While driving back from my classes on Wednesday, I was listening to a report on the Energy Bill, then before Congress, on NewsRadio KNX 1070. This “news” station included two perspectives on the legislation, the first, a lengthy commentary from a spokesperson for an advocacy organization who faulted the bill, referring to it (three times by my count) as lining the pockets or the oil companies. The second perspective came from Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, also an opponent of the legislation. (He was among only 19 Democrats (along with 6 Republicans and one Independent) voting against the legislation.) The “news” station did not include a perspective (at least in the segment I heard — about 7 PM PST) from proponents of the bill.

And yet the bill was quite popular in Congress; today, it cleared the Senate by a vote of 74-26. The margin in the House was 275-156. More than half of the Senate’s Democratic caucus (25 of 44 Senators) voted in favor of the legislation.

As a popular bill was heading toward passage in Congress, a bill which the president favors, a “news” station only saw fit to broadcast the views of opponents of the legislation. This is not the only time when we see our mainstream media broadcasting one perspective, usually a perspective at odds with that of President Bush. Powerline reports that a reporter got himself in hot water for “criticizing the performance of his media colleagues in Iraq.” Mark Yost merely noted that the media coverage of the Iraq war “ignores positive changes” in that recently-liberated land.
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Well, I noted last Saturday that I would not be able to blog as regularly as I would like, but didn’t think I would go so long without posting altogether. So much was my absence noted that Bruce wondered if maybe he should issue an Amber Alert. After an unusual first few weeks of July, I find myself returning — and with more energy — to my more productive patterns of past months, so should be blogging at full steam next week.

July turned out to be more hectic — in a great number of ways — than I had anticipated. Not only did I spend a good deal of time working at Outfest, LA’s gay and lesbian film festival, where I am a senior volunteer/theater manager, but I also found the topic for my paper on Carl Jung & Anti-Semitism so fascinating that I ended up over-researching. And I went through some personal stuff, a process, which, while it did not lend itself easily to blogging (at the time), will certainly help me write at a deeper level in the coming days — or so I hope.

Not only did I fall behind in blogging here, but I also fell behind in reading for my classes and missed a lot of summer movies. Well, I’m now beginning to catch up in all endeavors and hope to blog up a storm in the next few days. And as always, I welcome your suggestions of topics on which you would like me to blog.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

Well, gang…. I never made it to Boise. Long story.. but I wound up in San Diego a day earlier than expected. Two words: United Airlines (see posting below).

Anyway, I haven’t had much sleep all week so I’m cranky. And though I’m supposed to be taking a vacation day today….. I’m not.

So the space here is all yours today. Just please be nice to each other.

Have a great weekend.

-Bruce (GayPatriot-Temporarily-West) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Well, frankly it sucks. Just as my flight to Denver was ready to taxi from the gate yesterday, a line of thunderstorms shut down Dulles Airport. Living near the airport, I can tell you it is like “Thunderstorm Alley.” Did anyone observe the weather there before the place was built? And I’m not the only one who knows how bad Dulles is this time of year.

Prepare for Days of Dulles Delays – DCist

Of course, the actual process of air travel is just soooo enjoyable. PatriotPartner has it right — it is like riding a high-priced bus with terrible customer service.

The focus of a lot of my frustration is United Airlines. During one week a couple months ago, I calculated that United had taken over 30 hours of my life away from me. I asked their Customer Service (and I use that term loosely) Representative how United would pay me for that lost time. She was flummoxed by my question.

Yesterday’s flight… once it took off… was par for the course with United. It was after 7pm when our plane finally left, and yet there was no real food…. even to purchase. But back in seat 42G, my only option was a “Fun Pack” for $5.00 which consisted of strawberry applesauce and a fruit rollup. Not a real meal, eh?

When I got to Denver, the “Customer Service” Center was closing despite a full flight of DC passengers who missed their flights. You know, *I* had to wait 1.5 hours on the ground…. couldn’t they wait 10 min. to go home? I guess United doesn’t believe in going the extra mile for their customers. Oh, and no offer of food once I arrived in Denver, and just a “discount” on an area hotel (think “Motel 6″)

Maybe I’ll start a new blog…. UnitedSux.com

Headed to Boise Idaho later this morning… I hope.

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Does it count at all that I *know* one of the people on the list of “50 Most Beautiful in DC”?

That would be Jeff Kimball, a healthcare lobbyist, who is featured on Page 2. Who by the way, just for the record, is straight as an arrow. I woudn’t want any rumors to get started.

My personal preference is Dan Aranyosi, on Page 3. Yes, yes… I know… the uniform.

And, is “Lumberjack” upset that he is not on the list?

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Following my posting on Tuesday about a new study released by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, I received a very nice ‘thank you’ email from Steve Ralls, SLDN Director of Communications.

Steve made me aware of a week-long series of blog articles on SLDN’s website by gay graduates of the service academies. Steve thought readers of GayPatriot would be especially interested in Tuesday’s “Dispatch from West Point” submission. I have printed it below in its entirety. You can read other reflections of gay and lesbian servicemembers at SLDN’s blog.
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You know, I’d like to know if the Gay Left sits around and proactively brainstorming ways to make themselves look ridiculous, intolerant, anti-American and childish?

Chad, guest blogging over at Alarming News, has the skinny on this absurd turn of events from our gay “leaders” who are losing votes on gay rights all across America. (Who’s Your Parent A!!)

Massachusetts (of course) Debates Birth Certificates for Babies of Same-Sex Couples – FOX News

“…gay rights advocates want the words “Mother” and “Father” removed from birth certificates, and put in their place the terms “Parent A” and “Parent B.”

[Governor] Romney has instructed hospitals to cross out the words “Mother” or “Father” and write in the phrase “Second Parent.”

“I’m opposed to taking the Massachusetts birth certificate and removing the term ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’ and substituting ‘Parent A’ and ‘Parent B,’” Romney said. “Look, each child has a mother and a father. They should have the right to have that mother and father known to them and that’s something I’d like to preserve on a birth certificate.”

As Chad says: Honestly, being gay, I really have a hard time siding with people who are on the fight for “gay rights”. Nevermind the fact that they totally miss that whole pesky majority rules thing and take all their gripes to the judiciary to decide, but they come up with the most retarded answers to their problems.

So let’s check our scorecard…. the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is a self-avowed socialist, the head of the Human Rights Campaign is former fundraiser for the pro-abortion movement, the head of Log Cabin Republicans spent $1M in advertising against the Republican President in a close election year, and now the Massachusetts GayLefties want to turn my Mom into “Parent A”???

Someone *please* enlighten me as to when the Gay Borg Queens are going to wake up and realize they are further marginalizing themselves with these ridiculous challenges to society. If this is their post-2004 election strategy to reach out to “Red Staters”… maybe it is some kind of reverse psychology offensive?

PS – Chad can normally be found at Cake or Death?

PPS – There is a gay Republican in Brooklyn….. who is a Philadelphia Eagles fan?? I hope he has a bodyguard. *grin*

-Bruce – GayPatriot (gaypatriot2004@aol.com)

…GayPatriotWest???

Has anyone seen Dan?

Should I issue an Amber Alert??

-Bruce – GayPatriot (gaypatriot2004@aol.com)

UPDATE (from Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest)–No Amber alert necessary. I had to finish a paper which was due Monday–and I got it out on time, then had three busy days of classes, then upon returning to LA, needed some respite so watched the most amusing Wedding Crashers before picking up the latest Harry Potter book which I couldn’t put down. I just finished the book so should be back to normal posting by tomorrow, Friday, July 29, 2005.

Just saw this statement from Patrick Guerriero, head of Log Cabin Republicans:

July 26, 2005

Log Cabin Republicans Denounce Execution of Gay Youth by Iran
International Community Should Denounce Iranian Regime

(Washington, DC)? In the wake of news stories and photographs documenting the hanging of two gay Iranian teenagers, Log Cabin Republicans re-affirm their commitment to the global war on terror. ?Like any decent human being, I am shocked and outraged by the execution of two young gay men by Iranian government officials,? said Log Cabin Republicans President Patrick Guerriero. ?This barbarous slaughter clearly demonstrates the stakes in the global war on terror. Freedom must prevail over radical Islamic extremism.?

Log Cabin Republicans call on the United States government, as well as the broader international community, including the United Nations, to publicly condemn these atrocities. There is a special obligation for those countries with continued economic ties to the Iranian regime to speak out. ?The international community should be outraged, and those countries that continue supporting the Iranian regime have a special obligation to condemn this deplorable act,? concluded Guerriero.

My original posting on the Iranian story, plus the threats by Islamic terrorists to UK gay leaders, is here.

I am still waiting to see if the White House or Department of State issues any formal statement on the matter. Stay tuned…… I’m doing some digging on this….

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Well, lookie here…. a common thread in these two posts this morning! Wooo hoooo!

AnotherGayRepublican has the lowdown on a new report highlighting the price the US military is paying for their “DADT” policy.

Gays and recruiting goals – AnotherGayRepublican

New report from Servicemembers Legal Defense Network says: The United States military could attract as many as 41,000 new recruits by lifting its ?Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell? ban on gay personnel, new data released today by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) shows.

AGR observes: It shouldn’t matter whether letting gays and lesbians serve openly helps recruiting goals or gains 4 or 40,000 new service members. It should be enough that these men and women love their country and want to serve. But if this argument convinces the government to change policy, we’ll take it.

But of course what you really want to know now is…. what would Oliver Stone think? (Was that segue too obvious???)

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

This seemed worthy to bring to your attention. But I don’t have any witty observations about it. I’ll leave that up to y’all. (Practicing my lingo for the move to North Carolina)

Oliver Stone Offends Gays – Cinematical

Gay activists are up in arms over reports that director Oliver Stone has removed scenes in the DVD version of Alexander in which the title character appears to have a homosexual relationship. “You cannot associate homosexuality with the military in this country,” Stone told today’s (Monday) New York Post. “Audiences want their war films straight. From the day we opened, we did not do business in the South.” But Damon Rome of GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, told the newspaper, “For someone known as a fearless, uncompromising filmmaker, Stone has really compromised his own artistic integrity.”

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

I am already having the “week from hell.” By Saturday, I will have been in Virginia, DC, Pennsylvania, Idaho and California. So as I stress out over work tonight…. I’m fondly remembering the cruise a couple weeks ago.

Did I mention we saw Alan Colmes from “Hannity & Colmes” during our trip?

I publish the photo…. you decide. *grin*

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Ricky Martin….. who was Livin La Vida Dopo in Amman, Jordan this weekend. (Hat tip: LittleGreenFootballs)

Ricky Martin Seeks to End Arab Stereotypes – AP

“I promise I will become a spokesperson, if you allow me to, a spokesperson on your behalf. I will defend you and try to get rid of any stereotypes,” the 33-year-old singer told youngsters from 16 mainly Arab countries at a youth conference on Monday.

The children, ages 14 to 16, expressed concern about being labeled as “terrorists” by the West.

“I have been a victim of stereotypes. I come from Latin America and to some countries, we are considered `losers,’ drug traffickers, and that is not fair because that is generalizing,” said Martin, who was born in Puerto Rico.

“Those comments are made out of ignorance and we have to sometimes ignore the ignorant, but we also have to educate the ignorant. You have me here as a friend,” he said.

Martin, whose hits include “She Bangs,” “Shake Your Bon-Bon” and “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” posed for photos with fans, at one point draping over his shoulders a traditional Arab kaffiyeh headscarf with the slogan “Jerusalem Is Ours” written in Arabic on it.
“I had no idea that the kaffiyeh scarf presented to me contained language referring to Jerusalem, and I apologize to anyone who might think I was endorsing its message,” Martin said in a statement released Monday by his New York-based publicist, Ken Sunshine.

Another “successful” trip like this might have the ex-Menudo star sparking an international incident. You know, I don’t want Hillary Clinton or Bill Frist singing pop songs and dirty dancing on stage…. so I am really tired of entertainers thinking they are diplomats and elected officials.

Note the date…. today is when Ricky Martin jumped the shark.

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

They can’t win at the voting booths… their court-activism strategy only goes so far… but in cahoots with the liberal media, the Secular LibDems continue their tradition of trying to take down a Republican government through insidious means, not at the ballot box. Michael Barone says it is failing this time.

Bush bashing fizzles – TownHall.com

we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media — The New York Times, etc., etc. — to delegitimize yet another Republican administration.

This project has been ongoing for more than 30 years.

By the way, Barone — a premier expert on American politics — agrees with a lot of what Dan (GayPatriotWest) said in his recent posting on Karl Rove. (The LA Times Does It Again – GayPatriotWest)

Barone:

Now the unsupported charges that “Bush lied” about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been rekindled via criticism of Karl Rove. A key witness for the Democrats and mainstream media was former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Unfortunately for his advocates, he turned out to be a liar. A year after his famous article appeared in The New York Times in July 2003 accusing Bush of “twisting” intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, concluded that Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his dispatch to Niger, and Chairman Pat Roberts said that his report bolstered rather than refuted the case that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents. The case against Rove — ballyhooed by recent Time and Newsweek cover stories that paid little heed to the discrediting of Wilson — seems likely to end not with a bang but a whimper.

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Oh my gosh…. *laughing* (Hat tip: Tim Blair)

Isn’t the definition of “majority” at least 50%-plus-1? Heh heh heh. Must be the Down Under version of “fuzzy math.”

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

What do you do if you were a child of the ’60s or ’70s and your life-long ambition was to be a “Pip”?

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Reasoned Audacity notes a “whisper” campaign among the Left targeting Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.

Who’s Homophobic Now? – Reasoned Audacity

As I’ve said many times on this blog… there isn’t a lot of distance between the Political Religious Right fanatics and the Secular Leftists/LibDem fanatics.

Now they both seem to use the label “gay” as a four letter word. Huh.

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

I found these two pieces of “fan” email a hoot… and wanted to share with all of you.

This one is from “PBatch617″:

After 9/11 Pat Robinson and Jerry Fallwell blamed the attacks on the United States on Americas acceptance of homo-sexuals, abortionists, feminists and secularists. Give me a break. The RADICAL, right wing of the Republican party has more in common with Islamic wackos than it does than it does most freedom loving Americans. If each had there way, we would live a theocracy where anyone who did not share their religious views would be persecuted.

I believe that the Islamic terrorists should have the crap bombed out of them and the Radical right wing of the Republican party should be voted out.

Substitute “American liberal wackos” for “Islamic wackos” and I tend to agree with you. (See above posting)

On your last two points…. President Bush put his political neck on the line to be pro-active in the War on Terror; as you suggest. I hope you are young, because I doubt in the next decade at least you will see anything but a further move to the Republican Party when all the Democrats are consumed with is hatred, not ideas.

==============

And this one from Tyler:

You argue that straight acceptance gays should come before legislation and we as gays need to be on our best behaviour for straight eyes. Frankly, I don’t care what rednecks think of me. That is NOT the point. If we left the desegregation of the South up to referenda, it would have NEVER happened. The question of rights is not a question left up to the tyranny of the majority. Let us not forget that Hitler was democratically elected.

Tyler sounds a lot like the head of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, Matt Foreman who said the following last year after the first majority win by a President since 1988: “Well, fundamentally human rights should never be put up for a popular vote. Even today if we put the freedoms that we take for granted, like freedom of press or religion or speech, up to a popular vote, we would lose them in most of our states — maybe not most, but at least half of them.”

Well Matt & Tyler… I’m sorry that’s “the America” you live in. Mine is much more optimistic and hopeful that through hard work, and not quick fixes, the American public will move our way. Most people don’t give a damn about your sexuality (straight or gay) unless you are flaunting it in their faces.

I’d bet that Matt & Tyler were also both opposed to voting in Iraq and prefered a dictator who “protected” the Iraqis “human rights” with Uday & Qusay? After all, President Bush is evil…. Saddam Hussein opposed him…. so the Gay Left must have supported Saddam Hussein, right? Simple math equation.

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

Pat from ConservativePunk dropped me a note of “hello” this week. Looks like a good site!

ConservativePunk

-Bruce (GayPatriot) – gaypatriot2004@aol.com

In his post on Thursday, Bruce noted how Australian Prime Minister John Howard replied to a reporter’s suggestion the war in Iraq had “*increased* the threat of terrorism.” That good man from Down Under reminded the reporter that there had been terrorist attacks before the U.S. military liberated Iraq.

In a post yesterday, Captain Ed noted that Al-Qaeda’s attack in the Egyptian resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh proves that Iraq is not the cause of terrorism. While that terror organization claimed it had bombed this city a response against “global evil powers which are spilling the blood of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya,” the good Captain notes that Egypt has not stationed its troops in any of those areas.

The terrorists have attacked before the Iraq war and have since attacked nations not involved in the war. Those who might dismiss terrorist actions as responses to this war have blinded themselves to the reality of the terrorist threat. Let me repeat the words of the Australian Prime Minister, words quoted on this blog just a few days ago:

And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.