UK Tories Release "Rainbow List" of Gay Candidates

That's right, Tories. Can you imagine Harper and his little band of hicks doing anything like this in Canada? I can't. From the MailOnline:

In the latest development in his campaign to show how dramatically the Tories have changed, David Cameron has published the party's first-ever official list of openly gay MPs.

The Conservatives say they have 20 openly gay candidates standing in the Election. Of those, 11 told party chiefs they were 'happy' to be named in the first authorised list of gay Conservative candidates.

…[Openly gay Tory MP Nick] Herbert said: 'A successful political party ought to look like the country it seeks to govern. If we were truly representative, we would have 99 women, 16 black or ethnic minority and ten gay MPs.'

Oh wow, what a novel concept, actually representing your constituents by being just like them instead of what you think they should be. What we've got is a bunch of Neanderthals who think they have to dictate an unrealistic set of values based on nothing but romantic notions of a fictionalized past and an unwarranted fear of the future.

How To Spot a Sister, Sister

I don't do these public service announcements often, but your boyfriend is gay if… This is a good article.

As I have alluded to before on this blog, there are certain truths that cannot be belied.

Those who protest homosexuality too much can only do so out of a sense of personal self-loathing or deep rooted, misdirected denial.

Your man’s utter abhorrence for anything gay is egregiously overstated. When you mention the “giddy” guy in your class or recall a one-liner from “Will and Grace,” his disdain for the topic is so thick, it’s almost psychotic. This is so often an indicator of repressed homosexuality or bi-curiousness. Make no mistake: I know there are people in this world who are genuinely disgusted by the idea of same-sex coupling, sure. However, being that a hilarious percentage of my closeted pals’ liaisons were with men who, in high school and beyond, were ostentatiously repulsed and infuriated by gay men, flags go up when I meet loudmouthed, homo-hating bigots. Huge rainbow flags. I would put money on the fact that, because he’s so overtly and ridiculously enraged by (and perhaps even a little obsessed with) gay culture, he’s trying to pull an invisibility cloak over the shame of his own curiosity. Smirk all you like, Lady Turncheek. It happens every day.

If you're a woman and this is your dude, you need a new dude, honey. Trust me. Even I have no hope with a man like that, and all indications are I have a better chance. So wrong in so many ways.

So much for what our culture teaches us as right from wrong.

Sure, Why Not?

To commemorate Sarah Palin's triumphant visit to Calgary I offer up this poster:



Found on Dvorak Uncensored

Jason, Sweetie Darling...

Ignoring certain facts of life doesn't make them go away. Silly boy.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney blocked any reference to gay rights in a new study guide for immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship, The Canadian Press has learned.

Internal documents show an early draft of the guide contained sections noting that homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969; that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation; and that same-sex marriage was legalized nationally in 2005.

But Mr. Kenney, who fought same-sex marriage when it was debated in Parliament, ordered those key sections removed when his office sent its comments to the department last June.

Let me whisper to you in my best, hushed tone:

In spite of your greatest desires or fears, Gay people are a FACT of life in Canada.

It's the law in this great land of ours and newcomers should be aware of that. The very idea that you can produce a citizenship guide that presents itself as your very own personal idea of what a Canadian should be means you should be fired on the spot.

I couldn't care less if you like faggots or not and all evidence seems to indicate that you don't:

Mr. Kenney has steadfastly opposed same-sex marriage since his time as an opposition MP in the House of Commons.

He spoke against the Civil Marriage Act, or Bill C-38, when it was debated in the Commons in February 2005. And days earlier, Kenney told a session with Toronto-area Punjabi journalists that gays had every right to marry - as long as it wasn't someone of the same sex.

He reaffirmed his stand in 2006 when the newly elected Conservative government attempted without success to revoke the legislation.

And last year, Mr. Kenney appointed a longtime Conservative who opposes same-sex marriage to the Immigration and Refugee Board, which among other things makes decisions about whether gays can be given refugee status in Canada.

Your job is to inform people as to what Canada is, not what you want it to be. This country is just as much mine as it is yours, sweetheart.

You can ignore me all you want, but this faggot has all the same rights you do and isn't afraid to use them. I had to fight for them, you took it as something owed to you.

Stephen Fry & The Catholic Church

You know it was only a matter of time before I brought up my favourite religious whipping boy again. I don't generally ask my readers to take the time to watch long videos, but at 20 minutes, this one is well worth the time spent. I don't lie to my readers.

Stephen Fry explains his issues with the Catholic Church in a most eloquent, compassionate way.

I can only add that as a gay man like him, my own issues are with the sense of unbridled, religious entitlement that the church not only allows, but foments on false beliefs. Those who treat me not like a man, gay as I may be, but as a problem that must be solved because I don't fit their dogma, or an excuse for their own faults.

You can preach love and understanding all you want, but when you exclude people based not on knowledge, but on dogma, you fail to understand, and deserve neither.

Enjoy the video.

The Intelligence² Debate - Stephen Fry (Unedited)
by Xrunner17

As I researched this, I found this quote from Michael Shermer, who to be honest isn't my favourite proponent of Atheism, but these words sum up well my own approach to this experience we call life:

Indeed, I am a free rider, but only in the freedom from one set of cultural traditions usually gathered under the umbrella of religion. But, like everyone else, I face judges that are in their own ways transcendent and powerful: family and friends, colleagues and peers, mentors and teachers, and society at large. My judges may be lowercased and occasionally deceivable, but they are transcendent of me as an individual, even if they are not transcendent of nature; as such, together, we all stand in a long pilgrim community struggling down the evoloutionary and historical ages trying to live and love and learn to temper our temptations and do the right thing. I may be free from God, but the god of nature holds me to her temple of judgment no less than her other creations. I stand before my maker and judge not in some distant and future ethereal world, but in the reality of this world, a world inhabited not by spiritual and supernatural ephemera, but by real people whose lives are directly affected by my actions, and whose actions directly affect my life.

US Foreign Policy Problems Found!Not enough God!

A US based think tank just released a two-year study that concludes there is a “God Gap” in US foreign policy.

American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and "uncompromising Western secularism" that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

So who wrote this thing?

The council's 32-member task force, which included former government officials and scholars representing all major faiths, delivered its report to the White House on Tuesday. The report warns of a serious "capabilities gap" and recommends that President Obama make religion "an integral part of our foreign policy."

No vested interest there, nope, no siree. That darned secularism again; it spoils everybody’s fun. We’ll just conveniently forget, like the authors of this report apparently want to, that the US was in fact founded as a secular nation as a means to escape religious oppression. That’s what the whole freedom thing is all about.

"Uncompromising Western secularism". Oh, the horror of it all. Only a total religious zealot could come up with a line like that.

Shmucks.

Friskies "Adventureland"

This is a little too precious for my taste, but it's kind of funny.

A cat food commercial depicting what I suppose are adventures in the mind of an extremely drug-addled cat. What are they putting in that stuff anyway?

From the Purina YouTube page:

Discover Adventureland! A Journey to delicious and beyond. FRISKIES wet cat food unlocks a magical world of sensory stimulation for your cat.

I’m not sure if it should be eaten or smoked.



Ha! I just noticed the Christian crosses on the little covered bridge. I wonder what other symbolism is in this thing?

Federal Funnies

From NatPo:

The federal Tories admit that they did not anticipate the blowback from prorogation.

I'll buy that, seeing as they apparently work on the premise that they can feed Canadians any line they want and we're expected to go along with it. That's not the joke, this is:

The Prime Minister has never minded criticism [!!], but in this case all the flak he's taken since the start of the year must be galling, since he had to be talked into prorogation against his will, according to a number of senior Conservatives.

"If it had been down to him, Parliament would have taken a 10-day break and come back to work," revealed one MP.

Oh please, Really? Just how many ways can you spin a story anyway? It's not like I expect our politicians to be absolutely truthful all the time, I know better than that, it's just the really obvious lines they feed us as if we're expected to swallow it like good little sheep that get to me. Lie all you want, if you must, but don't insult our intelligence, all that does is show indifferent contempt for the people who elected you. Some of us tend to remember these things.

I guess when all the fibs and lines fail, there's nothing left to do but haul out another scapegoat to save your own ass. I don't know anything about Guy Giorno, but I get the feeling he now truly understands what it means to be Conservative -- sacrifice for the party and Dear Leader is such a bitch.

Brucie & The Bird... Again

Went in to work today and did a quick check of the place seeing as I was the last one there. Wouldn't you know it, that damned bird was in the bathroom again, this little dude isn't very bright. Who knows how long it was there after I left Friday afternoon.

So I went through the now familiar procedure of removing the sliders from the window, covering the portion that doesn't open with cardboard and waiting. The bird hides in the ceiling while I do the window and I leave the room and stand in the stairwell to make sure it leaves.

This time I made a point of telling it that if this happens again, I'm going to take up my nieghbours offer of their cat, remember Mehitable? She can catch anything, hopefully the bird got the message.

Subtle

Production values aside (there are none), I guess the only thing that makes this poorly scripted, awkwardly presented schlock non partisan is they managed to get through it without mentioning Dear Leader by name.



Nice going Mike "I'm not much of a partisan" Duffy.
H/T: Impolitical

Brucie & The Bird

So I'm renovating this house, and have spent the last few days tearing down an addition piece by piece that should have died years ago and simply been replaced instead of me replacing the thing wall-by-wall. Bitch, complain, carry on.

I go up to the third floor and a Black Bird is flying around. I'm like great, because you're a critter of nature I have to help you out, you stupid twit. I was really hoping for no more problems and just pizza & beer.

It eventually found its way into the bathroom, the room had those awful windows with an upper pane and sliders below. I removed all the lower sliders but the poor little dude couldn’t get it. Apparently glass isn't something easily understood in the bird world.



It saw the big expanse of glass and kept trying to fly through it, I'm on the stairs keeping out of the way and trying to coach it along and keep an eye on it. But all it saw was that big expanse of glass and not the opening I created.

I found some cardboard and used it to cover the upper part of the window so he wouldn't be attracted to the light and find his way out. He did eventually, thankfully, otherwise I would still be there making sure the little dude is ok.

I'm finally enjoying my pizza and beer.

UPDATE: My neighbours, sweet people that they are, offered to lend me their cat next time it happens. I declined, I hate cleaning up feathers.