California Legislature Passes Same-Sex Marriage

From the San Francisco Gate:

Sacramento — The state Assembly, in a stunning victory for the gay rights movement, approved a landmark bill allowing same-sex marriage Tuesday night and sent it to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The measure, which passed with no votes to spare, marks the first time that a legislative body in the United States has approved a bill that legalizes gay marriage. Schwarzenegger has not taken an official position on the legislation but has hinted that he would veto it.

Let me point out that this is not an “activist judge” making a decision — this is actually a state legislature, elected by the people, creating the law. This is exactly the will of the people — and the right wing is frothing at the mouth over it. Because when it comes right down to it, they don’t want a democracy, they want a theocracy ruled by religion, and they want to overthrow the American government.

Continue ReadingCalifornia Legislature Passes Same-Sex Marriage

Things I have to do on vacation next week

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  • Post category:Life Hacks

I’m on vacation next week from the 12th through the 16th. Here’s what I’ll be doing:

  • Work on a logo for Bil and Jerame
  • Go for a Crown Hill walk with Lori
  • Mail my sister’s birthday present
  • Take clothes to a donation point
  • Take garage sale stuff to my mom’s house
  • Help my mom clean out her attic
  • Clean the house for book club! (my house is trashed right now)
  • Relocate the Rose of Sharon bush to the corner of my yard
  • Catalog my books
  • Write an IndyScribe photo article
  • Write an IndyScribe review of Pirateer and Dread Pirate games
  • Make my photo galleries web standards compliant
  • Read my library books before they’re due
  • Take my dog for some long walks
  • Make sure my neighbor’s contractor doesn’t trash my yard anymore
Continue ReadingThings I have to do on vacation next week

Mitch “The Blade” Daniels and the New Orleans Disaster

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  • Post category:Indiana

I put this story in the middle of several others yesterday, but I realize now that it needs special attention on it’s own:

Mitch “The Blade” Daniels and the New Orleans Disaster:
Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, was forced to resign in 2002 over budget disagreements with the White House. He clashed with Mitch Daniels, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, which sets the administration’s annual budget goals.
“One time I took two pieces of steel into Mitch Daniels’ office,” Parker recalled. “They were exactly the same pieces of steel, except one had been under water in a Mississippi lock for 30 years, and the other was new. The first piece was completely corroded and falling apart because of a lack of funding. I said, ‘Mitch, it doesn’t matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates — either way it’s the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.’ It made no impact on him whatsoever.”
Daniels, now governor of Indiana, did not respond to a request for comment.

You guys voted for this fucker; I didn’t. Now I’m doubly proud of my “not my man” bumpersticker. And I’m doubly scared, because if he did this crap to New Orleans, what is he doing to our state?

Continue ReadingMitch “The Blade” Daniels and the New Orleans Disaster

Write to the Washington Post and ask why the reprinted Bush lies without factchecks

I mentioned in an earlier post that the Washington Post and Newsweek had to issue corrections after it was discovered they printed Bush official’s lies as fact without factchecking the claims, which turned out to be false.
Media Matters has a letter and contact information so you can ask the Washington Post what it will do about it’s grave journalistic mistake.

Continue ReadingWrite to the Washington Post and ask why the reprinted Bush lies without factchecks

Donating Clothes

One of my friends passed along this information:
My church, St. Monica, is accepting clothing donations through Friday (Sep 9). Details can be found here.
The address is 6131 N. Michigan Rd.
Radio stations are also putting together food and clothing drives, as are local fire stations. Check radio station websites for details, and ask at your local fire station to find out which stations in your township are doing it.
————–
UPDATE: Another place you can donate:
Pastors for Peace Emergency Caravan Indianapolis and West Lafayette
Pastors for Peace will have a truck leaving Chicago headed for Mississippi and Louisiana with aid for those in need.
Mississippi Distribution through Black Caucus Member, and Ranking Democratic Member Committee on Homeland Security, Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) Louisiana Distribution through African American Churches, arrangements still in process
You can help by giving:
Clothing
Bedding
Non-perishable food items
Bottled water
Money for gas and driver?s expenses
Items to be picked up by Pastors for Peace Tuesday, September 13th
Collections points will be:
Indianapolis:
North Meadow Circle of Friends
1710 North Talbott Street
Items can be left on porch if door is not open: Contact Tony or Jenny Barrows
317- 924-1086

Continue ReadingDonating Clothes

40,000 expected dead

From a funeral director deployed to handle bodies in New Orleans:

“DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies,” Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security.
His partner, Dan Hicks, of Paducah, Ky., was deployed Monday. Buckner, of Dickson, is on standby. Their funeral home is one of several collection sites for donations to be taken to the Red Cross in Fayetteville on Wednesday for transfer to places in need.
The 40,000 estimate does “not include the number of disinterred remains that have been displaced from … mausoleums,” Buckner told the Times-Gazette Monday.

The Times-Pickayune estimates at least 10,000 dead, and discusses in grisly detail finding some of the bodies at the convention center. Don’t read that link unless you have a strong stomach. It’s horrifying. I keep thinking about my family members being caught in something like this. When they’re talking about the elderly, I keep picturing my mom’s mother, and it breaks my heart.

Continue Reading40,000 expected dead

Coast Guard has “Missing Person Submission Request” for New Orleans

If you need to locate someone in New Orleans and have not heard from them, you can submit a report requesting they search for someone.


George Bush on Friday:

We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we’re going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we’re going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is — and it’s hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard regarding Friday:

The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us…”

Barbara Bush “lets them eat cake” on Sunday:

Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated:
“Almost everyone I’ve talked to wants to move to Houston.”
Then she added: “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed with the hospitality.
“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (she chuckled)–this is working very well for them.”

Also on Sunday after Barbara’s misguided statements:

“They killed a man here last night,” Steve Banka, 28, told the Reuters news agency before he left on Sunday.
“A young lady was being raped and stabbed. And the sounds of her screaming got to this man and so he ran out into the street to get help from troops, to try to flag down a passing truck of them. He jumped up on the truck’s windscreen and they shot him dead,” Mr Banka said.

Mitch “The Blade” Daniels and the New Orleans Disaster:

Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, was forced to resign in 2002 over budget disagreements with the White House. He clashed with Mitch Daniels, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, which sets the administration’s annual budget goals.
“One time I took two pieces of steel into Mitch Daniels’ office,” Parker recalled. “They were exactly the same pieces of steel, except one had been under water in a Mississippi lock for 30 years, and the other was new. The first piece was completely corroded and falling apart because of a lack of funding. I said, ‘Mitch, it doesn’t matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates — either way it’s the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.’ It made no impact on him whatsoever.”
Daniels, now governor of Indiana, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Army Times calls American citizens “insurgents” and New Orleans a “combat operation:”

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.

Katrina’s real name: global warming

THE HURRICANE that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming. When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming. … And when the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai) received 37 inches of rain in one day — killing 1,000 people and disrupting the lives of 20 million others — the villain was global warming.

Continue ReadingCoast Guard has “Missing Person Submission Request” for New Orleans

Helicopters

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  • Post category:Indianapolis

All last week and again this morning, there have been numerous helicopters over downtown Indianapolis. Normally there are some; the news helicopters fly over in the morning doing traffic reports, and the lifeline helicopter takes off and lands on the roof of Methodist Hospital. We’re used to hearing helicopters.
This is beyond that, though. They’re flying over not just in the morning, but all day long, and they don’t appear to be the news or hospital copters, which are mostly white with colored logos on the sides. These are darker colors with no real logos that I can see through binoculars.
I’m getting my tinfoil hat now.

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Washington Post and Newsweek print correction over Bush Lies

The Washington Post printed their correction first, then Newsweek printed theirs. Both had incorrectly stated that as of Saturday, Louisiana Gov. Blanco still hadn’t gotten around to declaring a state of emergency, and this was the reason why federal response was so slow.
In fact, Blanco issued a state of emergency on Friday, August 26th, (BEFORE THE STORM HIT) which was reported on major news sources, and even was posted on the Governor’s website [link is a PDF file].
The Post and Newsweek both cited as their source for the incorrect information as an unidentified “senior Bush official” but neither in their corrections identified the source who misled them.
Which makes me wonder about linking to or quoting any of their coverage, if they’re going to let people lie to them and not burn bad sources, or even double check source information to determine it’s bad before printing it, then the rest of their coverage is suspect, too.
That’s one key fact of the Plame scandal that no one has hammered home yet; none of the reporters taking information from anonymous sources are bothering to check on or back up that information at all — which is shameful, and terrible, terrible journalism. That’s what the entire movie of “All the President’s Men” was about — two reporters trying to corroborate information given to them by an anonymous source, schlepping from door to door trying to find anyone who could back-up what they were given by Deep Throat before they printed it.
Now The Washington Post and Newsweek print any old crap the White House tells them, without even doing a simple two-minute google search to find out if it’s true or not. That’s not journalism. That’s STENOGRAPHY.

Continue ReadingWashington Post and Newsweek print correction over Bush Lies