First R-71 validation numbers are inThe WA Sec of State reports:

During the first day of signature-verification for Referendum 71, over 5,000 voter signatures were scrutinized and the error rate was 11.34 percent.
The State Elections Division crew turned up 4,991 valid signatures out of the 5,646 they reviewed. A handful were duplicates or the signature didn’t match the voter registration card. Almost 600 petition signers were not found on the roll of registered voters.
The early error rate – the count could take the better part of a month at the current pace of checking by about 20 crew members – was running cleaner than the historic average of 18 percent. Sponsors, a campaign group called Protect Marriage Washington, submitted 137,689 signatures. That is roughly 14 percent more than the bare minimum, 120,577, required to secure a place on the November ballot.

Well, we knew this would be a nail-biter.

REFERENDUM 71
Ballot Title
Statement of Subject: The legislature passed Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5688 concerning rights and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners [and voters have filed a sufficient referendum petition on this bill].
Concise Description: This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.
Should this bill be:
Approved ___
Rejected ___
Ballot Measure Summary
Same-sex couples, or any couple that includes one person age sixty-two or older, may register as a domestic partnership with the state. Registered domestic partnerships are not marriages, and marriage is prohibited except between one man and one woman. This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of registered domestic partners and their families to include all rights, responsibilities, and obligations granted by or imposed by state law on married couples and their families.

DONATE TO WASHINGTON FAMILIES STANDING TOGETHER !

Kennebec Journal todayhad this front page story that covered the top half above the fold and more on another page,complete with 2 pictures- ah, it’s nice to be home!
Pity Mr. Pig can’t say the same…

When Sue Tarr went to collect eggs from her friend’s chicken coop, she encountered a 800-pound pig also apparently hungry for eggs — or possibly the hens.
“It’s the biggest pig I’ve ever seen close up,” Tarr said on Thursday. “I’m 59 years old and had pigs all of my life. Very few people keep boars. I have no idea where he belongs.”
She checked with some nearby farmers and no one reported an AWOL pig.
Concerned for the well-being of the chickens and the 5- to 6-foot long pig, Tarr called the Town Office for the number of the animal control officer, Marty Ford.
“There’s no way I could catch a pig five foot long,” he said. “If it’s a horse, I could get it. You don’t go chasing pigs.”

Anyone wonder why I say we’re living on “Green Acres”?

Well, my audio got pulled, so I had to redo my Glenn Beck is a Dumbass Racist Douche videoHere’s it is. Play En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” while/if you watch it. I am so bummed. Clips of Beck, etc. have audio. Just no kick-ass background music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

“Beer-Gate”was on page 3 of the same edition, btw.

And same editionhad this “Readers’ Opinions” letter today:

I find it dismaying that the editors of this newspaper can see fit to create a headline that exploits the large disparity in the amount of money that has been collected by the opponents of Maine’s Gay Marriage Bill (“Stand for Marriage Maine”) and do not disclose the sources of that money.
It is as though the editors wish to perpetuate the illusion that Mainers are opposed to the bill, when, in fact, the majority of the funds collected have been from out-of-state groups. Per Betsy Smith, senior director of Equality Maine, in an e-mail sent on July 17:
“Here’s where some of the anti-equality money came from:
National Organization for Marriage, Princeton, N.J. — $160,000
Knights of Columbus, Washington, D.C. — $50,000
Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, Colo. — $31,000.”
That is a total of $241,000 funneled into Maine from out-of-state organizations.
Does it really surprise anyone that these same three groups are also listed as primary donors to the “No to PROP 8″ campaign in California?
Why did this paper’s editors choose to present the information in a manner slanted toward the bill’s opposition group? In my opinion, the headline, the front-page article, and the exploitation of “funds raised” in opposition to the Gay Marriage Bill amount to nothing more than a continuation of the out-of-staters’ thinly veiled attempts to assert their agendas in Maine.

Let me say it again: Ah, it’s nice to be HOME!!!

If I were to employCameronian statistical methodology, I’d conclude that, on average (oh hell, if it’s Cameronian, why not just state “all”), white male Southerners are really effing dumb.

no kidding it must be nice!but don’t keep us in suspense – what happened to the ovivorous he-pig?

Seems to be unconclusiveHe wandered away! And no one wanted to follow where he went, I guess.
To think I went from driving under Boston via the Big Dig this morning (from Cape Cod to Boston in 90 minutes- a new record!) to this…

what i’m really having trouble with,is just which pig this was.  since he helped himself to the eggs (and perhaps a chicken or two as well), is this the little piggie that went to market?  he’s certainly not the one who stayed home or had none.  he may have been trying to have roast beef, and chicken eggs were all that was available (the bad economy, you know…).  i guess all we can be sure of is that when grunt came to oink, he at least impersonated the one who boogliewooglied all the way home.

a valuable piece of triviabefore i sign off, i though i’d perform a public service by relaying this amusing message from our secretary of state’s blog.

If you ever need to use one of the many restrooms in the Capitol, one is not too far away. With 14 public bathrooms and 18 private ones, there are no long lines or far distances to travel. If it has been a long day and you just need a break, or if you really have to go to the bathroom, try to find all 14 public bathrooms in the building. Don’t let it fool you. That is no easy task. The bathrooms are not in the same location on every floor. They are scattered and tucked away like eggs on an Easter egg hunt.

Someday I might actually take Stephanie up on this challenge.  Until then, I would like to personally attest to the fact that I’ve always found a ready stall when needed in the Capitol.  And they’re CLEAN.  And where else can you slam a several inches thick handsome solid wood door on the world that’s adorned with polished metal hardware and beveled inset panels?  Really, I ask you ‘where’?
Btw, not to be outdone by the marbled halls of law, Bill Gates’ Medina (if you have to ask, you don’t need to know.  mmROW!), WA hovel has 25 bathrooms.  How does he cope?  The 50,000 / 66,000 (including garage space and outbuildings) estate is called, I kid you not, The Ecology House.  If you cut down a lakefront forest and put up energy efficient buildings (including bowling alley!), does that count as environmentally sound?

Enough of this swine-bashingWon’t someone please think of the piglets?

Something I found online todayA photo of a woman wearing a vagina costune in front of the White House.

HeyI’m a white male Southerner.  Now if you said all white male Republican Southerners I might agree .
By the way Southern white women are only 4 pts behind.  Once again I would say Southern white Republican women.  So by your methodology we could just say Southern white Republicans.  Of course, except for a very very few exceptions, white is a given with that demographic, so you could just say Southern Republicans.
So there you have it.  Southern Republicans are really effing dumb.  :).

lolLike I said, IF I were to employ the methodologies of “Dr.” Cameron  Too funny!

Haha YeaI was speaking tongue in check also .  There are actually some brilliant Southern Republicans around here.  They are the ones mostly in power and like to keep things the way they are because they make a boat load of money off the poor Republicans they dupe.  To make that makes them brilliant–immoral and greedy bastards, but still brilliant.

err.To me that makes them brilliant–immoral and greedy bastards, but still brilliant.
I’m not so brilliant tonight because I didn’t proof .  Maybe I should go to bed.

Rachel Maddow was on a good Real Time with Bill Maher tonightMaher had a line about Lou Dobbs and the Birthers.
“They have a lot of questions about Obama’s birth certificate, same people with lots of questions about where the sun goes at night, or where to put a stamp on their emails.”

Wow. That’s almost contextual with what I overheard todayA woman coming down the stairs near me was on her phone, and walked by me just in time to say, “If you grab it and pull on it, it should be really firm.” o_O

Spent the last hour whacking down weeds 6ft tallI have a garden on the back of our three acres, which got horribly neglected. During that three week drought over 100 degrees, just keeping our other plants and trees alive took every bit of energy. It’s still like liquid air and heat index at 99 degrees, so I’m drenched and itchy from this Johnson grass which has hairy stems, and mosquito bites. We do have a beautiful hibiscus blooming which is cantelope color with burgandy throat, it had 11 blooms yesterday. We’re scheduled for rain this afternoon and evening.

The birthers are Republican right centrists. They’re acting out because they lost. Is the birther bs an important question for us? Absolutely not. It’s only an important question for Democrats, and the leaders of that party are as much our enemies as the Republicans.
Obama, cementing his dependence on the christian cultists opposes same sex marriage. That makes him a bigot and his cold hostility to equality and liberation for our GLBT communities confirms it. Given that we should take no interest in what Republicans say about him. His career is his concern, not ours. If he were an ally it might be different but he’s an enemy and hes not about to change.
The exception of course is racism. If the Republicans repeat the racism of the Clintons in the Democratic (sic) primaries we should condemn it.  It got so intense that Bill Clinton was forced to say  “But I am not a racist…I’ve never made a racist comment and I never attacked him [Obama] personally.” Lots of people thought otherwise.
They were equally appalled by Hillary Clintons racism in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In Ohio she won because “20% of voters said the race of the candidate was important factor (undoubtedly a lower than truthful response), and 59% of those supported Clinton. As has been pointed out, that is a total of 249,299 votes, greater than Clinton’s margin of victory.”  
As Hillary Clinton began to lose she got desperate.

“In what appears to be the New York senator’s most blunt comments to date regarding a racial division in the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton suggested Wednesday that “White Americans” are increasingly turning away from Barack Obama’s candidacy. Clinton cited an Associated Press poll “that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”
“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.”

She was right of course. The pattern was raw racism.
If Democratic (sic) or Republican racists attack Obama we should condemn it. The rest is none of our business. Obama is sending young men and women to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, and maybe soon in Pakistan and Iran. He’s a handpuppet of the looter rich. He pigheadedly opposes single-payer socialized medicine while passing out trillions in welfare to the looter rich. Like all the Democrat leadership Obama is just a Republican in drag.  
With Democrats like these who needs Republicans?

Those “hard working white people” of Hillary Clinton’s. I was a nominal supporter of Hillary until she said that. Don’t get me wrong, her last name is Clinton, I thought she would say almost anything but that went way too far.

Going to Market Daysbut I decided to check in here first.
This birther nonsense is just that, nonsense.
I’d rather folks be honest about and just say that they “don’t want no dadgum nig**r in the White House.”

I’d like to vent about YouTube. I fucking hate them!I’m on this video-making kick — it seems to be a healthy way to focus my pent-up anger and frustration — and I made what I think was a kick-ass video, and YouTube muted the sound.
I know enough about fair use to have a reasonable belief that my videos fall under the fair use exception of copyright law as put forth by the DMCA. BUT YouTube is all risk averse (I get it), and pulled my audio before the dispute was settled. This is the first time they’ve kicked me to the curb like that.
Maybe Warner Bros is sue happy, or maybe someone bitched to YouTube about my video. Whatever. So, I made another video, with sound and music, and I’m just waiting for that to get yanked, too. MoFos!
If you’re bored, here is “Glenn Beck is a Dumbass Racist Douche” with a new track. Love the song, but “Free Your Mind” just worked better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
I’m done with YouYube and am seriously considering shelling out the internet monies needed to throw up a site through a free-speech friendly host. Gah!
And I capitulated and contacted Warner Bros to see if I can get permission to use the song. I. am. frustrated.

Likely Beck and throngs of Mormons keep constant watch on websites like YouTubeThen make substantial complaints against the videos. There are a couple alternative video sites, I can’t recall the names, but have linked to their sites a couple times.

I’ll check them out. And there’s the Electronic Frontier Foundation

In particular, copyright claimants are increasingly misusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to demand that material be immediately taken down without providing any proof of infringement. Service providers, fearful of monetary damages and legal hassles, often comply with these requests without double-checking them, despite the cost to free speech and individual rights.
The DMCA also puts anonymous speech in jeopardy; misusing its subpoena power, copyright holders can attempt to unmask an Internet user’s identity based on a mere allegation of infringement without filing an actual lawsuit or providing the user any constitutional due process.

http://www.eff.org/issues/ip-a…
They also have a white paper about the DMCA. I’m just going to go through a host that will not immediately yank my stuff and will support my rights.

And someone sent me an AWESOME Dobbs clip I want to work with!Gah!  

Don’t get me wrong… either. I think Obama is the enemy. But I did think it was kinda neat that his election represented what has to be the biggest repudiation of racism in our history.
I was sickened by the willingness of the Clintons and McCain-Palin to use any weapon, however vile, to win. But just to be clear, Obama did precisely the same thing when he said “gawd’s in the mix”. And he’s still doing it. He really is the Perfect Clinton Clone.

In order to appear in public like that she must have big, um, ovaries.
But seriously, Fritz, may I ask what key words you were using to find something like that? And why?

“I think Obama is the enemy.”Serious question, donal – can you name any president in the history of the United States that you wouldn’t classify as “the enemy”? Or put another way, what current world leader would you place in the “hero” column?

Lincoln was the last good president. I don’t look to leaders. It’s a terrible mistake to count on ‘leaders’. Equality, and beyond that, liberation will come when enough people see the need for fundamental change.
I look to leftist parties and movements for heroes. The struggles of our communities creates heroes by the tens of thousands.
There’s a new book just published about some real heroes. The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan by Dahr Jamail, [Haymarket Books].  
The young men and women coming out in high school are genuine heroes. They sometimes pay a terrible price for it like L. King and the 15 young people shot just hours ago in Tel Aviv just hours ago. Three of them are dead.
It’s heroic to emigrate to the US to get a good job and to fight racism and union busting.
The young men and women who defended their community in Jena, Louisiana are heroes.
Reliance on heroes and fuehrer’s is a fools game. The leadership of the growing radicalization will be rank and file trade unionists, immigrants, anti-racists, feminists, antiwar activists and people from our own communities. They can accomplish what no ‘leader’, particularly a rancid hustler like Obama could ever hope to – fundamental change.

Lincoln was the last good president. I don’t look to leaders. It’s a terrible mistake to count on ‘leaders’. Equality, and beyond that, liberation will come when enough people see the need for fundamental change.
I look to leftist parties and movements for heroes. The struggles of our communities creates heroes by the tens of thousands.
There’s a new book just published about some real heroes. The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan by Dahr Jamail, [Haymarket Books.  
The young men and women coming out in high school are genuine heroes who sometimes pay a terrible price for it like L. King and the 15 young people shot just hours ago in Tel Aviv just hours ago. Three of them are dead.
It’s heroic to emigrate to the US to get a good job and to fight racism and union busting.
The young men and women who defend their community in Jena, Louisiana are heroes.
Reliance on heroes and fuehrer’s is a fools game. The leadership of the growing radicalization will be rank and file trade unionists, immigrants, anti-racists, feminists, antiwar activists and people from our own communities. They can accomplish what no ‘leader’, particularly a rancid hustler like Obama could ever hope to – fundamental change.

Okay, okay, okayNo leaders.  Natch.
We’ll just all sit around town-meeting style, all 300 million of us, to run this here guvmint.
So not even moderate socialism, like in Sweden or such, is socialist enough for you?
I’m not sure I understand about the “will to resist” the war by our soldiers? It’s not like the boys without college deferments being drafted and shipped off to Vietnam.

I didn’t say no leaders. I said no leaders like the hustlers, handpuppets of the rich, homohaters and oil pirates you dote on.
There’s a difference.
Most people understand that many young working class women and men join the military for purely economic reasons – aka – no jobs. The fact that roughly 10 million jobs have been lost in the last year or so means that there’s a big pool of potential enlistees if causalities get too high. And most people can understand that they’re unwilling to commit genocide for Chevron-Texaco or BP-Conoco.
You don’t have to say anything more. I’m satisfied that you don’t understand the growing GI antiwar movement and expect, although I’ve been wrong about these things before, that you may never understand the loathing that antiwar GIs feel for the genocidal policies of the Clitnons, Bushes and Obama.
Sweden is not a socialist state, moderate or otherwise. A socialist state is characterized by economic democracy – control of the levers of production and consumption by organizations of working people and the total expropriation of capital.