Bombastic 'Mo

Another Hate Crime on Capitol Hill

A Tacoma man has been charged with a hate crime after threatening a woman on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.  Alfred Salway, age 52, allegedly confronted a woman on January 15th and threatened to stab her in the eye.

Police reports indicate Salway yelled “Did you hear me lesbian,” followed by “I’m going to hurt you lesbian” and “Lesbian, I’m going to get you.”

The woman, whose sexuality was undisclosed, ran from Salway and he gave chase.  The police were called, and Salway was arrested minutes later.

King County Prosecutors charged Salway with malicious harrassment, Washington state’s hate-crime law.

Salway, who has previously been convicted of 11 counts of assault, is being held in King County Jail under $50,000 bail.

Google: A Modern Day Super Hero

Shortly after Google proved it could out-perform Sherlock Holmes, the company of innovative geniuses has caught another bunch of “crooks”, this time marijuana farmers in Sweden.

The drugs were hidden from sight by large corn stalks, but when the officers looked at the farmer’s address on Google Earth, they were able to easily distinguish the marijuana plants.  The farmers have allegedly sold at least 7.7 tons of marijuana since 2004.

On a side note: Google employees have their own public Picasa web album (another free service hosted by Google).  Their pics around the office make me a little jealous.  They look like the happiest nerds I’ve ever seen.

Lesbian to Lead Iceland

Sorry… third gay story of the day.

Johanna Siguroardottir, an openly gay woman, appears to be the most likely candidate for the prime minister of Iceland.  Geir Haarde, the previous prime minister, stepped down recently amid the country’s financial crisis and a battle with cancer.

Beyond just being the first gay prime minister, Siguroardottir would also be the first woman in the position.  She currently has a 73% approval rating with Iceland’s populace.

“If she is gay, that is not an issue at all,” Olafur Sigurdsson, deputy chief of mission at the Icelandic Embassy told On Top Magazine.  “We are very liberal in that sense. It has never been an issue for her as a politician.”

Court Rules Private Schools can Expel Students for Acting Gay

The Fourth District Court of Appeals in Riverside, California ruled that California Lutheran High School had the right to expel students based on their perceived sexual orientation.

Two girls were expelled during their junior year of high school for “conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians”, an incredibly ambiguous statement.  Did they wear too much plaid?  Drive U-hauls to school?  Or were they just cheerleaders?

The investigation began when another student told a teacher that one of the girls listed her sexual orientation as bisexual on her MySpace page.  The other girl listed “Not Sure”.  Even worse, there was a photograph of the girls hugging.

“[The principal] just looked at me like I was a disease and I was so wrong,” said one of the girls, whose names were kept anonymous.  “He got very close to me and he said, ‘Have you ever touched [the other girl] in . . . any inappropriate ways? And he looked me up and down when he asked that,” reports the LA Times. 

The lawyer for the girls intends to take the court to the California Supreme Court.

Man, high school sucks.  As shitty as this is, it’s probably in the girls’ best interests that they got out before being completely brainwashed.

All those years… it was the Pepsi

The American Family Association has it’s knickers all up in a twist over Pepsi’s latest commercial which, as always, “promotes the gay lifestyle” (emphasis added).  The commercial, which is only airing in the United Kingdom (which throws into question why the American Family Association has any say whatsoever) features a guy out with his friends who suddenly gets the chutzpah to go gay after drinking a Pepsi Max (a low calorie, sugar-free alternative to real Pepsi).

You can judge for yourself whether it’s promoting the homosexual lifestyle.  I’m not sure which lifestyle the American Family Association is picketing, but the Gay Lifestyle I know sure as hell doesn’t drink non-alcoholic drinks at a bar.  Just saying.

Pepsi has a pretty decent track record with the GLBTQ community, and this isn’t the first time they’ve been boycotted by the AFA.  PepsiCo donated $500,000 to both the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and Parents and Friends of Lesbian and Gays (PFLAG).

“On November 15, AFA received a condescending letter from Paul Boykas, director of public policy, in which he refused to address Pepsi’s support of the homosexual agenda,” read an AFA action alert.

Personally, this revelation all of a sudden makes sense out of my life.  As a child, I was HOOKED on Pepsi (although none of this sugar-free crap).  Before I finally kicked the habit, I was drinking 8 to 9 cans a day.  I finally did the math, and that was like 1,700 calories a day from sugar.  (I was also a chubby bunny.)  If only we had access to this cool, refreshing Pepsi Max back then.

Damn you homosexual agenda!

But on a lighter note, I’m inspired by PepsiCo’s fair and logical approach to marketing (although I’m not sure we’d ever see this ad in the United States).  Perhaps it’s time to start a campaign to replace any and all Coca Cola in bars with Pepsi.  Coke doesn’t really have much of a track record.

Obama’s Stimulus Package: Spending Money to Make Money

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our economy lately.  It’s kind of inevitable, considering the straits we’re in.

Obama is working really hard to get Republicans in line behind his recent stimulus package.   And it’s a hard fight to win.  I’ve heard talk around the water cooler that they’re not too into spending.

To his credit, Obama and his think tank have clearly put a lot of thought into the measure.  The 13 page summary of the stimulus package clearly lays out where Obama wants to spend this money, and the reasoning behind each and every expenditure.   Although the immediate purpose of the package is to increase spending to create jobs, it appears that the long term investments will save money and generate income.

Below are the seven core goals of the stimulus package, as well as a few highlights of each.

• Modernize our Energy Systems. $11 billion to create a more efficient energy grid, $6.2 billion to help weatherize low-income homes, and $8 billion to create new sources of renewable energy.
• Fund needed improvements to Science and Technology.  $6 billion will be invested in expanding access to broadband Internet, of which the stimulus package claims “for every dollar invested in broadband the economy sees a ten-fold return on that investment”
• Improve and Create Better Transit Options.  Obama wants to spend $30 billion on highway and bridge construction projects, and a measly $10 billion on mass-transit options.  Of course, I live in the city where mass transit is viable.  The majority of this country is not a city.
• Reemphasizing Education.  $20 billion dedicated to technology and energy upgrades in schools, and another $1 billion in computer and science labs, as well as trainings for teachers who don’t understand 1337 speak.  $16 billion will be dedicated to student loans, to assist those who have gone back to school after failing to find employment.
• Lower Health Care Costs.  $20 billion to create electronic medical records, $3 billion to promote preventative care, $1.5 billion to expand Community Health Centers to provide care to the uninsured, and $600 million to train new doctors to “prepare our country for universal healthcare“.
• Provide Relief to the Unemployed.   $27 billion to extend unemployment benefits, $30.3 billion to extend COBRA to those losing their work-sponsored insurance, and $4.2 billion to help low-income communities purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed properties.
• Save Public Employees.  $120 billion to school districts to prevent tax increases on the middle class without laying off teachers.

After reading through the entire package, I’m impressed.  There’s not a single line I’d disagree with, although even I’m a little nervous about the price.  I’ve always maintained a strange fanaticism with mathematics, but I can’t even begin to imagine what $550,000,000,000 dollars would look like.

If you’re making Washington’s minimum wage of $8.55, it would take you 64.3 billion hours to make this money.  If that number’s too big to picture, how about 7.3 million years.  Better hope Starbucks offers overtime….

Ok, those numbers are scary.  Perhaps it’ll help to put it in perspective with our population of 305,697,065.  If each of us footed an equal share, it’d be a one time payment of $1,799.  Shit, that’s a months mortgage.  I’d gladly pay up.

This is the system we’ve built

A 93-year-old man froze to death in his own home after Michigan based Bay City Electric Light & Power installed a limiter to his home power supply.  When neighbors found his body on January 17th, four days after the limiter was installed, the internal temperature in his home was below 32 degrees.

Kanu Virani, the county’s deputy chief medical examiner, found the cause of death to be hypothermia.

“Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly,” Virani told the Associated Press. “It’s not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they’re burning.”

The victim, Marvin E. Schur, owed the city approximately $1,100 in unpaid energy bills.  The limiter had been installed as a warning before his power was completely cut.  Limiters are designed to cut off power after a predetermined amount of power is used.  The devices are installed as a warning to homeowners who have not paid their bills.  Power is cut off completely ten days after the installation.

A manager at Bay City Electric Light & Power was unsure if anyone had contacted Schur directly to explain the device was in place or how it worked.

The full story can be found here.

History Will Be the Judge

And it looks like history is going for the throat.

“Other than that, the economic record of President Bush was largely a disappointing one. During his administration, the country grew at the slowest overall pace of any recent president, whether measured in gross domestic product (GDP) or employment. The last president to preside while the stock market did worse was Herbert Hoover.”

“…During President Clinton’s administration, the number of jobs created was greater than the growth in the population of working-age Americans, something that had happened in only one previous administration since World War II, that of Lyndon Johnson. Job growth also sputtered after Johnson left office.

Bush’s administration was marked by a recession that began two months after he took office and another downturn in his final year of office. In the end, the economy during his term added enough jobs to employ only 14 percent of the added number of working-age Americans, the lowest proportion of any postwar administration.”

Dude’s Been Busy

It’s Friday.  Barack Obama was sworn in on Tuesday.  In the past three days, Obama has accomplished the following:

• Told Military Leaders to End the War in Iraq.
• Limited the Ability of Ex-Presidents to Hide their Secrets.
• Started the Close of Guantanamo.
• Created Alternatives to Bush’s Military Commissions Act.
• Lifted the Ban on Foreign Aid to Groups that Provide Abortions or Family Planning.
• Put Pay Freezes in place for White House Staff Earning more than $100,000.
• Set Ethics Rules Clearly Separating Lobbyists and the Executive Branch.
• Require New Hires to Sign Statements indicating they were not hired for Political Ties or Campaign Contributions.
• Banned Lobbyists from Giving Gifts to Executive Employees.
• Adopted Strict Laws against the use of Torture and Mandated Adherence to the Geneva Conventions.

And so much more.  I just wanna kiss him on the mouth!

Gah! Pop goes the weasel!

It’s late, and I should probably go to sleep (or at least come up with a better headline).

But this article on Salon.com may keep me up for another few hours.

A nurse practicioner  in Albuquerque, N.M has a lawsuit pending against her for allegedly pulling out the IUDs of multiple patients on purpose.  After her “oops, I did it again” shtick, the nurse lectures the women and refuses to insert a new IUD.

“Surely, the patient must have been terrified — but then the nurse offered an explanation: ‘I accidentally pulled out your IUD. I gently tugged and out it came … I cut the string than went back and gently pulled and out it came. It must have not been in properly.’

“…having the IUD come out was a good thing…I personally do not like IUDs. I feel they are a type of abortion. I don’t know how you feel about abortion, but I am against them.”

Night!

In Portland, you only have to be 18 to have a Sam Adams

Ok, I bit the headline from a commenter on Queerty, who in turn found it somewhere even Google couldn’t track.

I was made aware of this story on January 20th, but I didn’t want to take part in the muck-raking during our spectacular inaguration.  That and I may have had a few drinks at breakfast….

The Willamette Weekly has been covering the long-dead sex life of the openly gay mayor of Portland, Oregon.  Sam Adams was elected as their mayor in May of 2008, and was sworn in on January 1st.  During his campaign, allegations were raised by one of his challengers that he had sex with the aptly named Beau Breedlove, a man who was 17 when they met in 2005.  At the time, Adams denied the allegations.

Pressed with mounting evidence that Adams was romantically involved with Breedlove, Adams confessed to lying during his general election.  He admitted to having sexual relations with Breedlove after he turned 18 (the legal age of consent in Oregon).  Adams indicated he lied to avoid the wild speculation that he had sex with Breedlove before he was of age, citing stereotypes that gay men are attracted to underage children.

Since then the media has thrown a giant fit reminiscent of the Clinton-Lewinsky years.  And I’ll clarify now, I was 12 years old when that happened, and even then I knew it wasn’t a big deal.  And I still thought girls had cooties.

Journalists all over are calling for Adams to resign.   Just Out, Portland’s largest gay paper, is out for blood.  Seattle’s own alt-weekly (aka gay weekly) The Stranger has differing opinions within its ranks.  Erica C. Barnett called for a resignation based solely on the fact that he lied to reporters, while sex advice columnist Dan Savage defends Adams rights to privacy and to stay in office.

Savage is also attending a rally tomorrow outside the Portland’s City Hall (Friday, 1/23 at 5:30 PM PST).  The Facebook group Support Sam Adams currently has 1,083 members and is growing.

My take?  I almost resisted blogging about this because it shouldn’t be news.  Who cares.  This is nothing more than a sex-negative witch hunt.  While it’s comforting for members of the press to hide their outrage behind the allegations of lying, this is nothing but a facade.  All politicians lie.  Obama lied about Gay Marriage.  And, in all honesty, I lied. Obama doesn’t actually read this blog.  Yet.

What it comes down to is a populace ready to devour a politician for being human.  My disdain for age of consent laws aside, this has nothing to do with his ability to be the mayor of a city.  This doesn’t affect his years of public service.

Let it go journalists.  This isn’t a story.  And if you’re in the Portland area, show some solidarity for your mayor.  After all, what a DILF.

Obama’s First Successful Act

He’s keeping his Blackberry!

For those of you who have been following the story, as Obama transitions into office, he’s been told time and again that day 1, he’d have to hand over his coveted device.

Barack Obama has already proven to the electorate that he is the most tech savvy president to date.  His campaign used innovative new methods of communication to get out the vote, solicit donations, and keep his constituents apprised of his actions and thoughts.

Obama used MySpace, Facebook, and even Xbox live in-game ads to inspire voters to get out of their house November 4th.  He announced Biden via text message.  His online addresses have been viewed more than 5 million times.  103,512 people submitted 76,031 questions to his Open for “Questions” section of Changes.gov.

A poll on Wired.com (which granted, targets technophiles), indicated that 76% of readers thought that Obama should have the right to maintain his Blackberry, while only 11% thought it would compromise national security.

But the transition hasn’t been easy, and it was unclear he’d get his way.  According to the Washington Post, Obama’s aides arrived at the White House to find themselves impeded by the federal bureaucracy of disconnected computers, non-working phones, and PCs still running Windows XP.  Eugh.  (Obama’s campaign used Macs).

“It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton told the Washington Post.

So when I woke up today, I did what I do most mornings: grab my iPhone and load up the most recent Associated Press feeds.  Before my cup of coffee, my morning shower and even before I put on my glasses, I read through the news of the day.  And the tops news today was “Spokesman says Obama is keeping his BlackBerry”.

After a drawn-out battle of wills, Obama has reached a compromise allowing him to use the device to stay in touch with his close senior staff and personal friends.   Security will be amped up on the device to protect national security, and the e-mails will likely be subject to the Presidential Records act, meaning he’d better be careful which forwards he receives.  But he’s staying keyed in.

P.S. he also closed Guantanamo.  :)

“Fact 1: People aren’t buying stuff”

With that straightforward headline, Schmudget really nails the root factor for Washington State’s fiscal crisis.

Washington State’s government relies on sales and property tax.  Which is stupid.

I used to be fine with losing a third of my paycheck every other week.  I figured I didn’t need the money, and it was going to great services that I valued, such as roads and transit, police and firefighters, Planned Parenthood, and public schools.  I’ll admit, it hurt when I realized I was really, really wrong.

When I realized that all of that money went only to the Federal Government, which for the entirety of my middle-class career has funded Abstinence-Only Education, the War in Iraq, and George W.’s salary, I felt hoodwinked.  I was being robbed twice a month, and the state I lived in wasn’t getting a penny.  It would be like if Robin Hood stole from everybody and then put our money in a big pile and burned it.

Washington State, and all of the services that we have come to rely on, is funded only through property tax and our 9% sales tax.   You know, the part you doubled for that $3 tip last night.  After all, you were feeling generous.

And that’s why we’re in trouble now.  In a recession, spending stops.  To return to the central theme, if no one buys anything, then the government gets no money.  Kind of sucks, because at the same time, if no money is spent, no one has jobs, and a lot of people are probably going to end up needing things like food stamps, unemployment, or access to services that are not coincidentally underfunded.   Uh oh?

86% of the United States have an income tax.  Because it makes sense.   The seven states that currently do not have an income tax are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

Income tax has multiple benefits.  First off, you’re not taxing the poor for things they need, such as clothing each winter.  People pay into the fund what they can afford.  I think it was started like 2,000 years ago by some guy with a powerful father.  Tithing or something?  Surely even the most die-hard fiscal conservatives can get behind Jesus.  WWJP?

Second, during times of recession, Big Brother stays in business.  Guaranteed, as of today, I’m suddenly happy to be donating federally again (if only I had a job… shucks).  But you prevent the double-whammy of the failing economy paired with a government that can’t afford to help.  Think about it.  If only the left had their own version of Tim Eyman.

P.S. Planned Parenthood gets a lot of their money through donations.  Throw them a bone or two now, or else throw your unplanned grand-kids a lot of money later.

P.P.S. And if you’re craving a post about property tax… it’s coming my babies.  But I’m waiting for Schmudget to give me that link….. Also, it’s motherfuckin’ inauguration day.  This post was written in a hurry, and edited while slightly intoxicated.  It may have errors.  I love you.  And our new president.

He’s as great as they say

http://barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com/

My first nap under the new president!

It’s 11:13 AM.  I’ve been awake since 6:40 AM, which to you working folks is probably nothing, but I typically wake up at 12:30 PM each day to start my quasi-matutinal routine of drinking coffee and blogging.

Wow.  Really, there’s not much more to say than wow.  I went to a breakfast at the Bottleneck Lounge on Madison.  They served scones filled with an amazing mixture of eggs, blue cheese and mushrooms, and I tore through the sandwich, 2 mimosas and a bloody mary.  (Before noon…)

But we were all celebrating.  Surrounded by a slew of middle-aged queers including my mother, I watched Bush get dethroned and Obama crowned king.  It was clear how many of our hopes are pinned heavily on his collar, alongside that stupid flag lapel pin.

And I wasn’t the only one to tear up during the inauguration.  This moment was such an amazing transition.  The last 8 years are officially over.  Let’s take one last moment to say “sorry world, sorry poor people, sorry New Orleans, sorry Iraq, sorry entire Gaza strip, sorry rich people, sorry pretty much everyone who wasn’t smart enough to run away to Canada back in 2000″.  I almost wanted to see Obama hip-check Bush as they walked off the stage after the event.  It’s probably for the best he didn’t, but it would have been gratifying.

The millenium has officially started.  We have a president who is Internet-savvy (I’ve been told he reads this blog), who is a profound writer, who likes to think, who works out everyday, and who has an adorable family.  Betcha the Dow goes up a few points today alone.

I’m going to take a nap before I continue blogging (and editing the color scheme of this site).  Holy shit we did it.  Now let’s just hope he’s able to meet our expectations.