JLooney.com

Still don’t understand what the hell happened? This video is only 10 minutes long, but I have yet to see a more clear explanation of the greed and stupidity that led to our current fiscal status as an international laughing stock.

I’ve said it before, but I’m actually pretty exccited about the current economic crisis. I believe very strongly that in the long run, it’ll force some accountability and desperately needed restructuring of our entire financial philosophy. I believe that Americans are survivors, and we show our true colors in desperate times. I believe that once we hit that point of accountability and start to re-build and grow, our nation will come back stronger than ever, and truly flourish.

Plenty of people look at the Oscars as just another awards show. And why wouldn’t they? If you stop to consider, we’re pretty much inundated with awards shows – the Grammys, the Golden Globes, The Country Music Awards (why do they get their own awards show anyway? What the hell about the heavy metal awards?), the People’s Choice Awards, Best of Utah, and on and on ad nauseam. Kinda makes me wonder if we’re just having awards shows to make sure everyone gets something and nobody goes home with their feelings hurt.

Anyway, I’ve watched the Oscars many times, and I love ‘em. This is one of the best shows in recent memory, though – hats off to the producers of last night’s brilliant production. It felt very much like an old-school, glitz-and-glam, young Hollywood style show, and it was executed beautifully.

Both Megan and I felt that it was incredibly tacky, however, that while Jennifer Aniston was onstage presenting, the camera cut to Brad and Angelina three separate times.

As far as the winners go, let’s check and see how accurately I picked (you can check my answers from my previous post here):

So, on a lighter note, I was surfing over at FARK just now, and had to laugh out loud at their latest PhotoShop contest – Toys ofr ADHD kids. Maybe it’s more funnier if you have ADHD, I dunno. What I do know is that I laughed myself to tears on some of these.

Fair warning: I’m not censuring myself on this one as I typically do. I’m pretty passionate on this and I’m pretty upset as well. Also, follow the links on this one – there’s a lot that I wanted to say, and others have said it better, so I linked to them.

The AP tagline from the press release says it all “Businesses in Utah will continue to be allowed to fire someone for being gay”. 

That’s right, House Bill 267 was voted down today 5-8. Just for informational purposes, those who voted for the bill were:

    Biskupski, J.
    Duckworth, S.
    Hansen, N.
    King, B.
    Wallis, C. B

And the ones who voted against it:

    Dunnigan, J.
    Froerer, G.
    Garn, K.
    Gibson, F.
    Kiser, T.
    Morley, M.
    Painter, P.
    Webb, R. C.

What the fuck kind of world are we living in that continues to not only tolerate but actually encourage and PROTECT discrimination on any grounds? 

I know, there’s plenty of arguments against gay rights, typically coming from a “christian” standpoint (although there are other theologies that condemn homosexuality as well). Sure you can argue that there are other groups that are against gay rights, but with a minimal amount of research you’ll find that every single group that opposes gay rights has a religious agenda of some sort. What it comes down to is taking an absurd and irrational stance that your religion is the only “right” way to heaven, nirvana, or whatever.

Let’s consider just how completely out of whack this actually is.

Without targeting any particular theology, religion, or church, just ask yourself why in matters of religion people are so willing to blindly accept whatever is written in their particular brand of holy book/word of God artifact, when in any other area of life, the human condition is such that we require (and in many cases outright demand) evidence.

For example, if I say to you that the moon is made of cheese, your first reaction is almost certainly doubt. In fact, it’s probably closer to blatant skepticism and likely accompanied by dismisal of the voice as deluded or mentally unstable.

How much more reasonable is it to claim that based on an ancient text that some form of deity, who is almost certainly omnipotent/omnipresent, has taken such an interest in the minutia of every human life on the planet as to have imparted their divine wisdom (through an admittedly imperfect human scribe in almost all cases), outlining a set of rules and guides that must be followed to the letter in order to gain the favor of said deity, and thereby ascend/transmute/commune with them in whatever altogether human description of the afterlife applies.

It’s all bullshit. The only thing we can know for a certainty, that is backed up with clear and simple evidence is that we are all human.

Some of us are a different color.

Some of us are different sexes.

Some of us like to eat meat.

And some of us are attracted to someone of the same sex.

The christians in particular cry that homosexuality is an abomination, and that gay marriage (and gay rights along with it) are the greatest threat to families, and that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

Interstingly, this isn’t actually specified anywhere in the bible. In fact, if you’re using the bible, or scripture in general, to justify your beliefs, you may want to look again. Newsweek recently published an article titled Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy, offering a biblical case FOR gay marriage. I’ve excerpted the first paragraph below:

Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

It’s a great article and worth reading if you any inclination to understanding just how obtuse the christian justification is. 

Again, we’re all just people. What makes a homosexual any different than a heterosexual? Who they hold hands with? 

Although I’m not a fan of Keith Olberman, I believe that his speech (below) is a clear and rational argument that will stand the test of time

And finally, what inspired this whole post (it’s way past my bedtime, and although it’s gonna suck getting up for work in the morning after being up so late, I felt strongly that this was a worthwhile endeavor) was a story on channel 4 about some comments made by elected ass-hat senator Chris Buttars. Here’s what he said:

 ”Homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion. And you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts. But I don’t care.” 

“They’re mean. They want to talk about being nice. They’re the meanest buggers I have ever seen.”

“It’s just like the Muslims. Muslims are good people and their religion is anti-war. But it’s been taken over by the radical side.”

and the most hateful bigotry I’ve heard from this fucking moron in awhile,

 ”What is the morals of a gay person? You can’t answer that because anything goes.” 

“They’re probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of.” 

Now I could go on ad nauseam about Chris Buttars, and what a hateful, stupid, misinformed and plain backwards man he is, but he pretty much sums it all up on the front page of his website where it states several times “Defending Traditional Values”.

Yeah, might as well just come out and say:

“the hell with that whole separation of church and state thing, I’m promoting my “christian” religion and values through my government position, and it’s my job to make sure that the rest of the world either believes as I do, or is at least legally required to follow the religious principles I believe in”

Y’know, it’s funny how we’re so eager to apologize and make reparations for the wrongs we’ve done in the past as a nation for everything from slavery to religious persecution. We’re happy to support hate-crime laws to more agressively prosecute perpetrators of violent crime against minorities.

But why can’t we learn from our history and do it differently this time?

So I was at my friend Jana’s birthday party a few weeks ago at Keys on Main (if you’ve never been you should really check it out, it’s a great time!). Everything was great for the first hour or so. There was a table right next to us with a birthday as well, and they put the tables pretty close together. As a result, therte were people from there party walking up and down in this super-narrow space between the tables. I had butts and boobs on my back and head half the night, and it was starting to get buggy, so rather than confront some of these Tony-Soprano-Lookin’ goombahs, I decided to step outside for a few minutes.

This is where it got interesting.

A few minutes after I get outside, this girl comes out with her date, and pulls out a pink cigarette. The guy she’s with notices that the cigarette is *pink* and asks her whiskey-tango-foxtrot with the pink cigarette.

She responds, serious as a heart attack, “It’s a breast cancer awareness cigarette”

I was stunned, as was her guy, and pretty much everyone else in earshot.

I had to ask, so I stepped closer and interuppted the conversation “did you just say that that’s a ‘breast cancer awareness’ cigarette?”

“Yeah”, she replies, and shows me the box with a pink ribbon on it.

I couldn’t really help myself, and I just lost it, laughing right out loud, which was probably rude.

“Really?” I said “Is the irony apparent to anyone else here?” I ask.

“It’s for a good cause!” she replied, a little defensive now.

I didn’t have the heart to pursue it any further, so I just went back inside to be bumped around by the goombah’s.

Here’s the evidence, though: