DEMS SHOCK AS KERRY'S HAIR SPLITS! - 01/23/2004 - The Democratic Party is in turmoil tonight after the shock announcement that Presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry's hair has split from the party and is to run as an independent ...

So I'm not the only one who thinks there is soemthing odd about that man's hair!

President George W. Bush is said to be 'troubled' by the rash of gay marriages currently taking place in San Francisco, California. As a result he made a declaration today that the 'City of Love', as it came to be known in the sixties, is now a part of his 'Axis of Evil'. ...

Vice President Dick Cheney also stated "I firmly believe that the streets of San Francisco are paved with many natural resources and we will be able to arrange mutually beneficial trade agreements with them. I also look forward to sampling their fruits, of which I have heard the city has many different varieties. I love fruits of all kinds."

"The core of our American democracy, members, is the right to vote. And implicit in that right is the notion that that vote be private, that vote be secure, and that vote be counted as it was intended when it was cast by the voter. I think what we're encountering is a pivotal moment in our democracy where all that is being called into question [^] the privacy of the vote, the security of the vote, and the accuracy of the vote. It troubles me, and it should trouble you." —Kevin Shelley, CA Secretary of State, December 2003

Verified Voting Campaign
True Majority: The Computer Ate My Vote
The California Voter Foundation's Voting Technology Page

My heartfelt congratulations, gentlemen! Perhaps you'd like an adopted granddaughter? :o)

Thank the Goddess for Canada. Canadians rock. I spent almost two weeks in Canada last summer, so I'm not just saying this based on their politics: they are truly great folks. (And their politics rock!!)

"You see, they [conservatives] love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes mommy is bad. Grown-up love means understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow." —Al Franken

How can age not be a factor??! We are violating international law! You can't hold a 12 or 13-year-old boy at a military prison facility—it's barbaric! It's mind-boggling! Thank the Goddess that we did not mistreat them (although apparently the one boy was abused at least early on in his ordeal), but that hardly makes it all OK! Is it not absusive to kidnap these children from their country, steal them away from their families and friends, and imprision them in a foreign country half way around the world?! Is that not a human rights violation? A war crime? I don't care if they had been made into fighters by the Taliban (which they all deny!)—would that have been their fault?! Most Americans don't think kids their age have the maturity to decide whether to have sex; we don't allow them to drink or vote (or drive, at least for the youngest one!); and yet somehow they're mature enough to be held as "enemy combatants" in a military prison?!!

It is no wonder they world despises us! We are delusional—at least our leaders are, along with those Americans who support their activities! Thankfully they were treated reasonably well and educated and allowed to play. I am so very grateful to the Universe for any amount of sanity on the part of our military and our leaders. But that doesn't make the absurd injustice of their kidnapping and year-long imprisonment in any way less appalling! And it's still going on: there are still juveniles imprisoned right now by our military. Where is the public outcry?! The public goes into immediate action when an American child Asadullah's age is kidnapped! Is an Afghan child not as valuable and precious as an American one?! Are we a nation of zombies made blind and braindead by the deceptive war propoganda of the current Administration?! What the hell is going on?!

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) — Tears of sorrow flowed at San Francisco City Hall Thursday as word spread that the state's top court had ended, at least for now, the city's month-old policy of allowing same-sex couples to marry.

Ross Ladouceur, left, weeps after learning he and his partner, Stuart Sanders, arrived too late to be wed Thursday.

It just breaks my heart. Fucking conservatives. It makes me want to hate the world. I probably just need sleep. I just want to give this man the biggest hug in the world! We have to keep up hope though. At least no one is being killed or beaten up. Images of the Civil Rights Movement come to mind. The bigotry and fear of change on the part of the conservative forces is the same, even if the struggle is less physically violent. We shall overcome. I hope. It just breaks my heart. They are so handsome in their tuxedos with their beautiful purple wedding garlands. It's hard to remind myself that most of the anti-gay forces are well-meaning at heart and believe that what they're doing is right. Logically I know that they are motivated by fear, ignorance, misconception, and irrational belief, not by a desire to be cruel and ugly, but when I think of them I see un-human beasts filled with hate and bigotry spitting in the faces of loving couples.

And yet they know they're on the losing end of this battle in the long run (well, in the earthly, pre-apocolyptic long run anyway). (Gods, I wish for the Rapture more than they do: please someone take them all away! Let them all go to their happy heaven! Let them believe what they want! Why do they have to be here? Why do the rest of us have to suffer their idiocy? Sigh.) They know that time is not in their favor; they can feel it; it's what's motivating them to push so hard right now. I must have faith that the time will come when their pious belief in their future "Godly paradise" will be all they will have to cling to, because human rationality and fairness will win out over backwards religiosity and illogical moralism, and the freedom to marry will be a reality instead of a tenuous dream. Let all people of compassion and reason keep up the struggle to hasten the coming of that happy day! So mote it be. (And "So Vote It Be!")