WASHINGTON TIMES ARTICLE CONCERNING THE DAMASCUS MEETING

Posted into the INFORMATION category.
Msg Subject Title: Email the School Board Now

Message Text: Per the Washington Times article today, there has been an onslaught of emails SUPPORTING the new sex ed curriculum. This comes as a result of Rich Madeleno's plea for support of homosexual instruction in our schools. Mr. Madeleno is gay and an elected official from Kensington. The majority of support seems to be coming from the southern part of the county. Speak up, folks.

Email the Board at: boe@fc.mcps.k12.md.us

Be clear as to what it is you want-no anger,please, or name calling. BE Specific as to what your concerns are.

So get to work, AmCoppers! Email the board!

My latest at http://www.recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com

[Note: Coach Johnson is an open-source character. If anyone else wants to post as Coach Johnson, please feel free. His email address is: BigJohnson@goteam.us.]

Coach Johnson writes:

Coach Johnson here. I've got a little problem and I thought the good folks on this site might be able to help me out.

For years now I have been trying to put together a homosexual team. You know how we got basketball team, baseball team, wrestling team, etc? Well, I thought, You know, we ought to have a homosexual team. Compete in all the big gay events. Earn a little bit of queer glory for the old high school.

Let me tell you folks: it's one heck of a job trying to recruit these kids. They just don't want to join. Not only do none of the gay kids want to join my team, but none of 'em will even admit to being gay! Ain't that crazy? It's like their embarrassed or something. Like there's some kind of social taboo against plain old-fashioned American high-school faggotry. Who ever heard a such a thing?

Well, I thought to myself, Coach Johnson, I said Coach Johnson, maybe the problem is your technique. Maybe you're not approaching the kids the right way. So I thought, maybe these kids don't want to be gay, but how about bisexual? Like a kind of a compromise. I got no problem with bisexuals playing on my homosexual team--just consider 'em two sport athletes, I guess! Ha!

So I started going up to them in the hallways and saying "Hey, Johnny, I know you say you like girls, but you should be tolerant and give bisexuality a try." But the boys just curled up their nose like they smelled somethin' awful, and a few of 'em gave me the finger, and one boy even said "Screw you, you creepy old man!"

So where am I now? The homosexual season is supposed to start this month--we got counties coming up not long after the holiday break--and like I said, I'm just having one heck of a time putting a decent roster together.

If anyone maybe has a brainstorm and comes up with some new ideas for recruitment methods, please drop me an email.

Yours affectionately,

Coach Johnson

my personal favorite:

No More Cukes (the REAL issue)

I think the "instructional" video in question poses yet another threat to our children. In a Bethesda Gazette article describing the content of the tape shown in Montgomery County classrooms, a segment is mentioned that features a woman demonstrating proper condom use on a cumcumber.

I think we all can agree that using a cucumber as a stand-in for the male organ is setting up an entire generation of kids for some major disappointment (along with crippling self-esteem issues).

As an intelligent young man who grew up around people who loved me in Montgomery County (I attended Walt Whitman High School many years ago), I was never adversely affected by hearing that there are gay people in the world. I was also even thankful for the sex ed I DID recieve in high school (jeez, most of it didn't even come in that handy until college, so I was glad I paid attention). But I could never have gotten over the scars of seeing an instructor demonstrating the proper use of prophylactics on massive pieces of produce. The shame would have been too great.

Am I troubled by the threat of scary gay people and rampant sex? Not so much. But inflating these kids' expectations so wildly? Let's get our priorities straight, people.
[Date=12-02-2004] Name:[Stand Up and Holla!] [redacted], [Msgid=746480]

My latest from http://www.recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com.

Donna Gorman writes:

Board Members

Do you remember when we were children? We were not bomb barded with this disquesting information. Do you have children? I do grown now 26, 28. But we left the public school for these same reasons. Facts shoved down the minds of our young children without any relation to any morality or consequenses of the actions of promiscuity. We are their role models, parents,teachers, we need to practice "tought Love" and teach them to say no. I am a nurse who sees first hand the pregnancies, diseases, motor vehicle traumas of our children because parents, schools and school boards who are afraid to stand up and protect our children and teach them to say no. Your decisions from this board are wrong about this and trying to take God out of school and thanksgiving ect. My husband and I vote for recall on your board positions. You were elected to carry out the will of the citizens of this county not your own.


Blicero responds:

A few issues

Dear Ms. Gorman,

1. You say that as a youth you were never "bomb barded" with "disquesting [sic] information." Well, if you have 26 and 28 year old children you must have been in school in the 1950s. What about "Duck and Cover"? The fear of nuclear annihilation? And later, in the 60s and 70s, thousands of our soldiers dying in war? Was none of this information "disquesting" to you?

2. How can facts be "shoved down the minds" of children? How can anything be "shoved" down a "mind"?

3. How exactly are "pregnancies, diseases, motor vehicle trauma" somehow the fault of the school board? As to pregnancies and diseases, those are precisely what the sex-ed cirriculum works to prevent, by making sure that students who DO have sex know how to use condoms to prevent pregnancies and diseases. As to "motor vehicle trauma," when I attended MCPS I remember being constantly "bomb barded" with anti-drinking and anti-drunk driving messages. MADD and SADD were very strong presences in the school. The school spent money to stage elaborate "scared straight"-type drunk driving accident re-creations. So how exactly is the school board to blame for the negligence of students who drive drunk?

4. What the heck does "thanksgiving" have to do with anything? When I attended school, November was a veritable cavalcade of Turkey-and-Pilgrim-themed decorations. In fact, it is precisely to the presence of these Turkey-Pilgrim-and-Gourd decorations that I attribute my strong sense of American patriotism.

I think we can indeed "thank" MCPS for its brave choice to recognize Thanksgiving!

The Administrator at the Recall site is relentlessly deleting all of our posts, and refusing to explain why he is doing so.

(In case anyone cares, the only time I have ever blocked anyone from AmCop was le chien, after being warned and continuing to leave comments using language that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush. Moreover, he asked me to unblock him, and I did so.)

1. If you do post comments on their message board, make sure to copy it (or use the handy feature that emails a copy to you), because it will likely be deleted--even if there is nothing even remotely offensive in it. And send your comments to me if you want me to post them here.

2. The Administrator is also trying to block us from using the message board. Does anyone know what a "random IP generator" is, how to use one, how to get one? Is there any other method to subvert being blocked from a message board?

The latest from Stand Up and Holla! at http://www.recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com/:

This whole thing has really gotten the gears in my head-engine turning. If Rev. Moon and the people over at the Washington Times can keep this story alive, we can hopefully drum up support for some OTHER issues once we've got all the Beltway liberals listening. In an earlier post, I made reference to Home Ec. class -- a.k.a. "let's make the boys wear lace aprons and learn how to cry" class. But there's quite a few OTHER thorns in my side.

I'll start with "Gym Class." Most parents have NO idea what goes on behind the closed doors of your average gymnasium in Montgomery County. Well, I've been there, and seen it, and I think it's time people heard.

#1) The gym at my high school had SHOWERS. "Sure," you're thinking to yourself. "You can work up some perspiration playing Tether Ball or Badminton. So it's a good idea to slip behind the shower curtain and soap up before your next class." Well, that's where I'm going to have to stop you. There are NO SHOWER CURTAINS OR STALLS IN OUR SCHOOLS' GYMS. News Flash: Young men are expected to mingle with each other in the altogether, while teachers are milling about (taking notes?!). I would want my childrens' school to be a safe zone. That's why I want to raise them in Downtown Bethesda -- not Downtown Gomorrha! Let's do away with the free in-school pervert peep shows, shall we -- once and for all.

#2) Several schools in Montgomery County have wrestling teams. Oh, now there's a good idea -- encourage youg men in tight singlets to roll around on the floor with each other, grunting and moaning. I say "Less half-nelsons; more full-Leviticus 20:13!" If you ask me, the whole idea of a wrestling team in high school is Unitarded!

#3) Some people are liable to say I've gone "too far" with this next one, but it's something I've thought long and hard about. It's the "Presidential Physical Fitness Test" which is administered yearly to students in Montgomery County public schools. Some of the activities that are a part of this test are fine (and could even come in handy), like running a mile (away from the Montgomery County School Board). But each year, the test includes one doozy of a finale: The Scoliosis Test. This test involves young men bending over, with his hands on his knees, while an adult investigates his backside for signs of curvature or malformation. Now, let's get a show of hands here, folks? How many people are comfortable with the idea of a group of young boys in terrycloth short-shorts going 45 degrees for a strange man who hangs out in a stall-free shower room every day? Thought so. And another thing. I've "Googled" t! he word, and I'm not totally convinced there even IS such a thing as Scoliosis.

So again: These are just some of the other things that I -- as an alum of 12 grades of MCPS, through Walt Whitman High School -- think could stand to be addressed, now that this case is starting to attract significant regional attention. Thank you.

So, I was going to invent a persona called "Coach Bob," who would post messages at http://www.recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com/. Coach Bob would claim to be "recruiting" youngsters for a homosexual lifestyle "team," and would lament the difficulties of the recruitment effort in schools these days.

But it looks like there's another Coach already posting:

promoting bisexuality to 8th graders?!

I will be at the meeting. It's absurd that the liberals who run Montgomery County want to promote bisexuality to 8th graders. It's recruitment, plain and simple. "Hey, Johnny, I know you say you like girls, but you should be tolerant and give bisexuality a try." --Coach Johnson
Name:John Hopkinson johnhopkinson2004@yahoo.com, [Msgid=746090]

These are actual adult people, writing these things on a website. Amazing.

So I followed Blicero and Holla's lead and posted under "General Comments" on the recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com, I wonder if they'll take it down:

the insidious gaygenda: books/sports

I fully agree with the post of "Ben" below. The gaygenda is everywhere and must be stopped. The School Board's decision is only the latest in a long line of depredations that I was forced to endure as a student.

I looked up on the internets about "Walt Whitman", and it turns out that he is completely gay and unrepentantly wrote poems about it for all the world to see. It is symptomatic of our eroding culture that the liberal university professors try to make us think he is a "great american poet" when it is obvious that they are just trying to insinuate mind terrorism in our children and recruit our kids into gay slavery. And it is so pathetic that the people on the school board try to please these elitists who will only ever be condescending to them when they name a school after a gay activist. They should be fired and try to get jobs at an Ivy League school where they will find out just how much the radical professors really care about them (which is not at all I bet, heh.), or maybe go to Hollyweird where Michael Moore will give them a home in his millionaires gay pervert palace.

But school names weren't the only abuse of public money to further the gaygenda that I experienced at "Whitman". There were many books in the library that were purchased with public money that deceitfully and falsely depicted gay people as acceptable. "The Color Purple", "Brideshead Revisited", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "The Iliad" and a lot of things by "Oscar Wilde" were all required reading in some of my classes. Fortunately I spotted the propaganda early and learned to avoid it, but other kids might not be so lucky in the future and might get sucked into the effete literary elitist, "I'm OK, Gay OK" lifestyle that the gaygenda so shamelessly promotes. Even if they aren't in the classroom these books that everyone paid for will still continue to lurk in the libraries until we stand up and do something about it.

I would also like to note a further corruption in our schools being forced on our kids in the form of early sexualization of teenagers. Not only is the wrestling team an obvious front for perverts looking for an easy life-style with no hard work. Young, muscular men, in tight clothes, groping each other in public can only serve to lead our kids away from decent values and into disease and deviance even if they do get a scholarship out of it. Additionally, I remember watching young girls, not even 18, dance during halftime in next to nothing showing off their firm, smooth, nubile, firm, 18-year old bodies and enticing the men in the audience to lustful, impure, pornographic, lustful thoughts. When I was in school it was called the "Dance Team", but really should have been titled "Painted Ladies of Babylon" which would have been more accurate and warned more people as to what was going on.

In conclusion I would like to reiterate my idea that making our kids be "sexy" in this way is going to lead to more pre-marital sex and will end up hurting the family and so America will be weaker. We must stop moral terrorists and smoke them out of their holes on the School Board or wherever they hide, and I suggest that we not only contact Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough as some in these pages have suggested, but also Bill O'Reilly because He is looking out for us which is what he says in his Book.

Thank you for your time.

OK, they've now blocked me at http://www.recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com/. Kind of surprising it took them even this long.

So, I've got one other ISP in the house--after that, I guess I won't be back in business until I can get to the library, whose many computers (I assume) have many different ISP's.

If anyone knows how to subvert this problem (uh, Chien? be a good dog and help us out here) let me know.

Stand Up and Holla!'s latest post at http://www.recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com/:

Another Threat: Home Ec.

A quick glance at this message board suggests that clearly, this forum has touched a nerve. Angry people are talking, and finally their voices are being heard.

So I figure that, while some ears are bent, we might as well throw some other issues on the table. It's time we take a lot at some of the other insidious ways that Montgomery County Schools are pushing their gay agenda (or "gaygenda," as I sometimes call it):

1) "Home Economics" class. I took this class at Walt Whitman in the fall of 1991. In it, every young person was taught simple sewing and basic cooking. I know what you're saying right about now: "Back up, Ben -- EVERY young person?!" That's right folks, EVERY young person: both female and male. Now, honestly, what is the point of teaching young men about what goes on within the private world of women? I have a few thoughts about the ideas they were pushing on us, and they don't involve "making doilies" or "baking meatloaf" (or maybe they do, in the event that those terms happen to coincidentally be some kind of "gay slang.") The real kicker is that this class was REQUIRED. I don't remember Whitman making the girls take auto maintenance class, or Monday Night Football class (you know, it just dawned on me, look who our school was named after!? A poet?! They might as well have called it "Ballerina Unicorn Pony Pink Frilly Sundress School.").

My point with all of this is that you need to dig deeper... the gaygenda is being sold in far more subtle and insidious ways in public schools these days.

We need fewer schools named after poets (have you READ this Whitman character? The guy's queerer than a fruitpunch waterfall!), and more named after NASCAR drivers.

We need fewer classes about baking, and more about true American freedom.

In closing, We need less Home Ec. and more "Homo? Ick!"

Bravo, Holla!

And my latest exchange:

Laura writes:

growing tired

You know, I shouldn't involve myself in this exchange but I am growing tired of you new hobby Brian, chasing people all over this website and insulting them, but it is so typical of people like you, liberal professors who have no tolerance for others who have different points of view from your own. You crack me up with how you always want to psychoanalyze exactly what twisted version of reality is REALLY on the minds of people like Kathleen that you insist on insulting. You intentionally misunderstand 98% of the people leaving messages on this website. Most of us are well educated, well informed, very tolerant and very loving and involved parents who are tired of the constant assaults on our efforts at parenting our children. There are many things we cannot control in this world but that doesn't mean we must just sit here and take it as people like you and the school board try to tell us how misguided we are and that you and they know better. Maybe when you 'grow up' you will understand what I am talking about, but I do not hold out much hope for you. You have proven in your many elitest posts including the vile ones that were deleted yesterday (yes, I read them) that you are immature and ignorant and have no tolerance or respect for people of faith or anyone who dares object to the agenda that is being put forth. I do feel sorry for you.

Blicero responds:

"Under Assault"?

Laura, a very nice piece of disingenuousness.

We live in a culture in which our children are constantly under assault from forces--namely commercial and corporate entities who act only upon greed--bent on turning our children into overstimulated, underchallenged, hyperconformist demographics: in other words, consumers of crap, and nothing else.

However, your children are not "under assault" from teachers simply doing their job: imparting the information that gay people exist, and are to be respected like any other people; and that condoms prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

Now, if your gay child were to be harrassed, verbally abused, ostracized, discriminated-against, or physically attacked: THAT would be an "assault" on your child. If your child were to contract HIV or herpes, THAT would be an assault on your child. Trust me: if your child had unsafe sex because he/she hadn't received the proper information, you would learn the true meaning of an "assault" on your child.

But it is clear from your comments that you are not really concerned with protecting your children from the things which significantly threaten them: you are only interested in conducting a political witch-hunt because it gives you a sense of purpose, imparts the thrill of righteous anger into your otherwise quotidian life--anger directed at a very easy, very wrong target: the school board.

My position is proven by the fact that you have every right to exempt your child from sex-ed should you choose to do so. Keep your children at home that day--or for those few hours--and instruct them according to your values. But that's not enough for you, for the reasons I outlined above.

And please, don't throw around "faith" like it's some kind of ping-pong ball to be swatted around in opinion forums. "Faith" is not just some old item in the rhetorical toolbag. And it should not function as a stand-in for what you really mean, or what you're really trying to articulate. You have yet to demonstrate a) that you have any faith to speak of, or b) that your faith has any connection whatsoever to your crusade in this context.

If you want to talk about faith, we can do so--but what we are talking about now is your fear, the way you've displaced your fear onto gay people and the reality of sex in general, and the way your thinking has been addled by the intoxicating feeling of righteous anger and (misguided) collective purpose.

Now: if you care to respond, see if you can do so without using code-words like "liberal" and "elitist." Not because these terms offend me, but because they've been drained of meaning by overuse and misuse, and because they're not your own words: they've been given to you. See if you can express yourself in your own words. But first think about what you mean.

If you want to see some of Keith Olbermann's MSNBC coverage of the Ohio recount story click here, here, and here (scroll down a bit).

His reportage has the usual anti-Kerry cliches and is somewhat dismissive of the "fringe" parties that are actually getting the recount to happen, but at least he's covering it. No one will believe its real unless they see it on the TEEVEE.

On Majority Report tonight they were saying that Olbermann's ratings have gone up 124% since he's been following this story. Of course that's a meaningless stat if we don't know how many were watching to begin with, but we can pretend it's a lot and we will feel better. At any rate, as long as he's being commercially rewarded for doing his, (ahem) job he'll keep doing it. So if you've got cable, tune in to Olbermann or write him (KOlbermann@msnbc.com) if you're feeling like you want to pat ole Keith on the head.

First, sign this PFAW petition to CBS and NBC regarding the United Church of Christ ad debacle.

Second, I've been having loads of fun on the Message Board at http://www.recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com/, and I encourage everyone (especially those of you from the D.C. metro area) to go have at some of the lusciously soft targets. [Note: the targets may be soft, but this beast has teeth. I realize there are billions of wingnut sites around the Web, and it's obviously a waste of time to get mired in them--but this--this is my own goddamn backyard, and I don't suffer these fools gladly.]

A few of the exchanges from today:

Blicero writes:

Why Not Take Up a Hobby?

Clearly you folks are suffering from the sense of a lack of meaning in your lives. I can sympathize with that. Life can be thankless and monotonous, people and things that once gave us pleasure can, over time, cease to do so. We get lonely. Depression and other illnesses set in. It's part of the ageing process, at least in our society.

But why this crusade? Why do the most cliched thing in the book--act like a bunch of yokels, get yourselves all riled up about that bad old elitist school board tryin' to learn yer kids about all them sinful modern ways, start organizing meetings...it's all been done a million times. You can't stop modernity, and you can't stop our progress toward becoming a society that doesn't single out groups of people for persecution, ostracism, ridicule. I can see from the good sense of the teenagers who have posted on this message board that they are already a lot more enlightened than you--and I'm sure it scares you that your children will inevitably grow up with a set of values different from your own.

For that I say: Thank God! Thank God for children! Thank God that all the worst evils and prejudices of a generation don't automatically get passed on to its progeny! Thank God that, even if people can't change, their children can.

So just please, take a step back from this silliness and look at yourselves. I know you're very busy, busy as bees, trying to distract yourselves from your REAL fears and anxieties--but still, take a quiet minute and try to reflect on what it is you're really after here.

And then...get a hobby! Go traveling! Learn to paint, or play tennis, or rock climb! Move to Virginia, or Alabama, or Afghanistan! Take a lover if you're the adventurous type. Or--seriously--channel your activist spirit into activities that really help people who need it--the elderly, the mentally ill, the learning-disabled, the poor. Volunteer. Think about What Jesus Would Do. Would Jesus mount a crusade against the school board? No way! He would go out and help people! Would Jesus fetishize his hatred, nurture his greivance? No way! He'd turn that cheek, set off and get to work!

Retta responds:

Children are our hobby

If you don't have children you can't understand the strong bond and love. Parents will always shield their children from dangers and that is their job. Parents love their children no matter what.

Blicero responds:

Define "Danger"

Retta, I couldn't agree with you more that a parent's primary two duties are unconditional love and protection. But in order to protect you first have to understand what the danger is. And if your idea of "danger" is learning about homosexuality and learning what condoms are, then you are a negligent parent--acting not out of love and a wish to protect, but out of selfishness, fear, and a futile desire to control. You are behaving like a misguided child, not like a wise parent.

.............

Elmer Blankenship writes:

Fairness for board members

The decision by the schoosboard members is so irresponsible, and inconsiderate of parents, that they should be dismissed without opportunity to explain their actions.

Blicero responds:

That's the Spirit, Elmer!

Why not just execute them on the spot?

.............

Blicero writes:

Unfair Moderation

The moderator of this site has been deleting my posts, which have contained no obscene or 4-letter words, and have been no more or less "civil" in tone than other posts on this board.

In my first [deleted] post, I expressed an opinion that the Recall community may find life more amenable to their "beliefs" in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a state which boasts many fine educational facilities, including the Reverend Falwell's Liberty University.

In my second [deleted] post I simply expressed my opinion that people who take up causes like this one are actually afraid of their own deaths (as we all are) and afraid of losing their children to adulthood (as we all are)--but instead of facing those fears and trying to cope with them, they invent an imaginary enemy (brainwashing, "pro-gay" teachers and administrators) and go on the attack. All I said was that you folks aren't even really scared of gay people--you're scared of yourselves, and you're scared of (and for) your children.

ADMINISTRATOR responds:

Response

Your message emphasized that particicpants in this fourm were going to die. It was threatning at a minimum. Secondly, this board is open to all participants, but the subject matter is the Board of Education of Montgomery County Maryland. Someone with an email address of [redacted] ranting on either side of the issues raised by this web site is not particularly helpful. I will not repost your original message for the reasons outlined above.

Blicero responds:

Interesting Logic

Administrator: don't assume you can identify my location based on an email address. Anyone who has graduated from college in the last ten years knows university addresses can be retained, often for several years. More importantly, as I have stated, I attended public school from K-12 in Bethesda, and that makes my input in this forum eminently relevant. No, you needn't look to NYC to find opponents--you have all you'll need right here at home.

Secondly, anyone who read my initial post would read "you are going to die" IN THE CONTEXT OF my other statements of fact, such as "You are going to grow old" and "Your children are going to go away." My point is obvious--that, threatened by forces over which they have no control (time, age) the Recall people have displaced their anger onto a scapegoat, in this case gays (or their proxies in the schools, teachers). A few decades ago it would have been blacks in the schools, or Jews. Teachers teaching that interracial marriage is "normal" would have been targeted. The fear and anger and motive never change; only the status of the chosen enemy.

So, thank you for responding--I will never again mention death, which is BAD and should not be mentioned and WILL NEVER HAPPEN TO ME OR ANYONE I KNOW.

By the way, here is the deleted post:

You're going to grow old, grow sick, and die.

Your children are going to grow up, becomes adults, move away, and grow apart from you.

There will be a lot of sadness, a lot of loneliness, a lot of regret in your future.

Your future is short. Death is coming.

The gays are not responsible for the tragic shape of your lives. There is no one to blame for your own misery but yourselves and/or God. Your little crusade won't change any of this. Any of it. Think about that for a minute.

"Threatning [sic] at a minimum"? You decide.

I had an idea to boycott the Red states a while ago. This looks like a better idea.

I grew up and went to public school in one of the most affluent, liberal, and well-educated counties in the country: Montgomery County, MD. Our congressional district was the only district in the nation in 2002 to kick out a (moderate/liberal) incumbent Republican and replace her with a Democrat.

Well, it appears that the Christ-killing, gay-bashing panophobic psychopaths are on the march there, too.

They want to recall the county school board because homosexuality can be discussed in sex-ed classes and they show a video about condoms.

If I see any of these folks around town I'm going to plow my car straight into them.

(Thanks to Stand Up and Holla! for the article.)

Update: Any AmCop readers from MC should seriously go to the message board and post some comments:

http://www.recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com/

While razzing fundies may be a pointless activity, it's still fun, and this is our hometown so we ought to reprazent.

The fact that Gregoire didn't instantaneously concede, and apologize to her opponent and the nation for even having run, makes me suspicious of her Democratic credentials. Still. MoveOn writes:

Out of the 2.8 million votes cast for Governor of Washington State, the final margin was razor-thin. Dino Rossi, a conservative former state Senator, was ahead by only 261 votes. Then a recount brought the margin down to 42 votes. Now, Christine Gregoire, the Democratic candidate, is calling for a hand recount --which could easily make her the victor, since recounts typically favor the candidate who is behind.

The catch: a recount costs at least $750,000, and Gregoire needs to raise that money by tonight to pay for it. Can you help? We are 42 votes from an important progressive victory. To support the Washington recount, click here:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/recount.html

The President makes an important contribution to our national political discourse.

[Orange is the color of the opposition party in Ukraine. You may have, oh, heard a story or two about a little overturning of the result of their fraudulent election they've been havin' over there.]

Is the mainstream media (I hate that fucking term. Can I just say "Whores"?)--are the Whores covering the Ohio recount at all? (I'm asking seriously, since I really wouldn't know, these days.)

Well, they're covering it in Britain.

And the People's Action Network sends this:

The judge in Ohio basically said that only Kerry can get the recount going before Blackwell runs the clock out. And that's exactly what will happen unless we all speak out now. Here's a one click page where you can send your personal message on election fraud to the Kerry campaign, the DNC, and the GAO at the same time

http://www.thepen.us/e-fraud.html

Tell Senator Kerry he must act now to fight for us all by joining in the request for a temporary restraining order for which the groundwork is already done. Please post this link everywhere you can to everyone you know.

Can you believe this shit?

Mich. Governor Pulls Same-Sex Benefits

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Gov. Jennifer Granholm will remove same-sex partner benefits from contracts negotiated with state workers, said an aide, citing a voter-approved amendment to the Michigan Constitution that bans gay marriage ``and similar unions.''

Cowardly whore. How about a fucking resignation, from someone, somewhere? How about, "You voted for me to be your Democratic governor, you voted for John Kerry for President, and now you also voted to write discrimination into our state law? I don't fucking think so. You can't have it both ways. Nope, not me. Huh-uh. You can vote, but I'm not gonna sign that shit. I've got some motherfucking principles, you know? I'm not going to do your legal gay-bashing dirty work for you. Find some other Canadian-American ho to do it. Seeya. Ring me up after Arnold gets that foreign-born-citizen-can-become-president law passed."

"Honoring the intent of the voters?" Don't make me vomit.

Dear Leader

Patriotism

(Warning: "Patriotism" not work safe.)

Blicero adds: "Patriotism" is a must-watch. There's really nothing more to be said, in any context, about our country and our "politics." Except maybe they should have included a "Jesus...FUCK YEAH!....End Times...FUCK YEAH!"

I think we need to give Tom Ridge credit. If you remember, the Bush administration, before appointing him Director of Homeland Security, managed to cause the deaths of 3,000 Americans in domestic terrorist attacks. Since Ridge's appointment, there have been no such deaths!

This performance no doubt comes as a disappointment to the Bush administration. Clearly a "Homeland Security" department which comes up with shit like this:




and also shit like this*, is intended to kill as many of us as possible. And so far, it has failed in that mission. So, I think we should give Tom Ridge credit for bungling his job in such a salutary manner.

Thanks, Tom!

* I don't know where all those lovely illustrations--the ones that show you how to run away from the nuclear blast, rather than toward it--have gone, but if anyone has a link please send it.

Well, it's true that I haven't been reading many of the news information stories being provided to me by the journalistic news media outlets which work so hard to keep me informed about the important news events occurring every minute in my own country and around the world. For instance, I'm not even willing to click on this story to see what it's about:

Brooks: A True Evangelical

and I'd almost rather kill myself than read the first paragraph. But if you'd like to do so (read it, that is, not kill me--though perhaps we can negotiate) please be my guest.

Though I may not be up to date on all the significant goings-on, I do know one thing, and that one thing can pretty well be summarized by this:




Doesn't it send a chill down your spine to look an enemy in the face? But, well, I guess they were right when they said everything changed on 9/11. That picture, by the way, was taken on 9/11. Now doesn't that send a chill down your spine?

Good night, and may God bless each one of you.

Thomas Frank on the Red/Blue divide.