From an interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:
Part 2:
From Newsweek:
In the Old Testament, the concept of family is fundamental, but examples of what social conservatives would call “the traditional family” are scarcely to be found. Marriage was critical to the passing along of tradition and history, as well as to maintaining the Jews’ precious and fragile monotheism. But as the Barnard University Bible scholar Alan Segal puts it, the arrangement was between “one man and as many women as he could pay for.” Social conservatives point to Adam and Eve as evidence for their one man, one woman argument—in particular, this verse from Genesis: “Therefore shall a man leave his mother and father, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” But as Segal says, if you believe that the Bible was written by men and not handed down in its leather bindings by God, then that verse was written by people for whom polygamy was the way of the world. (The fact that homosexual couples cannot procreate has also been raised as a biblical objection, for didn’t God say, “Be fruitful and multiply”? But the Bible authors could never have imagined the brave new world of international adoption and assisted reproductive technology—and besides, heterosexuals who are infertile or past the age of reproducing get married all the time.)
This is my favorite passage:
Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition (and, to talk turkey for a minute, a personal discomfort with gay sex that transcends theological argument).
From Time’s Swampland blog:
Well, all that stands in the way is the United States Congress.
This is starting to piss me off:
Drama teacher Lisa Glide, 35, from Old Bridge High School in Middlesex County, NJ has been arrested on second-degree charges of sexual assault and child endangerment for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old male student.
The lucky bastard “victim” was a senior when the relationship reportedly began last February and has since graduated. Each charge carries with it the possibility of a 10-year sentence.
OK…WTF? Hey authorities, he’s a little hint - if the “victim” is older than 13, he is not really a victim. He’s the luckiest dude at school - especially when the supposed “sex offender” looks like she just walked off the Cowboys cheerleading squad.
I mean, Come On Shelly! Where were these teachers when I was a junior in high school?!?!
First we have news that more jobs have been lost than at any time since 1974:
Skittish employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the country is careening deeper into recession.
The new figures, released by the Labor Department Friday, showed the crucial employment market deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid clip, and handed Americans some more grim news right before the holidays.
And there is this:
A man has pleaded guilty to answering an online advertisement for baby-sitting work and then using the client’s child to make a pornographic video.
In a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Aaron Jay Lemon admitted Wednesday to producing the video. The 23-year-old from Little Canada, Minn., also admitted to coercing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct.
Seriously? WTF!?!??!
Remember the telecom immunity battle this summer in Congress? It’s back.
The constitutionality of retroactive immunity for telecoms that helped Bush spy on Americans got its day in court Tuesday, a little less than a year after senator Christopher Dodd all but shuttered Congress with an ultimately futile one-man stand against the idea.
Tuesday’s courtroom showdown in San Francisco lacked the fireworks of Dodd’s fiery oration, but the judge handling the case gave some indication that he may take over as the one-man anti-immunity crusader.
“In essence that gives the attorney general carte blanche to immunize anyone.” Walker said, wondering what odd creature Congress had fashioned. “What other statute is like this statute?"
Sigh. January 20th can’t come any faster can it?
The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.
“Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories,” California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.
Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.
Check it out!
Interactive 3-D holographs.
This is from David Sirota:
I watched one of the two Best Worst Movies in film history this weekend - Big Trouble in Little China (the other Best Worst Movie is Army of Darkness). Whether brought on by the natural high of a leftover-filled stomach, or the artificial high of Thanksgiving night Maker’s Mark, I had an epiphany that this movie is a highly accurate - if artistically absurd - portrayal of a deeply important aspect of how America sees itself in the world.
I absolutely LOVE this movie. As well as Army of Darkness ("Yo, she-bitch! Let’s go!"). But I don’t think I can watch it in the same light again. Sigh. Damn you David!!! LOL.
More Army of Darkness quotes are here.
