April 09, 2005

Another gay GOP operative.

How do these people sleep?

Comments:
Posted by Henry at 09:09 AM || Link to me || Category:: Gay Stuff, Just Left On

April 08, 2005

The Coming Theocracy

If you are not aware that extremely influential people are actively working to establish a theocratic rule within the United States - you are not paying attention.

Yesterday and today, conservative power players met to outlay a plan which would restrict the judiciary from ruling on any issues of faith and make plans for moving our judicial system towards one based on biblical law. The people involved: Perkins, Scarborogh, Falwell all strongly believe that are single-handedly responsible for handing control of our country to the Republicans, and are expecting to be paid back

“Activist judges have brought us to a constitutional crisis. Liberals in black robes are usurping the authority of the other branches of government, undermining democracy, assaulting our faith, our families and our freedom and imposing dangerous and deluded social experiments – with potentially disastrous consequences -- on the nation.”

Seem like a lot of fury with little effect? Three Congress people were scheduled to speak, including speaker of the house Delay. Another speaker (Chabot) is chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

Democrats should start massive polling to find out if America truly wants to resort to biblical law. I honestly think they don’t – but if it turns out they do, I need time to pack.

Comments:
Posted by Henry at 11:42 AM || Link to me || Category:: The Way Right, Just Left on

Down the Rabbit Hole

Whew. Remind me never to do that again.

Like most of you, I’m sure, I’ve been assaulted recently with spam, and each time I am I try and find the best way of preventing it. I use the no follow tags, I’ve used comment moderation and Mt Blacklist.

The recent trend, though, is track back spam. And in the last week of so, I’ve been getting several hundred of these a day. I put in track back moderation, but I still needed to approve/delete them and delete the notification emails I get. (I wonder if Mt Blacklist checks ping contents. It doesn’t seem to, but I never really looked closely).

What I had recently been looking for a way to close old comment / trackbacks. I tried installing the MT conversation killer plugin, but it kept generating errors. At first I thought this maybe because I had – in the past – renamed the comments commands, to try and prevent spam. So, I changed it back. Then I thought maybe my version of MT was too old. So I upgraded. Still got errors. So, then I thought maybe that since I have upgraded the last few times, instead of doing a new install, I should bit the bullet and do it.

So I backup-ed my blogs and templates, and wiped the old MT install and put in the newest. That’s when things went bad. First of all, after everything was set-up, MT seemed not to want to re-import my blog entries. I scoured the web and help – looking for carriage returns, and other things I read that may cause problems. On the end, it was something simple – but it took forever to track down. (And, some of the entrie characters got altered a “ became "e (I’m sure there’s a way to fix it, but I’m too tired).

Conversation killer still didn’t work. I’m still not sure why.

So I tried Close comments, but that didn’t work. I finally stumbled on close Mt-Close2. Not very elegant (says the person who spent no time creating it), but effective. It just lets you pick a 'close comments on posts older than), a blog or blogs, and goes to town. You have to rebuild all the files to reflect any visual changes (IE a note which says the comments are closed), but it prevents the commets regardless, which is what I mostly cared about.

So, now I’m re-installing my bogs and templates and the plugins I had installed.

Should be done in time for the next election cycle.

Comments:
Posted by Henry at 08:09 AM || Link to me || Category:: Just Misc

April 07, 2005

Answers and Questions

So we know who passed around the 'infamous' memo about Terri Shiavo and the political ramifications. Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fl) claims a staffer made it up, without his knowledge, and he unwittingly passed it along.

Once again, though, note the senator bears no responsibility - it was a staffer. That begs the question, though, how often are senators handed memos, carry them around, then pass them to other people without 1) reading it and/or 2) asking who developed it.

He [Martinez] said he pulled a one-page document from his coat pocket and handed to Harkin. "Unbeknownst to me ... I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo."

So it was a mistake. But, one still has to wonder why he was carrying around the document in the first place.

"Until this afternoon, I had never seen it and had no idea a copy of it had ever been in my possession," Martinez said of the document.

So, a staffer on his own initiative created the memo? Okay, lets say we buy that, as it is not completely out of the realm of believability. However, the senator just took the memo, without reading it, without asking what it was, and carried it around in his coat pocket?

Now, certainly, if it was part of some larger pile of papers - maybe the staffer slips it in without Martinez knowing - but in the man's coat pocket!

Comments:
Posted by Henry at 07:22 AM || Link to me || Category:: Republicans, JustLeft on

April 05, 2005

Calling All Democrats

This should be high on your agenda. Rep. Bernie Sanders (I) from Vermont has introduced a 'Anti Loan Shaorking' law, which aims to restrict the crazy lattitude the banks and creditcard companies are currently enjoying.

For the fifth consecutive year, the credit card industry posted record breaking profits totaling more than $30 billion, an increase of 144% over the last decade. How did they do it? Credit card companies collected $21.5 billion in fees last year compared to only $7.3 billion in 1994. Revenue from late fees has jumped from $1.7 billion in 1996 to an amazing $11.7 billion today. Over the past eight years, late fees have risen from $10 to as high as $39. Experts are predicting that late fees could balloon to as high as $50 this year.

The bill aims to do several reasonable things:

  1. Cap interest rates at 8% above what the IRS charges income tax deadbeats. (Currently 14%)
  2. Cap bank and credit card fees at $15
  3. Ban the credit card interest rate bait and switch. IE, when they raise your interest rates crazily, because you missed your cable bill due date by three days.

This bill will provide a sharp contrast to the 'screw you' bankruptcy bill and help remind people that Dems are looking out for them.

Comments:
Posted by Henry at 12:29 PM || Link to me || Category:: Politics, Just Left on

Ten years per Nipple!

Okay, is there any point in time when the people will stop, look, and realize that the GOP is mad with power and needs to be stopped? Preferably before sweeps week?

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R)('natch) is suggesting that broadcast decency violations be handled by criminal means, rather than 'regulatory' means. IE, show a nipple, go to jail, do not cross go...blah blah blah.

From the horses...mouth:

"People who are in flagrant disregard should face a criminal process rather than a regulator process," Sensenbrenner said. "That is the way to go. Aim the cannon specifically at the people committing the offenses, rather than the blunderbuss approach that gets the good actors.

I assume he'll be supplying a list to help us separate the 'good' actors (Big Bird) from the bad actors (Sponge Bob).

Comments:
Posted by Henry at 12:17 PM || Link to me || Category:: Republicans, JustLeft on

Good news for CA DP laws

An appeals court has upheld the lower court finding that the new DP law which recently went into effect does not violate the voter approved statutory DOMA in CA.

The three-judge panel held that the plain language of the 14-word initiative showed the measure was "intended only to limit the status of marriage to heterosexual couples and to prevent the recognition in California of homosexual marriages."

Of course, the rabid religious right is in a frenzy, and will appeal. And, if the appeal fails, made it clear they will specifically target DPs in CA.

Randy Thomasson, executive of the Campaign for California Families, said the decision would be appealed. In addition, he said opponents to same-sex marriage would move for another initiative that would end domestic partnerships.

Once again, this shows that these DOMA are not about protecting marriage, but rather preventing any sort of legal recognition and protection of gay families.

Comments:
Posted by Henry at 08:22 AM || Link to me || Category:: Gay Stuff, Just Left On

How afraid are we of gay students?

In , Cleveland Georgia apparently enough to do away with all non-academic clubs so that there is no gay-straight alliance.

This proposal follows months of heated debate including a contentious school board meeting in February in which preachers railed against homosexuality, as well as a protest at the school by congregants of Rev. Fred Phelps' church in Topeka, Kan., which is known for protesting the funeral of slain gay college student Matthew Shepherd.

Thankfully, hope abounds in some of the students.

"I'm anxious to get the club started and do what we can in the little time we have," said Kerry Pacer, 16, a lesbian student who has been working to form the gay-straight alliance since January.

Do yourself a favor and click the story link - you'll get treated to a photo of Kerry who can only be said to be 'cute as a button'.
Comments:
Posted by Henry at 01:55 AM || Link to me || Category:: Gay Stuff, Just Left On
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