Jerry Timms

Today I received one of those automated political survey calls. Much to my surprise (or sadly not), it was regarding another gay marriage amendment to the Arizona Constitution that is planned to be proposed this coming November. Surely they’re freaked out about the recent California action being so close to our state! There were questions in the survey to that effect. Remember that the last amendment failed here in 2006, with the organizers of that initiative vowing to return with greater numbers in the next election (which happens to be in 6 months).

Well, they’ve been gathering signatures hoping to get it once again on the next ballot. They don’t have enough yet, but they do have until early July to get them all. And if history tells us anything, it’s that there are at least 200,000 nutjobs in Arizona that will support something like this.

I need to tell you guys that I have a source in a local news organization that has informed me that a group supporting the amendment has been buying up internet domain names left and right. It seems that a rogue organization deployed a bunch of smear websites in 2006 that ruined their reputation, and so this year they’re planning several counterfeit opposition websites to smear the “no” campaign!

What really worries me is that they have literally bought every single possible proposition-related domain name. I guess the Secretary of State legally has to use a certain numbering scheme for constitutional related propositions, so it wasn’t hard for them to figure it out and cover all their bases, even though the official proposition number hasn’t been determined. I’ve also learned that they’ve gone so far as to set up a news distribution service, retail store and podcast, and that much of this is being funded by a certain local restaurant chain.

You know what? The type of confusion, anger and pandemonium this can all cause really concerns me. Playing these games not only hurts those who sacrifice themselves and work hard to defend our rights, but trivializes the political system that has been set up to protect us. The games need to stop now. And so I’d like to announce that I will work to expose those who are behind this insane plan.

Alright, I’ve just about had it with the lunacy that surrounds the illegal immigration debate. I get going about this quite often, but today I read a story that was linked from Drudge, titled “Study: Illegal immigration costs border counties millions.”

I was actually really intrigued by this, and wondered if it had in fact been proven that illegal immigration costs taxpayers as much as the conservative activists would have us believe. So, I clicked onto the story and began reading. Here’s the entire story, that had been reprinted from The Arizona Republic:

Study: Illegal immigration costs border counties millions

PHOENIX (AP) - A new study concludes that law enforcement and criminal prosecutions linked to illegal immigration is costing Arizona border counties millions of dollars a year.

The study says the battle over illegal immigration is also diverting money from parks, libraries and other law-enforcement efforts.

University of Arizona and San Diego State University researchers say in the four border counties in Arizona, costs increased 39% to $26.6 million in fiscal 2006.

The study was commissioned by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition, a non-profit group of border-county officials.

Do you see what they did here? I hope you do, because this is really typical of how this debate is manipulated. The title of the story insinuates that illegal immigrants are a drain on our public resources - you know, like healthcare, education and other benefits that get discussed often in reference to the overall debate. In fact the title does more than insinuate it, it pretty much lets you believe that the very act of illegal immigration costs us millions.

But that’s not what the study proves. The study concludes that PROSECUTING illegal immigrants for being here is costing us millions. Actually it doesn’t really prove anything that’s difficult to believe, as I think anyone knows that prosecuting them and deporting them is going to cost something. The “study” just adds up the numbers. But I think you can see that most people who read this would get a different impression if they don’t think carefully about the language here. They are going to think that illegal immigrants costs us money just by being here, and that’s just not the case.

Those who are adamantly opposed to illegal immigration and support drastic measures to curb it are, quite seriously, lying to you about the facts and are simply trying to hide their own racism.

Healthcare
Opponents want you to believe that illegal immigrants are responsible for our out of control healthcare costs because they use up free services at hospital emergency rooms. While partially true, they are not responsible for the vast majority of this problem - Americans are. The fact is that nearly 50 million Americans don’t have health insurance, either. But this argument completely ignores the fact that many will pay for care at clinics, just like other uninsured people do. Regardless, if controlling healthcare costs were really a concern for one of these people, they would address the biggest problem - which is uninsured Americans. But that’s not their concern.

Education
Opponents want you to believe that illegal immigrants are responsible for our poor education spending and quality. This is not true because, as you know, schools are mostly funded by property taxes. Even though a family may be illegal, they are living somewhere that is owned by someone - and taxes are being paid by that owner. Illegal immigrants are no more responsible for grabbing an unfair percentage of education spending than anyone else who rents a residence instead of owns one. Besides that, even if it were true wouldn’t it be balanced out by the 10% of the population who are gay and pays to fund their local schools even though they don’t commonly have children? If we got really technical here, I could also craft a sound argument that Walmart is a drain on our public services. But that’s not their concern, either.

Circular Reasoning
Of course the crux of these and other arguments is that since their employment is not legitimate, they do not (cannot) pay taxes, and thus do not properly contribute to the society in which they live. I’ll give them that. So let’s legitimize their employment! So they can pay taxes! No? What, why not? Oh, because they are a drain and do not properly contribute to our tax system. Huh? Do you see the circular reasoning?

So, what’s the real concern here? I’ll tell you what it is, because everyone who argues against immigration with me is thinking the same damn thing.

The strong opponents of immigration don’t like looking at Mexicans and think they’re dirty. They think they have too many babies and spread illness. They think they have ugly houses and drive old cars. They think that they all have a knife or gun on them, and do drugs all day. They think that they all want to open up little shops on their business corners that will be roasting chiles all day and selling tamales in bags by the side of the road in ragged clothing.

Can we have the real argument now?

Google announced yesterday that they intend to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into a project to develop cheaper, sustainable energy to power its server farms. It’s estimated that Google currently runs about 500,000 servers to power its business, which is probably the largest set of connected servers that we know about in the world.

A respected political science professor in college had a theory about power. He’s an environmentalist, and a staunch supporter of sustainable power. But not too sustainable. The argument is relatively difficult to explain, but is essentially focused on the dangers of offering just anyone unlimited (or vast quantities of) electrical power. He felt at the time that humans are not currently able to handle such a responsibility.

Power in his mind is not simply dangerous if it destroys any part of the environment through chemical pollution, but can also make a mess if put to a means that ruin culture or important balances of power and influence. The argument continues to make a lot of sense to me, even if through some fantastic Terminator or Matrix sort of vision.

(Do I really think androids or computer networks can become self aware and take over the world? Yes, but that’s either here nor there. And it’s not really where I’m going with this. It’s just one example of how vast quantities of self-generated electrical power without the need for any constant supply of raw materials could change everything. There are other examples that don’t rely on science fiction.)

I believe that extremely cheap or free power will become an important tipping point in the amount of influence major corporations will have over our lives.

This isn’t such a bad thing. I already believe that Google (along with the rest of the top internet players) has been a major influence in the recent and rapid evolution of our culture; almost all of it in a positive way. If Google had 100 times more influence over our lives, who is to say that it would not continue to be positive?

Google’s corporate motto “Don’t be evil” is in fact a testament to how important they perceive their influence and position within society to be.

I’m not one of those people who fret over the influence of corporations and capitalism over humanity. I believe our capitalist society is currently the best thing going on the planet, and that for now we’re winning the Social Darwinism race. That same professor in college used to ask the question, “what two countries have ever waged war over one another who both had a McDonalds within their borders at the time?” The answer was that none had, and I think there’s something to that…

We still need our governments to set and enforce laws. But I’m postulating here that the biggest influences over our lives and culture will continue to be, and should be, corporations over the next foreseeable period. I think there are several tipping points we should be watching for, and completely sustainable energy will be one of them.

This has been known for some time, but Iran’s President Ahmadinejad recently brought the treatment of gays in his country back into the public spotlight by denying that gays exist in Iran. He made the statement this week at an appearance at Columbia University, to the laughter and boos of the audience.

The pictures above are from a few years ago, where two teens were executed in Iran for having gay sex. False rape charges were brought against the two in order to make the execution a little more publicly palatable, even though multiple witness accounts and testimony to the fact that no rape had ever occurred.

The execution of gays is actually quite common in the underdeveloped world, and it’s rather difficult to imagine political climates like this when we spend most of our time simply fighting for legal protections. We are not fighting for our lives, although it may sometimes feel like it. Images like the ones above are a sobering reality that infinitely more evil exists against us in other places.

It’s hard to take personal action against this kind of thing. The middle east has really become the prime example lately of all that’s wrong with humanity (or sub-humanity), and as U.S. citizens we don’t have any formal processes for creating change in other countries (that channel is reserved for the state department and military). We can certainly elect leaders that commit to fighting for the right changes in the world, but you know as well as I do that it doesn’t feel as effective as it seems it should.

For now I am going to add my voice on this issue to the millions that already exist on the internet, and to make you aware of this if you aren’t already. This doesn’t mean that we give up our battles at home, but I may start to think about ways to take my fight to a slightly more global level - whether it’s donating to organizations like Amnesty International, or modifying my political support for military action that may address human rights abuses such as this by other governments.

Even all of that seems horribly insufficient.

Well, it seems that four firefighters in San Diego are filing a lawsuit against the city for forcing them to participate in this year’s gay pride parade. Hillcrest firefighters. Yeah, Hillcrest.

The basis of the lawsuit is not just that they were forced to participate, but that they were exposed to such vulgar language that it was interpreted by them as sexual harassment.

Said Giotto, the crew’s captain, “These unsolicited and unwanted behaviors from a few individuals of the public toward us reduced our morale as well as the integrity of the workplace, and destroyed our professionalism.

“The experience left me feeling humiliated, embarrassed and offended by this event.”

So let me get this straight. You can walk into a burning building, put your life on the line every day, but being cackled at by some drunk queens completely destroys your professionalism and reduces your morale? What pussies.

Oh, forgot to mention…their attorney is a prominent religious Christian firm. Now it makes sense. And the fire chief is a lesbian. Even more sense.

You can always tell when an action is homophobically charged. How? Because they always use the word homosexual instead of gay.

According to the Thomas More Law Center, the firefighters’ law firm, the four firefighters were forced to participate in the parade against their will and were “subjected to vile sexual taunts from homosexuals lining the parade route.”

Well, in their defense that’s pretty much the definition of a gay pride parade, no? Did they think they would just be solemnly soluted?

Next!

Oops! Senator Larry Craig, Republican Senator from Idaho, was caught cruising men in an airport restroom. While I would normally say that I wish our law enforcement would spend their time on actually protecting people from getting hurt, or something, I’m glad that Senator Craig’s hypocrisy has been exposed. The Senator is married with kids, so he’s obviously a closet case. Big deal you say? Well he’s also voted against gays on every piece of civil rights legislation to recently hit the Senate.

• Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
• Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
• Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
• Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)

(Source: On The Issues)

So, not only is this scumbag cheating on his wife, but he’s also trying to punish all American gays for his own self-hatred. Nice.

From Rollcall via USA Today:

After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, “What do you think about that?” the report states.

I think that’s a Senator who’s about to resign in disgrace.

Rumor has it that Karl Rove may be the next high profile Republican to be outed. Jeff Gannon, Republican White House reporter-slash-gay-prostitute has supposedly written about Rove in his upcoming book, and may even finger Rove as a former client (I’m sure I am not the first blogger to use that line). Karl Rove has long been rumored to be gay, with several witnesses over the years mentioning his presence everywhere from gay bars to orgies. If true, it would certainly be no coincidence that he resigned two weeks ago as President Bush’s main adviser and deputy chief of staff.

I can no longer look at Log Cabin Republicans with the same amount of disdain, when my own party of 14 years still refuses to support full marriage equality. I would be just as self-hating as a gay or black Republican if I continued my affiliation with the Democratic party. So, about 5 minutes ago I changed my registration to independent status.

I’m obviously going to continue voting for the lesser of the available evils, but I’m no longer a Democrat.

The presidential election ended for me last night while watching the Democratic presidential debate on Logo. The four frontrunning democratic candidates made it clear that they do not support gay marriage, but instead maintain varied support for the separate but equal civil union scheme. Some of them may actually privately support gay marriage, but they are clearly tempering their public support in order to make their win a little less complicated. Barack Obama actually belongs to the United Church of Christ, one of the few Christian churches that supports gay marriage, but he still stopped far short of endorsing it.

Instead, Barack Obama had the tenacity to bring up the fact that his parents wouldn’t have been allowed to marry in several states in the early 60’s, and because of that he felt like he understands our situation. Ha. While that may be a cute effort to find some common ground with us, using that as a backdrop to tell us that we shouldn’t push completely forward for full rights is disgusting.

I want to feel comfortable with Hillary Clinton, but how many times does she have to reconsider past statements and decisions? It’s impossible to make a mistake when dealing with equality, it either is or isn’t. We’re left with a feeling that all of the candidates still have some thinking to do, but time has run out.

The presidential election ended for me last night, and this is probably the last time you’ll ever hear me mention it. Time to get started on a new project.

Well apparently I’m late to discovering the Donnie Davies phenomenon, but here is the video if you haven’t seen it yet…

If you have the time to research this man (and I highly recommend that you do), your quest will lead you down a twisted path of insult, deception, and the questionable politics of Cyndi Lauper.

*tips hat*