PrettyFakes

good goddamn luck. the new york times is reporting that the old-skool version of simply writing to the presidential e-mail address is no longer active—instead, one must cycle through as many as nine pages to finally send a message to the president.

you’ve also got to indicate support or dissent from the president in your header. you can, however, still spam the hell out of dick cheney without stumbling blocks, at vice.president@whitehouse.gov.

one must also categorize one’s message: curiously, there’s no message about “unemployment.”

i just tried to send a message, but it wasn’t available. hopefully people all over the country are reacting to the times’ story and writing screw-you letters to whoever wanted to buffer the people even more from our texas millionaire gadabout.

big gray has been keeping up with the ongoing horrors in liberia more than me; unfortunately, the college studies of african politics he, jp!, and i made have not endured for me. this should not reflect poorly on the capable, intelligent, and compassionate instruction of dr. paul kaiser, but rather on how closely one must watch africa’s ever-shifting political landscape.

still, i’m current enough to be shocked by this article—mainly because the mississippi congressperson is somebody i’ve voted for, shook hands with, and stolen red wine from.

i am seriously weirded out.

“It shocks the conscience,” Judge Casellas wrote, “to impose the ultimate penalty, death, upon American citizens who are denied the right to participate directly or indirectly in the government that enacts and authorizes the imposition of such punishment.”

under president clinton, the department of justice did not pursue the death penalty in places where it was outlawed—like puerto rico.

but the bush administration has no such qualms.

i adore alan moore and kevin o’neill’s thoughtful, literate, mocking, funny, gory league of extraordinary gentlemen. quite simply, it’s comics for people with english degrees.

so when i saw the lousy trailer for “LOXG” i knew i was in a lot of trouble.
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End of 2ndQ cash-on-hand numbers:

Pres. Bush $32.3M

Sen. John Kerry 10.9M

Sen. John Edwards 8.1M

Gov. Howard Dean 6.4M

Rep. Dick Gephardt 6.3M

Sen. Joe Lieberman 4.0M

Sen. Bob Graham 1.8M

Rep. Dennis Kucinich 1.1M

Sen. Carol Moseley Braun 22K

Rev. Al Sharpton 12K

I asked a good friend of mine today—who happens to be a Republican activist—just what the hell was it with his idol Doc Frist and flunky Ricky Santorum losing their minds over the possibility of gay marriage.

Over the crackle of my cell he told me a secret:
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conservatives were shaking in their boots wondering when it would happen. supporters of freedom were just as expectant—in a christmas-day way. turns out it only took a few days.

the new york times reports today that a highly decorated vietnam veteran has sued in federal court to overturn his discharge in ‘97 for being gay.

the man, an army lieutenant with just short of twenty years of service, was found out after highly personal photos of him were stumbled upon by firefighters tending to his home.

this is why i defend our legal system: because every now and again it serves to force our country into respecting the rights of our citizens. go, lieutenant loomis!

UPDATE:
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So Im driving sixty-five miles an hour down I-20, barely an hour outside of Jackson, in a car thats older than I am, and its the Fourth of July.
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so why in the wake of abc paying the “stars” of the bachelerotte to get married do religious right morons bitch about lawrence destroying the wonders of the marriage contract?

the t.v. show—and its creepy arranged marriage—are thousands of times worse than a loving couple that happens to be all-male or all-female saying “i do.” the ideal is supposed to be love—not money. but maybe somebody needs to tell doc frist and his billion-dollar family that.

it seems ye olde gorjus wasn’t the only court-watcher to note with surprise justice kennedy’s citation to a european court in lawrence v. texas. in this well-researched article—at usatoday, no less!—they detail a couple more bits.

justice scalia thinks that we should ignore “the views of other nations” in our pursuit of jurisprudence. this is not only shockingly naive—our jurisprudence is only a couple hundred years old, and was brought over in large chunks from england and france—but also an idea he doesn’t follow himself.
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