Darkside Rainbow

Okay, here we go, kicking off the hundred-comments party. The aim is as follows:

Fill this post with 100 comments before the comic goes live around 12:01a CST Monday, January 14th.

There are three prizes:

1st place, 100th comment: A t-shirt of any style, with either the red or pink version of the Ten Speeds shirt design, from the CafePress store. You can pick out the style and color you want when the winner is determined; I’ll pay for it and have it shipped out to you.

2nd place, 101st comment: A mug from the CafePress store with either the red or pink version of the Ten Speeds design. Something a little less embarrassing than the shirt. Again, when the winner is determined, you pick out the style and color and I’ll pay for it and ship it out.

3rd place, 102nd comment: Little pin-on buttons with the designs on them. Do I need to explain about picking and me paying and shipping again?

I’ll post a link to the store after the contest is over, as I’m still fixing and re-uploading the designs. Here’s an overly-wordy version of the rules/things to try to avoid so we keep this to sane levels while still being fun:

• Try to post something that actually has meaning, even if it’s not particularly substantial or thought-provoking. I’ll even take “I like pie” over “ljosjkljslkdfjslfdslj =)” or “OMG EPIC LULZ”. No just posting smilies or spamming meaningless crap to raise the post count. I’d prefer for your post to at least have a subject, object, and verb, and either throw a new topic into the mix (doesn’t have to be anything serious) or else respond to a comment someone else made. Have dialogue. Talk to each other. Have fun. Don’t make me shiv anyone. (…I will make an exception if anyone wants to follow the grand tradition of internet ‘tardia and post “FIRST!”)
• Basically anything that comes from a person counts as a post; pingbacks from other blogs or sites don’t. I’ll allow the pingbacks to go through, but they’ll be subtracted from the overall post count - so if there are any there, it might be post number 104 or 109 or whatever that wins just because some of the posts won’t be counted in the overall tally.
• I don’t care about language, about possibly vulgar topics, etc., even if I may refrain from joining in in kind (because you can be damned sure I’m going to be right in the thick of this hoe-down). With that said, don’t post something disgusting just for the sake of being disgusting (no, Hikaru; just no - and you know what I’m talking about). Other than that, anything goes. Laugh, play, get in arguments, start flame wars (though if you do it on any other post, there will be much wrath). Just this once, you can take your adult hats off and have a free-for-all. Hell, you can chase each other with spoons if you want to. (…there’s an old in-joke that I doubt anyone else remembers…)
• Posting links does not count as a post unless you actually say something and it’s not just linkspam.
• Same with pictures.
• Do not reply to different people in multiple posts all at once just to increase the post count. If you have something to say to multiple people at a time, do it in one post rather than in several.
• If you have multiple topics to bring up, don’t post them in multiple comments all at once; keep them to one comment. Basically, just post one comment at a time and you’ll be fine. Give someone else a chance to respond before you dive right back in.
• Unfortunately Akismet is still screwed to hell and back, which is going to put a bit of a damper on this - but I’ll do my best to keep an eye on it when I’m conscious and catch anything that comes through as quickly as possible. If you see others’ new posts showing up and yours isn’t, that means you were spamming gibberish or multiple posts and I deleted it. Or…it just didn’t go through properly.
• Both Kaine and Hikaru are disqualified from winning, just to be fair - Kaine because he won the last contest, Hikaru because he won the first and because he’s a bastard. That doesn’t mean you can’t participate and join in whatever madness ensues, though. If either of you post the 100th or 101st comments, then the prizes will go to the next people to comment.

I know that looks like a lot, but it’s pretty simple. Basically just post as you normally would and you’ll be fine. Er…to get you started, let me give you a topic: a peanut is neither a pea nor a nut. Talk amongst yourselves.

…

Okay, I’m kidding. No getting veklempt here, or however you spell it. Topic…topic…hmm. How do you feel about the gay community’s apparent need to have separate events/hangouts/possessions labeled as specifically gay (such as gay cruises, gay cafes, gay etc…)? Do you think it provides a welcome retreat for those of like minds to seek each other out and share things in safety, or do you think it’s unnecessary elitism and isolationism - or does it just not matter? (I give that one ten comments max before the whole thing derails and goes swerving into madness.)

Knock yourselves out. Let’s see if we can get this biatch to 100 before Monday.

 Update, 6:49p CST: 100 Comments Winners, 500 Comments Prize

Holy crap, people. Less than 24 hours and you’re already over 100 comments? I thought it would take all bloody weekend! Guys, we broke the effin’ post template! Well, in Firefox anyway; I’m not opening IE to check, but in Firefox the three-digit comment numbers are overlapping the border area. Anyway…the winners are:

1st place: Sam, for the 100th comment. Once the store is live (give me a couple more hours, still tweaking things) you’ll be able to pick one shirt of your choice from the Apparel section.

2nd place: Lessa, for the 101st comment. There are three styles of mug in four different designs (well, one design, variations on color and with or without text); you’ll be able to pick one mug in the style and design of your choice.

3rd place: JM, for the 102nd comment. You’ll get two 3.5″ buttons, in your choice of four designs. (Edit: Actually, you can choose between 3.5″, 2.25″, mini-buttons, and rectangular magnets - one each of two different ones, or two each of one; still updating all the store stuff and it’s up to you which you want.)

3rd place runner-up: Indikaze, for the…um…110th comment, but the first one since 100 that isn’t Sam, Lessa, JM, or me. I wasn’t going to do a runner-up, but figured it wouldn’t be fair for two out of three prizes to go to 451 Press writers - but neither would it be fair to deny those writers when they contributed to the overall insanity of the contest. So Indikaze, you’ll also get two buttons/magnets in your choice of four designs.

Now, just for the hell of it…

There is one mega prize pack available if we hit 500 comments before Monday.

That’s one hell of a challenge, but what the hell, we just might make it. I thought the 100 would be a flop, and you guys proved me wrong.

There’s only one winner (because this is getting kinda expensive, and coming out of my pocket) - but no one’s barred from winning, since this is kind of an unpredicted bonus round. Hikaru, Kaine, Sam, Lessa, JM, Indikaze - you can all win, but you’ll still be competing with everyone else who comes to the site. The prize pack will include:

• One white T-shirt with either the red/blue or blue/pink Ten Speeds deisgn on it;
• One teddy bear with one of the four design variations on its shirt;
• Your choice of either a mouse pad or a wall clock with one of the design variations on it.

Think we can make it?

comments contest, comment party

Oh, I’ve got a ripe one for you today. Check this out:

Church Denied Insurance Because of Gay Equality Policy - EDGE Boston

A church in Michigan that supports gay equality in terms of marriage and clergy ordination has been turned away by an insurance provider worried that the church’s social policies might make it a target for vandals.

The national governing board of West Adrian United Church of Christ upholds equality for gays, and that worried Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co., reported the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 8.

Brotherhood had previously turned down churches that speak out against other denominations, demonstrate at the funerals of U.S. servicepeople, or preach violence against others.

Brotherhood also canceled the policies of some black churches during a rash of arson cases in the 1990s.

But turning away a church because of its progressive policies is something new.

I may be a bit biased here considering my less-than-eggshell hue, but the first thing that stood out to me in that article was the canceled policies of black churches. That may fly in Michigan, but down here in the South that’d get someone slapped with a lawsuit faster than Don Imus getting pimp-slapped for calling someone a nappy-headed ho. Unfortunately, denying a church for supporting gays would likely gain a raucous round of applause.

While I recognize the rights of a private business to deny service as they see fit and to act in their own best interests, and recognize that they have a point that churches that support unpopular views would be targets for vandalism, neither the logic nor the right inherent make the denial right. There’s a slippery slope between self-preservation and prejudice, and Brotherhood Mutual is teetering at the height of that slope and on the verge of careening down it at breakneck speed.

I admit that I can’t look at this fairly, though, because I have little faith in insurance companies. Their initial purpose was to protect people in extreme cases, providing them with a contingency plan and backup funds built slowly over time through regular contributions, meant for use in emergency/extreme circumstances. What they’ve become is a moneymaking machine that only wants clients whose money it can take with the least risk of having to pay out - meaning that the people who might most need insurance due to undesirable circumstances are the least likely to be granted that protection. It’s despicable that supporting gay rights suddenly makes one part of a high-risk group, suddenly undesirable to the money men of America. That sinks well below practical business survivability. There are a few trustworthy insurance companies out there, those who are genuinely interested in the well-being of their customers, but they’re rare.

I’m done. I can’t say anything else without going on a tirade. I want to get up on my soapbox and throw a fit condemning Brotherhood Mutual, but I can’t when underneath my simmering annoyance I condone their policies of denying coverage to churches who speak out against other denominations or advocate violence. On one hand, it demonstrates fairly that they’re denying people evenly based on risk rather than personal beliefs. On the other hand, it makes me feel like a biased snot for saying “oh, it’s okay to deny those people because I don’t like the way they think”. So I’m just going to walk away from that and just acknowledge that Brotherhood Mutual likely isn’t particularly homophobic; they’re just another typically sleazy insurance company trying to make as much money as possible.

So to divert to a lighter topic, don’t forget that the weekend-long 100 comments party starts at precisely midnight CST; there’ll be a post up detailing the (overly wordy) rules and the prizes, and you’ll comment to that post. The goal is to get 100 comments on a single post before Monday’s comic. Here’s hoping it won’t be a huge flop.

See you tonight/first thing tomorrow. BYOB.

~Adri

west adrian united church of christ, insurance policies, brotherhood mutual insurance company

If you’ve been trying to load this site for the past several hours (and missed today’s post), sorry everything’s been down. There was…a mess. A huge, nasty mess in the data center hosting our servers, so tangled and convoluted that it could only reasonably be called a clusterfsck. Only some sites were affected, but for those of us who were, it’s been a real pain in the petuckus waiting for everything to come back up again.

To make a long story short (basically paraphrasing the enormous statement from the data center that our Head Honcho copied over to the writer forum): Brief power outage. Generator runs for a little while, then transfers main load to the UPS. Main batteries fail. Backup batteries fail right after that. Generators go back online, troubleshooting starts. Backbone connectivity goes FTTZZZ because something went screwy with one of the switches. Half the backbones die, the other half start screaming in pain from carrying the full load. An access switch serving 16 servers died a grisly, brutal, screaming death. Oh, an APC failed too. Think we’re done? Oh, hell no. Some of the servers just tanked due to the power-related forced reboot, and have to be manually restored with an fsck (file system check, you pervs).

Or, to put it very simply, boom. Boom today, boom tomorrow. Sooner or later, always boom.

 
Yyyyeah. So when our data centers do FUBAR, they don’t half-arse it. To quote another 451 Press writer: “This definitely seems like the deluxe, full-ass version of FUBAR.”

We’re back up now, though. In the future, if the site’s dead and you’re wondering what happened, you can always check my personal blog at zenunlimited.com. If anything’s wrong and I know about it, I’ll post updates there.

What? What are you still staring at? The real content’s one post below. Go. Be outraged. Be pragmatic. Be apathetic. Be…something. I don’t know. I’m going to go be productive and write something. Later.

~Adri

omg holy crap BOOM.

Here’s a little food for thought from the U.S.’s frosty Northern cousin:

Sexually active gay men no longer allowed to donate organs - CBC News

A number of organ donation groups said Monday that they are unaware of new Health Canada regulations that mean sexually active gay men, injection drug users and other groups considered high risk will no longer be accepted as organ donors.

The new rules, which came into effect in December, are similar to the regulations for determining who can donate blood. Those rules exclude groups that are at high risk of transmitting infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C and B.

Dr. Gary Levy, who heads Canada’s largest organ transplant program at Toronto’s University Health Network, said he was unaware of the new policy on organ donations.

Officials at several transplant programs in the country said because they were unaware of the new regulations, they would continue to consider all potential donor organs.

“We have not been informed, first of all, that Health Canada is considering this,” said Dr. Gary Levy, who heads Canada’s largest organ transplant program at Toronto’s University Health Network. “Obviously if Health Canada wishes to discuss that, we would hope they would engage all stakeholders.”

Dr. Peter Nickerson, director of Transplant Manitoba, which procures organs in that province, said transplant programs must now by law interview family members of the donor as part of the screening process.

“We’ll be asking about things like travel, history of infectious disease, whether they’ve [donors] been in jail — that puts you at increased risk,” Nickerson said. “Have they been an IV drug abuser in the past? Have they had tattoos? There’s a whole list of questions we go through.”

This was sent to me by one of my LiveJournal friends, who said that people have been pretty outraged over the ban on gay donors. Before you get up in arms, though, let’s break this down a little and try to look at it clearly.

Positives:

• Statistically, STD rates are higher in the GBLTQ community, so by eliminating that statistic they’re also eliminating the risk of spreading STDs to unsuspecting recipients. It’s unfortunate, but it’s also reality.
• Even if it’s only semantics, the ban is limited only to the sexually active - people who’ve engaged in intercourse with the same sex in the past five years.
• It also includes drug users, a group that should be eliminated anyway because of the damage to their organs from the choices they made to take harmful substances into their bodies and the possibility of spreading disease through shared needles. There are other risk groups banned as well.
• While shortsighted, this is a preemptive measure by the Canadian healthcare system to try to safeguard the lives of its patients, not a deliberate attempt at malice or prejudice.
• An arbitrary ban is more cost-effective and efficient than initiating new testing measures to ensure that gay and other high-risk donors aren’t carrying anything infectious.

Negatives:

• If we’re going to be realistic, one must face the fact that there are also plenty of straight people with STDs - and banning sexually active gay men from being organ donors may reduce the percentage of possibly infected donor organs, but it won’t change the fact that the healthcare system needs to develop more stringent and effective testing methods for harvested organs.
• It’s difficult enough to get healthy donor organs even without excluding a portion of the population, and by refusing to accept organs from sexually active but healthy gay men, they’re denying the possibility of an organ transplant to patients who may be in dire need.
• There’s a touch of pointlessness when it’s easy to just lie and say one isn’t gay. There is the process of interviewing family, but that can still be circumvented. Even in my fractious and contentious family, I could get them all to lie for me for a week if it meant that I could toss a kidney in a cooler to help save someone’s life.
• To be completely fair rather than targeting a specific demographic as high-risk, all donors should be tested rigorously when their organs are harvested; straight donors’ organs are (or had better be) already tested, so it should be no different for gay donors. It would create more work for the healthcare system, but it would increase the donor pool and provide a fair criteria for rejection rather than an arbitrary and preventative one.
• …there is a bit of an implied insult by lumping homosexuals in with drug users. Specifically, lumping gay men in with drug users, as you’ll notice that the ban doesn’t include lesbians.

It’s hard to judge when the U.S. has had a ban on gay blood donors since 1985, for similar reasons. In both situations, while it may be a cheaper and simpler way to reduce the numbers in risk percentages…I don’t think it’s the right way.

health canada, gay organ donors, gay blood donors

To start off the morning, Kaine won the 1,500 comments contest and is now the proud owner of a horribly pink 1GB Sandisk Sansa MP3 player with FM tuner and voice recording capabilities. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but Kaine, I’ll be e-mailing you (I owe you one anyway, and got a little sidetracked) regarding where you want the MP3 player sent. Poor Lessa; missed it by just one.

This weekend, we’ll be having a comment party. Yes, a comment party, as weird as that bloody well sounds. The basic idea is this: at midnight CST on Friday, I’ll put up a post solely for the sake of commenting, explaining the full rules of the party…ish…thing. The purpose is to hit 100 comments to that post alone (comments to other posts won’t count) over the course of the weekend. You can’t just spam the hell out of the post, but like I said, the post itself will explain the rules. Whoever gets the 100th post will get a t-shirt in the Cafepress style of their choice with either the pink/blue or red/blue design posted in yesterday’s comic. There may be a runner-up prize for #101. I’d say if we really wanted to, we could hit 100 posts in one day; hell, if Hikaru and I start bickering, we can manage 50 of those ourselves in just a few hours.

Moving on to the usual mini-discussions of news that occur when Adri just isn’t in the mood for a high-blood-pressure sermon:

Arthritic, sporty, gay? Your finger ratio may tell you: Although it’s pretty common knowledge that apparently the lengths of your fingers in relation to each other can determine whether or not you’re good at math, researchers have also found a correlation between various other traits and the lengths of particular fingers. Long ring fingers indicate a likelihood for osteoarthritis; “male” finger ratios hint at lesbianism. I keep surveying my hands looking for “female” finger ratios to see if that’s supposed to be an indicator of my status as a fabulous king (one queen comment and I skin you) of gay snark. Funny how this one finger in the middle keeps popping up a bit higher than the others…

Gay bar’s straight bouncer wins discrimination suit: A straight woman who worked as a bouncer in a UK gay bar often dealt with harassing comments about her sexuality - a reversal of the usual harassment of homosexuals. She also claims she was fired for it and that her employer often called her a “breeder”; while the court determined that her firing had nothing to do with her sexuality, she was still awarded a settlement for facing discrimination in the workplace - and right well she should be. I still don’t know where we get this idea that because some heterosexuals are nasty to us, that gives us the right to behave in an equally bigoted, discriminatory fashion towards them. Two wrongs don’t make a right, more cliched BS, blah blah, the point is that no one’s sexuality gives anyone the right to behave like a complete douche towards them. It’s not all right to place the shoe on the other foot and “show them how it feels”. It just makes you as bad as the people that you mock and loathe.

Wasn’t asked, told anyway: In a refreshing change, a gay servicemember (who, if you follow the link, is not only brave but quite attractive) came out on public television and wasn’t in any way rebuked or confronted about it by his unit or his commanding officers - and he’s discovered that he’s not alone. Hundreds of gay servicemembers serve active duty with their sexuality fully known by their units. Their fellow servicemembers just don’t care. Out in the field, one’s sexuality doesn’t matter. What matters is capability, and whether or not the people in your unit can put their skills to use saving your life and the lives of the soldiers and civilians around you. Too many highly skilled individuals with knowledge and experience that could be valuable in avoiding bloodshed have been barred from service for the most idiotic reasons - the top reason being that the Pentagon somehow thinks that open homosexuality in the military will foster dissent in the ranks.

Funny how people keep proving them wrong.

don’t ask don’t tell, gays in the military, gay servicemembers, darren manzella, straight harassment, heterosexual discrimination, sharon legg, finger ratios, osteoarthritis, finger lengths

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Guess which green-eyed mook was behind that one. Y’know, I have good friends, letting me publicly embarrass them for the sake of humor. Then again, there’s a reason that I rarely mention anyone by anything other than their first initials. I’m not that much of an arse.

So…I was lazy today and reused comic art. There’s a reason for that beyond me just being a bum, but I’ll explain at a later date. In the meantime, though…I did come up with something else. Don’t ask me what possessed me to do this, but the last line of the comic just screamed “tasteless, tacky t-shirt design”. So cover the children’s eyes and don’t click the cut link if you’re at work (and if anyone’s direct-linking to this without the cut, be nice and warn people of what you’re linking them to), because this is definitely NSFW and about as child-friendly as an electrical socket.

[I warned you; your funeral. Gods, I hope none of the freelance writing jobs I've recently applied to come wandering by here today.]

For decades, the Iowa caucus has been a significant indicator of which potential candidates would be nominated to run on each party platform in the U.S. presidential race. While the caucus doesn’t forecast the outcome 100% of the time, the results have been consistent enough for the event to draw a great deal of media attention as well as interest from concerned voters.

The results are in from yesterday’s Iowa caucus. The winners, from the Democratic and Republican sides of the fence?

Barack “I have no idea what I’m talking about” Obama and Mike “women should submit and gays are going to hell” Huckabee.

…

…

…

…

…

Aw, f***.

barack obama, mike huckabee, iowa caucus, presidential candidate nominations, democratic party, republican party, 2009 election

I know I normally only post updates to No Style on Mondays, but I couldn’t resist sharing this. Imagine my surprise to check my e-mail yesterday to find this:

Click to view full-size.

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Wow. I have fanart. I feel like I’ve arrived or something.

That little gem is courtesy of none other than Lala, who can also be found on deviantArt. I think she just might have picked up on my inherent dislike of the more extreme examples of yaoi fangirls.

I probably shouldn’t have read that while on the phone, because I ended up cackling in a friend’s ear. It’s…um…disturbingly accurate, right down to the “please kill me now”-style whining throughout that little…er…tour. Thanks, Lala. That really made my day.

On a more serious note, a new study has shown that while rates of new infections of HIV have dropped in the gay community overall, they’ve risen startlingly and alarmingly in young gay men. The demographic is limited to New Yorkers, but is likely frighteningly indicative of a national trend. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we need more HIV/AIDS education - not just for gay youth, but for youth overall. Teenagers are going to have stupid, reckless sex; it’s what they do. It’s why abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work; it doesn’t stop them from having sex, it just keeps them from knowing the dangers when they do decide to throw caution to the wind and just screw it. Or just screw each other.

Although we do need more sex education particularly and openly targeted towards gay teens, primarily to make them feel that it’s safe to ask questions about the particular dangers that are more prevalent in homosexual sex than in heterosexual sex. I know that when I took sex ed in high school, after the section on STDs I really didn’t have the courage to walk up to my Biology II teacher and say, “Hi, I’m gay, and I’d like to learn more about HIV/AIDS prevention than the two-minute discussion you just glossed over. Can you point me to some resources so I can educate and protect myself?” Most of what I know about HIV/AIDS I learned from four years volunteering with NOLAN, a New Orleans-area HIV/AIDS education and assistance foundation. Not all boys that age have access to such a resource, and can’t always openly approach someone for assistance for fear of being outed to parents or other disapproving authority figures.

I just don’t think, despite aggressive campaigning, that gay youth are aware of how dangerous HIV is - and it’s too easy to keep the “oh, it won’t happen to me if I’m careless just once” mentality. “Just once” turns into “just twice”, then three or four times, then every time…and yet later they’re surprised when the blood test comes back HIV+. I would blame the recklessness on the annoyingly stereotypical yet frustratingly prevalent culture of feckless youth among the gay subculture, but in truth that’s starting to die out and gays are slowly beginning to abandon the Peter Pan mentality to behave in a more mature, responsible fashion. I don’t know what to blame it on, and I don’t care. It doesn’t change the fact that further education is the most important first step in prevention.

Too many people view HIV as a disease that happens to other people, but that somehow won’t ever afflict them. It’s not. HIV touches everyone. Most people have had someone in their lives, whether friend, family, lover or spouse, that they lost to HIV. It happened to them. It can happen to you.

Do you really want to be just another name on a tombstone?

no style, gay comics, webcomics, humor, gay comic strip, fanart, yaoi fangirls, HIV, AIDS

With presidential candidates campaigning from state to state and 2008 now here and just waiting for the countdown to the presidential elections, we can thank George W. Bush for rousing the political awareness of an entire nation of people who, regardless of party lines, tend to share the same sentiment: we can’t let this happen again. Everyone has their key issues that make particular candidates more appealing; some vote based on stances on gay rights, others on women’s rights and abortion, others on welfare, healthcare, childcare, education, taxation, military spending…the list goes on. Most look for a candidate with a balance of values that most closely reflect their own personal beliefs on multiple issues, and will choose the candidate who’s the closest fit without being a polar opposite on any one key issue. It’s often a “lesser of two evils” situation.

That’s where I find myself today: seeking the lesser of not two, but multiple evils. Although many potential candidates have drawn massive unconditional support from members of their respective parties, I find myself rather reserved. Although I’d love to vote Independent or some other third party, the unfortunate truth is that if you don’t vote for one of the Big Two, your vote will do little to determine the future of this country’s leadership. If I want to choose a candidate that I can be fairly sure is a supporter of gay rights so I can ignore that and move on to focus on their stances on other key issues, I’m pretty much stuck with the Democratic party.

I’m not happy with that.

Nor am I happy with the Republican party. In this case, struggling to choose the lesser of two evils leaves me wholly undecided, because I can’t think of a single Republican or Democratic candidate that I honestly think could do the job. They’re either starry-eyed boyscouts, confused flip-floppers, short-sighted idealists, militant bigots, religious zealots, shady sleazes, outright liars, or just plain batsh*t crazy - or any combination. Not one of them inspires confidence as a leader; not one of them leads me to believe that he or she would have the slightest idea of where to begin unraveling the tangle that the last eight years have made of this nation and its affairs while maintaining the outward appearance of strength required in dealing with our foreign allies and enemies.

One thing I can say about G.W.: he’s one crazy mother f***er, and most would think twice about screwing with him because he’s just nuts enough to push that big red button. His “don’t mess with Texas” attitude has pretty much blanketed the U.S., and outside influences are rightfully wary of provoking him. Hell, I’m wary of provoking him. I’m a little amazed that we made it this far through his terms without him declaring a religious war on home soil.

The problem is that a new candidate will have to fill the void left by his aggression with diplomacy, strength, and confidence. With the current global climate, the United States cannot afford a leader who gives the illusion of being weak, ready to capitulate and incapable of dealing with crisis or hostility. Neither can we afford another diplomatic disaster like W, both in domestic and foreign issues. Politically, we’re wounded and limping. We need not only a nurturer, but a protector.

Unless someone pulls one hell of a hat trick and surprises everyone, I doubt we’ll find that in the current list of Big Two potentials.

But I refuse to skip the vote, so I’ll be stuck picking someone. I’ll weigh my options, their histories, and their campaigns when the finals come around and the choices have narrowed down, and who knows - I may even end up voting Republican, if I can swallow my gorge. Voting Democrat won’t be much easier. I normally don’t let my sexuality sway my vote, but in this case I may have to lean on that in forcing myself to choose a candidate.

It’s rather sad that at this point, it hardly matters. No matter which way we vote, we’re screwed.

With apologies to international readers for the U.S.-centric nature of this post: who do you think would do the best job as the United States’ next president? Even if you aren’t old enough to vote, or hell, even if you’re from another country but still have an interest in U.S. affairs…if you could vote for the president of the United States right now, who would you vote for, and why?

[Complete List of 2008 Potentials]

2008 presidential election, presidential candidates, democratic party, republican party

Since today is the first day of the new year, you’d think I’d have resolved not to sleep past noon. Ah, well. One less resolution to break. Since I’m not even technically supposed to be working today (day off and all, natch) and I’m not feeling particularly talkative, you won’t be getting a rant/dissertation/sudden and prolonged case of diarrhea of the mouth today. Here’s a few points of interest in the news, instead:

Huckabee admits that homosexuality may be involuntary, but says that practicing it is a choice: In a move typical of good ol’ Huck, he proves that he has no bloody idea what’s going on and will say just about anything to give himself an excuse to continue being an ignorant schmuck. (Me? Claws out this afternoon? Never.) I suppose since he managed to smooth out that debacle from the nineties about isolating AIDS patients (yeah, about as smooth as rocky road ice cream), he’s just going to keep going until he finally says something that’ll eclipse it.

This isn’t quite that bad, but it does raise the question: if Huckabee indeed believes that we’re born gay, does that mean that in his eyes we’re born into sin and there’s no hope for salvation? Or are we born into sin but can be saved as long as we don’t engage in any homosexual activity, thus denying who we are and accepting a hateful belief that to love others according to our nature is wrong?

See that? That crap is one of the many reasons I’m an atheist. We ask the easy questions.

“Do you believe in God?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, that wipes out 99% of the ‘Life Guidelines’ questionnaire. Let’s just cover the key basics, then. Are you a viable, self-supporting member of society who contributes to the economy?”
“Yep.”
“Do you hate anyone just because an invisible man in the sky tells you to?”
“Uh…no.”
“Are your actions in any way causing harm to yourself or others?”
“Nope.”
“Are you engaging in mass destruction of property or any other criminal activity possibly involving napalm?”
“Not the last time I checked.”
“Okay, you’re good to go, then.”
“Nifty.”

See? Problem solved. (Of course, you could also argue that atheists are lazy and take the easy way out, while people of faith follow a more difficult path, which brings up the subject of why despite my sarcasm I actually respect many people of faith for choosing the more difficult road, but…that’s not a topic for this column. Moving on…)

New Year, New Unions for Gay Couples: When the ball dropped at the start of the new year today, it didn’t just signify the beginning of a new year; it signified the beginning of new rights for gay partners who wish to engage in legalized unions. New Hampshire’s legislature on gay partnerships went into effect at midnight, and dozens of couples lined up to tie the knot. While the cynic in me says half of them were just doing it for the novelty and will be divorced by 2009 (hell, I was tempted to grab R and drag him up there just to make a statement, but I think within a month I’d have been on my knees begging him to sign the divorce papers)…the rest of me hopes that those couples find the happiness they deserve.

Remind me to never visit Spain: The Pope is at it again, this time with a Dec. 31st broadcast that apparently went over quite swimmingly in Madrid. In it he said the family was “based on the unbreakable union of man and woman and represents the privileged environment where human life is welcomed and protected from the beginning to its natural end.”

Privileged environment.

Jay-sus, I feel like it’s the segregation days all over again. Or at least my college years in Alabama. Elitist b*****d.

I’m starting to feel like the Pope and George W. are joined at the brain. The Pope is playing hard on this traditional family bit and rallying against gay marriage until he’s about to give himself a hernia from the strain, and GW is still spouting off one of his favorite catch phrases: “sanctity of marriage”. To quote one of the Andies: “change the f***in’ record.”

The sad thing is, repeating something over and over again doesn’t show faith in one’s convictions. It demonstrates an inability to adapt, an inability to discuss one’s stance from a logical standpoint with valid reasoning to back it, and an inability to accept that the world might not actually operate according to one’s hidebound beliefs. It’s another example of not wanting to own up to the fact that one’s prejudices are wholly one’s own responsibility, rather than hiding behind dogma as a shield.

That’s it from me. Just that little bit and I’m burnt, spent, and done - longer than I intended, but still not quite one of my usual sermons on a single topic. I need some verbal Viagra or something, as long as it doesn’t make me go deaf.

Screw it, I’m goin’ back to bed. See you tomorrow, hopefully before noon.

~Adri

mike huckabee, homosexuality as a sin, gay marriage, new hampshire, civil unions, new year, pope benedict xvi, george w. bush, sanctity of marriage, traditional family, madrid