsy lies about his tax returns, he digs himself in a little deeper and the GOP watches their chance to defeat Obama fade away. Such a shame.

I giggle.

source

Bryan Fischer: Using Religion To Advocate Kidnapping

I am basically a ‘live and let live kind of guy. I believe what I believe and you may agree, or not, and that’s okay. That’s how I think about religion, too; I’m not a big believer, but if you are, well, that’s your right. I won’t try and change your mind, please don’t try and change mine. 

The one problem I do have with religion is those people that use their faith in God to practice hate, and I’m not just talking about the ‘God Hates Fags’ Westboro Baptist Church people. I don’t mind those people, actually, because you know what you’re gonna get from them. 

But I do have an issue with those people who use the Bible to tell me that God doesn’t want me to marry Carlos, or that God thinks I’m not capable of parenting a child; or that God thinks I shouldn’t be able to live there or work there, or walk down that street, or, sadly so, even be allowed to live. 

I have a problem with those ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ people who say they don’t hate but then work overtime trying to prove otherwise.

People like Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association; that’s one of those oh-so-sweet sounding groups that seek to deny me my rights because God said so. Bryan Fischer hates gay people, and he can’t mask it as a Biblical belief. It’s hate. It’s fear. It’s loathing. It might even be self-loathing, because Fischer spends an awful lot of his time thinking about gay men and sex, and then runs to his computer to Tweet about it.

Like this week when he Tweeted that we—well, not me because I’m, apparently, the problem—need a sort of “Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households.” Now, it seems that he was referring to the story of Lisa Miller, a so-called ex-gay, kidnapped the daughter she had with her same-sex partner and disappeared. Miller is still being track by federal authorities for kidnapping, but people like Fischer call her a hero.

But then Fischer takes his theory of kidnapping children from gay parent households further, by including the story of one Robert Oscar Lopez, who blames all the ills of his life on the fact that he had two moms. Lopez thinks he wouldn’t be an outcast in the world today if he’d grown up in a “normal” home. Lopez thinks that his own sexual orientation issues are his mothers’ fault.

And both of these stories have lead Bryan Fischer, that self-proclaimed man of God, to suggest that the children of same-sex parents should be stolen from them, and taken through some kind of Anti-Gay Underground Railroad to safety in the arms of a one-man/one-woman home. He is equating the children of same-sex parents with slaves, and equating same-sex parents with slave owners.

He is using God to promote hate. He is using God to advocate criminal behavior. Remember that if you ever hear one story about the child, or children, of a same-sex couple being kidnapped. Think of who to blame.

Think of Bryan Fischer and his special brand of God Hates Fags.

via ThinkProgress LGBT

Architecture Wednesday: Prefab Is Just Plain Fab

They say in real estate the three most important things to consider when buying a house are Location, Location, Location. Well, then you can't beat this vacation house in Moab, Utah, which sits on an open, hundred-acre site punctuated by red rock formations and cliffs. But, while location is, perhaps, the best thing, sometimes there are other words that make you reconsider the investment; and one of those words is 'prefab'. Prefab screams mobile home; it screams cookie cutter boring.
Unless, again, it's this house--the Hidden Valley house--in Moab.
The two-bedroom, two-bath home is made up of five interior prefab modules and seven prefab deck modules, which help to blend the indoor and outdoor living spaces. There are expansive decks to watch the desert as it changes color while the sun moves across it, and floor-to-ceiling windows inside for when the desert gets too hot.
The main approach winds around the solid, metal-clad side of the home, revealing the opening of the front entry deck with a broad view across the pool to a tall boulder formation. The primary axis of the main house runs along a rock ledge, creating dramatic views out over the landscape. With three full sides of windows and sliding glass doors, the views in the great room proceed from south--looking out over the rock ledge--to west--and the red rock boulder formations--and finally to the northern views of snow-capped mountains in the distance. The guest wing with an exercise room opens up to views of the boulder formations on one side and the mountains on the other.
The Hidden Valley house was produced almost entirely in the Marmol Radziner Prefab factory and made from precut steel beams and joists; precut columns were attached to the floor frame and the roof frame was then placed on top of the columns. Structurally insulated panels [SIPS] make up the sub-floor and roof structures, and once the steel frame was set, the interior wall framing, plumbing, and electrical and mechanical components were added. Last, but not least, the windows and doors, interior and exterior finishes, built-in casework, appliances, and fixtures were installed.
The modules were then shipped to the site on flatbed trucks and lifted on to the foundation with a crane, where they were bolted together and welded to the foundation to become a permanent structure.
Hidden Valley uses sustainable materials and systems to minimize the environmental impact  of the home, both in its creation and in its function. To reduce energy consumption, the SIPS provide superior insulation, while geothermal systems use the earth to heat and cool the home and solar panels draw energy from the sun. And modular construction, or prefab,  maximizes factory production, thereby minimizing construction waste.
Factory production also centralizes the trades used to build the house, which reduces vehicular emissions from travel to construction sites. This is particularly important for the remote location of Hidden Valley, where instead of having the construction staff drive to the home site every day, fifteen trucks delivered the completed home over two days.
It's green, and prefab. It's got a sublime location and it's prefab.
It's prefab, and just plain fab.

via HomeDSGN

14 Wacky "Facts" Kids Will Learn in Louisiana's Voucher Schools

I've often said, of the South, that it's not the heat, it's the stupidity, and lo and behold, this morning I was gifted with another example of Southern Idiocy.

The good folks in Louisiana wanted to privatize public education, and use a Bible-based curriculum to edu-mah-cate their younguns all at the expense of the tax-payer. So, under Asshat Guv'nah Bobby Jindal's voucher program, Louisiana will spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class public school students receive a private education. Now, some say Jindal's plan is a good one--well, that's mostly GOP wingnuts--but others say the program is riddled with problems,

See, of the 119, mostly Christian, participating schools, there are twenty or so that will teach creationist nonsense, er, nonscience and will receive some $4 million in public funding from the initial round of voucher designations.

Many of these schools rely on the A Beka Book curriculum, aka Bob Jones University Press, textbooks to teach their Bible-based "facts." Let's look at what they'll be teachin' down in Loser-iana:

1. Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out: "Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

2. Dragons were totally real: "[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

3. "God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ."—America: Land That I Love, Teacher ed., A Beka Book, 1994

4. Africa needs religion: "Africa is a continent with many needs. It is still in need of the gospel…Only about ten percent of Africans can read and write. In some areas the mission schools have been shut down by Communists who have taken over the government."—Old World History and Geography in Christian Perspective, 3rd ed., A Beka Book, 2004

5. Slave masters were nice guys: "A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well."—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991

6. The KKK was A-OK: "[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001

7. The Great Depression wasn't as bad as the liberals made it sound: "Perhaps the best known work of propaganda to come from the Depression was John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath…Other forms of propaganda included rumors of mortgage foreclosures, mass evictions, and hunger riots and exaggerated statistics representing the number of unemployed and homeless people in America."—United States History: Heritage of Freedom, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1996

8. SCOTUS enslaved fetuses: "Ignoring 3,500 years of Judeo-Christian civilization, religion, morality, and law, the Burger Court held that an unborn child was not a living person but rather the "property" of the mother (much like slaves were considered property in the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford)."—American Government in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1997

9. The Red Scare isn't over yet: "It is no wonder that Satan hates the family and has hurled his venom against it in the form of Communism."— American Government in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1997

10. Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson were a couple of hacks: "[Mark] Twain's outlook was both self-centered and ultimately hopeless…Twain's skepticism was clearly not the honest questioning of a seeker of truth but the deliberate defiance of a confessed rebel."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001"Several of [Emily Dickinson's] poems show a presumptuous attitude concerning her eternal destiny and a veiled disrespect for authority in general. Throughout her life she viewed salvation as a gamble, not a certainty. Although she did view the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration, she never accepted it as an inerrant guide to life."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001

11. Abstract algebra is too dang complicated: "Unlike the 'modern math' theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Bookteaches that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute…A Beka Bookprovides attractive, legible, and workable traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory."—ABeka.com

12. Gay people "have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists."—Teacher's Resource Guide to Current Events for Christian Schools, 1998-1999, Bob Jones University Press, 1998

13. "Global environmentalists have said and written enough to leave no doubt that their goal is to destroy the prosperous economies of the world's richest nations."—Economics: Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1999

14. Globalization is a precursor to rapture: "But instead of this world unification ushering in an age of prosperity and peace, as most globalists believe it will, it will be a time of unimaginable human suffering as recorded in God's Word. The Anti-christ will tightly regulate who may buy and sell."—Economics: Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1999

And that, folks, is how Louisiana will teach their children, and create a whole new generation of think-skulled, numbnuts. Okay, truth be told, they won't be teaching all their children via Bob Jones batshittery, but even the few who are punished by this lack of education, will continue to spread the word that Louisiana is, well, just dumb.

Yay.

via Mother Jones

Joseph Baken: The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf

I have been bullied for being gay; well, I was still a kid and didn't know from gay, so I guess I was bullied for being perceived to being gay. But, I have never been gay bashed--that sound you hear is me knocking on wood. What a horror that must be to have fists flying at you and feet pummeling your ribcage while someone, or a few someone’s, yell anti-gay slurs. Hate. Hate crime. And I think it should be punishable to the severest extent of the law. But then there's this, which makes my blood boil even more:

Missoula, Montana, law enforcement officials say that 22-year-old Joseph Baken who reported that he was the victim of a gay bashing, a hate crime, during the early morning hours of August 5 has actually fabricated the story.

“We have new information that we’re following up on,” said a Missoula Police Department spokesperson.

Baken reported to the MPD that he was celebrating his birthday downtown at the Missoula Club and, after inquiring about where he could find a gay bar, was beaten up by three men for being gay. The story broke all over the web, another gay bashing, another young LGBT person beaten for their orientation.

Except it never happened.

The Missoula Police Department obtained video footage that shows Baken doing a back-flip on Higgins Avenue and sustaining the injuries, lacerations to his face, that have been depicted on social media sites, during the landing.

Here’s a copy of the footage:

So, this little asshole decides to do a back-flip and he lands on his face. A rational person would say something like, "Ouch! That was stupid." A rational person would seek medical attention. But Joseph Baken decided to go to the police and say he was beaten up by three men because he's gay.

That would be a Hate Crime, but Baken's crime, other than being an asshole, is hateful. If even one gay person lies about being gay bashed, for whatever reason, they diminish every other Hate Crime against us. 

I hope they throw the book at him. Seriously. But, when Joseph Baken pleaded guilty to charges of filing a false police report, he was sentenced to 180 days in jail and a $300 fine. The jail time was suspended.

Big mistake. Huge. When he lied about being gay bashed, he basically gay bashed the entire LGBT community and got off with a wee fine. Joseph Baken is a reprehensible human being. Ask anyone who has ever had fists fly at their faces because they’re gay what they think of him now.

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The Height Of GOP Stupidity, Part Two: Larry "Wide-Stance-Foot-Tapping" Craig

I thought the GOP couldn’t get any dumber after this morning’s tale of South Carolina Senator, Lindsey Lohan, er, Graham’s, advice to layoff off government contractors to force Congress to do their jobs, but the, well, along came this:

Y’all remember former GOP senator, Larry Craig? The guy who was arrested in an airport bathroom for sitting on the john with his feet too far apart and tapping his foot, and then using his fingers to beg an undercover cop for sex? That guy? Who :::foot stomped::: and :::head snapped::: and told us he was not gay and yet he would resign, only then he didn’t resign he just faded away like an old queen?

Well, the Federal Election Commission [FEC] claims Larry The Foot Tapper used some $217,000 in campaign funds to defend himself against the allegations that he is a self-loathing, deeply closeted homosexual who was tricked into politicizing sex in a men’s room, and now the FEC wants the money back. And Craig is trying to stop the lawsuit by claiming that his infamous 2007 bathroom stall sex-sting arrest was, ahem, simply part of his official Senate business. See, Craig would like us to believe that his official business was to offer a report on the best airport bathrooms in which to hook-up anonymously for a little man-on-man action.

The FEC sued Craig saying he converted the campaign money to personal use money and then spent it on his legal defense after he was accused of soliciting sex in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom, but Craig says, with a straight face—just about the only part of him that is truly straight—that the money tied to his airport bathroom trip was neither for personal use or his campaign, but rather it was part of his official, reimbursable duties as senator because he was traveling between Idaho and the nation's capital for work.

Or sex.

And Larry cites a Senate rule in which reimbursable per diem expenses include all charges for meals, lodging, hotel fans, cleaning, pressing of clothing, and bathroom sex, I guess. His lawyer, Andrew Herman, says, “Not only was the trip itself constitutionally required, but Senate rules sanction reimbursement for any cost relating to a senator's use of a bathroom while on official travel.”

So, then Craig can argue that if he uses a bathroom to engage in anonymous homosexual sex, he should be able to claim it as a reimbursable expense. Sex. Reimbursable. Wow.

But, um, Larry, honey, darling? If you wish to have us believe that you can use your per diem to pay for “bathroom expenses” and you were arrested for trying to have sex with a man in a bathroom, then that whole I’m not gay dance you did was just a big fat lie and you’re just a big old queer who got busted for trying to jerk off a cop.

 The height of stupidity. And no one believes you Larry. You’re queer, dear.

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