In Case You Missed It...

... as I did. Here is Barack Obama's 30-minute informercial about his Presidency.

Dirty Tricks

Here is another dirty trick. You know there will be people who fall for this.

h/t joe.my.god

Some Scary Stuff

I am getting all tense with this election. And this video isn't helping. It shows an interview with a Country Clerk about the touch screen voting booths and what happens when the machines get off their calibration. Seriously, this could have serious ramifications.



h/t towleroad

Great Quote

from joe.my.god

"Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

"I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

"To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

"To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked." - David Sedaris, writing about undecided voters in New Yorker.

Colin Powell: A Racist?

(Click the comic to embiggen it)

Well, Rush Limbaugh is already implying that of him. With Powell's endorsement of Obama, A Town Called Dobson's comic creator has this to say about what we can expect from Powell's endorsement:

I was blown away by Powell’s endorsement of Obama and televised spanking of McCain and Palin. Powell has always had the ability to formulate his sentences in a manner that is plain spoken yet leaves no question about what he said.

John McCain sucks and General Colin Powell knows it.

What will the McCain response will be? I think he can only respond in one way and that is to start tearing down Colin Powell.

So here is my question, how long will it take for someone to call General Colin Powell gay, a Muslim or a socialist?

Limbaugh has already called Powell a racist, so socialist can’t be too far away.

Last Night's Presidential Debate

When McCain and Obama met last night, we were treated to one of the better debates in the campaign. Obama really let us know what he plans to do. Unfortunately, most of McCain's ire was directed against Obama where the issues were simply an after-thought. Below I've posted a video that better represents the distorations of McCain.



thanks to Kenneth in the (212) for the video

Funny Comic

Click on the image to 'biggen' it.

Go here to read more of them. Mind you, they're sometimes confusing as all heck but I do get my daily dose of it through The Bilerico Project.

Is this Sick or What?!

(Bourbonnais, Illinois) An elementary school bus driver has been charged with leading a homophobic attack on a 10-year old student passenger.

The Kankakee Sheriff’s Police Department said that the boy was taunted by the driver who then encouraged other students to chase and beat the child.

Chief Deputy Ken McCabe said the incident occurred on a Bourbonnais Elementary School District bus which was returning students to their homes last Friday.

McCabe said the driver repeatedly called the boy “gay.”

”When the boy got off the bus, the driver encouraged several other students to go after him and tackle him. Our investigation shows that occurred,” McCabe told The Daily Journal.

He also said the driver is under investigation for joining the students in chasing the boy and grabbing him.

Bourbonnais School District officials would only say the driver has been terminated.

Russell A. Schmalz, 46, is charged with mob action, endangering the life of a child, and battery.

Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year-old Texas rancher, whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.'"

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was.

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain.

"You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with."

Great Video: "I Love the Gays"

h/t to joe.my.god

National Coming Out Day

Guess what today's is? Yup, my title post gave it away. Today is National Coming Out Day to encourage all lgbt folks to stand up and be counted. But, of course, such a decision is fraught with challenges. And, while coming out once is cool--honestly, if you're lgbt, you'll be doing it for the rest of your life...in conversations, when you book a hotel room, when you're at a dinner party, even when filling out forms and emergency card notifications. So, coming out is a life-long thing that begins with one conversation. Today is the day when all lgbt folks encourage you, if you haven't done so already, to tell someone that you're a fabulous man or woman who likes men and women.

Here is a great video clip I found on The Bilerico Project from last year's National Coming Out Day. It's a hoot.

24-month Dow Jones Chart

This is scary! Click on the picture to see it biggened.


h/t to joe.my.god


h/t to joe.my.god for this post.

The Origins of Lady Liberty

Here is a rant from Patricia Nell Warren against Christianists concerning the Lady in the Harbor. I sure do love reading Ms. Warren. She doesn't mince words. h/t to the Bilerico Project for this post. And to think, I had no idea of the origins of who the lady was, the Statue of Liberty lady.

***

To the creators of that Republican campaign commercial that appropriates the Statue of Liberty -- I've got news for you. You're hawking the wrong symbol. In fact, you're stealing a symbol that actually shoots a big hole in all the fundamentalist churchy propaganda put out by your party during this election.

Liberty is a pagan goddess. Obviously you weren't paying attention in history class. It's spelled G-O-D-D-E-S-S. There's a test on this tomorrow.

The Goddess of Liberty isn't found in the Bible. (If you really studied the Bible, you'd know that.) She comes straight out of Greek and Roman pagan tradition, complete with that toga and sandals. Under the name Libertas, She appeared on Roman coins as an emblem of the emancipation of slaves. She often wore a liberty cap that the newly freed Roman was allowed to put on in a special ceremony at Her temple.

Devotion to Her was revived during the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, when Europeans began to kick off the shackles of state Christianity. Finally Liberty made the leap to the Americas with colonists and founders who were educated in that classical tradition of government by republic. Her image was stamped on the very first coins minted by the new republic of the United States, along with the old liberty cap and our new national motto LIBERTY. And She was on our money for nearly two centuries. It took your Bible-believing friends nearly a century of lobbying to get the motto changed to "In God we Trust" (Act of Congress, 1865).

Next it took your Bible lobby nearly another century to to get that "heathen" (as the lobby called Her) removed from our coins entirely. It was done so stealthily that -- even as She became our national icon, with the Statue of Liberty going up in New York Harbor in 1886 -- the public didn't notice. She was off the cent by 1857, off the nickel by 1912, off the quarter by 1930. Wearing Her liberty cap, She was still on the dime till 1945. As the Walking Liberty, She was on the half dollar till 1947. How appropriate that She saw us through World War II and the victory over fascism. But our government was evidently not grateful to Her for the victory. After 1947 -- poof! She was gone.

Nations always put their most important symbols on their money. Nearly two centuries of a pagan goddess on our money is proof that the United States of America was not "founded under God." If it was -- if your Bible buddies had that kind of clout in 1776 -- our coins would have showcased Jesus from the start.

Yes, Liberty is a pagan. She keeps company with Isis, and Juno, and Tara, and White Buffalo Woman. She wasn't recommended in any Catholic encyclicals. She wasn't touted by Martin Luther, or Cotton Mather, or R. J. Rushdoony. Anywhere that the love of liberty finally awoke in the hearts of thinking Christians in Europe and the U.S., it was because they borrowed the idea of Her from the pagan ancients -- and they knew it was an idea whose time had come because they'd seen the abuses of non-thinking religion up close. Yet some fundamentalists today are eveb talking against Her statue in New York Harbor, calling it the "Whore of Babylon." One day, that magnificent monument to the most human side of our history -- immigrants who came here to find liberty -- may also be demolished.

In your ad, the book that the Statue carries in one arm is not the Bible. It's the pagan Book of Knowledge -- the schoolbook of thinking statespeople who were freeing themselves from coercive belief and enslaving government. The Latin word for book is liber. That's because the great minds of Greece and Rome had figured out that there is no emancipation without education. The torch She carries is another symbol of education. It takes data, not dogma, to shine into the darkness and make things clear for us.

Maybe that's why your party has let American education go to the dogs -- graduating more and more Americans who are ignorant enough to believe all the religious lies and propaganda that they're fed -- including the myth that "America was founded under God."

For us in the LGBT world, the Goddess of Liberty is a life-saving, sanity-saving symbol -- the ultimate icon. To come out, to be honest with ourselves about who we really are, we've had to educate ourselves, little by little. We've had to crack that Book of self-knowledge. We've had to shine that torch into the terrifying, fearful darkness of the closet where we spent so many years.

During LGBT History Month, we deal formally with the tons of old religious dreck that the conservative religion-mongers like you are still try to pile on us -- all the old corrosive, coercive, dark beliefs and misinformation about sexual orientation and gender identity that made each of us live in waking nightmares during childhood and youth in different religions -- that each of us had to leave behind and burst out into our own personal daylight..

It's too bad about you folks who created that campaign ad. You say you want to lead us, but you aren't even free yet.

When a kid does it, it's funnier

A Great PSA Video: Get Out the Vote

Go here to register to vote.