MSNBC - For its mayor, Vegas might well be Gin City

MSNBC - For its mayor, Vegas might well be Gin City

Goodman was at Mackey Elementary on Wednesday as part of Nevada Reading Week when he made the drinking comments during a question-and-answer session.

Principal Kemala Washington later called the comments inappropriate but said the students did not appear to understand.

“It just went over their heads,” Washington said.

Evidently, the "kids are too young for independent thought" crowd have managed to make even 9-year olds think it odd that a mayor of Vegas--the card capital of the world--would want to drink a deck of bicycle cards after playing a hand of gin.

(This blog post dedicated to the great work of the CAVE People - Citizens Against Virtually Everything.)

35 primates toss shit in effort to bop the bishop.

adn.com | Nation : Anglican leaders ask U.S. to leave council: "Anglican leaders ask U.S. to leave council

By ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Writer

Published: February 24th, 2005
Last Modified: February 25th, 2005 at 07:52 AM

NEWRY, Northern Ireland (AP) - Anglican leaders struggling to resolve explosive differences over homosexuality have asked the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw from a key council of their global communion for three years - a move some feared could be the first step toward a permanent split.

'That has no interest for the primates,' he said, referring to the leaders of Anglican national churches who were meeting this week to discuss the crisis. 'The purpose of this is to create some space.'

The Episcopal Church, which is the U.S. province of Anglicanism, precipitated the most serious rift in the communion's history when it consecrated V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in November 2003. Robinson lives with his longtime male partner. Conservatives have also criticized North American dioceses for allowing blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.

There it goes friends...
...progress is met with precambrian behavior by of all things, primates... Isn't that just too rich?

Late Thursday, bishops called on the U.S. and Canadian churches to 'voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference,' an international Anglican gathering to be held in 2008, according to a statement.

The North Americans were asked not to attend the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, which is a body of bishops, priests and lay people from national Anglican churches who meet and consult in between the once-a-decade Lambeth Conferences for the primates.

However, Anglican leaders also recommended a hearing be organized at the council's gathering in June to allow the North American churches to send representatives who could explain their views on homosexuality.

'In the meantime, we ask our fellow primates to use their best influence to persuade their brothers and sisters to exercise a moratorium on public rites of blessing for same-sex unions and on the consecration of any bishop living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage,' the statement said.

How typical. They ask for self-censor and shame and then make a 'call' for a hold on progress. Not likely :) Progress is hard to restrain. I sure hope the North Americans refuse the "request" and show up in full force.

Conservatives who lead the Anglican Communion Network, which represents dissenting Episcopal dioceses and churches in the United States, argued that the primates' request meant that the two North American churches 'have been effectively suspended' from the communion.

Another typical ploy. Claim victory...

But James Naughton, a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., and a supporter of Robinson's, disagreed, calling the report an 'elegant compromise.' He said Episcopalians could easily accept temporary withdrawal from the council, if it would create more time for Anglicans to find ways to remain unified.

The communique issued Thursday by the primates reaffirmed a resolution adopted by all Anglican bishops in 1998 declaring that gay sex was 'incompatible with Scripture' and opposed gay ordinations and same-sex blessings.

Big deal. Most readings are "Scripture" are incompatable with scripture. And equally incompatable with reality. Such as bats being birds, insects having 4 legs, and the various accounts of Noah as world's first Pet Detective.

The communique said many of the 35 primates who met this week were 'deeply alarmed that the standard of Christian teaching on matters of human sexuality' expressed in that 1998 resolution had 'been seriously undermined by the recent developments in North America.'

One would think they would be deeply alarmed at the end of Slavery too seeing as how such Biblical practices have been "seriously undermined" by recent developments in North America.

Chairman's tax ideas astound GOP and pay back buddies

Chairman's tax ideas astound GOP: "Rep. Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, raised a few eyebrows at a recent Republican retreat at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

Thomas indicated he would marry Social Security with total repeal of the corporate income tax, which would be replaced by a value-added tax.

Bush always intended to pass Social Security reform this year, postponing an unspecified tax reform until an undetermined time in the future. However, Thomas has been suggesting it would be efficient to combine Social Security and tax reform. But Thomas and Bush are on very different wavelengths when it comes to reforming taxes. Bush contemplates an overall simplification of the Internal Revenue Code. Thomas does not.

During the retreat, Thomas revealed some of his cards. While transforming Social Security, he also would repeal the corporate income tax and replace it with a VAT paid by the consumer.

***

Thomas told his colleagues of multiple advantages for the United States in international trade and hinted at a bountiful increase in federal revenue -- money that would be useful in addressing the Social Security shortfall.

Thomas' uncharacteristically buoyant optimism abruptly ended when he challenged the flat tax as a possible simplification of individual taxes.

He posed difficult questions to the assembled House members. Would you and your constituents be willing to give up the home mortgage deduction? The charitable contributions deduction? The deduction for state and local income taxes?

Because the answer to all of these questions is obviously no, Thomas went on, the tax rate would have to rise to recapture revenue. But that rate would be too high for low-income taxpayers, and there would have to be at least two rates. There goes your flat tax, with one low rate and no deductions.

This logical recognition of the flat tax as a non-starter has led many in Congress to a different path to reform based on taxing consumption. The ''fair tax'' -- repealing all income taxes and replacing them with a national sales tax -- has attracted 44 House sponsors and interest from no less than Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

At this point, still using the Socratic method, Thomas asked how many of his colleagues' constituents would welcome walking into a store and paying 30 percent of the retail cost with a sales tax. Once again, the answer was no. Thus, he had swiftly ruled out both the flat tax and the national sales tax, and therefore vetoed individual income tax reform.

***

A tax agenda that eliminates the corporate tax but otherwise retains the horrid complexity of the Revenue Code and establishes a VAT will draw huzzahs from the business lobbyists of K Street who normally balk at tax reform. However, the lethal combination of a VAT and the present federal income tax that Thomas proposes always has been unacceptable to conservatives.

House Republicans at the retreat, including even some Ways and Means members, don't like the hand dealt them by the chairman. The speculation on Capitol Hill that the House will play these cards anyway is based on Thomas' legislative mastery the past four years. But that record was forged in partnership with the president and the speaker. He is going it alone this time."

4-year-old SharkBites Reader? drives mom's car to video store - Gotta have his Sharktales?

Baby Genius III at a video store in Michigan

"Although unable to reach the accelerator, a 4-year old Michigan boy managed to put the car in gear and make his way to the store, a quarter-mile from his home, about 1:30 a.m. Friday. Finding the store closed, the youngster began a slow trip home."

I do hope this young man is not one of my reader trying to rush out and hear Eulogy or naturally to see SharkTails before SharkBites has anything to say about it.

Young fans, please don't try this at home. Or, if you must learn to use Netflix--Home delivery lil' man.

Cheers,

Paulie "Shark" Sabol

Eulogy will rest with Magnolia and Happiness

Eulogy has the kind of dysfunctional family fun I had hoped of the Faukers. Where the Faukers provided mostly gag and gaff, Eulogy provides a lasting flavor that permeates this dark comedy with delicious results.

The twin boys on a hormone rampage seem to be like the twins from the Rug Rats grown up. They're genius, rude, and definitely seem to wonder were they got their genes

The "four" sibs now all adults, two of each gender, include a lesbian, a chatterbox (Alice), a "child" actor who lost his edge, and the sort of Greg Brady middle child.

There are six grand children, three the "holy utterances" of the chatterbox's "vagina" who, like their father, don't talk--at least not volitionally. The Goofas pair of twins already mentioned and the point of view character, Kate Collins played by Zooey Deschanel.

Kate ends up with a double task. To give a Eulogy of her Grandfather she remembers fondly and the rest of the family doesn't remember all that well or all that fondly AND to complete her Grandfather's final wish.

To package it all up perfectly, Kate finds a true love interest on her quest.

While some have said the plot was conventional, I think the Grandfather's surprise was unique enough and the Widow's behavior--off the charts.

Enjoy,

Paulie

Virgina, there really is a Santa Clause. He's coming in the form of High Fines for low hanging pants - Feb 9, 2005

CNN.com - I see London, I see France, We'll fine you for your Underpants - Feb 9, 2005:



Is this really lewd or indecent? My personal tastes find it less lewd than ludicrous, less indecent than independent.

According to the House of Delegates in Virgina it is. They plan to fine saggers $50 for advertising Joe Boxer or 2Xst.

During an extended monologue Monday, Del. Lionell Spruill Sr., a Democrat who opposed the bill, talked about how they dressed or wore their hair in their teens. On Tuesday, he said the measure was an unconstitutional attack on young blacks that would force parents to take off work to accompany their children to court just for making a fashion statement.

'This is a foolish bill, Mr. Speaker, because it will hurt so many,' Spruill said before the measure was approved 60-34. It now goes to the state Senate."

Will the Senate have the sense enough to stop this or will the next Victoria Secretions catalog need to have a warning label or perhaps that famous MTV fuzzy boxes near all the "naughty bits."

PS I'm still sick. But some things are sicker than I and require blogging.

Catwoman takes on the Madonna and Whore archetypes.

Okay, so sue me. I've been a horrible blogger. Of course, I can only blame the last three days on being close to death with the flu.

And while I've seen a number of films worthy of blogging including Mean Creak, I want to talk about Catwoman.

I wish I had actually read the comics I bought the last year of so when I stopped being a collector because I would be able to say how closely the movie scrip followed the comic.

The theme of Catwoman is the same as Dr. Jeckle. It's about accepting our shadow and realizing there's a distinct need of society to have rule breakers.

Halle Berry plays a character who is the classic mix of the Madonna and Whore female archetypes. At one time frumpy and submissive then fabulous and seductive, the Catwoman has the perfect antagonist--the "beauty" and cosmetics industry.

Of equal interest is a movie that has used some of the effects we first oohed and ahed at from Matrix and Crouching Tiger, in a decidedly unique way and one that simply advances the story rather than impresses us with it's self-awareness.

The movie asks a most interesting question very critical to our time. "There may be good, there may be evil. But there's got to be something in between, right?"

"Repent, the end is near" by Paulie Sabol

It's interesting how movies can tell us so much about the direction of things.

The renaissance (and I hate to use that word for this case) of "Super Hero" movies is consistent with what we saw during the second world war and its period of economic uncertainty.

Likewise, we're having a return (ah so much easier to type) of "child or childhood as evil" or the "gateway of evil" with movies like bogeyman, Hide and Seek, etc. This return hails as far back as Identity.

Right now, as a culture, we're asking the same ol' question: "How high is high?" (a typically optimistic question) and we're adding an underlying chorus of "How high is too high?"

The economic growth in the stock market which resulted in the "dot-bomb" end time analogy to the current talk of a housing bubble to the critique of some free, but MLM like tools as being saturated.

The sense that the party is over is very present. And so far, I don't see a reduction in the deficit as promise by the perhaps elected president.

My prediction? More "End Times" movies to come.