First contradictory quotes!

"The court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion ... finds no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution," the brief said.

and...

"Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. ... There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent."

from the San Diego Union-Tribune

It has begun...

Bush is nominating John Roberts, former corporate lawyer and anti-Roe v Wade advocate, for the Supreme Court. Suck.

And here's something from a Myspace blog (unlike blogspot, Myspace does not seem to support linking directly to its users' accounts.) This came from one of the members of Die Wurzau:

"In 1996, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins wrote a fictionalized account of the final days of mankind after the rapture. 10 or so books later, the Left Behind series has sold tens of millions of copies and spent years total on the NY Times best seller list. The books are phenomenally paranoid, positioning Israel as finally accepting the messiahship of Christ and showcasing an antichrist who is a former Secretary General of the UN. The book reads like a nuthouse dissertation on what Christianity, led by charming and persuasive but morally abject men, might hope to get out of the future. Satan’s headquarters? Bagdad, Iraq, of course.

Written by a nut, right? Actually, if the name Tim LaHaye sounds familiar it is because he was a member of the first board of directors of the Moral Majority, and a founder of the Council for National Policy. ABCNews.com called the CNP "the most powerful conservative organization in America you've never heard of" and listed their membership as including Oliver North, John Ashcroft and Tommy Thompson among others. Written by an insider is more like it. This is a story about American Christians fighting back against a conspiracy of Demon-worshipping, gun monitoring abortionist, gay rights advocating globalists.

I could go on all day about this series but that’s not exactly what this is about. It’s about heaven here, on earth, in the place where it would do the most good, now, today. By the day, this goal- the goal of building our heaven right here where we stand, is being lost and confused in the frantic rush to get to wherever the hell it is people like Tim LaHaye think they are going next. At the risk of offending people who, Like LaHaye, are busy packing to get a move on elsewhere I want to point some things out.

When the Pope stands up and issues a papal decree opposing a piece of fiction in which a young witch boy fights evil compassionately and wisely with the help of his friends, while teaching 10 year olds how to read 700 page books in their spare time and completely ignores the fact that children worldwide are having their genitals blown off on a daily basis by landmines that the developed nations sunk but have no interest in removing, he is BIDING HIS TIME on this planet. He doesn’t live here. He doesn’t care. This planet has become a waystation for him- a place to rest and wait until he moves on to his final destination. He deserves to be ignored. He is a fucking TOURIST.

When high ranking Church officials issue decrees that evolution, the most predictive and successful dynamic in the history of biology, one that saves millions of lives a year in discovery and treatment possibilities, is wrong and ignores the fact that every frog on this planet will be dead in 25 years along with every banana, many species of monkey and more integral small animal species than you can name in a week, they are BIDING THEIR TIME on this planet. They are guests. They have no interest in picking up their dirty laundry off the ground- They’re not staying.

And when Church leaders dole out decrees sending this person or that to hell for falling in love with someone of the same sex while 100 million pounds of Cancer causing chemicals are poured into the water around them yearly completely without peaking their interest, they have made it clear that they are BIDING THEIR TIME on this planet. They are standing at the train station mouthing off to the locals on the way out of town. They don’t live here.

Here’s the fucked thing. We do. When a woman is raped every 8 seconds and a child dies from hunger every 5 seconds on this planet I find that I run out of patience with tourists and guests. I want to work with the people who live here- on this planet- to make it better. I want to work with people who know that their fates have everything to do with trying to help the 700,000 high school students that are going to try to commit suicide this year, and every one of the 3 million American kids living on the street practicing survival sex for their next meal. These people are my family and my neighbors. They live here and so do the rest of us.

I don’t have a problem with people who believe that the rapture is going to bring them to heaven tomorrow. I don’t take issue with people who believe that they are leaving this planet soon for a better place. I wish them all luck. I hope they like their new digs. At the same time, I want to mention to them what I do when I’m a tourist in someone else’s country. I try to shut about and not look like an ass. I try to leave every place better than I found it.

If these people- popes, administration officials, church leaders, masters of industry, etc- if these people have no interest in staying here and making this planet work with the rest of us, their opinion of how we are handling it?

It’s worth zero. "

Ted Rall is the best political cartoonist working today, if anyone had any question about it. The Bill Hicks of the genre.

Busy weekend

Actually doing shit this weekend, which is a nice change from my usual routine of drinking lots of coffee and bitching about life. Last night I went to see I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness and Mission of Burma at Emo's. I was hanging out with my friend Christina, and we started at the Side Bar (where they were showing Grosse Point Blank, which was awesome.) Then we actually went to the show, which was a lot of fun despite the $15 cover. I love you but was really cool (though a bit shoegazer) and Mission was unreal. Despite the overall simplicity of their arrangements and instrumentation, they managed to create a very evocative series of songs.

Tonight was bowling and dinner with my friend Chrissy. We went to Dart Bowl, where I won two out of three games. We ended up with a lane next to a large group (I think a family) of the most enthusiastic bowlers I have ever seen. Needless to say, the Big Lebowski references flowed like water, though we stopped short of ordering white Russians. Then we went to buffet palace, but not the good one, the bad one on Anderson.

The return of Adsense.

If all four of you readers have a minute, I brought back the Google ads to add to my legal defense fund. If you doubt that I need this, email me for details.

Why I love cartoon network? Well, maybe that's because they carry shit that I would never see otherwise, including shows about feudal Japan in which revolutionary monks grow pot to power their revolution, only to have a prisoner they just captured light the fields on fire, causing a region-wide party. Only to be capped off by the episode's narrator reflecting on that "summer of love, where we all danced in that electric purple haze." Samurai Champloo kicks fucking ASS!

So apparently the City of Austin doesn't feel that there is a need to maintain street signs in wealthy neighborhoods. Seems like maybe there's a viewpoint that if you have any business being there, you should know what streets are where, and if you don't have any business being there, then fuck you. Also, no streetlights? What the fuck? It was a long and slightly scary ride home tonight from the Spiderhouse.

Gavagirl once told me about a friend of hers who did modelling for smoking fetishists. Her friend would sit in a chair and smoke cigarette after cigarette, fully clothed (perhaps provocatively) while a photographer took pictures of her. After today, I know what her friend felt like doing that. We just got done shooting a camera test for a friend of mine; my role was "man." I was smoking for the shoot, and what most people don't know about filmmaking is that if you smoke in one scene, you end up smoking something like a pack of cigarettes to allow for every angle, close up, and so on. My throat burns, and I'm a bit woozy after all that. But we're done, and except for a sound equipment malfunction, it went well. Now we eat.

Just watched a squirrel flirt with death by cat in an effort to steal food from the cat's bowl. The final resolution was the squirrel hanging out 2 feet from the cat while eating. Just more evidence that bravery equals stupidity.

So the other night, Gavagirl, Miz Oubliette, Miz Muskrat, Miz Becca and my friend Gilliss went out for drinks and dancing. What with the pre-fourth festivities, the usual spots were packed, and we ended up at a local gay bar. I have to say, nothing beats making the scene with four lovely ladies to avoid unwanted affection. In any case, as we were winding down, I noted that there was a lipstick on the table we had acquired, and as is usually the case with odd finds, I slipped it into my pocket. What can I say, I'm weird that way. So next day, I ran a load of wash...all I can tell you is that my non-existent girlfriend would be worried about way more than lipstick on my collar. Like lipstick all over my shirts, my pants, my underwear, my socks...I just hope that shit comes out in the next washing.

Saw this...*. reality hurts .* It reminded me why designers often bug the shit out of everyone else. When it gets in the way, design is bad. Plus, I don't need a soundtrack when reading your blog, thanks.

Fuuucked UP!

No, not like that. It's a Thursday, after all. Just had a friend tell me about a paternity case. It goes like this. About thirteen years ago, he slept with some girl. She had a kid (about 2-3 months after the fact) and listed him as the father. So far, nothing really bad, except for, you know, a total lack of understanding about the reproductive process, or a total lack of honesty. Problem starts a few years later when she files for Medicaid, and a process of extracting money from the father begins. The way this is supposed to work is that you are subpoenaed, and then you appear in court to defend yourself. However, the subpoena is delivered by a constable, and does not require your signature. So there are cases (like my friend's) where the papers were never received. So in not getting the papers, he didn't show up at court. By not showing up in court, he basically pled no contest to a civil charge. So they started garnishing his wages. Note that they garnished wages from a place of work they knew about, but the constable never showed up at his place of work to serve him. All those movies where people are fooled into getting served? Bullshit. So. A few years after all this happened, he lost his job, and was told that he was basically in contempt of court because he had no income to garnish. He goes to the asscrack of nowhere to have his day in court, and at his hearing he is barely heard. When he is heard, he is told that: a) He owes 35k in back support, b) if he can't afford a lawyer, he is not able to fight it, and c) it no longer matters if he is the biological father, because he is the father of record now. Moreover, the DA wants to put him in jail and start him on a work release program, despite the fact that he is currently employed. And all of this is true basically because a constable committed perjury.
Like I said, fuuuucked UP!