People have grown weary of the “First Black President” story, especially because it is now clear that the Annointed Black Leaders (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc.) would not cheer an Obama election as a milestone, what with Obama having too much Typical White blood in his background, not having “slave blood”, and his “talking down” to… well, you know.

As Obama continues to introduce any semblance of specifics of what he actually means by “hope and change”, continues to “reposition” his views, and stumbles when speaking off-the-cuff, his story loses more of its luster.

Meanwhile, here’s the “maverick” McCain, whose candidacy was all but dead, who many Republican voters have vowed not to back, who Obama is trying to paint as a continuation of an unpopular Presidency, holding his own in the polls.  Here’s a war hero who endured harsh captivity.  Here’s the guy who was beaten by the current President eight years ago.  He served in the military, he’s served in Senate, and he didn’t give up his ambition after losing eight years ago.  Obama, much younger and with much less experience, can still have his time four, eight, twelve, sixteen years from now.  Why not see what he can do in the Senate?

And so the MSM folks, while they personally favor Obama’s politics over McCain’s, know they can make an exciting narrative with a McCain victory – one they hadn’t considered until very recently.  The Obama narrative has been around for years, and it is getting stale.  So maybe, just maybe, they’ll be less hostile to McCain, or at least will do less fawning over Obama.

I'm getting a little frustrated with posting comments on the Townhall columns.  There are times when the comment doesn't appear right away or for a while, and that makes it difficult for me to know if my comment appeared at all, and so I run the risk of having my comment repeated if I re-submit it.  I'm not sure if it is a problem on my end or Townhall's.

I wanted to respond to AlphaOmega's response to Frank Pastore's latest posting.  My response may be appearing over there several times.  I don't know yet.  But I'm going to post them here in case they don't appear at all.

"The fact of the matter is, that California's Constitution, as it is written, says nothing against same sex marriages."

It doesn't say anything against labeling a bottle of water as "milk", either, but that doesn't mean that the people who wrote it didn't know the difference between "milk" and "water", or wanted water to be labeled as milk.

"If we leave the Constitution alone, gay people will enjoy their equal rights, along with everybody else."

Gay people had equal rights before the court imposition.  Gay people have equal rights now.  They will still have equal rights if Prop 8 passes.  Never confuse freedoms with rights.  State-issued licenses are not rights.  Not for straight people nor gay people.  Gay people had the same access to state-issued licenses as straight people before the court imposition.  That most did not want to use that access does not mean that there was something wrong with the licensing.

"Gay people can now marry in California."

Same-sex couples, regardless of the orientation of the individuals, can get marriage licenses.  By the way, California treats registered domestic partners (in a law that actually discriminates against both-sexes couples!) as spouses, so there was no need to neuter marriage licensing.

"The California legislation, voting in their majority as representatives of the people TWICE in the past voted in favor of gay marriage, only to be vettoed by the governor."

They voted to neuter marriage licensing, to be more accurate.  Gay people were already getting married and same-sex couples were already getting "married" before.

"The majority of the people, speaking through their representatives, approved of gay marriage."

Not really.  There had been a direct vote of the people to affirm bride-groom marriage licensing.  The elected representatives frequently make unpopular decisions.  And yes, we are stupid enough to elect and re-elect them.

Really, if Californians really are in favor of neutering marriage, why wasn't an initiative put on the ballot to do just that?  After all, it is the people who are issuing marriage licenses in the first place.

People still talk and laugh about how Ricky and Lucy had separate beds on “I Love Lucy”.  The funny thing is, married sex it still largely taboo on television.  It’s fornication and sodomy that’s portrayed more.

The Parents Television Council has received the attention of the Associated Press’ television writer, Lynn Elber, with their latest report on how network television portrays sex.

Marriage gets little respect on network TV shows that instead revel in the pleasures of extramarital and even kinky sex, according to a study released Tuesday.

The study by the Parents Television Council includes a strongly worded condemnation of prime-time TV, contending it "seems to be actively seeking to undermine marriage by consistently painting it in a negative light."

Strangely, it usually portrays marriage in negative light without focusing on the very real risks for men.

Even more troubling, according to the watchdog group, is what it characterized as TV's recent obsession with what it termed "outre" or bizarre behavior, including partner swapping and pedophilia.

This is a paradox in television programming.  Characters on television are rarely presented as regular attendees of any particular church.  This probably has less to do with hostility towards organized religion than simply wanting as much of the audience as possible to identify with the characters.  The moment you peg them as a particular denomination, a certain amount of the audience is going to think of them as “different than me.”  However, the same makers of television seem to have no reservations in portraying characters as having certain sexual fetishes or philias.

Visual references to practices such as voyeurism and sadomasochistic sex outnumbered married-sex references by a ratio approaching 3 to 1.

When you depict sex as something that happens outside of marriage but you don’t depict or reference  married people having sex, what children pick up is: married people don’t have sex.  It is the same thing in the home.  If a married couple completely hides the fact that they ever have sex, their children are going to get the message that married people don’t have sex, or it only happens rarely.  This will make fornication seem more exciting (get it while you can!), or in some cases, make the children think of sex as something that is always bad.

Now, obviously I’m not suggesting that parents have sex in front of their children.  That’s a very bad idea.  But the children should learn that mom and dad do need and enjoy private time together, and as they get older, that sex married sex is a wonderful thing to be enjoyed frequently and privately.

But TV Watch, a nonpartisan coalition that counts networks among its members and argues that individuals and not government should decide what's seen, fired a volley at the council.

"The Parents Television Council won't be satisfied with television content until they convince the government to enforce their personal, selective judgments," Jim Dyke, executive director of TV Watch, said in a statement.

There’s nothing wrong with the PTC calling attention to this stuff.  While I wouldn’t like to see a government crackdown on television content, I would like truth in labeling.  The PTC could just as easily accuse TV Watch as pushing to have everyone completely desensitized to fornication, adultery, shacking up, sodomy, and various fetishes.  And another problem is that the negative consequences of fornication and sodomy are rarely depicted.

Among the networks overall, references to adultery outnumbered references to marital sex by 2 to 1. The "family hour" - the first hour of prime-time TV, which draws the most young viewers - contained the highest ratio of references to non-married vs. married sex, the study found.

The solution, besides being informed, is for viewers to support the kind of programming that affirms marriage and purity.

What are the chances of seeing a positive Hollywood portrayal of this?  I'm sure we would if the allegation was of a n envirowhacko infiltrating a chemical engineering or petroluem company, or an anti-smoking crusader infiltrating a tobacco company, or some Leftist infiltrating any conservative interest group.

I hope we can get the Leftist activists looking at each other with suspicion.  I can see it now: “Hmmm, he seems crazier than usual and said something even I think it stupid during that press conference.  Is he a mole?”

We often hear politicians and activists talking about “rights”, as in a right to health insurance, or “We should not take away a couple’s right to marry” or there should be a “right” to just about anything.  I have said before that true rights do not obligate others without their consent.  God (that’s Nature, to you pagans, philosophical naturalists, etc.) has given us many rights.  The government does not give us rights.  It is supposed to protect our rights from those who would infringe upon them by force or fraud.  The Constitution does not give us our rights.  It lists some of our rights, but it also says that we retain all rights and powers not specifically given over to the government in the Constitution.

There can be a difference between a right and a freedom.  Not everything that we have the freedom to do is a right.  For example, we can run through an open field because it is open.  We can have that freedom.  But if that field is owned by someone else, we do not have a right to run through it.  If that owner decides to fence off the property, our freedom to run across it is gone, but we have not lost any right.  I have the freedom to order a pizza from Domino’s. But if they decide not to sell pizzas anymore, I can’t say that they’ve taken away my right.  What would be a violation of my rights would be if the federal government told me I could not freely exchange something I had for a pizza being offered freely for trade by Domino’s.

So the next time you see someone claiming that their “right” will be taken away, think about whether what they are talking about is really a right or if it has been a freedom they’ve enjoyed.

The Los Angeles Times continues to use inaccurate terminology in their coverage of marriage neutering and the fight against it, unable to hide their advocacy for homosexual behavior.   Staff writer Dan Morain reports.

Proposition 8, perhaps the most emotional measure on the ballot, would overturn a recent California Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.

How can they still be using this misleading language?  The California Supreme Court did not “legalize gay marriage”.   Before the decision, there wasn’t anyone, and certainly not law enforcement, breaking up gay couples’ “marriage” ceremonies, and gay individuals had the exact same access to a marriage license as anyone else.  The decision neutered marriage licensing in California for everyone so that brideless or groomless couples could get marriage licenses, regardless of sexual orientation, and brides and grooms would not be honored or recognized on the licenses.

Opponents [of Proposition 8] have drawn 52% of their $5.7 million from outside the state.

Which is far more than the pro-side.  Hmmmm.

Bruce W. Bastian, an Orem, Utah, philanthropist who helped found WordPerfect Software, gave $1 million two weeks ago to the No on 8 campaign and hopes his contribution will encourage others to do the same.  "There are a lot of other rich gay people. They can do something," Bastian said. "They don't have to be gay. They just have to oppose discrimination."

This is a stupid statement.  I can guarantee you that Bastian discriminates every day.  The question is – on what basis do we discriminate?  I agree that prejudicial or bigoted discrimination is wrong.  But I do not agree that Proposition 8 does that.

Be sure to check out this other blog here for more coverage on Proposition 8.

Related: Neutering Marriage Devalues and Discourages Marriage

Ah, California.  We’re neutering marriage, we’re spending like crazy to cater to the needs of Mexico’s people, we’re telling restaurants they can’t use trans fats, we’re suing the EPA because they aren’t being dictatorial, we’re dehydrating for the sake of a fish, and now we’re screwing up the power system again – again because of a judge.  Los Angeles Times staff writer Margot Roosevelt reports:

The region's long-term plans to generate electricity to serve a growing population and to replace decades-old dirty plants were thrown into disarray this week, when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that local authorities had failed to do the necessary environmental and health analyses.

Officials from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which encompasses Orange County and large swaths of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, warned of likely "blackouts and brownouts" if the plants are not built.

We can all sit around dehydrated in the dark, eating bean sprouts..  Hey, as long as the illegal aliens and homosexuality advocates are happy.

Years ago, the air district set aside what it called Priority Reserve credits so that projects such as hospitals and police stations could be built even if they added to the region's pollution. Last year, the district, lobbied by a host of former politicians, decided to sell the credits to energy companies for $420 million: about half the market value, according to environmentalists' calculations.

Environmental and community groups said Wednesday that they would sue in federal court to nullify such credits.

So these entities go though all the trouble to buy and trade credits to conform to regulations, and then some whackos sue to stop progress entirely.  Will anyone get refunds on the credits?

Environmentalists and many industry experts say that much of the region's demand can be met through conservation and renewable energy.

It’d be easier to “conserve” if we had border control.

But no one knows how much could be supplied by wind farms, geothermal energy, solar rooftop facilities or large solar plants, many of which are proposed in fragile desert areas.

If something takes more energy to set up and maintain than it produces, it is a net loss.  The whackos also won’t accept anything that inconveniences any animals or plants or changes the look of an area, or will cause anyone to have to drive anywhere to maintain it or operate it.

Meanwhile, California, which has term limits, will be electing a new Governor in 2010, and lieutenant governor John Garamendi is throwing his hat into the ring.  He could hardly be worse than the other Democrat candidates.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began an exploratory bid a month ago.

You know, the guy who committed adultery with a staff member’s wife and engineered marriage neutering and overturning the popular vote?

Other prominent Democrats said to be contemplating the race include Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and former state controller Steve Westly.

“Moonbeam” Brown has been Governor before.  It wouldn't be pretty if he was again.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's name has also been mentioned.

Ah, good ol’ reconquistador adulterer Tony Villar, who is so busy campaigning for Obama after campaigning for HRC, and so busy holding photo ops, that he barely has enough time to push for higher taxes in Los Angeles.

On the Republican side, Steve Poizner, who succeeded Garamendi as state insurance commissioner in 2006, is also said to be considering the race. Other names circulating from that party are two former executives of Silicon Valley companies: Meg Whitman, who was at Ebay, and Carly Fiorina, who headed Hewlett-Packard.

It’ll be very hard for a real Republican to be elected.  The statewide elections are dominated by the Big Labor socialists and homosexuality activists in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  A really great state is being strangled by discouraging business, inviting illegal aliens, and devaluing the natural family.  A little bit more slowly with the current Governor than with the previous one, but the slide is likely to accelerate after the 2010 election.

An arbitrary section of the city will get an arbitrary ban for at least a year on new “fast food” businesses.  I guess the state’s ban on trans fat isn’t enough.  Los Angeles Times staff writers Molly Hennessy-Fiske and David Zahniser have the story.

A law that would bar fast-food restaurants from opening in South [-Central] Los Angeles for at least a year sailed through the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday.

The council approved the fast-food moratorium unanimously, despite complaints from representatives of McDonald's, Carl's Jr. and other companies, who said they were being unfairly targeted.

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who has pushed for a moratorium for six years, said the initiative would give the city time to craft measures to lure sit-down restaurants serving healthier food to a part of the city that desperately wants more of them.

Instead of trying to micromanage business, why not just let the market work?

The law defines fast-food restaurants as "any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders and food served in disposable wrapping or containers."

There will be ways around this.

Still, several fast-food workers told the council that the panel was ignoring the good things their franchises accomplish. The workers argued that fast-food establishments provide residents with job opportunities and, in recent years, nutritious menu options.

"McDonald's believes in healthy choices," said Don Bailey, who has owned and operated the company's restaurants in South [-Central] Los Angeles for 22 years.

Another foe of the measure was Madelyn Alfano, whose company, Maria's Italian Kitchen, has restaurants in Sherman Oaks, Brentwood and other parts of the city. Alfano said the law would create new red tape and force restaurateurs to spend thousands more to start businesses.

It’s a big city, but the City Council still thinks they need to micromanage the lives of their residents.

Most of the comments following the story are against the City Council, but these are English readers and writers, and many of the voters aren’t.

I wrote about this mess earlier here and here.

There’s an update on the man who was in trouble with the law because a woman chose to stay put on his toilet for a long time.  My thinking on this has always been – what was he supposed to do?  If he forcibly removed her, he could be charged with domestic violence, kidnapping, or even sexual assault.  Maybe he should have called a psychologist over, but her actions were her own choice.

A man whose girlfriend sat on a toilet for so long that the seat adhered to her body will spend six months on probation.

Kory McFarren pleaded no contest last month to a misdemeanor count of mistreatment of a dependent adult. A judge sentenced him Tuesday to six months in jail but granted the probation after the victim, Pam Babcock, asked for leniency.

"She didn't believe that her circumstances were his fault," Ness County Attorney Craig Crosswhite said.

That makes her more sensible than most people involved in this case – and she was the person who chose to sit on the toilet for all of that time!

Also Tuesday, McFarren was sentenced to six months in jail for an unrelated charge of lewd and lascivious behavior for exposing himself to a teenage neighbor in March.

Maybe he had to urinate where the neighbor could see him because Pam was on his toilet and wouldn’t get up?

I can see husbands and boyfriends pounding on bathroom doors now when their wife or girlfriend is taking too long in there... "You have to come out or I could get prosecuted!"

Now they are changing the rules of the game as they go along.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Jessica Garrison brings us an article with the following headline:

Opponents of gay marriage say they'll sue over changed wording in Proposition 8

People who think that marriage licenses should be – as they always have been - for bride-groom couples, or at least think that it should not be the judiciary that forcibly neuters marriage licensing against a popular vote, are erroneously labeled “opponents of gay marriage”.

Supporters of Proposition 8, the proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, said they would file suit today to block a change made by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown to the language of the measure's ballot title and summary.

Petitions circulated to qualify the initiative for the ballot said the measure would amend the state Constitution "to provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

In a move made public last week and applauded by same-sex marriage proponents, the attorney general's office changed the language to say that Proposition 8 seeks to "eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry."

This is ridiculous.  Ballot propositions should be placed on the ballot as worded in the petitions that got them there.

Political analysts on both sides suggest that the language change will make passage of the initiative more difficult, noting that voters might be more reluctant to pass a measure that makes clear it is taking away existing rights.

Just because something is legal does not make it a right.

Meanwhile, utility PG & E wants to keep Californians from restoring marriage.  They are giving money to fight Proposition 8.

The utility also said it will spearhead the formation of a business advisory council that will seek to get other businesses around California to to defeat the ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.

Nice to know they are so enthusiastic about degrading the family.

The donation from the utility, and the formation of the business council, represents a shift from the last time that the question of gay marriage was on the ballot, in 2000. Back then, many businesses stayed on the sidelines. This time, in addition to PG&E, other large corporations such as AT&T and Wells Fargo also have donated to defeat Proposition 8.

Gee, thanks for selling out the majority of your customers and employees for a tiny minority.

The state does not have the same interest in licensing same-sex couplings as it does bride-groom marriage.  Diluting marriage is detrimental.

Yes, yet another Townhall.com blog is here, featuring a Typical White Person Who is Clinging to Guns and Religion, and Supporting “Failed Policies” That Reduce Terrorism, Violence, and Oppression.

After sitting on this ("ww") Townhall.com blog address for a while (they wouldn’t let me register “www.blogtownhall.com” – those control freaks!), I finally figured out what I want to do with it.  That is where I want to put most of my thoughts about celebrity/Hollywood news, and indulge in some humor of the satirical and parody sort, especially mocking media.  That way, I can leave my main blog, The Playful Walrus, for everything else.

Considering we’re not getting paid for this, I’m not sure why I’m bothering.  I guess it is because I just need to vent or express some creativity sometimes in a quasi-anonymous forum that contributes to the larger conservative effort.

So click on over and bookmark to read all of the stuff they don’t want you to read.

You shouldn’t be surprised to hear that some things government entities do is purely for show – symbolism over substance; a good visual; a dog and pony show.  Los Angeles Times staff writers Julie Cart and Bettina Boxall start off their piece using Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter as an example, but this kind of thing is pervasive in all levels of government, regardless of political party.  Heck, most City Council and County Board of Supervisors meetings are full of what amounts to pure theater.

Why is this so?  Well, often it is because elected officials want to call attention to what they are doing, and divert attention away from what they aren’t doing or what they are doing that they don’t want you to notice.

There are people in government agencies working hard to do something as simple as deliver safe water reliably to your home faucet and take the wastewater from your toilet away, but unless they put on a show, you will rarely, if ever, notice their work.  You take their work for granted.  Firefighters are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but you really don’t think about it unless an alarm goes off or there is a traffic accident or you need to call 911.

Then there is the news media, which is hungry for images, sounds, and statements.  Why?  Because it is what we, the people, want.  We want to know that “something is being done.”  So much of what is being done is taking place in cubicles and conference rooms.  But that is boring.

Yes, politicians often pull rank and order something out of the ordinary, even if it won’t be effective.  But sometimes it is effective – it just won’t happen without a lot of red tape, time, and money – unless a politician pulls rank.  Most politicians have no way of knowing which is the case, and so they give the order because they’d rather err by doing too much (even if it really doesn’t do anything but spend money) than doing too little.  The subject matter experts might protest that it will be a waste, and usually they are right, but sometimes it is just a matter of it being a complicated mess to work out.

Expect to see a lot more show from the White House if Obama is living in it.

The animals-before-people crowd continues to attack.  Now they are complaining because County of Los Angeles engineers operate the flood control and water conservation system in a way that focuses on conserving water instead of providing habitat for ducklings.

So far, it is just a story in the Los Angeles Times.  But southern California is already having to deal with less water because of a judge’s orders to protect a fish in northern California, thereby making an expensive and long-used water conveyance system that delivers water to southern California less effective...by court order.  If local water conservation efforts are thwarted to help ducks, it will be even worse.

Without the flood control and water conservation system, there would be no “rivers” in the Los Angeles area.  Streams used to flow quickly along the short distance from the mountains to the ocean along frequently-changing courses – this would be during the infrequent rainy days.  The rest of the time, there wouldn't be any streams.  During unusual downpours, floodwaters would rip through the area, because there were no established deep rivers to channel the waters.  Either way, it wasn’t like there was ever a steady, navigable river with enduring habitat.  Building the flood control and water conservation system (including major dams and the Los Angeles and the San Gabriel “rivers”) allowed safe development of the area - which we all know the envirowhackos hate.  Manipulating stormwater and reclaimed water so that it soaks back into the groundwater table is needed now more than ever.  The ducks will just have to deal.

Ray Lancon of Los Angeles wrote into the Los Angeles Times in response to their piece on San Diego Mayor Sander’s about-face of marriage:

Sanders stands by his family and honors his daughter, exactly what a father should do, and it is labeled a betrayal.

Exactly who are these 200 "pro-family" pastors who would condemn an honorable, courageous and loving parent, and what golden rule are they following: "Do unto others as you would have them do to you, unless their politics differ from yours"?

Lancon would have us believe that we should change our positions on important legal and sociological issues if a family member asks us to.  This is absurd, and I’m so tired of the homosexuality and marriage neutering advocates who try to make their self-serving political agenda a deal-breaker in family relationships.  There are many things my relatives do and stances they take that I disagree with, but I do not insist that they either agree with me or they are dishonor me.

If Sanders’ daughter were to counterfeit money, should Sanders declare that doing so is the right thing to do?

Turn this around on any family member or friend who tries it on you.  If they try to pressure you to support marriage neutering, tell them they are dishonoring you and things you hold dear.

You’ve probably heard by now that “Republican” California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law a ban on trans fats in restaurants.

I quote below from Steve Lawrence’s Associate Press article.

California on Friday became the first state to ban trans fats from restaurant food, following several cities and major fast-food chains in erasing the notorious artery-clogger from menus.

It’s the first state, but definitely not the last.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation that will ban restaurants and other retail food establishments from using oil, margarine and shortening containing trans fats.

That’s right.  It will be illegal for a restaurant to voluntarily offer the same kind of items it has been offering for years, which people have voluntarily purchased and consumed.  No, this wasn’t a law to mandate that restaurants provide information to customers after which the customers could still choose to order those items,  No, it is a total ban – taking the choices away from the people outright.

In a statement, Schwarzenegger noted that consuming trans fat is linked to coronary heart disease.

What about alcohol?  What about cigarettes?  What about pot?  What about one man sticking himself into the exit of another man?  These things have all been linked to various health problems, but are legal.

Several major fast-food chains have announced that they have eliminated trans fats from their menus or intend to so do in the near future.

Why not allow the market to work???

I’ll tell you why.  It is because the state government has its nose in health care.  You want more government involvement in health care?  Expect more restrictions on what you can eat.  Just as predicted, they are using their attacks on Big Tobacco as a template.  What’s next?  A state limit on calories?

California… a state that encourages sexual practices that can kill you but is concerned your food is too yummy.