Obscanity: You’ll know it when you see it

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“I’m beginning to think ‘the American people’ is a meaningless phrase, cravenly used as a cudgel to project whatever provincial concerns any particular interest group may want to advance, and as such, perhaps should be struck from public utterance, along with such other false monolithic projections as ‘The Founders int…ended,’ ‘Our children deserve,’ and ‘Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee!’” ~ Jon Stewart, May 5, 2010

Myth of the ‘gay lifestyle’ justifies bias – CNN.com.

Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

Insurer targeted HIV patients to drop coverage | Reuters.

Op-Ed Columnist – Learning From the Sin of Sodom – NYTimes.com.

In all fairness, I think a lot of the liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations is precisely the result of evangelical sanctimony… but otherwise, the guy really has a point.

Meanwhile in Texas: “American Taliban” Isn’t Hyperbole Anymore | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Maybe somebody needs to build a website to identify members of this group by name, photo and workplace.

YouTube – Woman’s Last Stand: Dodge Charger Commercial Spoof.

‘Valentine’s Day’ promotion gets ‘de-gayed’ – CNN.com.

Sarah Palin Populism: Savvy Speech to Tea Party Movement – TIME.

Case Stokes Haiti’s Fear for Children, and Itself – NYTimes.com.

Srsly? Little kids are not stray animals – you can’t just pluck them off the street without regard to their status, assuming it’s all okay because they’ll be better off in good [white] Christian homes. They thought they didn’t need papers because of the earthquake? Really? I’ve heard of other people who think they can just help themselves to anything after a natural disaster… we call them “looters.”

I understand the desire to help the kids… but this approach crosses a line. A big one.

ProtectMarriage is now furious at, um, well, let’s take a look:

Despite supposedly winning our appeal in the Ninth Circuit to protect the privacy of our internal Prop 8 campaign records, the trial judge has still forced us to hand over literally tens of thousands of pages of sensitive campaign memos, emails and other documents to the plaintiffs. After sifting through our internal documents for facts they think aid their case, they had them labeled as trial exhibits and added to the court record.

Yeah, we’ve all read the testimony. The Court was pretty good about keeping out the genuinely sensitive / private stuff, and much of what was admitted was redacted substantially. But as for the general process of the opposing side forcing you to hand over personal documents (also known as discovery), sifting through those documents, labeling them as trial exhibits, and adding them to the court record? I’m pretty sure that’s a hefty component of what experts esoterically refer to as LITIGATION.

How a Bad Expert Witness Can Ruin A Case « Prop 8 Trial Tracker.

At any moment of optimism, however, I go back to the basic lay of the land on this case. Due to the level of scrutiny in the case, Olson, Boies, et al. are playing on an uneven playing field. They have to roll the boulder up the hill. While Prof. Miller seems to be struggling to push it down the hill, they are still the ones pushing the easy way.

slacktivist: I think maybe part of the reason you’re so angry is you keep demanding that you get screwed and then, not surprisingly, you keep getting screwed.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

Twelve US Senators signed a letter urging Uganda’s president to block passage of Uganda’s proposed ban on homosexuality, legislation which includes punishments of either life imprisonment or death, and encourages a witch hunt by requiring people “in authority” to turn in suspected homosexuals.

Note that not a single one of the Senators who signed onto the letter is a Republican. That’s no surprise, really. I’m fairly certain the Repubs are just trying to figure out if that bill would fly in Congress.

Our Work » Transcripts | American Foundation for Equal Rights.

REAL TRANSCRIPTS! I am so excited.

Protect Marriage – Yes on 8 » Blog » Blog Archive » Religion Put on the Stand.

This is the other side’s interpretation of Wednesday’s testimony. I’m awestruck by their willful ignorance. Note disabled comments.

Why Don’t You Proclaim Me Some Food, Moron? | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Wow. Just… wow. That is some opportunistic BS right there. “We could feed thousands of you for a lengthy chunk of time, but, um, here, have a useless techie gadget that spouts platitudes.” At the very least, couldn’t they send CHEAP bibles and use the rest of the money for food and medical aid?

What Do They Have To Hide? « Prop 8 Trial Tracker.

My favorite was when the Prop 8 attorney suggested that the “backlash” against LGBT people was the result of alleged “violence” against those who supported Prop 8. Even if there had been violence, can anybody say that Auschwitz was just the Nazis’ backlash against the Warsaw Ghetto uprising? Or that slavery and public lynch…ing were just a backlash against the Black Panthers? I’m sorry, but you can’t have a backlash until something happens to elicit a backlash. Until then, it’s just a lash. In any event, violence against LGBT people increased after Prop 8. On the opposite side, most of the alleged “violent” acts actually involve LGBT people choosing to stop spending their money at establishments that donated to Yes on 8. There were maybe one or two isolated incidents involving people who got punched after calling somebody a faggot or physically trying to take signs from somebody. You can hardly compare these isolated incidents to a history of widespread violence.

Frankly, I think the *lack* of anti-homophobe violence shows a tremendous amount of self-restraint on the part of a people who have been insulted, assaulted, beaten, violated, and murdered for decades, if not centuries.

How Many Times Do They Have to Say It Before The Media Recognizes That It’s a Coordinated Effort?? | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

The Republican Message Machine: George W. Bush Was Not President on September 11, 2001 | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

So… Bush “inherited” a “recession” from Clinton (um, I was there too, and that doesn’t sound familiar), and Bush “inherited” the September 11, 2001 attack, which occurred after nine months of the Bush administration’s failed intelligence and active ignorance (despite repeated warnings from the Clinton administration that Bin Laden was a threat), but America is now in the “Obama recession,” which began before Obama was even elected? Can somebody please explain to me how this makes sense?

Applying to Law School? Please Reconsider! | Lawyerist.

Um, yeah. Agree. 100%.

Thanksgiving: the American Sukkot ?

So you can stop calling Sukkot “the Jewish Thanksgiving” now…

“Let his days be few… Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

The prayer death squads are at it again…

Last Night’s Colbert Report | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Oh Stephen Colbert. You are Teh Awesum.