It Was All a Terrible Misunderstanding

Oh nojo. The MSM NEVER distracts us from the awful reality with trivialities. Nope.

This could be the first time that a fame whore does get what they deserve.

Mmmm, Jiffy Pop.

@ManchuCandidate: Why am I horrified by the thought of the gavel-to-gavel televised coverage of their trial?

The shape shifting Reptillian masters are apparently comfortable enough now that they can do a soft announcement of their existence and influence on world affairs. Aliens who are present among us? Not so much yet, but one day . . .

http://gawker.com/5385015/balloon-boy-just-wanted-to-warn-us-about-the-lizard-people

According to alien contact lore*, an ET lived up at Los Alamos atomic energy and weapons lab for several years. I asked my friend, whose alien (Canadian) uncle worked on the H-bomb whether the old guy ever met the ET and all I got was a cold stare.

@SanFranLefty: I understand that the Jim Nance (sport presenter) divorce trial was pretty sad and pathetic.

http://deadspin.com/5384895/jim-nantz-divorce-trial-gets-its-own-sad-play+by+play

* As with the Reptillians, followed for entertainment purposes only.

TJ: This is long. John Shelby Spong is (or was) the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, NJ, he made this statement about homosexuality and christianity:

October 15, 2009

A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!
Bishop John Shelby Spong

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is “an abomination to God,” about how homosexuality is a “chosen lifestyle,” or about how through prayer and “spiritual counseling” homosexual persons can be “cured.” Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate “reparative therapy,” as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer
take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality “deviant.” I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that “we love the sinner but hate the sin.” That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews,
women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is “high-sounding, pious rhetoric.” The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn’t. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to “Roll on over or we’ll roll on over you!” Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a “new church,” claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by “fair-minded” channels that seek to give “both sides” of this issue “equal time.” I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world’s population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell,
Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians
to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a “mobocracy,” which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture’s various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the “Flat Earth Society” either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church’s participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize,
but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: “New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth.” I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

– John Shelby Spong

admirable Mr. Spong. inspriational even, but good luck with that.

@SanFranLefty:
the more I learn about Balloon Dad the more I think they should just pass go and go directly to one of these:

The 15 Most Brutal Methods Of Execution Of All Time

Im partial to Republican Marriage. just because I like the name.

@Prommie:

He must be retiring soon.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: He already has.

@Capt Howdy: Thank you for sharing.

@redmanlaw: Aw, poor Jim Nance. Mrs. Nance got tired of following him around the country like fuckin’ groupie and decided she wanted to have some time on her own. Selfish bitch.

@Jamie Sommers: She blew through a million bucks at a local jewelry store? Who does she think she is, Vanessa Bryant?

That TPM article said the Secret Service regularly protects 32 people. My mom and I can only think of 27. I’m afraid to Google for more info.

@RomeGirl: I’m impressed you got to 27. Do you think the SS protects the children of just the more recent ex-presidents? I don’t think the Johnson daughters use it. Or maybe Barack’s sister or Michelle’s brother and their families?

@RomeGirl: If you go by Wiki, there are at least the following:

Barack, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha Obama (plus, I’d imagine, Marian Robinson)
Joe and Jill Biden
Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea Clinton
Betty Ford
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter
Nancy Reagan
George and Barbara Bush
George and Laura Bush
Dick Cheney (I think his was extended; not sure about his family)

That’s nineteen right there, not including any of the discretionary ones (e.g., “other individuals next in order of succession to the Office of the President,” “official representatives of the United States performing special missions abroad,” “[o]ther individuals as designated per Executive Order of the President”).

If Dick is protected Lynn and Mary must be too. Amy Carter must be on that list as well.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches:
if Dick is protected the 5 people they left out are probably the 5 guys who carry around his cutting tools and the small animals he tortures to pass the time between meetings.

@mellbell: No love for Mondale??

My rep Nancy P. has SS protection, I’ve seen them with her.

I don’t think that the Supreme Court justices have protection, I don’t remember seeing them when they’ve spoken at my law school.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Wiki says that the children of ex-Presidents is only to age 16. Interesting that Chelsea has it continued, but not the Bush twins.

@Prommie:

As someone who’s about to have their rights voted away* by the “mobocrazy” after a blizzard of hateful, psycho lies from WA state’s right-wing, religious nutcases, I find this manifesto quietly comforting. Thank you, Prommie.

*Pending the outcome of Referendum 71, but oh fuck it we all know what the results are gonna be so they might as well just announce them today instead of going through the quaint formality of waiting until after the polls close.

ADD: Our local media’s coverage has been appalling, of course:

“Pastor sez that hellspawn, demon-like hummuhseckshals are attacking your children and destroying your opposite marriage. Others don’t agree. We don’t know who’s right, so we’ll move on after the break.”

Oh, and attn: Stinque Legal Eagles

The US Supreme Court has blocked the release of the names of the people who signed petitions to place R-71 on the ballot, even though such release is mandated by state law, and the signature count itself is disputed.

Apparently, the people who want to put my family’s rights on the ballot are the real victims here.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/411343_supco20.html

@Original Andrew: If the voters get to have a say on your relationship, then the straights should be forced to ask for permission too.

its a wonderful statement. and I did not intend to be dismissive in my earlier comment. more statements like this need to me made and can only be a good thing.
it simply that many years of living have made me very cynical and I know enough ( and god help me am related to enough ) of the people he is talking about to know they are not going to change.
they will have to die. and I dont mean that as a threat but simply as a tactic of waiting.

@Original Andrew: I don’t hold much hope for Maine, either.

@mellbell: @SanFranLefty: The Bush Twins and Cheney got extended protection. I don’t know if Cheney’s hellspawn of a wife and trollbitch of a daughter get it as well.

I think I should have SS protection. They could take the dogs out and pick up the laundry. I think it would be very cool to arrive for the first day of rehearsals with back-up. I wonder how one applies?

@RomeGirl:

They spew poison and ink, so they should be fine.

@Original Andrew: You are fucking kidding.

Hmmm, guess not.

http://www.tdn.com/articles/2009/10/20/breaking_news/doc4adc7e4563de1909392368.txt

@SanFranLefty: Kobe bought her the multi-million $ ring at a jewelry store in my little beach town. Thanks for the sales tax spike, dude.

@SanFranLefty: I was working off the assumption that Chelsea gets it through her mom rather than through her dad, since SecState is specifically mentioned by name on Wiki. Like I said, there’s seemingly a lot of room for discretion, so Obama may have just continued the likely practice of previous presidents of extending the courtesy to children who wouldn’t otherwise have it.

@mellbell: Or kiddos who want it. Given Hillary generates almost as much haterade as Barry does, I wondered if there were specific reasons for Chelsea. Poor girl has had them since she was 12. They blended in fairly well on the Farm. I’m sure they were happy they didn’t have to wear suits and ride bikes everywhere in great weather for 4 years.
@Dodgerblue: I remembered that detail when I saw that article.

@SanFranLefty: Mrs RML saw no goons when she saw Chelsea at the gelato and espresso joint down the street from her office here. Also, Rumsfeld was walking around without anyone but Tori what’s her name when we saw him at a local small town fiesta parade near the ancestral home.