BACK DOOR BOY IN A FRONT DOOR WORLD

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

"Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind."

"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you."

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."

"Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

"Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor."

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

"I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind."

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."

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Rather than smap out my friends list with a bunch more posts, I'll leave it all in this one. It's everything newsworthy that has come by me in the past couple of days.

• "Molly Ivins Shook the Walls With Her Clarion Call" by Maya Angelou
  
  
• Nuclear weapons agency cannot assure security, government auditors warn
  
  
• Senator Clinton won't run out use of force to stop 'pro-terrorist' Iran/Generals Warn Against ‘Disastrous’ Iran Attack
  
  
• Bush says budget will limit non-defense spending; cuts to affect Medicare & Education
  
  
• Bush says he likes to keep people around with low expectations
  
  
• Bush: Future generations face cuts in Social Security, Medicare unless 'we act' now; New budget will 'eliminate the deficit by 2012'
  
  
• Scarborough Draws A Line In The Sand
  
  
• Tim Ryan slams the GOP over spending
  
  
• “Pastor Patriot” Calls To Imprison Adulterers
  
  
• FEMA to Florida's recent Tornado victims: "GO FUCK YOURSELVES!"
  
  
• Collins: ‘Tensions’ Among Senate Conservatives ‘Are Running Very High’ Over Escalation
  
  
• Paris, Britney, Lindsay & Nicole: They seem to be everywhere and they may not be wearing underwear. Tweens adore them and teens envy them. But are we raising a generation of 'prosti-tots'?
  
  
• Virginia Finally Regrets Slavery
  
  
• The horror of forced sterilization; State sanctioned procedure on 3,300 people (More info on eugenics here)

In this episode of "Republicans I Hate":

Limbaugh: Stranded Polar Bears Are ‘Just Playing Around…Like Your Cat Goes To Its Litter Box’

This week, the UK Daily Mail published photos of polar bears stranded on ice floes in the Arctic.

Determined to deny the existence of global warming, Rush Limbaugh said on Friday that the bears were “just playing around…just like your cat goes to its litter box”:

This whole thing is totally misleading. They’re not even stranded on an ice floe that’s broken apart. They’re just out there just playing around. They’re just out there. You know, just like your cat goes to its litter box. When’s the last time your cat got stranded in its litter box? Just like your pit bull attacks and kills the neighbor’s baby horse, whatever, I mean these things happen. It’s called nature.

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Bill "The Bloody" Kristol: Iraq Chaos Shows That Insurgents Are ‘Worried,’ Recent News Is ‘Slightly Optimistic’

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said on Fox News this morning that the recent surge in Iraqi violence is a sign that the extremists are “worried.” Kristol said, “If I were a Sunni extremist and was worried, which I would be, about a doubling of U.S. forces in Baghdad, what would I do? I would try to convey an impression of chaos.”

He added, “On the whole over the last two weeks, some of the news for Iraq is slightly optimistic.”

In fact, recent reports from Iraq note that the escalation is “failing to bring results.” Here are some of the deadly acts of violence that have taken place in the last week alone:

January 28: Mortar shells rained down on a girls’ secondary school in a mostly Sunni area of western Baghdad, killing at least five students and wounding 20.

January 29: A daylong battle with heavily armed Iraqi fighters witnessed the downing of a U.S. helicopter, killing two U.S. troops.

January 30: Bombings, mortar attacks, and shootings killed at least 36 people across Iraq.

January 31: Bombers struck Shiite worshipers during ceremonies marking Ashura, the holiest day of the Shiite calendar. At least 58 people were killed.

February 1: At least 24 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured in bomb blasts, gunfire and other violence.

February 2: A pair of suicide bombers detonated explosives among shoppers in a crowded outdoor market Thursday in a Shiite city south of Baghdad. The attack killed 45 people and wounded 150.

February 3: A suicide bomber killed 135 persons yesterday in the deadliest single explosion in Iraq since the 2003 war began.

February 4: For the first time, the U.S. command publicly acknowledges that four downed U.S. helicopters were lost due to enemy fire.

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Dan Savage On Mary Cheney: The Passion Of Mary Cheney

In today’s New York Times Mary Cheney defends her decision to get her lezbo self knocked the fuck up. Like her father, Mary Cheney believes she shouldn’t have to answer for her party’s attacks on same-sex parents.

“When Heather and I decided to have a baby, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most popular decision,” Ms. Cheney said, referring to her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe. She then gestured to her middle—any bulge disguised by a boxy jacket—and asserted: “This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate, on either side of a political issue. It is my child.”

Nice try, Mary.

Yes, it’s a baby, not a prop. My kid isn’t a prop either, but that never stopped right-wingers from attacking me and my boyfriend over our decision to become parents. The fitness of same-sex couples to parent is very much part of the political debate thanks to the GOP and the Christian bigots that make up its lunatic “base.” You’re a Republican, Mary, you worked on both of your father’s campaigns, and you kept your mouth clamped shut while Karl Rove and George Bush ran around the country attacking gay people, gay parents, and our children in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. It’s a little late to declare the private choices of gays and lesbians unfit for public debate, Mary.

And so long as your party insists on making the fitness of homosexuals to marry or parent—or, hell, exist—a subject of public debate, Mary, your decision to become a parent is germane and very much fit for public discussion and debate. The GOP’s selective embrace of some pregnant dykes—only knocked-up lesbians with powerful connections will be treated with respect—is a disconnect that demands answers. From you, from your father, from your venomous mother, from the idiot president you helped elect. Is that fair? Maybe not. Want to blame someone? Go look in the mirror—and then come out swinging, Mary—for yourself, your partner, and your child.

This was a pretty good start:

Ms. Cheney noted Mr. Dobson’s distortions of the research he cited [in a piece attacking her in Time] and added: “Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents; what matters is being raised in a stable, loving environment.”

She said Mr. Dobson was entitled to his opinion, “but he’s not someone whose endorsement I have ever drastically sought.”

But what’s with the “drastically,” Mary?

Could it be this: You sought Dobson’s endorsement in the past—your father certainly has, and you worked on his campaigns—but now, to avoid tough questions, you want to qualify and minimize your past sucking up to the likes of Dobson by stating that you never sought his endorsement all that, you know, drastically or anything.

Again, Mary, nice try. You kept your mouth clamped shut when your father needed the political support of assholes like Dobson. And now that your dad is a despised lame-duck VP, dad’s gay-bashing political allies feel free to treat you with the same contempt with which they have long treated other gay and lesbians. And now you cry foul?

Sorry, Mary, and fuck you. You and your whole fucked-up family crawled into bed with bigots like Dobson when it suited you. And now you and your whole fucked-up family have some explaining to do. So welcome to the political debate, Mary, and remember…

Your side started it. It only serves you right that you’re going to have to finish it.

And you might want to have it all wrapped up before your kid is old enough to understand what’s being said about his family by your dad’s political allies. Take it from me, Mary: Explaining to your child, after he heard something hateful on the radio, that his family is very much “real,” that it’s not an attack on anyone else’s family, and that his parents are, in fact, fit to be his parents is as distressing and emotionally exhausting as it is unnecessary. And I blame you.

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