Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
So exactly what is the substance of the mysterious last-minute, surprise allegation that has put Gene Robinson’s confirmation vote as Bishop of New Hampshire on hold?
Sources say that the alleged inappropriate conduct by the Rev. Cn. Gene Robinson occurred when Robinson touched a married man in his 40’s on his bicep, shoulder and upper back in the process of a public conversation at a province meeting around two years ago.
(via Atrios)
Well, I suppose that just after allegedly slaughtering an Iraqi family, beating a journalist isn’t too big of a deal.
A Japanese journalist who was manhandled by U.S. troops in Iraq on July 27 is recovering from injuries sustained during the confrontation but remains outraged at the use of excessive force against him, said co-worker Mika Yamamoto.
Yamamoto and her colleague, Sato Kazutaka, were filming the aftermath of a U.S. raid on a private residence in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Mansour for a Japanese television company when U.S. soldiers suddenly told her to stop filming.
“An American soldier twisted my arm behind my back and told me to show her some ID, but by the time I had managed to find it, the soldier said that I was too late,” Yamamoto wrote in an e-mail interview from Baghdad where she has resumed work.
\”As the soldier began to lead me away, Sato began to protest and claimed that we had done nothing wrong by filming the scene and that this was an unreasonable reaction.
“When he said that,” Yamamoto wrote, “a nearby soldier began kicking him and then another four or five soldiers took him to the ground, removed the safeties from their weapons, aimed their guns at his head and continued to kick at him repeatedly.”
U.S. troops then confiscated his camera as they tied his arms behind his back with wire and proceeded to detain him in a nearby military vehicle for about one hour, she said.
“They kept him until other foreign journalists began to appear on the scene,” Yamamoto wrote. “As soon as others started arriving, the soldiers’ attitude became far less aggressive and they immediately began removing the wire from around Sato’s wrists.”
(via Jonas)
Small, brown kitten Look at it, take a deep look into this poor things eyes. Every time you masturbate you kill one of him, or her. God knows what it is, but it’s gonna be dead soon, because of you. You sick, sick boy (or girl).
(In case you haven’t run across this meme yet, here’s the explanation — a funny graphic that’s been bouncing around the ‘net for months now.)
(via DJ Eternal Darkness)
It’s official — TypePad is open for business!
As a beta tester, I can give codes to twenty friends that will allow them to sign up for TypePad at a discounted rate — 20% off the base price for life.
As far as I’m concerned, the following people already have codes from me, if you’d like to take them:
That’s five off the top of my head, and there’s no guarantees that they’ll all be taken, which leaves me with at least 15 up for grabs. Anyone interested? I’ll consider people I know IRL or have already established a prior ‘net relationship with before J. Random Stranger, should J. Random Stranger stop by and indicate interest, of course. ;)
Update: I’m no longer a TypePad Beta Tester. Rather, I’m an official TypePad subscriber. Woohoo!
The technology is not yet foolproof. The online edition of The New York Post, which is owned by the News Corporation, ran an article last month about a murder in which the victim’s body parts were packed in a suitcase, and Google served up an ad for a luggage dealer.
— from [If You Liked the Web Page, You’ll Love the Ad], in the New York Times
[If You Liked the Web Page, You’ll Love the Ad]: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/technology/04ECOM.html?ex=1375416000&en=2ac396ed576ca1b3&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND “If You Liked the Web Page,
You’ll Love the Ad”
This just seems to be the day for long posts, doesn’t it? Well, bear with me — I’m flaming pissed right now, and I don’t feel like hiding all the reasons behind the ‘extended post’ link.
Earlier today, I linked to a story about how the Episcopal Church looked ready to elect the first openly gay bishop. I should have known that in the real world, this wasn’t likely to happen.
This afternoon, a string of posts was posted on Eschaton pointing out the smear campaign currently being waged against Rev. Gene Robinson that has resulted in the final vote, which was supposed to happen today, being postponed ‘indefinitely.’
First: a link to a Weekly Standard article breaking the news that one could access a porn website through links from the website of Outright a gay youth support website.
THE CONTROVERSIAL gay Episcopal bishop-elect of New Hampshire is a founder of a group called Outright that supports gay, lesbian, or “questioning” young people 22-years-old or younger and gets them together with older gay and lesbian role models. On its website, Outright had a link to a pornographic website–until the link became an issue in the fight at the Episcopal Church’s national convention in Minneapolis over ratifying the election of the bishop-elect, Gene Robinson, by New Hampshire Episcopalians. The link, indeed all links, were removed from the website today.
Eschaton apparently found about about this from a CNN broadcast, which was loosely quoted as such:
If you go to a website, and then make a few more clicks, and then leave the web site, and then make a few more clicks, you can access some erotica if you pay for it.
Go to the website, make a few more clicks, then leave the website, then make a few more clicks, then you’ll find porn if you pay for it.
Next, Atrios came up with the transcript of the CNN report he heard (emphasis mine):
Also, the vote is being postponed, we have learned from church officials, is because another group who initially came to CNN revealed that they suspect that a Web site called outright.org, an organization that counsels gay and lesbian youth under the age of 21, that if you go on to their Web site, there are a few clicks away and leaving their Web site can eventually get you, they say, to a pornographic site.
Next came the revelation that Fred Barnes, the author of the Weekly Standard article, is a board member of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a very conservative organization of Episcopalians. Sure sounds like a possible conflict of interest to me.
Later, another CNN transcript was found, demonstrating just how easy it was to get to porn via Outreach’s site:
First, let’s show you a bit of the Web site. We will not show you all of its entirety but if you go to it and make a few clicks and then leave the Web site using various links and make a few more clicks you discover an erotica, what is described as an erotica site where you can download or view rather some photographs. Of course you have to pay to see additional photographs.
This is nothing more than a blatant smear campaign designed to discredit Rev. Robinson and block his election as a Bishop. Allegations have also surfaced involving possible “improper touching”. According to this CNN transcript (the first one linked to by Eschaton):
…one of [the allegations] has to do with an e-mail that was sent just last night from a man in Manchester, Vermont, by the name of David Lewis, who sent an e-mail to a bishop claiming that — or alleging that — Reverend Robinson had — quote — “touched him inappropriately” a few years ago at a convocation, and he’s asking the bishops to look into this.
In other words, even though Rev. Robinson has been in the news for months, along with word of his upcoming election process, these allegations only surfaced at the very last moment, when it actually looked like he would be elected to his position as Bishop. As I stated above, it looks for all the world to me like this is nothing more than a brutal, vicious smear campaign.
Rev. Robinson may have had the honor of being elected the first gay bishop of the Episcopal Church today. He may not have — having made it through the first two elections is a good indicator, but not a gaurantee, that he would have made it through the third. At this point, though, we may never know.
— seen on /.
Last month, John Gilmore was booked on a flight from San Francisco to London via British airways. Unfortunately, displaying his political views caused a bit of a stir…
My sweetheart Annie and I tried to fly to London today (Friday) on British Airways. We started at SFO, showed our passports and got through all the rigamarole, and were seated on the plane while it taxied out toward takeoff. Suddenly a flight steward, Cabin Service Director Khaleel Miyan, loomed in front of me and demanded that I remove a small 1\” button pinned to my left lapel. I declined, saying that it was a political statement and that he had no right to censor passengers’ political speech. The button, which was created by political activist Emi Koyama, says “Suspected Terrorist”. Large images of the button and I appear in the cover story of Reason Magazine this month, and the story is entitled “Suspected Terrorist”.
The steward returned with Capt. Peter Hughes. The captain requested, and then demanded, that I remove the button (they called it a “badge”). He said that I would endanger the aircraft and commit a federal crime if I did not take it off. I told him that it was a political statement and declined to remove it.
They turned the plane around and brought it back to the gate, delaying 300 passengers on a full flight.
His story was noted by Lawrence Lessig, and posted to his weblog. Much commenting ensued.
Saturday, Lessig posted John’s reply to the comment thread, and he raises some excellent points in his response.
The button is not a joke. It’s a serious statement which one may agree or disagree with. The point that people seem to be missing is that a “suspected terrorist” is not the same as a “terrorist”. Yet, that’s exactly the conflation that has occurred: treat every citizen like a suspect, and every suspect like a terrorist.
[…]
Let me also say in my defense that I seldom fly these days, so I am not used to life in a gulag. I had zero expectation that my refusal to doff a button would result in the captain returning the plane to the gate. But even if I did fly often, my response would be the same: to constantly push back against the rules that turn a free people into the slaves of a totalitarian regime. I push back using the rights granted me by the constitutional structure of the country, plus my own intelligence and resources. Way too many of you readers are like the Poles who, under orders from swaggering bullies, built the brick wall around their own ghetto, as shown in the award-winning movie “The Pianist” (which I watched on the Virgin Atlantic flight). The US is currently filling the swaggering bully role at home, in Iraq, and in the rest of the world. (Come out to free countries and ask around, if you disagree.)
John also included a list of other, related incidents which really should be looked at.
This is all very real, very scary stuff, going on as we speak in our “freedom loving” country. Don’t assume that “it can’t happen to me” — it can, and if this continues unchecked, sooner or later, it will.
Looks like it’s time to add profane, sarcastic notes to the list of things you shouldn’t fly with these days.
A Paxton teenager was arraigned on a felony charge yesterday morning after he and his family were removed from a plane bound for Hawaii following the discovery of a profanity-filled note referencing a bomb in his luggage examined at Logan International Airport.
[…]
Socha was arrested by State Police and his mother, father, and sister, were ordered off United Airlines Flight 171 to Honolulu via San Francisco, which was set to depart at 7:07 a.m.
According to the police report, the note, which was placed on top of clothes in a black gym bag read: ”[Expletive] you. Stay the [expletive] out of my bag you [expletive] sucker. Have you found a [expletive] bomb yet? No, just clothes. Am I right? Yea, so [expletive] you.”
This was not a bomb threat, nor a danger to the flight. This was a 17 year old kid leaving a juvenile note in his bag. Nothing more.
(via Cory)
The Episcopal Church continues to make progress in becoming more inclusive, as openly gay Bishop-elect Rev. V. Gene Robinson has successfully passed two of the three votes before being elected, and a possible compromise has been reached for a ceremony celebrating same-sex unions. This is wonderful news.
“God is not on a learning curve,” Robinson said. “We, on the other hand, are on the learning curve. God has taught us a lot of things about the full inclusion of people of color, of women, and now of gay and lesbian folk.”
(via D)
