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Hey, you're the one whose name is the offspring of an Alaskan governor and a camel.
Maybe that's what Santorum was talking about! ”I don’t want to make BLAG people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”
Yes, let's strike down all discriminatory laws so some people can marry their sheep.
The air we need and must have to live is being polluted daily without our permission
The water we need daily is now full of poison, toxicins, waste without our permission
The contracts signed to allow this were legally binding yet not valid, since the people who own the air and water and land were never included, just the ones who hold the property title. Which makes all waste management contract not valid and should be subject to legal action in favor of the people.
Millions if not billions of dollars are spent getting rid of waste materials, all within the fda or whatever guide lines, but still the real owners were not included in the contracts, and those same people have no real way of appealing due to corruption within our justice system geared towards money.
This is what I plan to say to my fundamentalist christian family member when the subject comes up at Easter dinner and she asks if I believe in God, which she will since my daughter and this other self-righteous family member have been arguing about it online: "Of course I believe in God, the one in whose image we are ALL made and who said 'what you do to the least of mine you do also to me.'"
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, THIS LAND IS MY LAND...NOT THE CORPORATIONS!!!
To get back to the Enviromental issue of Fracking.
The little town of Dryden N.Y. is winning the battle against Big Oil and Gas.
The residents of Dryden - population 14,500, mostly farmers - voted in favor of zoning ordanence changes that would prohibit use of land within the town for oil and gas development; including fracking. The unanimous town vote followed a patician drive and a series of public hearings, and in Fed 2012 a NY Supreme Court ruled in favor of Dryden to pass its new zoning ordanence.
Since then an appeal by a Norwegian Gas and Oil Company has been filed to try and over turn the ruling.
You can show your support for the people of Dryden by going to Earth Justice and signing the petition.
Since the appeal more than 50 towns in upstate NY along with thousands of people from around the country have joined Dryden in the fight to reserve the right to refuse Big Oil and Gas land for exploration and development within their town.
Winning battles like this one shows us what happens when people unite their voices and stand their ground. A big reminder on who is suppose to run this Country...A government Of, For, and By The People...NOT CORPORATIONS!
SORRY KEND :(
Howdee Hi OUTBACK, I posted something off topic...Feel free to chime in.
You know, normally I would have read every comment here before posting, but I havent. Sorry if any of this is redundant, but here's my honest take on the issue of gay rights, DOMA, whatever: I don't give a damn! No, let me put that in stronger terms. I don't give a flying f**k what people do in their own bedrooms! Screw it! I don't even want to know! OK? Yes, give them every legal benefit that's coming to heterosexual couples (and god forbid single folk be taken into account along the way), but here's the thing that really irks me: This is absolute slight of hand. By this I mean It's insignificant bullshit! There are so many other vitally important issues that our legislators should be addressing. But here we are, wringing our hands over this crap. Jesus Christ, Thom, can't you come up with a more pressing issue in this insane world than who's doing what to whom, sexually, and whether it's "sanctioned"?
Heh, heh, heh...are we all having fun yet? Is it not "normal' for some people to take University courses solely for the purpose of discovering who one really is. Does it not highlight one's interests and expose their self-discovery? People who are sexually confused often seek such courses. What say you professor? Maybe you are, at least, a little bi yourself. And if anyone needs to show the source of their claims it is someone who claims that as many as half of us are at least bi-sexual. That's just way too difficult to swallow (no pun intended).
"SAME-SEX COUPLE HOUSEHOLDS
BY STATE
Approximately 594,000 same-sex couple
households lived in the United States
in 2010, not statistically different from
the 581,000 households reported in the
2009 ACS.
Nationally, about 1 percent
of all couple households were same-sex
couples. The percentage of same-sex
couple households for the 50 states and
the District of Columbia ranged from
0.29 percent for Wyoming and 4.01
percent for the District of Columbia."
http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acsbr10-03.pdf
Kend refering to your comments yesterday regarding Fracking...Soooooo typical of a Right Wing Capitalist, So predictable...the Robber Barron. As I have said before; To a NeoCon-Capitalist...Life is cheap, and profit trumps everything.
Fortunatly more and more people are tunning in and starting to realize that in order to sustain life we must stop rapeing the earth. No, I am not so egotistical to believe for a second that Man can Save the Earth...But he can strive to sustain certain necessities that he needs for survival; Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Food.
Now Kend I am all for a robust economy, and a strong work force, but in no way do I support or encourage the same ideas, philosophies, and behaviours that quickly proved themselves to not be tried and true, and in turn have retarded us as a nation, and driven us to destroy one another over trinkets and who has the biggest pecker (which by the way is the Blue Whale). This "by any means necessary"..."the ends justify the means" ideology has got to stop. Life isn't about one's portfolio, or owning more...More importantly, Mother Nature tells us everything...We are not the geniuses...We are merely technicians. We must listen to Mother Earth and stop repeating our mistakes. If we don't stop now and change our way of thinking we are dooming our children, or grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Our neglagence today will adversly affect the next three generations. Currently the U.S. is just one generation behind where is should be when it comes to "Green Energy". Had we been more on the ball starting in the late '70s and through out the '80s we would be competative with Germany, China, Japan, and India when it comes to Green Energy.
I won't argue with you regarding how the Obama adminastration has dropped the ball when it comes to writting and enacting an economically strong Green Energy Policy...Obama's pockets are lined with BIG Nuclear. However it is tawdry of you to imply Green Energy is a waste of time and money.
Truth is Green Energy is very much a way towards restoring our economy while being envioromentally sound consumers.
Why just here in sunny Florida more and more commercial, residential and industrial communities are going green, unfortunatly Gov. Dick Scott refused to sign a bill that would have trippled the money alotted towards incentive bennefits (rebates)for installing green energy technology...Same goes for accepting Federal funding for building and maintainning a passanger rail system connecting 5 of the busiest metropolitain cities in Florida...But that is how Rick Scott lives up to "getting Florida back to work".
Palindromedary ~ Perhaps I should elaborate about my personal scholastic studies of homosexuality in American society. The course I took included vast coverage of sociological group studies, statistics and polls, clinical case studies, published papers and journals by psychologists on case studies of people with sexual behavior issues over decades of practice, as well as studies of sexual behavior in prison populations, and in the animal kingdom.
The overall findings suggested that the true graph of sexual tendencies in modern American society actually represent more of a bell curve. At each end of the curve are exclusive heterosexual and homosexual groups. Each group represents the extreme extent of sexual tendencies and are exclusively heterosexual at one end and exclusively homosexual at the other end. Each ends represent approximately the same proportion of the curve at between 5 - 10% each. This leaves 80 - 90% of the curve--the true majority of people--which falls under the category of bisexual at varying levels of preference. As you can see, by extrapolating a generous margin of error, my estimate of 30-50% of the population as gay is a quite conservative estimate indeed!
That's right my dear friend. The true vast majority of people are bisexual with the greatest distribution under the curve made up of people who can equally go either way with 50-50 tendencies. The moral of this study and what it implies is simple--a lot of people go through a lot of trouble to lie to themselves and everyone else about their sexuality.
So if you are 100% heterosexual, have never had the slightest desire to touch another man, and have never in your life experienced or been curious about having a gay experience--congratulations! You are in the minority!
NORMAL is a misleading label; and, a very dirty word!
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_know_when_your_bisexual
Wendalore ~ I hear what you're saying. Quite frankly your unbiased, honest and objective opinion is quite enlightening and refreshing. I wish more people could look at the situation innocently and practically like you just did and leave their own bigotry and personal sexual insecurities out of the discourse. The world would be a better place. Bravo Wendalore! Bravo!!
I want to just state one thing that I keep thinking and have never said.
First of all, I am 100% in favor of gays getting married.
That said, I think there's more to be said about it than is being said. We need to have some philosophical discussions and agreements. Marriage has long been considered a certain thing. It's always been between a man and a woman. So is it surprising that people get uncomfortable about changing the definition of marriage? Thom says "People should be able to marry whom they love." Even that statement needs expanding, doesn't it? Suppose I love my dog? Oh, but he means "a HUMAN" whom they love!" Then that needs to be specified. No, really!! Well, what about the number of humans a person loves?" Oh, only one human? Then THAT needs to be specified. What if I want to marry one human I don't love? Isn't that my right? So THAT needs to be specified. Please don't throw tomatoes, I really am on your side, and I'm not being stupid!!
What IS marriage, anyway? If it isn't what it used to be, what is it now? That's all I'm saying. Where's the definition of what marriage IS? I don't actually hear anyone talking about it. And I'm not referring to BLAG, either. I'm NOT suggesting we just go back to the old definition. I think gays and Lesbians SHOULD be able to get married. (but what if they don't WANT to get married? And what do we think now about any couple that lives together without marriage? And brings up children without being married.) Hear all the issues inherent in this whole thing? I just want more humanistic, philosophical and even spiritual discussion of what that thing is. Once we agree on what it IS, then maybe all this argument will go away.
"In your dreams," I hear them saying… Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Oh, I just love the name "BLAG!!"
Palindromedary wrote ~ "Less than 2% of the population in the US is gay. And the only reason I can see why gays want to have a legally sanctioned marriage is for benefits that are typically awarded to people who are capable of producing offspring...children. And, until they start creating life in a test tube, heterosexual unions are necessary for the propagation of the species...homosexual ones are not."
First of all Palindromedary and Kend, I agree with one thing you said, we are paying too much attention to a lesser priority issue than the more urgent ones going on with the budget and military aggression. That's it. The rest of your arguments are ridiculous.
Secondly of all Palindromedary, I challenge your statistic that 2% of the population is gay. My figures that I learned in college in a course call "The Sociology of Human Sexual Behavior" puts that statistic between 30 - 50%. Please cite your sources.
Thirdly, you way over value the heterosexual ability to propagate the species. Becoming pregnant and having a baby are not only free but so easy to do it is often considered recreation. Raising that child is where the whole real challenge is that contributes to "propagating the species." This is one of the major issues of this case. Many same sex couples are adopting children that are unwanted by their heterosexual generic parents. They are taking on a huge financial and personal burden; and, in essence giving orphans a chance for a "normal" childhood and a solid future. Gay couples also contribute to society in the work place and as tax payers. They are entitled to all the rights any other citizen enjoys. Anything less is discrimination. And before you say their behavior forces "awkward proclivities" down our throat, realize that from their perspective the same could be said of heterosexuals.
Palindromedary further writes ~ "Instead of wasting so much time on trying to gain aberrant 'rights' for such a tiny 'aberrant' section of the population...we need to concentrate of the suffering of the majority of 'normal' people."
This--as a pure heterosexual male--I find extremely offensive and demeaning. Palindromedary, who are you and anyone else here to judge anyone other than yourself. By what authority do you demean the private activities of others with the word 'aberrant' and proclaim yourself 'normal.' Don't you see that when you fall for that type of labeling you follow a script that is written by every hate monger who ever preached hate. Please, lighten up! This is the problem. Gay people are first and foremost PEOPLE. They deserve to be treated as such and given the same rights, opportunities, and respect as any other group.
As far as "propagating the species" is concerned, gay family's are usually more secure, less stressful, and more financially solvent than heterosexual ones. This group should be given a medal for volunteering to raise children in a loving home that would otherwise be unloved in an orphanage or worse. For this reason alone they should be entitled to all the benefits any heterosexual couple receive for serving society by raising it's unwanted children. Really Palindromedary you should know better. Conception and giving birth are so overrated in this society--especially when half the time such an event is considered an accident.
Please don't use the word 'normal'. There really is no such thing. If by it you mean heterosexual than I find it insulting. I never want to consider myself 'normal' in any way. Please speak for yourself!
I can't think of a distraction that amuses me less. Two radio stations in DC today again broadcast the same twit repeating the same drivelous news-report from the Supreme Court over and over and over, hour after hour -- as if there were something urgently new in the "debate." Certainly DOMA violates equal protection; but "marriage" is a word, a frigging word damnit, call it a god-damned rose-garden. But fuddie-me, I forgot; "marriage" is "a government sanctified union in the baby-blue eyes of one of our founding father or mother's gods."
We ponder straight breeders, spawning more workers, consumers and cannon-fodder for "our" expanding global empire; LGBTETC attorneys make their "oral" (porn-network-news loves that term) arguments for parity -- while Single-moms get no marital deductions or respect, and 65-year-old women and men get permits to copulate and procreate and presumably deduct fertility treatments from their social-security tax-returns?
What do I think? Even Kafka makes more sense than this made-for-TV governmental soap-opera. Could it be inadvertent comic-relief? So, what else you got behind the curtain, Chef Roberts?
Boehner's being a jerk about same- sex couples because he knows how most of them vote............ "progressive." All of the LGBT folks I know are a joy to be around, we always agree politically for starters.
The only issue that anyone should be concerned with is a legal one? Should same-sex couples have the same rights as straight ones? There are many advantages to being married, including taxes, estate planning, medical benefits for spouses, and several others.
This is not a religious issue. In this country we have (mostly) a division between state and religion. My personal opinion is not the issue. Nor is the issue of "morality," or what the bible says, or what you think God says. The issue is simple: equal rights for all.
i am a bigot! i am bigoted against, whites,yellows, reds, blacks, browns, trailer trash, street trash, white trash,christian trash, congressional trash, gays, gay trash! i am a bigot but selectively only towards the ignorant of the ilk!!! i can't believe that in 2013 we are even having this conversation and with such stupid thinking none the less. i've read the news and as rodney said all those years ago? "can't we all just get along?" leave the queers alone. when i wore a young cats cloths as straight youth ladies man (picture justin beiber looking sort of dude) i was a victim of one of those church scandals, you know. so when the word got out i was then coined, fag, queer, homo, faggot and such. ruined parts of my life from 6th-11th grade. could not turn a corner in my hillbilly town without some homophobe trying to start some shit with me. mom said turn the other cheek. one day i couldn't do it anymore. it was kill myself or kill, so then i learned to fight back. So i did and i liked it. long story short? spent a lot of time kicked out of school but i made my point and saved face. down the road at a county fair i was acosted by some old perv so my brother and i bashed him and ran, thats when "I" became a homophobe. anything remotely queer looking or sounding? watch out! i was a hard core homophobe from the 80s and thats all it was, bigoted ignorance and probably my own paranoias but hey i guess we can't expect every one to evolve now can we? at 50? i've meant plenty of "queer" folk and it surprises me that in this day and age people just seem a lot dumber the i was as a youth. time to evolve folks or get left behind as us the immoral majority "will" win. hilarious!!!
And Fag is a British slang term for cigarette. Gives a whole new meaning to 'sucking on a fag".
I really don't care if people are attracted to the same sex...or even to sheep. I say whatever makes them happy.... But I get awfully tired of hearing about it and feel like these people are trying to force their awkward proclivities down our throats (no pun intended). We straight people are the overwhelming majority. LBGT is less than 2% of the population.
Whatever people do in their own bedrooms or homes is fine but when they gush it all out in public, and expect to burden the already overburdened economic system with their derived problems, then it is most uncomfortable for the majority of us who are straight. When they try to force the government to recognize their 'aberrations' as 'normal' by giving them equal status and access to the same benefits as heterosexual marriages, further eroding the ability of that system to pay for their benefits to traditionally sanctioned institutions, then we have a really big problem.
It's so convenient to call someone else a bigot until you assess your own bigotry against others. Who are you 'bigoted' against? And if you are, I suppose you feel sanctified or justified in being so. You think gays are not 'bigoted' against straight people? So let's not use that term loosely. Just because you may be gay does not mean that you, yourself, are not 'bigoted' in some way against others.
I love the fact that Boehner and his accumulation of bigots have chosen the acronym BLAG. Clueless idiots don't know that it's British slang for miscreants, crooks, delinquents, etc. Bunch of blaggers they are, for sure.
What is "reasonable pro-creation?" We are already overpopulated. Couples should be given an incentive not to procreate more than once, unless outer-space colonization is given more serious consideration soon.
I'd be willing to allow him to marry his duck (horse, dog, worm, wombat) if his duck could give its assent to the marriage. Otherwise its just interspecies rape.
Perhaps judicial review would be fine IF Supreme Court justices ALSO had strict ethical standards to meet. They should be deciding cases based upon the law and the Constitution is the central core of the law. Their lifetime appointment was intended to keep them from making political decisions but it didn't go far enough. I think that, while sitting, they and their immediate family should be limited to a generous single salary from the govt. (no outside earnings), and they should be prohibited from any political activity, i.e., no speeches, meetings, conferences, etc. Thom often has said, for example, that they were inventing law in the Roe v Wade opinion. However that opinion had many parts and the central opinion was that under her right to privacy, not explicit but clearly covered in several places in the Bill of Rights, a woman has the choice whether to bear a child, and her health is considered paramount throughout the pregnancy. Until the baby is born she is the person under the law. It wasn't part of the argument but one could well argue that she has freedom of religious belief as well which might govern her choice. Where they got creative was in the part of the opinion that in the 3rd trimester, the state had interest in the viable fetus which limited her options. It is therefore inaccurate to claim the entire opinion was creative and departed from the Constitution. SC opinions often have to have many parts and you can't get good, thought-out opinions withou having justices focused on the issue at hand and applying the law in it's complexity.