The vocally anti-gay Republican Senator from Puerto Rico just resigned from office after he put a photo of his culo (his actual culo... not his culo generally, but his culo proctologically) on a gay dating website.
As Dan Savage said, "Shouldn't homophobic politicians and anti-gay bullies be presumed to be gay until they get caught up in a straight sex scandal?"
So true: As I've documented before, the louder a politician/preacher speaks out against homosexuality, the more likely it is that he is secretly speaking out against his own personal demons.
And just because it bears repeating: I don't have a problem with closeted gay politicians/preachers, only the hypocritical anti-gay closeted gay politicians/preachers.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Daily Report: The Biggest News
It's been a hectic 2 months, to put it mildly. Then I threw in a trip to New York to visit my family on top of it.
About the biggest news, I can't go into much detail at the moment but here is a general overview: I own 25% of a company that is the sales arm of a parent company that has created a product that is going to be purchased and used regularly for maintenance on every oil well on the planet.
Literally: If the sales of this product turn out to be only one percent of what my partners and I are expecting, my share of the commission from that one percent alone would still be 10 times more than the most I've ever earned before. It's that big.
That's it for now: Have to get back to work.
UPDATE:
My business partner in the comments section says to go ahead and spread the word.
So: If you own or manage an oil well and want to eliminate your paraffin buildup (and want to avoid it in the future), contact PeGreSol and we'll be happy to introduce you to FloWell, the newest in wax remediation technology: Not only is it the first nontoxic and nonflammable such treatment, but it works remarkably better than any previous wax remediation products.
About the biggest news, I can't go into much detail at the moment but here is a general overview: I own 25% of a company that is the sales arm of a parent company that has created a product that is going to be purchased and used regularly for maintenance on every oil well on the planet.
Literally: If the sales of this product turn out to be only one percent of what my partners and I are expecting, my share of the commission from that one percent alone would still be 10 times more than the most I've ever earned before. It's that big.
That's it for now: Have to get back to work.
UPDATE:
My business partner in the comments section says to go ahead and spread the word.
So: If you own or manage an oil well and want to eliminate your paraffin buildup (and want to avoid it in the future), contact PeGreSol and we'll be happy to introduce you to FloWell, the newest in wax remediation technology: Not only is it the first nontoxic and nonflammable such treatment, but it works remarkably better than any previous wax remediation products.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Love This Photo
I'm back in Florida now, having flown right past the hurricane as it was making landfall in North Carolina. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this hurricane's threat to Manhattan is a bit overstated. I doubt that the storm surge will reach street level in the financial district. We'll see.
Photo credit to Talking Points Memo... and whoever they are giving credit to.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Daily Report: Mostly Baby Photos
My sister and her son Vincent and daughter Evie enjoying the pool at Watkins Glen State Park.
Evie having fun out on the grass in the back yard.
Evie is always exploring.
Campfire time in the great woods out behind the house.
Marshmallows for everybody.
Evie having fun out on the grass in the back yard.
Evie is always exploring.
Campfire time in the great woods out behind the house.
Marshmallows for everybody.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Food For Thought
For some reason, this chart does not include the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit that President Bush added on as well, which was $1.2 trillion.
Daily Report: Random Photos Posted
With life being as slow and uneventful (yet hectic — but not worth writing about) as it is, little moments in time don't get written about on this blog and instead get set on the shelf where they accumulate until they create a large enough conglomeration of "unmentioned things" to warrant a mention here as a whole. (Or at least, that's what seems to have happened, since you are reading this.)
ANGRY BIRDS: These huge menacing turkey buzzards were hanging around outside on my patio waiting to hurt somebody, I think.
OLD FOLKS SWIMMING: My community's pool on a not-so-clear-and-bright day. There is a very pretty lake behind it, and a nice hot tub for soaking before taking a dip in the cool water.
KING KONG MUTT: My cousin Jonathan's giant dog (look at my toes for size comparison), Tank, came for a visit. He's a big ol' galoot who, as my uncle describes him is "friend to all, enemy to none." My cousin Paul describes him as "an oversized gerbil."
FREE POOL TABLES: The bar where I go to play pool. Like I mentioned: It is free to play as long as you buy a beer... and beer is always $2 (80 pisos, 60 baht) a pint... except for happy hour when it is 50 cents (20 pisos, 15 baht) a pint.
MY PRECIOUS(ES): I got my pool cues shipped from The Philippines, where I had left them. My prized possessions. The McDermott on the left has barely held it's value since I bought it in 1998. The Longoni, not so much, but it is still my favorite of the two.
YOUNG FOLKS SWIMMING: The local beach by my house: The water is always a beautiful temperature, it's quiet without any boats or cars nearby to make noise. There is not a speck of refuse anywhere. I wade out up to my chest, and then jog in the water down the length of the beach and back — easier on my joints, more strenuous my my muscles.
ANGRY BIRDS: These huge menacing turkey buzzards were hanging around outside on my patio waiting to hurt somebody, I think.
OLD FOLKS SWIMMING: My community's pool on a not-so-clear-and-bright day. There is a very pretty lake behind it, and a nice hot tub for soaking before taking a dip in the cool water.
KING KONG MUTT: My cousin Jonathan's giant dog (look at my toes for size comparison), Tank, came for a visit. He's a big ol' galoot who, as my uncle describes him is "friend to all, enemy to none." My cousin Paul describes him as "an oversized gerbil."
FREE POOL TABLES: The bar where I go to play pool. Like I mentioned: It is free to play as long as you buy a beer... and beer is always $2 (80 pisos, 60 baht) a pint... except for happy hour when it is 50 cents (20 pisos, 15 baht) a pint.
MY PRECIOUS(ES): I got my pool cues shipped from The Philippines, where I had left them. My prized possessions. The McDermott on the left has barely held it's value since I bought it in 1998. The Longoni, not so much, but it is still my favorite of the two.
YOUNG FOLKS SWIMMING: The local beach by my house: The water is always a beautiful temperature, it's quiet without any boats or cars nearby to make noise. There is not a speck of refuse anywhere. I wade out up to my chest, and then jog in the water down the length of the beach and back — easier on my joints, more strenuous my my muscles.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
An Idea I Can Get Behind
About time:
If you publish a blatant lie about a candidate during a political campaign, that candidate should be able to sue you for slander and defamation.
This should happen far more often:
If you publish a blatant lie about a candidate during a political campaign, that candidate should be able to sue you for slander and defamation.
This should happen far more often:
A federal judge in Ohio said Monday that the Affordable Care Act does not provide for taxpayer funding for abortion. The statement was the cornerstone of the judge’s ruling to allow a defamation lawsuit brought against the Susan B. Anthony List by a former congressman to move forward."Free speech," my ass. The average person is not allowed to go around publishing blatant lies about other average people in this country; I hardly see how or why that rule should change when applied to political candidates.
Former Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus sued the SBA List for defamation of character during the 2010 election cycle, when the anti-abortion group ran an ad campaign on the premise that Driehaus had voted for a bill "that includes taxpayer funding for abortion," in reference to Driehaus’s vote in favor of the ACA.
Dreihaus, an anti-abortion Democrat, had initially filed a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission over a billboard that said he’d voted for "taxpayer funding for abortion." The OEC found probable cause that the statement was false, and the SBA List filed a complaint in federal court that its ads were based on the group's own interpretation of the law. The billboard was taken down but radio ads and flyers against Driehaus continued, according to court documents. Driehaus then countersued SBA List for defamation.
SBA List is ready to go to trial, stands by its statements and said the ruling "chills free speech."
Driehaus lost the election but Judge Timothy Black stated in a decision that the defamation lawsuit could move forward because "the express language of the PPACA does not provide for taxpayer funded abortion. That is a fact and it is clear on its face." SBA List’s request for summary judgment on the case was denied.
"It is a very big deal when a court says you can move forward against the 'malice' standard," said Paul DeMarco, Driehaus’s attoney. “This ruling allows us to go ahead with the next phase — discovery — where we believe we will find the SBA List either ignored the truth or purposely did not seek it out when making these claims."
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
You Can't Have Democracy And Freedom...
... if you don't yet have a mastery of how to be human:
This month, a group of men spotted the couple riding together in a car, yanked them into the road and began to interrogate the boy and girl. Why were they together? What right had they? An angry crowd of 300 surged around them, calling them adulterers and demanding that they be stoned to death or hanged.Too many places in this world are not populated by people whose values qualify them for membership in humanity; why are we even wasting our time and resources trying?
When security forces swooped in and rescued the couple, the mob’s anger exploded. They overwhelmed the local police, set fire to cars and stormed a police station six miles from the center of Herat, raising questions about the strength of law in a corner of western Afghanistan and in one of the first cities that has made the formal transition to Afghan-led security.
The riot, which lasted for hours, ended with one man dead, a police station charred and the two teenagers, Halima Mohammedi and her boyfriend, Rafi Mohammed, confined to juvenile prison. Officially, their fates lie in the hands of an unsteady legal system. But they face harsher judgments of family and community.
Ms. Mohammedi’s uncle visited her in jail to say she had shamed the family, and promised that they would kill her once she was released. Her father, an illiterate laborer who works in Iran, sorrowfully concurred. He cried during two visits to the jail, saying almost nothing to his daughter. Blood, he said, was perhaps the only way out.
“What we would ask is that the government should kill both of them,” said the father, Kher Mohammed.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Deal
It looks as if the Congress may have finally reached a deal with the White House (I knew that Biden would be a good Vice President, as long as he didn't go out in public) to raise the debt limit and cut the budget.
I'm not happy with the precedent it set: The Republicans acted like a spoiled toddler, and treated this legislation like a bucket of toy blocks, grabbed it, and walked over to their side of the room and wouldn't consider letting anybody else play. Then the Democrats, playing the part of the wimpy kid, managed to cajole two or three single blocks from the Republicans to play with and somehow think to themselves... what?; that this is compromise?; reasonable?; success?; a recipe for future negotiations?
I'll be happy to tell the Democrats what this was: a tiny handful of hidebound Tea Party Republicans managing to strong-arm the rest of the federal government over a hugely important piece of legislation. Terrible.
Having said that, I'm generally happy with the spending cuts: Only $900 billion cut now (which hopefully will be of a sensible nature), then the next $1.5 trillion will be worked out carefully with a bit of study in a bipartisan congressional panel (snort!). As I said yesterday: careful and studious cuts are the more important thing. I also like the built-in concept of "if you don't make the cuts, the cuts will make themselves" included in the draft as well. I finally like the concept that raising taxes in the future is considered to be possible as well.
Now all we have to do is get the Democrats out of their diapers for the next round of debt-reduction negotiations, and hopefully a little bit more moderate cutting of the federal bloat can take place soon.
I'm not happy with the precedent it set: The Republicans acted like a spoiled toddler, and treated this legislation like a bucket of toy blocks, grabbed it, and walked over to their side of the room and wouldn't consider letting anybody else play. Then the Democrats, playing the part of the wimpy kid, managed to cajole two or three single blocks from the Republicans to play with and somehow think to themselves... what?; that this is compromise?; reasonable?; success?; a recipe for future negotiations?
I'll be happy to tell the Democrats what this was: a tiny handful of hidebound Tea Party Republicans managing to strong-arm the rest of the federal government over a hugely important piece of legislation. Terrible.
Having said that, I'm generally happy with the spending cuts: Only $900 billion cut now (which hopefully will be of a sensible nature), then the next $1.5 trillion will be worked out carefully with a bit of study in a bipartisan congressional panel (snort!). As I said yesterday: careful and studious cuts are the more important thing. I also like the built-in concept of "if you don't make the cuts, the cuts will make themselves" included in the draft as well. I finally like the concept that raising taxes in the future is considered to be possible as well.
Now all we have to do is get the Democrats out of their diapers for the next round of debt-reduction negotiations, and hopefully a little bit more moderate cutting of the federal bloat can take place soon.