Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
- Photo Series of the Day: “Caught in the oil” – But remember everyone: it’s not an environmental disaster, you can trust BP to clean it up, offshore drilling is essential to our American way of life, and, of course, “drill, baby, drill.”
- Sex & Money, part 2 – “This inconsistency creates the unpleasant suspicion that they are simply people who happen to enjoy having lots of stuff but who don’t happen to enjoy gay sex and who have, therefore, conveniently decided to read the Bible in such a way that it blesses the former and damns the latter. There’s a strong aroma here of the old speck-and-beam hypocrisy. That sort of self-serving manipulation of the text seems irreconcilable with their insistence that they are acting as the guardians of ‘the authority of the scriptures.'” This is yet another fabulous post about what the core message of Christianity should be, and what some folks have conveniently have decided to turn it into.
- U.S. Citizen Killed In Flotilla Raid Was Shot Four Times In The Head – I neither accept the IDF convenient protestations of merely defending themselves, nor the flotilla activist convenient protestations of utter pacifism in the face of withering gunfire. That said — four shots to the head and one to the chest? That’s not wild firing in self-defense, folks.
- Wolves Get Meaty Roles in “True Blood” Vampire Series – WSJ.com – The people behind the wolves behind the wolfpeople.
- Why Driving Leads to Couples Fighting – WSJ.com – Actually, Margie and I do long road trips just fine. It’s the short trips that are sometimes more problematic. Especially when we get to a parking lot.
- The Catholic Hierarchy: Firing Gays Should Not Be Illegal – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – Aside from Sullivan’s other well-presented points, the argument that preventing the firing of gay people on religious grounds would be a restriction on “religious liberty” is, with any sort of contemplation, the sort of argument that could be made about firing anyone. Because you and I both know you can find people who believe that the Bible, fergoshsakes, forbids women from working alongside men, or races from mixing, or people of a different religion from being accepted. Use that argument, and firing people for their gender, race, or, ironically, religion becomes perfectly defensible. Are the leaders of a denomination that, itself, has suffered in the past from virulent discrimination on religious grounds, going to defend discrimination on religious grounds? Seriously?
- Remember Fred Malek? – The Party of Yesterday, Today. “In 1988, Malek’s scandalous past forced him to resign from the Republican National Committee. Now, apparently, the party is content to make him a major Republican player.”
- The pitch – Quoth the President: “We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward. And I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward. I think America wants to move forward.” I sure hope so.
- Another step forward on gay rights – Good Lord!! Don’t you know that waving inheritance of retirement benefits in front of the noses of gays will make them want to engage in long-term committed relationships!! We can’t have that!! It might make them seem … NORMAL!!!!!
- Fiorina dismisses global warming as ‘the weather’ – After her sad failures at HP+Compaq, why would anyone want her as a senator?
- Misplaced arrogance is hard to ignore – “It’s one thing for Palin to shamelessly lie about her own approach to drilling, but it’s so much worse when she tops it off with, ‘Now do you get it?’ It suggests the rest of us would understand the nuances of her policy positions if we’d only pay closer attention.”
- Culture of Corruption, Florida edition – Not that the Dems don’t have their own corruption problems now and again, but … the GOP are always so bloody self-righteous about their patriotism and virtue, it makes the repeated examples of graft and bribery and slush funds all the more galling.
- Beware of locusts – “I can only assume that it’s fairly common for President Obama to wake up, receive his morning briefings, and say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.'”
- Religious Right Launches Citizens Against Religious Bigotry To Target Comedy Central – I would feel much more neutral about this (after all, anyone can call for a boycott for any reason they choose), if they didn’t (a) imply that “blasphemy” = “religious bigotry” and (b) weren’t so very focused on people who make fun of Christianity, vs. any other particular religion.
- Lively: Repealing DADT Will Outrage Muslims and Lead To More Terrorism – I love the way folks who are so eager to spit in the eyes of Muslim nations on a daily basis are jumping on the “we can’t allow gays in the military because it will offend Muslims in nations where our armed forces are stationed” bandwagon.
- SC senator: We’ve ‘got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion.’ – Crikey. Though I have to love the state GOP saying, essentially, “Geez, Jake, apologize quick so folks forget about this little distraction.”
- The pictures BP doesn’t want you to see. – Let’s keep these pictures in wide circulation, people.
- BP And Halliburton Build Legal Teams, Attempt To Buy Off Government Officials – The money must flow …
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