(no subject)

* Treyvon Martin Update: The FBI is stepping in. Also there's more witnesses, including Treyvon's girlfriend who he called to tell about the creepy white guy following him. The murderer can be heard using unforgivable racist slurs on the 911 tape. The Florida police continue to claim that there is no evidence to contradict the murderer's statement. I notice that several of the witnesses are African American, so I'm guessing the racist cops, one of whom has an ugly history of his own on the public record, have decided to deliberately ignore the 911 tapes and the witness testimony because they think it's completely reasonable for a white man should drive around hunting unarmed black teenagers. I'm seeing plenty of evidence. I'm having trouble seeing how they could claim there is nothing to investigate here unless they are biased.

* The problem isn't just the Treyvon Martin case, or even with just Florida. These laws exist in sixteen states, where they have been repeatedly used to justify shooting unarmed people. It's just this time, there are witnesses and contradictions that make it more obvious to the average person that this is fucked up.

* I keep hearing Chris Rock chanting in my head, "It's all right because it's all white." *shudder*

* Illinois: Romney 49%, Santorum 35%, Paul 9%, Gingrich 8%. 98% of today's voters were white. I keep mentioning this because it points up all sorts of things about the modern republican party, especially when combined with Republican racially targeted voter suppression efforts. Anyway, Illinois allows people to vote for delegates independent of the candidates, so it's not clear what if any relationship there is between candidate preference votes and actual delegates.

* I missed the Missouri Caucuses over the weekend. I'm having trouble finding results, in part because the St. Charles County caucus was so violent it had to be shut down by police, and they don't know what they are going to do about those delegates and the ones from Liberty, where it was nearly as chaotic. Similarly, they keep switching delegates around in places like Wyoming and the Virgin Islands, so I'm giving up on delegate counts until the Republicans get their acts together.

* In Idaho, a State Senator is claiming women are lying about rape and incest, so they need not only a forced non-consensual vaginal probing, a second non-censual ultrasound, and Doctors need to interrogate the women to see if they are telling the truth. After all, the thing women who have been raped need most is harsh interrogation and a second, government ordered rape.

* Rick "frothy residue" Santorum wants you to know he doesn't care about unemployment rates. charming.

* Anyone surprised the Republicans are reneging on last summer's budget bill? Me neither.

* Since it got misposted over the weekend: Sanat found, "Queer Avengers attack media:" http://www.3news.co.nz/Transsexual-healing---Queer-Avengers-attack-media/tabid/423/articleID/246793/Default.aspx

* I accomplished next to nothing today except reading, really.

* Rewatching Ed Wood, I am fascinated by how well it captures some dos and don't of disclosure. As wrong as it likely is to encourage anyone to take advice from even the fictional version of Ed Wood, I still think the last disclosure with Cathy in the spook house was a pretty good way to go about it. The timing was excellent (after she got to know him, but before she's heavily invested in the relationship and before things got physical), and his cheerful matter of factness was an excellent tone to take.

Y'all know I'm big on early disclosure just generally. It's safer and saves everyone involved time and hurt, whether it's a gender thing, or a kink, or other relationship deal breakers that are less inherent. I love that disclosure, found family, and acceptance of various people's personal quirks, kinks, and issues are major motifs in that film.

* Happy equinox!

* "Hanoi: Now with photographic evidence:" http://lettersfromtitan.com/2012/03/18/hanoi-now-with-photographic-evidence/

* Vote for your favorite web comics: http://www.comicmix.com/news/2012/03/19/mix-march-madness-2012-webcomics-tournament-round-2-vote-now/

(no subject)

* Treyvon Martin Update: The FBI is stepping in. Also there's more witnesses, including Treyvon's girlfriend who he called to tell about the creepy white guy following him. The murderer can be heard using unforgivable racist slurs on the 911 tape. The Florida police continue to claim that there is no evidence to contradict the murderer's statement. I notice that several of the witnesses are African American, so I'm guessing the racist cops, one of whom has an ugly history of his own on the public record, have decided to deliberately ignore the 911 tapes and the witness testimony because they think it's completely reasonable for a white man should drive around hunting unarmed black teenagers. I'm seeing plenty of evidence. I'm having trouble seeing how they could claim there is nothing to investigate here unless they are biased.

* The problem isn't just the Treyvon Martin case, or even with just Florida. These laws exist in sixteen states, where they have been repeatedly used to justify shooting unarmed people. It's just this time, there are witnesses and contradictions that make it more obvious to the average person that this is fucked up.

* I keep hearing Chris Rock chanting in my head, "It's all right because it's all white." *shudder*

* Illinois: Romney 49%, Santorum 35%, Paul 9%, Gingrich 8%. 98% of today's voters were white. I keep mentioning this because it points up all sorts of things about the modern republican party, especially when combined with Republican racially targeted voter suppression efforts. Anyway, Illinois allows people to vote for delegates independent of the candidates, so it's not clear what if any relationship there is between candidate preference votes and actual delegates.

* I missed the Missouri Caucuses over the weekend. I'm having trouble finding results, in part because the St. Charles County caucus was so violent it had to be shut down by police, and they don't know what they are going to do about those delegates and the ones from Liberty, where it was nearly as chaotic. Similarly, they keep switching delegates around in places like Wyoming and the Virgin Islands, so I'm giving up on delegate counts until the Republicans get their acts together.

* In Idaho, a State Senator is claiming women are lying about rape and incest, so they need not only a forced non-consensual vaginal probing, a second non-censual ultrasound, and Doctors need to interrogate the women to see if they are telling the truth. After all, the thing women who have been raped need most is harsh interrogation and a second, government ordered rape.

* Rick "frothy residue" Santorum wants you to know he doesn't care about unemployment rates. charming.

* Anyone surprised the Republicans are reneging on last summer's budget bill? Me neither.

* Since it got misposted over the weekend: Sanat found, "Queer Avengers attack media:" http://www.3news.co.nz/Transsexual-healing---Queer-Avengers-attack-media/tabid/423/articleID/246793/Default.aspx

* I accomplished next to nothing today except reading, really.

* Rewatching Ed Wood, I am fascinated by how well it captures some dos and don't of disclosure. As wrong as it likely is to encourage anyone to take advice from even the fictional version of Ed Wood, I still think the last disclosure with Cathy in the spook house was a pretty good way to go about it. The timing was excellent (after she got to know him, but before she's heavily invested in the relationship and before things got physical), and his cheerful matter of factness was an excellent tone to take.

Y'all know I'm big on early disclosure just generally. It's safer and saves everyone involved time and hurt, whether it's a gender thing, or a kink, or other relationship deal breakers that are less inherent. I love that disclosure, found family, and acceptance of various people's personal quirks, kinks, and issues are major motifs in that film.

* Happy equinox!

* "Hanoi: Now with photographic evidence:" http://lettersfromtitan.com/2012/03/18/hanoi-now-with-photographic-evidence/

* Vote for your favorite web comics: http://www.comicmix.com/news/2012/03/19/mix-march-madness-2012-webcomics-tournament-round-2-vote-now/

(no subject)

* There was a 7.8 magnitude in Mexico. About 500 homes collapsed, but this could have been vastly worse, sounds like.

* The motorbike gunman was in a stand off with french police as I wrote this. it's looking like he's an Al Queada trained jihadist who was under surveillance by French police, but slipped his tail in order to murder seven people including the children at the Jewish school.

* In Israel, they had funerals for the people murdered by the motor bike gunman. The French foreign minister is attending the funerals. I have some nasty things I could say about historic and resent examples of French official antisemitism, but honestly, I am all in favour of any serious thing the French government can do to change that. Reaching out now is an encouraging first step.

* Glen Beck is now accusing Treyvon martin of things like arson and sexual battery on the ground that he had a suspension on his school record for tardiness. After all, being late to school is exactly the same thing as rape, etc.. Eeeeew! The neighborhood watch is claiming that Zimmerman was justified in murdering Treyvon Martin, as he should have answered a strange white man with no official authority when challenged, even though the law doesn't even require tan answer if an actual police officer had challenged him, nor is there the death penalty for not answer random people on the street harassing you, as any one who has walked anywhere at night with breasts can tell you. (Seriously, do we allow frat boys to shoot women in cold blood if the women keep walking in response to their demands? No. Still the argument is that it's okay for white men to shoot unarmed teenagers if they don't stop for random white men who bother them on the street.) There has been a no confidence in the chief of police. People are asking why the police had time to do a background check of the murdered teen, but not of the murderer.

* BTW, the police officer who decided the murderer's statement trumped all evidence contradicting it and therefore they needn't investigate the murder, was also the one who decided not to investigate the brutal beating of a homeless man, despite video taping of the assault that showed the son of a police officer attacking unprovoked. he also has various brutality type incidents on his record.

* The UK is going to raise taxes on the rich so as to fund the safety net which is under extra strain during the financial crisis. Meanwhile in the US, the Paul Ryan budget proposes dramatic tax cuts for the rich to be paid for by abolishing Medicare and dramatically cutting Medicade, Social Security, food stamps, etc.. After all more people need the safety net during a financial crisis, so what better time to cut benefits in an effort to increase the wealth gap even further? I'm guessing much brighter people are making the UK tax policy, just saying.

* Mitt Romney's campaign adviser said that the Fall campaign is like an etchasketch, so none of the extremist things they say now will count against them in the fall election. People are now referring to Romney as the "Etchasketch candidate." *snerk*

* We got crap for sleep again thanks to phones, carpentry, and hector throwing up dramatically and repeatedly on my bed. I completely failed to get my shit together in time to accomplish bureaucracy or foraging. Sigh. I did pick up meds.

* Does anyone know a good trans woman friendly website? A correspondent is asking for suggestions and it occurs to me I should be tracking that stuff.

* It's ebay time! help me pay my car insurance:
( Ebay: )

(no subject)

* There was a 7.8 magnitude in Mexico. About 500 homes collapsed, but this could have been vastly worse, sounds like.

* The motorbike gunman was in a stand off with french police as I wrote this. it's looking like he's an Al Queada trained jihadist who was under surveillance by French police, but slipped his tail in order to murder seven people including the children at the Jewish school.

* In Israel, they had funerals for the people murdered by the motor bike gunman. The French foreign minister is attending the funerals. I have some nasty things I could say about historic and resent examples of French official antisemitism, but honestly, I am all in favour of any serious thing the French government can do to change that. Reaching out now is an encouraging first step.

* Glen Beck is now accusing Treyvon martin of things like arson and sexual battery on the ground that he had a suspension on his school record for tardiness. After all, being late to school is exactly the same thing as rape, etc.. Eeeeew! The neighborhood watch is claiming that Zimmerman was justified in murdering Treyvon Martin, as he should have answered a strange white man with no official authority when challenged, even though the law doesn't even require tan answer if an actual police officer had challenged him, nor is there the death penalty for not answer random people on the street harassing you, as any one who has walked anywhere at night with breasts can tell you. (Seriously, do we allow frat boys to shoot women in cold blood if the women keep walking in response to their demands? No. Still the argument is that it's okay for white men to shoot unarmed teenagers if they don't stop for random white men who bother them on the street.) There has been a no confidence in the chief of police. People are asking why the police had time to do a background check of the murdered teen, but not of the murderer.

* BTW, the police officer who decided the murderer's statement trumped all evidence contradicting it and therefore they needn't investigate the murder, was also the one who decided not to investigate the brutal beating of a homeless man, despite video taping of the assault that showed the son of a police officer attacking unprovoked. he also has various brutality type incidents on his record.

* The UK is going to raise taxes on the rich so as to fund the safety net which is under extra strain during the financial crisis. Meanwhile in the US, the Paul Ryan budget proposes dramatic tax cuts for the rich to be paid for by abolishing Medicare and dramatically cutting Medicade, Social Security, food stamps, etc.. After all more people need the safety net during a financial crisis, so what better time to cut benefits in an effort to increase the wealth gap even further? I'm guessing much brighter people are making the UK tax policy, just saying.

* Mitt Romney's campaign adviser said that the Fall campaign is like an etchasketch, so none of the extremist things they say now will count against them in the fall election. People are now referring to Romney as the "Etchasketch candidate." *snerk*

* We got crap for sleep again thanks to phones, carpentry, and hector throwing up dramatically and repeatedly on my bed. I completely failed to get my shit together in time to accomplish bureaucracy or foraging. Sigh. I did pick up meds.

* Does anyone know a good trans woman friendly website? A correspondent is asking for suggestions and it occurs to me I should be tracking that stuff.

* It's ebay time! help me pay my car insurance:
( Ebay: )