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A good publisher is one who drunkenly texts you while he is a few time zones away and you have a beer. Because we shouldn’t let a silly thing like distance stop us from drinking together.

“Jesus. Skipping is not an option. Walking questionable. I’m a pansy, remember?”

And yet he can still type on a phone! Ladies and gentlemen give it up for drunken texting! And let’s all hope that Pete doesn’t try to skip, after all.

I make for you.

So while I am all for supporting and celebrating our new President I feel it is our responsibility to not let that grow into a blindness. We need to see the good and the bad. And while I have pointed out the good things Obama has done for our freedom so far I have to question this one:

(via Wired) The incoming Obama administration will vigorously defend congressional legislation immunizing U.S. telecommunication companies from lawsuits about their participation in the Bush administration’s domestic spy program.

“The duty of the Justice Department is to defend statutes that have been passed by Congress,” Holder told Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah), who asked whether the Obama administration would continue the legal fight to uphold the legislation that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to overturn.

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And then we have this one: The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

In a filing in San Francisco federal court, President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor. With just hours left in office, President George W. Bush late Monday asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to stay enforcement of an important Jan. 5 ruling admitting key evidence into the case.

Thursday’s filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration’s warrantless-eavesdropping program. The former president approved the wiretaps in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“The Government’s position remains that this case should be stayed,” the Obama administration wrote in a filing that for the first time made clear the new president was on board with the Bush administration’s reasoning in this case.

The government wants to appeal Walker’s decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, a legal maneuver requiring Judge Walker’s approval. A hearing in Walker’s courtroom is set for Friday.

The legal brouhaha concerns Walker’s decision to admit as evidence a classified document allegedly showing that two American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity were electronically eavesdropped on without warrants by the Bush administration in 2004.

The lawyers — Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoo — sued the Bush administration after the U.S. Treasury Department accidentally released the Top Secret memo to them. At one point, the courts had ordered the document, which has never been made public, returned and removed from the case.

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So what the fuck, guys? He made the right moves with Gitmo, wanted transparent Government and made steps toward it but then falls down on this? It makes me wonder, it makes me want to look closer and it makes me, frankly, think that while some things have gotten better we are going to have to look closer than ever to keep an eye on the ones that have not.

(via The AP Wire) Postmaster General: Mail days may need to be cut.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Massive deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery, the postmaster general told Congress on Wednesday, in asking lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week. If the change happens, that doesn’t necessarily mean an end to Saturday mail delivery. Previous post office studies have looked at the possibility of skipping some other day when mail flow is light, such as Tuesday.

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Ok I could go into the rest of the article about how much they are losing and how mail quantity is dropping and all of that but I won’t bother. Because this made me laugh.

Outside of Netflix I can’t think of a single person who will honestly be affected by this. I mean really. Who uses the USPS anymore? UPS is more efficient, in general. And even for people who do use USPS (sending books often, come to think of it) will a loss of a day of delivery bother anyone? Except for Netflix folks, and they’re talking of adding Saturday delivery (yay!) so it’ll balance out.

So who uses USPS on a regular basis who will be honestly affected by this? Do we care?

(via the LA Times) School can expel lesbian students, court rules.

An appeals panel finds California Lutheran High School in Riverside County is not a business and therefore doesn’t have to comply with a state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Reporting from San Francisco — After a Lutheran school expelled two 16-year-old girls for having “a bond of intimacy” that was “characteristic of a lesbian relationship,” the girls sued, contending the school had violated a state anti-discrimination law.

In response to that suit, an appeals court decided this week that the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating. A lawyer for the girls said Tuesday that he would ask the California Supreme Court to overturn the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal.
The appeals court called its decision “narrow,” but lawyers on both sides of the case said it would protect private religious schools across California from such discrimination suits.

Kirk D. Hanson, who represented the girls, said the “very troubling” ruling would permit private schools to discriminate against anyone, as long as the schools used their religious beliefs as justification.

“It is almost like it could roll back 20 to 30 years of progress we have made in this area,” said the San Diego attorney. “Basically, this decision gives private schools the license to discriminate.”
John McKay, who represented the Riverside County-based California Lutheran High School, said the ruling correctly acknowledged that the school’s purpose was to “teach Christian values in a Christian setting pursuant to a Christian code of conduct.”

The girls were expelled in their junior year for “conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians,” said McKay, who added that the girls never disclosed their sexual orientation during the litigation. Hanson said the girls had been “best friends” and, citing their privacy, declined to discuss their sexual orientation. They are now in college, he said.

The dispute started when a student at the school told a teacher in 2005 that one of the girls had said she loved the other. The student advised the teacher to look at the girls’ MySpace pages. One of the girls was identified as bisexual on her MySpace page, the other’s page said she was “not sure” of her sexual orientation.

McKay said the website also contained a photograph of the girls hugging.

According to the principal, who called each girl out of class separately, both admitted they had hugged and kissed each other and told other students they were lesbians. The girls said they admitted only that they loved each other as friends.

The principal “just looked at me like I was a disease and I was so wrong,” one of the girls later said. They were identified in the legal proceedings only as Jane Doe and Mary Roe.

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The school also did not break the law when it disclosed the girls’ “suspected sexual orientation” to their parents, the court said. The parents, “in light of their right to control their children’s upbringing and education, had a right to know why” they were being expelled, the court said.

Hanson said the entire episode was “very traumatic” and “humiliating” for the girls.

Shannon Price Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the ruling was based on “the particular circumstances of this school.”

“Labeling a young person or telling her she is ’sinful’ can be psychologically devastating,” Minter said. “Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, all adults have a responsibility to treat young people with compassion and respect.”

School officials could not be reached for comment.

Timothy J. Tracey, litigation counsel for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom, said the ruling “preserves the right of Christian schools in California to make admission and discipline decisions consistent with their religious beliefs.”

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All right! Are you sick to your stomach yet? Because I sure am. I am not saying they are not within their legal rights here, I mean I guess I can kinda see it, but this is why I fear and despise government funding of religious schools and institutions.

Because the fact is if this school gets a single cent of Government money than we are helping to fund this sort of hate. We are. You and me. No getting around that. These poor girls were grilled, outed and humiliated. I’m sure that won’t leave any mental scars. Nope, none at all!

McKay said the website also contained a photograph of the girls hugging.

NOT HUGGING! Dear lord, no! I mean this whole thing is a case of fear and narrow-mindedness managing to win the day. The case is old, yeah, but the appeal failed. That’s just it. Yes, these girls are in college now and this case is over – but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, or hasn’t.

What. The. Fuck.

Don’t let this sick, twisted thing go quietly back into the night.

Please.

Oh lordy. All right then a bit of news for you … I guess … via The Sun we find a story of woe. I’ll quote it a bit:

Alexander Kirilov, 44, was on a drunken weekend with pals when he leapt on the terrified – but toothy – fur ball.

“When I saw the raccoon I thought I’d have some fun,” he told stunned casualty surgeons in Moscow.

Now Russian plastic surgeons are trying to restore his mangled manhood.

“He’s been told they can get things working again but they can’t sew back on what the raccoon bit off,” said a pal.

“That’s gone forever so there isn’t going to be much for them to work with.”

Who sees this an angry raccoon and thinks “I have to fuck that right now” and then actually goes for it? I mean sure he says he was drunk but I’ve been drunk. I know from drunk. That man was not drunk. He was druuuuuuuuuuuuuuunk. And even then? You don’t try to fuck raccoons. You just don’t. You may say it, you may laugh about it and creep your friends out but you don’t grab a raccoon, take your dick out and try to fuck the raccoon. You do not do this.

Ever.

I give you some funk from 1984. 100 seconds of bad-ass funky bass from Buddy Hankerson:

thanks to Allison

Why can’t Namor be a switch, too? I mean, really?

OR

Submitted for proof:

New Burrito Blade page up. I’m telling you, every M/W/F we will have a page. Art wise we’re almost done with Chapter Two and writing wise Chapter Three should be finished this week. So we’re reliable, if nothing else. As always, consider subscribing to the RSS Feed as well.

See I went like over a week without mentioning it. I probably won’t again until I get some new extras up for your fun use.

Speaking of things to mention: Things Wrong With Me starts in a few weeks but there will be some more updates. I consider them tests but they won’t be marked as such. I just feel like playing a bit before it starts and working out the kinks.

If you’re on LiveJournal please note that the best way to read TWWM is to friend user thingswrong. That will be a feed that will link you right back to the comic where you can read the full entry and comment. Trust me, the RSS feed for it truncates the pictures out so it ends up kinda crappy. This is a big part of what I’ve been testing for the site, actually. So expect one later today, but I won’t announce it here. Go friend that LJ user, or check the site later today.

Past that, what the hell is going on with me? Uhm, not a whole lot, really. So there ya go. Yay?