Using the Constitution of the State of Texas As an Instrument of Homophobic Hatred
What the fuck is going on?

The Texas Constitution may soon define marriage as between "one man and one woman," if the Senate passes a resolution that was cleared in the House Monday.

House Joint Resolution 6, authored by multiple state representatives, would have the Texas Constitution state that "marriage in this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman." The amendment, said co-author Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, is to assure that no other relationship is held on the same level as marriage.

I find this kind of abuse of my state's Constitution absolutely inexcusable. Who the fuck are these people doing this? How dare they even attempt to codify their own ignorance and hatred in this way.

Last week, one of these hateful idiots ---Rep. Robert Talton--- attached an amendment to a bill reforming my state's Child Protective Services program that forbids homosexuals from acting as foster parents.

"We do not believe that homosexuals or bisexuals should be raising our children," Rep. Talton said.

Rep. Talton said his rationale for the amendment is based on his belief that homosexuality could be passed on from parent to child.

"Some of us believe they would be better off in orphanages than in a homosexual or bisexual households because that's a learned behavior," Talton said.

Talton, you are an ignorant goddamned dumbass. There's simply no way that can be contradicted. If your view of the world hadn't been scraped off the bottom of some bigoted preacher's shoe and forced down your throat as a child, you might have grown up to consider that homosexuality is neither a disease nor a moral failing.

Don't forget, kids: homophobes are the biggest faggots of all. And, when I say faggots, I mean hateful, confused, and conflicted sadists who would let their own personal issues jeopardize the care that thousands of orphans across this state deserve.

Homesteading
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: "Our House" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
I'm in the process of buying my first house ---and it's scaring the shit out of me. Who knows what half of that stuff is that you put your name and commitment to? Jesus!

But I really like this house and I'm pretty sure I'm going to love it once the deal is done.

Only in America can I guy in my situation buy a nice house. And after all is said about these days we're living, I'm going to look back and be glad that such an opportunity arose.

Others can be dark and cynical about our times, but not me: I'm going to own my own home and the land it sits upon. I'm going to play my music loud and whenever I want to. I'm going to park my car in my own garage and never think twice about it getting broken into or parked too closely to or not even having a space to park it in. I'm going to have an office and a library. I'm going to have a huge backyard where I can grill hamburgers for my family and watch the smoke waft through all of those beautiful trees. Hell, I might even start a little garden.

And it'll be a victory garden, too.

Tado and Toby
Mood:  celebratory
Today would have been my PawPaw's 96th birthday.

Theodore Gustav Petzold was born in Leroy, Texas on 24 April 1909, the seventh son born to Heinrich Otto and Amilie Augusta (Rackow) Petzold. Everyone knew him as Tado (pronounced TAY-doh).

My PawPaw was a very gentle man who loved nature and loved his family. I don't think he made it past the third grade and probably couldn't do much more than write his own name. But he was the salt of the earth. Tado could grow anything in his garden and in the fields where he and his family were sharecroppers. I especially remember his okra, which he loved to fry up in one of those big iron skillets.

PawPaw could tell you the time of day by where the Sun stood in the sky ---and usually down to the minute. He was a good shot, too. My most vivid memory of my PawPaw is of him pointing out a squirrel in a pecan tree in his front yard. We were sitting on the ledge of the front porch when he asked, "You see that squirrel, Tobe-ope?" I guess I did because the next thing I knew, he was raising up his old Remington .22 and dropping that squirrel with one shot. He then proceeded to skin it and got Grandma to cook it up for us.

Tado Petzold would be a pretty hip dresser even today. It was usually denim and workboots or khakis and long-sleeve cotton shirts. He always had a good head of hair and plenty of stubble. In fact, there was a plant of some kind out on the side of the house that I would call PawPaw's "whisker tree" because it reminded me of his beard.

PawPaw died when I was only four, but I have in mind many images and impressions. He was well-loved throughout the Valley Mills community ---and his funeral was attended by hundreds.

And, so, today, I wanted to tell you a little bit about the man to whom I owe my good name.

I Was Wrong
Mood:  suave
Now Playing: "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats
I just found another version of that photo and it looks to me like it's legitimate. But with the crap added to the bottom, it looked phoney.

So, I apologize to any and all for my weird, sleep-deprived insistence that the photo posted below was fake.

If I had gone to bed a couple of hours ago like I meant to, I would not have committed this blunder.

Please razz me all you want. Because it's now clear that John Bolton personally stole the 2000 Election for George W. Bush.

Some Guy Called Puppethead
You'll like this comment in the thread with the fake photo at The Daily Kos :

Everyone declares those of us who think the 2000 and 2004 elections were both stolen as crazy conspiracy nuts. But here we see photographic evidence of a coordinated attempt to direct the outcome of the election by non-democratic means.

No, what you're seeing is an unskilled attempt at PhotoShopping John Bolton's image into a photo with one of those idiot judges who had his 15 minutes of fame during the 2000 Election.

I mean, am I the one being had here? Or are other people really this gullible?

I prefer to believe the latter.

UPDATE: Yeah, I understand that Bolton was in Florida during the post-Election period. But is this a legitimate photo? No way.

I Will Eat My Hat If This Picture Is Real
Mood:  mischievious
Over at the anti-American blog The Daily Kos is a post by some moron in which the picture you see is cited as proof that John Bolton was one of the Republican lawyers who went to Florida to "steal" the 2000 Election for George W. Bush.

I am very tired right now and possibly punchy, but is this a joke? Is this picture not the most amateur PhotoShop job you've seen all day?



UPDATE: This photo was originally taken from this story in The Daily Oakland Press, which may or may not be printed in Cyrillic characters. I mean, is this what passes for journalistic integrity these days?

UPDATE: I was absolutely wrong about this photo. It is, in fact, legitimate. I apologize to anyone reading these words for asserting otherwise and for doing so in a somewhat chickenshit manner.

Canadian Corruption
Now Playing: "Spy in the Cab" by Bauhaus
Professor Reynolds says you should read this ---and so you should.

[Canadian Prime Minister] Paul Martin hardly needs another scandal, but the news that Maurice Strong has stepped down from his UN post as special envoy to Korea in the wake of allegations related to the Iraqi oil-for-food debacle is potentially damaging on several fronts.

This week, Mr. Strong, a long-time mentor and associate of Mr. Martin, admitted ongoing links to Tongsun Park, a Korean lobbyist charged in connection with oil-for-food. Mr. Park previously enjoyed 15 minutes of infamy in the 1970s as the conduit for bribes to U.S. Congressional officials, an affair dubbed "Koreagate." This time, according to Paul Volcker's independent inquiry, Mr. Park transferred funds from Iraq to high-ranking UN officials.

Mr. Park has apparently admitted that he invested US$1-million in a Canadian company associated with the son of a UN official. Mr. Strong himself immediately came forward and declared that he was the official, and that the company was Cordex Petroleums. Intriguingly, other investors in the company included CSL Group Inc., the holding company controlled by Paul Martin (which was at that time being managed in trust). Cordex's directors included Bill Hopper, the ousted former head of Petro-Canada, the state oil company of which Mr. Strong was the founding chairman and CEO.

What I don't get are the remarks Martin made last November in Santiago, Chile about expanding the current G8 to the G20 ---thereby effectively supplanting the United Nations Security Council. But is that what's going on? Says this guy:

Although initial press reports in Canada interpreted this as a veiled retrenchment from Canada's historically strong support for the United Nations, it is better viewed as an enlargement of the G-8 grouping by co-opting such major economic players as Australia, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea, Mexico and Brazil. For Australia, this is potentially more useful and important than trying to gatecrash the East Asian groupings.

That's honest enough, although what Ramesh Thakur says next is perhaps too honest:

The central challenge of global governance is a double disconnect. First, between the distribution of hard and soft power in the real world, on the one hand, and the distribution of decision-making authority in the existing intergovernmental institutions on the other. Second, between the numbers and types of actors playing ever-expanding roles in civil, political and economic affairs within and among nations, and the concentration of decision-making authority in intergovernmental institutions.

See, the real impediment to the UN becoming a true global government is the hardheadedness of those who still haven't gotten over the infantile disease of nationalism. Id est, Americans.

But never mind that; what's really cooking is that a lot of the very same leaders who objected to the War for Iraq are being exposed as morally questionable crooks whose objections were not rooted in principle, but interest. Namely, self-interest.

We don't need the fucking UN. We don't need friends who want to institute one world government at our expense. If you think we're such a force for evil in the world, go find out how bad it is. Go.

And drop us a post card when you can.

Saturday Night
Something that intellectuals forget is that what they find to be obvious or essential is not to the vast majority of the human race. That is a fault of idealism: the perfect arrangement is nothing of the sort, except in your own head.

Arcimboldo, Lately

Behind
Now Playing: "Minimum Wage" by They Might Be Giants
An old friend of mine in New York just doesn't know what to make of this newfangled blogosphere thingamajig:

"Alternative" media is real. I'm just not sure disseminating false information qualifies you as part of it.

See, I'm a liar because I disagree with him. And because I link to reports and analyses that don't taste like the horseshit he's being spoonfed by, presumably, the Times and Air America.

You and You People are so happy to be part of something you'll forgive its every wrongheaded and deceptive impulse.

Huh? What can one make of this? Is our correspondent referring to Dan Rather's lies or John Kerry's? Both have been exhaustively detailed in thousands of different blogs, "alternative" though they are.

What this is, of course, is a liberal Yankee's desperate shaft against the encroaching decay of the liberal elite's hold over the media. I don't have to wait around for CBS News or CNN or the New York Times to tell me what I may believe anymore ---and it rankles. It especially rankles those who pass themselves off as true adherents to a free press and the promotion of democracy. When the genuine article is staring them in the face, they choose to look away and mumble something about deception and Halliburton.

Oh, and Valerie Ghraib and Abu Plame, too.

Zzzzz.....

The Fakery Unfolds
Now Playing: "Use Me Up" by Bill Withers
One of the more famous of the so-called portraits of the so-called William Shakespeare has been declared to be phogna bologna by some so-called experts. In this case, I choose to believe them ---because I've never had any reason to believe the Flower Portrait was the real deal, anyway.

Historians have disagreed about the origins of The Flower Portrait, which bears the inscription 1609.

Not everyone has been convinced that the portrait, owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), was painted during the playwright's lifetime.

Now National Portrait Gallery experts in London confirm it is a fake which dates back to the early 19th century.

[...]

Chrome yellow paint, dating from around 1814, had been found embedded in the portrait.

The Droeshout Engraving was for the first edition of collected works

"We now think the portrait dates back to around 1818 to 1840, exactly the time when there was a resurgence of interest in Shakespeare's plays," she added.

The image bears a strong resemblance to the Droeshout Engraving, which accompanied the first folio of Shakespeare's works.

And, as we well know, the Droeshout Portrait itself is the single most successful cartoon ever created. Nonsense from start to finish, but what an image!

Remember: virtually everything you think you know about William Shakespeare is a lie. They don't teach you that in school, but that's only because it would get in the way of the poetry.

Send a Missive to the Pontiff
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" by James Brown
Naturally, you'll want to e-mail Pope Benedict XVI your congratulations on his new job.

In English, try him at benedictxvi@vatican.va.

Get Some
Oh, boy:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Police said they arrested a man for spitting on two-time Academy Award-winning actress Jane Fonda [...]during a book-signing stop in Kansas City Tuesday night.

[...]

At about 9 p.m., police said 54-year-old Michael A. Smith, who had been waiting in line for about 90 minutes, passed a book to Fonda and then spit a large amount of tobacco juice into her face.

The old tobacky choad, eh? Hmmm. I don't know. It's not nearly enough punishment for her treason, but it doesn't seem quite respectable, either, you know?

Let others pass judgement. I won't.

Logrolling in Our Time
Mood:  a-ok
Greyhawk at the Mudville Gazette ---one of the most important of our milbloggers--- gives me a shout-out here on the occasion of my second blogiversary.

What a mensch! Thanks.

Making Their Peace with It
Okay, so Pope Benedict XVI was in the Hitlerjungen. And he was drafted into the Nazi Army.

The Cardinals don't have a problem with that.

Neither does Pius XII.

For a lot of people these days, their love for the Pope is inversely proportional to their adherence to his authority. Was John Paul the Great, as he may very well be known to History, a person with whom most Catholics in America agree on issues of birth control and sex and gender? These men are loved because they are ill-understood. Such are ideals.

Busy Day Off
Woke up. Took car to radiator repair shop on South Congress. Thought twice about it when I couldn't be sure the guy knew what I was asking for. Waited on the trusty old Capitol Metro No. 1. Took it all the way to the Drag. Bought a newspaper at 7-11. Had a grande cappuccino next door at the Little City coffee house. Had some smokes and read the paper. Borrowed a pen from the girl behind the counter and did the crosswords. Called an old friend on what would have been his grandmother's 92nd birthday. Talked to my real estate agent. Talked to my eldest brother. Walked up to El Patio, which was once said to be Lady Bird's favorite Tex-Mex restaurant in town. Hung around for a few minutes. Watched some delivery guys loafing and goofing around in the loading area of the liquor store next door. Went inside the restaurant when the pretty hostess opened up. Asked her if they still bring out the saltines, to which she said only on request. Told her I'd want tortilla chips, anyway, but she brought me out a little packet of saltines for old times' sake. Heard bells tolling on a TV out of my line of sight. Sensed some excitement among the people in the other dining area. Intuited that habemus papam. Told the pretty hostess that I would like to be able to see the TV at the same time my brother came in. Moved to a better table and watched the coverage from St. Peter's Square. Had the beef enchiladas. Watched Pope Benedict XVI emerge from the Basilica. Had a praline. Paid the bill. Took a ride with my brother to the radiator shop. Wrote a fat check. Drove my car home. Got nervous. Took a dump. Drove to Chuck E. Cheese's. Met my brother. Met my real estate agent. Followed my agent around with my brother, looking at houses. Two were acceptable. Two were not. One might be. Came home. Got my mail. Answered some crucial e-mails. Blogsurfed a little. Made a few comments. Watched some TV. Made dinner. Wrote this.

Today Is My Blog's Second Anniversary
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey" by the Beatles
Now that you're here, feel free to make a really nasty comment. Or a really nice one. It's your call, baby.

Don't Forget
Mood:  don't ask
Don't forget: you cannot argue with the mentally ill.

Apollo XIII
Now Playing: "God Bless America" sung by Marian Anderson
Be sure to check out this great post over at InstaPundit.com with links to lots of information about the famous "failed" Apollo XIII mission.

It's a very American thing to make a triumph of disaster. In my lifetime, the story of that aborted mission to the Moon is one of the most important and poignant.

Ratzinger
I'm predicting, for no good reason, that Ratzinger will be made Pope. But a Latin American Pope would be next, if not now.