Makes you understand how much activity is going on in the world. Also makes you understand how vapid the Tea Party is.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/11/i...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metrop...

Mall says that technically they were arrested for re-entering the store after being kicked out for the 'lewd' behavior of a kiss on the cheek. In other words: being a gay couple is lewd.

And let pre-empt all the obnoxious "I hate public displays of affection anyway" posts. If you're willing to see your grandma and grandpa arrested at the mall for a kiss on the cheek, then you're a fascist, but at least a non-discriminatory one. If it's only gay cheek-kisses that bother you, then you're just a bigot. And please, no slippery slope arguments about 'what if they were topless and having sex right there in the mall' because they weren't.

Greece/Roman Mythology: Magical dudes and chicks with superpowers fight a meta-spiritual war. Cross between Heroes and the Sopranos.

Ancient Middle East: Local gods that helped local people. The Invisible President that fights wars in the 4th dimension on behalf of your nation.

Jews: Your Invisible President is universal but likes you best.

Christians: Same Universal Invisible President, but he's pissed, so he sends down an Emissary in human form to put your asses in check. He does miracles to prove that he's the real deal. Then he gets murdered by haters and flies up into the clouds like a magical dude. Things get a little weird after that. One camp believes that if you speak the magic words "I believe" you're cool for eternity. Don't say the words, you're eternally fucked. Another camp believes you have to also be good to other people to be cool for eternity and that was his point. The Universal Invisible President sent him down to show you how to live. Basically you should flip over money tables in markets and freak out on people like a good Marxist. In the US this is refined to mean: flip over people's money tables and freak out then steal their shit.

Then some fucked up lunatic on acid wrote Revelations about the Emissary returning and ruling the world and destroying it. BAD IDEA. Totally goth and weird: end of the world ushered in by four headless horsemen (okay I added the headless part in for effect), a demon called LEGION, cryptonumerology, angels, wormwood (which he was probably on.) It doesn't work. It just seems tacked on.

But then again, the beginning stuff was just as strange: talking snakes, fruit trees made of knowledge, technicolor dreamcoats, enormous seraphim with big ol' swords. Then there was poor old Ezekiel. That dude was way high. Cut out your tongue? God says burn your hair in three piles. Here's the real question: does all schizophrenia trace back to Ezekiel's effect on our culture OR was Ezekiel just the first schizophrenic? It's good to start a novel with a bang, but there's too many images coming at you too fast. And the begats. FUCK, will someone please just edit that crap and stick it on genealogy.com.

Muslims: Same Universal Invisie Pres, even more pissed, sends down Emissary #2 to explain that Emissary #1 was just an early messenger, but that Emissary 2 carried the final ultimate message. Dude totally straightens shit out: no, God didn't rest on day 7. Emissary #2 totally WHY WOULD GOD NEED TO REST, ASSHAT? HE'S GOD. HE DOESN'T GET TIRED. And cut it out with the "three god" stuff. There's only one Universal Invisible President. Ain't no vice-president. God doesn't have sons and impregnate virgins. Y'all are taking Emissary #1 way too seriously. He was just a messenger, not God. And, hey, the Jews are right about the pigs, man. Don't eat 'em. They got weird feet. Don't get drunk. Stick to health food. And ladies. KEEP THE HEADGEAR ON. You're so sexy you're killing us over here. And by the way, y'all will BURN IN HELL if any of you bitches lays a finger on my wives after I'm dead and in heaven. Especially Aisha. By the way, Aisha's real smart and you should listen to her. She's a scholar and a historian. Show the woman some respect, dammit. If you follow what I'm saying the Universal Invisible President will make your eternity awesome. Cookies, ponies, virgins. It's all yours. But check it out: if any of those infidel fuckers says a damn word about the Universal Invisible President, you take those assholes out. I don't mean the other 'POB--the christians and the jews--they're misguided, but at least they believe in the UIP. I'm talking about people who just live like there's no Invisible President in the sky. Those people aren't worth the flesh they're printed on. Fuck em.

Mormonism: Hey my name's Joe and I don't know shit about all that Muslim stuff, let's go back to the 1st Emissary. By the way, I'm the #2. Okay, new rules, heads up: You get married for eternity. Except after women die, they can also get remarried. You can initiate any of your friends, families, or even strangers by proxy into our religion by getting baptized for them. But the people have to accept it in the afterlife for the spell to work. It's like will call. You can't just walk in. You have to pick up the ticket at the ticket desk. There are three levels of heaven: penthouse, suite, non-smoking standard room. Limbo shall be called "Spirit Prison." Black people are cursed. And listen, there are some sins that the Emissary 1's salvation life insurance policy doesn't cover. For those sins, you're gonna have to spill a l'il blood--your own--to appease the UIP. Universal Prez got a temper, see. SPECIAL UNDIES !!!!

Scientology: Hi, I'm Elron Hubbard. I'm a science-fiction writer and I want to get laid. So I'm going to start a sci-fi religion. It'll get me laid. There will be gizmos and secret ceremonies. It will be totally and thoroughly cool.

Heaven's Gate: THE ULTIMATE SHARK JUMP. Your novel is going to sound dated and corny in a few decades. The castration part is a real retro twist, but the nikes and the track suits and the whole "don't miss the bus" thing, plus the internet. Total born to be a footnote in a VH-I countdown. *sigh* What ever happened to the sublime? Too many props in Mormonism and Scientology, tho. Very "modernist" feel to it. Heaven's Gate: totally pomo and already dated. A religion that became obsolete before it even took off...

The site admins say it was done by a white male wearing white clothes and white shoes with white eyes.

When I see posts regarding whether or not people will protest if the election is stolen, I'm a little confused and disturbed. Some sort of mass peaceful protest would be about as effective as the global demonstrations against the war in 2003--which was actually the largest protest in history. Here's a little information to get some of you who aren't up to speed on the state of protest in America.

1) Surveillance of anti-war groups is real and intense. In Minneapolis, 3 of the 30 in the RNC Welcoming Committee 'raid' were undercover FBI. One of nine people who carpooled to the protest from Texas was an undercover agent. It is unknown how many other agent were dispersed to join makeshift "groups" and "circles." The infiltrators mentioned above were involved in the groups for over a year. Some wonder if the very idea of "undercover agents" has been deployed simply to foster distrust.

2) Those arrested on terrorism charges in St. Paul were arrested for their open online-stated agenda to block traffic during the RNC through what is tantamount to a "sit in". Eight organizers are now facing 7 1/2 years in prison on terrorism charges. Here are the faces of three of those you should fear:




Others including those who videotape police were raided and dragged naked out of bed in the middle of the night. According to authorities, "undercover agents" have said that these organizers held 'camps' where an individual suggested hiding molotov cocktails in protest puppets. (As far as anyone knows this is hearsay. Beyond that, is every organizer on the hook for every passing comment made by someone in attendance?) No molotov cocktails were found in the raid, but they did find the INGREDIENTS of a molotov cocktail in the raided home: flammable liquid, bottles, tampons, and rags. I challenge you to decided whether your own home contains such ingredients.

3) Mass arrests of non-violent crowds are already happening. To witness, check out this link.

Mass Arrest of Hundreds of People Hanging out in a Park (towards the end of clip)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1a3_1221941...

4) The tactics we've heard about in Gitmo are now in use against protesters. This protester did nothing. A cop ran INTO HIM and apologized, but he was carted off by other police anyway. After he was punched in the head, tortured, headbagged, gagged, and taunted as "gay" and "princess", he was taken to a hospital where he was refused access to a social worker.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1a2_1222363...

In all the footage I have seen of St. Paul, I have seen exactly one window of a Macy's broken. Whether or not it was done by an angry protester or a provocateur is irrelevant. (Some property was destroyed during that Tea Party thing-- not to mention the Stonewall Riots...) All the corporate windows in St. Paul aren't worth police dragging American citizens out of their beds in the middle of the night for pre-crimes and the torturing of American citizens. In one video I saw, I guy getting out of jail--he was just on his way to work and wasn't part of the protests--said that the walls were smeared with dried blood.

Even if the election isn't stolen, how we're going to restore democracy is still a mystery. For any of you Agent Mikes out there, don't pervert this into some kind of "cry for violence." It's just a cry for sanity, thank you very much.

THEY'RE TRYING TO RID THE WORLD OF US...

Robert Walsh BEFORE


Robert Walsh AFTER


One of those fun, frivolous gay pride marches in Eastern Europe




England, I believe


Average everyday violence


Lashings in Iran


A young gay man in NYC will never walk again, but he can stand.


I'm not sure what's going on here because I can't read the original page, but it happened in Bali.


Performer Kevin Aviance beaten in Manhattan


They survived.


Gay politician Volker in Germany attacked at pride parade: Before


After


Gay Pride in Budapest


Another one


This man's partner was severely beaten by a man hired to work in their home.


Florida mom attacked by anti-gay zealot because her son's friend was gay


Young lesbian beaten exactly four months ago today...


Orthodox Jews riot in the streets against gays



This man was beaten and detained by Homeland Security for trying to flee his native Namibia because he was going to be executed for being gay.


Punched in the face for being gay



AND SOMETIMES THEY SUCCEED...

Gwen Araujo. Murdered by three boys



Sakia Gunn. Stabbed to death for being a lesbian.



Rashawn Brazell. Decapitated and dissected. Body parts dumped in garbage cans along the A Line Subway in NYC in 2005. His head has not been found.



Winans and Lollie murder. Killed on camping vacation.



Others murdered for being gay:














three murdered when an anti-gay activist set off a nail bomb in a gay bar


African lesbian rights activist murdered in Sierra Leone:


Being LGBT in Iraq gets harder after Saddam is replaced by Muslim fundamentalists:

transgendered woman in Iraq, tortured and burned alive


Iraqi boys murdered for being gay by the Muslim fundamentalists flooding Iraq


Scene of gay bar hatchet killings in Arkansas


This man's murderer went to a motel with him, killed him, stuffed him in a suitcase, and threw his body in the lake. He laughed and partied afterwards with relatives. His murderer was not charged with a crime. It is lawful to murder gay men to protect yourself from sodomy in Kentucky.


Ronny Parris was killed by his father for being potentially gay. His father attended an evangelical church with a strong ex-gay message. I suppose his father decided to take the whole ex-gay thing into his own hands. Ronny was three years old.


This woman's cousin was stabbed to death


The murdered body of Jamaican gay rights activist Brian Williamson


And for your enjoyment and disgust, some anti-gay literary giants:

From the town next to mine. Remember! Contact your church or some freemarket site!
My girlfriend cleans carpets in peoples homes in this town by herself. She is visibly gay. Yeah, I worry.


This person might be a good, moral, decent person, but they sure don't know how to spell.


If someone sits down to 'discuss their differences' with this soldier, does it violate don't ask don't tell?



PLEASE ASK YOUR POLITICIANS TO PROTECT LGBT PEOPLE FROM DECAPITATION, RAPE, STABBING, BURNING TO DEATH and... even PUNCHING! Or if you can't do that, maybe repeal laws that say anti-gay fanatics can murder us with impunity.

And if that's asking too much...

Can you just understand why we get scared sometimes?

Despite what you Demonrats say, this truly was the Path to 9-11. We even took painstaking effort to reconstruct the clothing and hair. Very little is fictionalized in this portrayal. We don't really see how you can argue otherwise.

Here-- see for yourself:

http://allyourbase.planettribes.gamespy.co...

*Note: you Demonrats aren't so bright, so let me give you a clue... Clinton is the BLONDE. (sheesh)

Senator downloads Internet

Complains it is a bit slow


By Nick Farrell: Monday 03 July 2006, 08:05

A US senator who is one the ringleaders against 'net neutrality' provisions in recent US telecom laws has claimed that he had to do so because the Internet was too slow when he downloaded it. Senator Ted Stevens who is a Republican from Alaska in a committee transcipt printed by Wired, here, complained that the Internet was sent to him by his staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, but it took days for him to get it. He said that it was because "it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially".

"We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discriminate against those people," he said cryptically.

Stevens said that the regulatory approach was wrong because it claimed that "no one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". He said it was important that people understood his position and we agree. He claimed that those who favoured net neutrality wanted to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. But, he said "the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck" no sir, "It's a series of tubes", he said sagely.

<snip>

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?ar...

Carol Fisher, the 53 year old woman who was arrested for putting up an anti-bush poster is still in jail after two months. A Recap: Fisher was told to take the poster down and when she turned around the cops became aggressive and arrested her. When she said that she had a right to fight against the "Bush Crimes" the cops threatened her life. They are saying that she attacked the cops and that she is insane.

Nice country we live in these days.

*****************************

Carol Fisher Update 6/29
Tomorrow will be A MONTH that Carol Fisher has been in jail, serving her "time" for putting up Bush STep Down posters on telephone poles in Cleveland Heights, OH.

We're STILL WAITING to hear about an appeal bond. By the time this happens, she might have already served her whole 2 month sentence! Anyway, first the hold up was the fascist judge, MdGinty, messing around with the paperwork, and now the prosecution is taking it's sweet time. In the meantime, some important updates:

1. There has been some confusion about Carol's address in jail. The correct info is:

Carol Fisher
Prisoner # SO0257713
P.O. Box 5600
Cleveland, OH 44101

All letters must be STANDARD SIZED, and have a return address. She would like personal letters from people, but also downloads of articles about what's going on in the news. In particular, she'd like downloads from www.revcom.us and www.worldcantwait.org . Books can also be sent to her, but they must be ordered from Amazon or some other official book company (which you can do online). I suggest any of the books recommended from WCW's list at the beheard website.

2. Carol is doing really well. In fact, last week, the jail tried to get all the women to take syphallis tests...and Carol said NO WAY! Other women also refused the tests, and they were put on lockdown for 2 days.

3. Donate to Carol's legal defense. It costs a lot of money to get transcripts, file appeals, etc. Make checks payable to “Carol Fisher Defense Fund” and mail to “NION/WCW PO Box 609034 Cleveland, OH 44109.

Sorry about the headline. This may turn out to be nothing and lock it if it does, but I just have to know!

I don't know much about computers, but I've become really intrigued by WIRED's article on wiretapping and the tracert command, etc. So I figured I'd trace some terror sites and see where they led. Just curious where I'd be routed through and where I'd end up. One of the sites listed on www.siteinstitute.org (The Search for International Terrorist Entities) listed "The Islamic Army of Iraq" as a terror group. Here's the info:

The Islamic Army of Iraq, as one of its principal objectives, targets foreigners working in Iraq and moreover, anyone working with the US-led coalition. The Islamic Army in Iraq has carried out numerous kidnappings followed by beheadings. Foreigners working in Iraq, including, but not limited to Europeans, Americans, and other Middle Easterners, are the primary target of the group.

Strength
Unknown.

Location/Area of Operation
Iraq

External Aid
Unknown.

When I put a tracert on it, the final destination was 68.142.234.135, a premium yahoo site located in Sunnyvale, California. The website is www.iaisite.net . All the other traces took me to overseas servers except this one. I just thought it was strange.

Any answers? Like I said, It's probably nothing.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/safetealu/factshee...

This is a breakdown from another site.

* “Interstate System Reconstruction & Rehabilitation Pilot Program” allows the tolling of existing interstate highways, bridges, and tunnels to fund repair of existing highways.

* “Interstate System Construction Toll Pilot Program” authorizes tolling existing facilities on the interstate system to fund new interstate highways.

* “Value Pricing Pilot (VPP) Program” allows new tolls on existing toll free facilities such as high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, tolls on new lanes added to existing highways, and electronically collected variable tolls on existing and new toll facilities.

* “Express Lanes Demonstration Program” allows tolling to finance new lanes. Automatic toll collection is REQUIRED and revenue collected may be used to provide a reasonable rate of return on PRIVATE financing, operation, and maintenance costs.


Seems like a way to monitor americans' national movements through EZPASS. (And didn't the transportation secretary step down last week?)

Baseball Bats. This is a good idea. We need an image that shows we need business. A peaceful protest with 100,000 dressed in black carrying "symbolic" baseball bats (after all, baseball is as american as apple pie) to "symbolically" smash the electronic voting machines.

Or smash whatever. Of course we won't HARM ANYTHING. Just a peace protest. With bats. Peaceful, but menacing.

A bunch of sarcastic hippies protesting with puppets is nice, but sarcasm is very 1999 in my humble opinion. It's 2006. I'm not disgruntled. I'm at my wits end. Sarcasm isn't enough.

We need a new look. A militant look. An all-American baseball bat look.

Moderate is WAY right of center. So do we just accept that we live in a right-wing country and work for the least radical right wing government we can get?

Let's be clear about how things are at the moment.

NEO-CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN:

* No Civil Liberties
* Massive Unending War
* Theocracy
* Unchecked Capitalism with No Concern For Labor Or Human Rights
* No Recourse to Abortion Except in Cases of Certain Death
* Anti-Gay Sentiments Must Be Fomented
* Total Control of Media

DLC DEMOCRAT:

* Will Pass the PATRIOT Act, But With Less Joy.
* A Little Bit Less Massive Unending War
* Make America a Faith-Based Nation, But In A Good Way
* A Few Checks on Labor Wrongs, But No Challenges to Most Abuses
* Okay with Creating Terrible Burdens On Certain Pregnant Women (Teens, Country Dwellers, Women Carrying Dying and Severly Deformed Fetuses)
* For the Unequal But "Humane" Treatment of Gays (At Best)
* Begging the Media to Be Nice

Sometimes I feel like my choices are between Pure Evil and Weak and Insincere. I promise you, Weak and Insincere will not prevail in the face of Pure Evil.

We need a resistance party. The damn moderates can hold their nose for once and pull the lever.

(All of this pretends that we actually have fair elections still, by the way.)

As someone who was a stripper, a dominatrix, and a small time porn director, I can tell you that my biggest pet peeves is broad generalizations when it comes to who these women are. There are CERTAINLY problems in the industry. But many of those problems could be remedied if all the anti-porn feminists stopped treating adult workers like they are less human and less intelligent than other women. Anti-porn feminist demonization of sex workers contributes to their marginalization, which in turn contributes to their shitty working conditions.

I really wish that all the people who "take issue" with the sex industry actually started talking to its so-called victims instead of speaking for them. There are three issues when it comes to porn:

(1) the representation of female sexuality (in the case of straight porn)
(2) the problem of unrealistic body portrayals.
(3) the working conditions of the model.

* The second issue is identical to advertising, film, and other heavily photoshopped industries. Here's a place where I actually think porn can help, if a variety of body types are shown. In advertising, you can take less risks because you have a billion dollar product to sell. In porn, if you want to show hirsute models with a little cellulite, you can. The marketing schema for the industry (hirsute, blonde, asian, thick, chubby, mature) is the biggest sticking point for this. But marketing in general also uses a similar schema for its models (blonde, asian, black) that is just as objectifying and compartmentalizing.

* The first issue is interesting because not only does porn take cues from what people want in "real life", in "real life" people take cues from their porn. People fetishize porn and it becomes a part of their sex lives. I don't see anything inherently wrong with that in any way. The only problem is with such a wide variety of sexual fantasies presented on the internet with no context, a violently anti-woman man or group of men could use pornography as a justification of their behavior.

For example, most people are pretty okay with any kind of behavior between two consenting adults: we know that a wife may whip her husband or a man may spank his girlfriend. But when the latter is played out on the internet (a male actor spanking a female actress) it takes on the weight of sexist propaganda in the minds of anti-porn feminists. Even if the majority of people who watch it are healthy, normal people into this particular kink (male and female), we fear that it could fall into the hands of violent men. My feeling is that violent men who hate women are going to be violent with or without porn.

* The third issue "the poor, drug addicted street girl" is ALWAYS just bandied about for rhetorical effect. Most anti-porn feminists have never talked to a stripper or a prostitute. (To be fair, most "pro-porn" feminists haven't either and all too often they glamorize our lives.) Labor issues around sex work are extremely complicated. There are enormous gaps in working conditions between strippers, prostitutes, porn stars, and dominatrixes. It's like comparing the working conditions of the waitstaff at a local diner, the head chef at a fine restaurant, and a taste-tester who works for a foodie magazine.

Lastly, sex work has historically been a field that is overrepresented by blue collar feminine lesbians who couldn't get work elsewhere because of discrimination. Just a little something extra to chew on.