So didja know that Bart Stupak is one of C Street's top Democratic members?

Not that I liked him before, but I really hate his guts now.

We need to primary the fuck out of this guy.

Weird and disturbing:

A MARTA bus driver is on suspension following allegations that he forced passengers to pray before allowing them to exit the bus.

Of course, this is not a story about religion or public prayer, as much as everyone with an agenda to push would like it to be. I can't speak for Georgia, but I know that in Florida, the number one reason that people are Baker Act-ed is religious obsession (and that's genuine obsession, guys, the clinical kind; the Baker Act isn't an evil ploy by secularists). This story is totally about mental illness.

Whoa:

LONDON (Reuters) - The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, believes banks serve a social purpose and are doing "God's work."

Why is this god so pissed at the American economy?!

The article does not mention any connection to Doug Coe's group, but that was the first association that sprung to my mind. Who else advocates so clearly for the intersection between corporate irresponsibility and bad theology?

Check out this chart (via dKos). It shows how, in every state, the biggest factor in determining support of gay marriage is age -- not party, race, or wealth.

Waiting another 20 years is unacceptable, but it's nice to know that this fight has a "use by" date.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to genuinely want the kind of crap that gets marketed as "the perfect Christmas gift." Sure, I like nice stuff, and I've got an Amazon wishlist like everyone else, but I also would really like some nail polish remover and a squeegee, and I would like those two things way, way more than Pier 1's caramel apple pancake mix.

Ft. Hood is providing the AP with a new field of analysis in which to epically fail. Witness:

FORT HOOD, Texas – There was the classroom presentation that justified suicide bombings. Comments to colleagues about a climate of persecution faced by Muslims in the military. Conversations with a mosque leader that became incoherent.

One of these things is not like the others. Incoherent? Might be unstable. Justifying suicide bombings? Giant red flag.

Comments about a climate of persecution? Um...no. Not the same thing. Interesting detail, but not relevant. Not something that indicates homicidal tendencies.

Definitely something that the AP should have left out of the report.

The project I started on Monday -- the total soda embargo -- is going really well. I haven't backslid at all. :)

On Thursday, I got my flu shot and my H1N1 vaccine, which is a huge relief. I really didn't want swine flu.

Last night, KO reported that Hasan used a gun known as a "cop killer" and that the gun had been purchased legally.

Nice going, Texas. You have a state that legally sells cop killers to people who intend to use them to kill cops (and others).

Frickin' Texas.

The Sentinel reports that the former mother-in-law of the man who shot up an office building yesterday says that he abused her daughter while they were married.

I wonder: If we lived in a society that took domestic violence more seriously -- if we considered DV a warning that an abusive man (or woman, but in this case, a dude) might hurt other people (which is hardly a stretch) -- could this tragedy have been avoided?

Cool article! Gawker concluded that the Fort Hood disaster proves women need to be let into combat already:

A deranged murderer attacked an Army base packed with combat-ready soldiers trained to kill. The only person who could stop him? A female civilian.

[snip]

The tale of Fort Hood massacre will have many morals-of-the-story, complicated stuff about workplace harassment, medical licenses, Muslims in the military, and the twisted state of mental health in the Armed Forces. This, the case for letting women risk life and limb more often, is one of the happier ones.

[snip]

But if a woman can storm into that place and save all those people, shouldn't she be allowed serve alongside them in a war zone, too? Yeah, sexual tension has a tendency to spook the Army (which is why there are no gays in the military, not even one!) and, oh, it'd be such a drag to deal with girl toilets and tampons in the barracks. But, guys, a chick just saved all your asses. Figure it out, already.

My one quibble would be that "Muslims in the military," as a topic, has nothing to do with Fort Hood. I saw a CAIR spokesman on Maddow last night and he said that 15k to 20k Muslims are serving in the armed forces; you'll notice that this kind of incident doesn't happen 15k to 20k times a year. Clearly, Hasan just snapped and someone should have been paying better attention. I don't see what Islam has to do with it.

Obviously, Ft. Hood is still the big story, shooting-spree-wise, but for the past 5 hours Orlando has been a mess because of a man who shot up an office building downtown. Everything was locked down and I-4 was closed because they didn't have him in custody for a number of hours. Details vary from report to report -- when the first shots were fired, how many injured and dead, how many hours before the gunman was brought in alive. This is not a happy story, and it sickens me to know that all the wrong conclusions will be drawn from it.

Whether or not Floridians have a right to carry guns in the workplace has been a contentious issue for several years, with the state finally deciding that, yes, your right to pack heat in the office is protected. (Your right to carry a weapon to your job on Disney property is not; doncha love how powerful that corporation is?) The gun nuts are gonna be all, "Ha, dude wouldn't have shot up the office building if he thought that people there would shoot back at him! That's why it's important to have guns in the workplace!"

But if this incident proves anything, it's that that's not true. In a state where carrying guns to work is protected, the gunman still decided that he wanted to shoot up an office building. The potential presence of weapons was not a deterrent. The potential presence of weapons did nothing to stop the shooting spree.

But why the shooter had a gun -- that's what we should talk about, and what we never openly will. Not in this state.

Interesting discussion being had on Facebook: "Is Amy an atheist?" What's so interesting, I think, are the unquestioned assumptions coming out about what/who G-d/God/god is/isn't.

"Amy doesn't believe in God? She's an atheist."

Okaaaay...but just because I don't think that particular God is real doesn't necessarily make me an atheist. You know that, right?

I realize that I'm an atheist by the incredibly narrow understanding currently recognized by both the religious and atheist communities. I'm fine with that because, in addition to covering a large part of my thinking, there's also nothing wrong with being an atheist. We're good people. Facebook Christians who are leering and spitting at me -- well, they have issues, let's leave it at that.

But it bothers me that the atheist community is so inflexible with its definitions of things. If I'm in a feminist environment, online or in person, I can play with definitions and identity as much as I want. I can be a radical libertarian post-third wave feminist; I can be in a heterosexual relationship and identify as queer.

However, atheism, in its current incarnation, is about absence, not presence, and destruction of religious identity rather than construction of a nonreligious identity. And I don't like the type of atheists who are so proud that they DO NOT BELIEVE (all caps because that's how I feel they are announcing it) without addressing the social role of shared community and rituals or the quintessence of being human (whether you want to call it spirituality or not, it's a transcendence we've all experienced at some time or another).

Love is a verb, so why can't G-d be a verb? Be a process, not a person? Be a symbol, not an idol? Aren't these questions that should be discussed by people who don't subscribe to traditional religious notions? Aren't they questions that are at least a little bit important for their own merits?

If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

Yay Colbert!

Here's a story that's not so good:

[Justice Department 2007 report] Crime Against Persons with Disabilities, for example, excluded institutionalized people with disabilities - a huge omissions considering that sexual assault and abuse happen at extremely high rates in institutional settings.

That's an awfully big failing.

Those freakin' "personhood for cells" people are back, and this time they are so vague as to be entirely meaningless:

Colorado Right to Life and Personhood USA, the groups behind proposed Initiative 25, are undeterred by the fact that Coloradans voted against the test-run amendment last year by a margin of three to one. The new amendment is even farther reaching, moving the initial marker for the beginning of life from "fertilization" to "the beginning of the biological development of a human being."

At least "fertilization" is a concept, even if it doesn't mean what they think it means. "The beginning of the biological development of a human being" is just nonsensical.

Here's some crap that you probably thought was behind us:

A malicious and factually inaccurate e-mail accusing the ACLU of not standing solidly on the side of religious liberty – an e-mail that was first circulated six years ago – has once again reared its ugly head and popped up in the e-mail inboxes of people across the country.

Don't get sucked in.

The failure of the MSM to provide any kind of valid analysis has been a problem for at least as long as I can remember, but now it's really, really, really exasperating, because instead of just misleading sheeple (the major effect of the Bush years), it's aggravating problems within the Democratic party.

For example, a Politico piece which is the top story on Yahoo, "Democrats, incumbents get wake up call," and goes on to characterize the losses in NJ and VA as "humiliating:"

The off-year elections were, in two big races, an unmistakable rebuke of Democrats, reshuffling Obama's political circumstances in ways likely to have severe near-term consequences for his policy agenda and larger governing strategy.

Independents took flight from Democrats. They suffered humiliating gubernatorial losses in traditionally Democratic New Jersey, where Obama lent his prestige in a pair of eleventh-hour campaign rallies Sunday, and in Virginia, which had been trending leftward and just last year was held up as an example of how Obama was redrawing the political map in his favor.

Okay, so I don't get to vote in Virginia, but if I did, and if I had voted for the president last November, why would I turn out for a guy running against the president's agenda? Seriously. Doesn't Politico/the AP/Yahoo news think that's a relevant detail in any way? Creigh Deeds was bending over backwards to distance himself from Obama. That's not a rebuke of the Dems, that's a rebuke of being a wuss. He probably deserved to lose, because we learned SEVEN YEARS AGO that running as Bush Lite doesn't pay off.

kos nails it:

1. If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary "bipartisanship", you will lose votes.

2. If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.

3. If you forget why you were elected -- health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform -- you will lose votes.

Tonight proved conclusively that we're not going to turn out just because you have a (D) next to your name, or because Obama tells us to. We'll turn out if we feel it's worth our time and effort to vote, and we'll work hard to make sure others turn out if you inspire us with bold and decisive action.

The choice is yours. Give us a reason to vote for you, or we sit home.

This is the lesson that must be taken from VA and NJ, not that Obama's agenda is too aggressive or progressive or pisses too many people off. These candidates, not being good representatives of party values, failed; the party did not, unless it was by assuming that the base can be ignored.

What an article. I hope everyone will eventually have some appreciation for what this is like:

Me: Hi, I'm here to pick up a prescription for Smith?

Pharmacist/Pharmacy Tech: Ok, great.

(Whoever is helping me goes to grab it from the back. When they bring it to the front, I can clearly see that it’s not the right package.)

Me: Oh, uhm, Dr. Redacted called in a three month supply? That looks like a one month package.

Pharmacist/Pharmacy Tech: Oh, well, the discount plan only pays for one at a time.

Me (confused): I'm not in a discount plan? I always pay cash. For a three month supply.

Pharmacist/Pharmacy Tech: But the discount plan only pays for one month at a time.

Me: I have been getting this prescription at this pharmacy for a very long time. I always. Pay. Cash. For a three month supply. Every time! I swear!

Pharmacist/Pharmacy Tech: Oh, you're not on the discount plan? Sorry. But the insurance still only pays for one at a time.

Me (gritting my teeth): I don't have insurance. (I come in every three months to pick up this prescription, I pay in cash for a three month supply, and every time, we have this exact same conversation. In fact, the last time this happened, you were the person who helped me.)

Pharmacist/Pharmacy Tech: Oh, ok. Sorry. Well, do you want this?

Me: No, I want a three month supply.

Pharmacist/Pharmacy Tech: Oh, well, I'm going to have to put it back into stock...and then redo the prescription...are you sure? It's very expensive to get a three month supply.

And that's not the end. The woman is having to beg the pharmacist for her birth control. Read it.

I have no idea what Abby Johnson's deal is, but I definitely agree with Amanda that the story is incredibly fishy. People who work in pro-choice activism or medical environments or both are all pretty clear on the procedural nature of an abortion; there's a fetus inside a woman, and the fetus is removed. They don't work in these fields for nearly a decade and then suddenly "realize" what it is that they are "actually doing."

Another RH Reality Check piece weighs in to note that, even if Johnson was entirely incompetent and/or delusional (which you have to believe in order to buy her story; either she didn't think about abortions, which is incompetent, or thought that the procedure was pulling cupcakes out of women, which is delusional), the manner in which this was unveiled by the anti-choice fanatics doesn't make sense at all:

I'd love to know how these events went down. Ms. Johnson sees an abortion on an ultrasound for the first time, goes home and realizes - oh my god, I've worked at an abortion clinic for years, I've advocated strongly for reproductive rights, supported women's health issues - but now I need to call the leader of 40 Days for Life to tell them about this? And have them keep it secret for weeks?

Why? Why would she have the leader of 40 Days for Life keep this secret for weeks before the great reveal?

Seems like a pretty basic question, if Johnson is just the right wing's newest media darling. If she was a mole, the question doesn't need to be asked, and the whole situation becomes that much creepier.

G-d.

So, for about six years (nearly as long as I've been blogging; I passed my 7th year anniversary unannounced on 10/25/09), I've been saying how I know that soda is bad for me but I'm going to drink as much as I want because, sometime in the future, I'll be motivated to quit.

People who don't know me well hear this and scoff, but this is how I became a vegetarian a few years ago. One day, I didn't eat any meat, and I decided that it was okay and I'd keep it up.

I'm not even talking about sugared soda here; I like diet Pepsi and when I can't afford it I drink the generic Publix diet, which is actually quite good. But not good for you. In addition to artificial sweeteners being carcinogenic on occasion, they also stimulate cravings for starch and are linked to belly weight gain. Carbonation depletes calcium (or inhibits the uptake of calcium? or maybe both...I'm too lazy to clarify) and is linked to brittle bone disease. Caffeine, obviously, has its own set of problems as well, but I'm a full-blown addict and I have no intention of quitting my legal addictive stimulant.

Can you tell what I'm gearing up for? That's right! I quit soda yesterday! I was reaching for a can and I thought, "Eh, it's time." Since this is not a moral position I'm staking out, I won't have the same zero-tolerance policy that I do with dead animals, but I don't see myself having any soda until I'm sure that I can keep it down to one or two a week.

I've got my Dunkin Donuts brand coffee and my vanilla Silk, and so far, not missing the bubbles.

(Unrelated, but since we're speaking of anniversaries, today is 16 months for me and the bf. Yay!)

Maybe I should take it as a sign that medical transcription is not the right career for me when I'm awake at 1:30 in the morning thinking about how I could raise koi in order to get the seed money for an engineering firm. (I don't know anything about fish, business, or engineering, but it's gotta be less tedious than this.)

For a while I had a career and I thought it was really cool. Then I lost my taste for bloodsports. But I still feel like I need a career that I think is really cool.

Last night I got home from walking the little blond dog and found a present from the best bf ever.


How lucky am I?

So sick of Grayson:

Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida has apologized for calling an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a "K Street whore."

"I offer my sincere apology to Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke," Grayson said in a statement emailed to reporters. "I did not intend to use a term that is often, and correctly, seen as disrespectful of women."

Except...yeah, he did. He totally meant to call her a whore and he's totally insensitive to why you should never, ever do that.

It's pretty sketchy to call even male politicians and lobbyists whores, seeing as how that's offensive to actual whores. It's absolutely 100% inappropriate to ever call a female politician or lobbyist a whore, and if a Repub had said this, we'd be coming down on him or her like a ton of bricks.

He was roundly criticized by members of both major political parties for the comment, with Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner asking, "Is this news to you that this guy's one fry short of a Happy Meal?"

$10 says that Weiner isn't just protecting his career and the left's interest in a public option ('cause this is how you do it, not by being crazy). I bet that Weiner has actually had a couple of conversations with Grayson and, like the rest of us, came away from it thinking, "I would no sooner let this guy run anything than I'd let a rabid dog near my child."

BTW, Grayson crying on the House floor? Do we seriously want to go down the Glenn Beck road? I hate that the left is so desperate for heroes that we're buying into this crap.

Day by day, my theory of Grayson's pending implosion gathers more public evidence. I suspect that I'm going to get to do a crazy end-zone dance and shout, "Ha! You heard it here first!"

I normally would accuse the AP of epic fail, but this is so run-of-the-mill that it's hardly worth mentioning.

Democratic moderates who control the balance of power on health care legislation balked Tuesday at a government-run insurance option for millions of Americans, underscoring the enormity of the challenge confronting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid one day after he unveiled the plan as a consensus product.

When you frame it like that, we're already screwed.

While Reid is expected eventually to secure all 60 Democratic votes on the critical first test to bring the bill to the Senate floor, Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas all declined to say on Tuesday how they would vote.

Um...yeah, screw them. Force it through reconciliation. That's gotta be better than the tap dance these so-called moderates are forcing on the party.

The amount I care about weddings is very, very small -- minuscule, really -- but I love people who dare to challenge paradigms, so I started reading Offbeat Bride when Feministing linked to it. And today I'm sooo glad I read it, because I got to see the Companion Cube wedding cake. My brain is on awesome overload from this cake.