So apparently, and not surprisingly, there are people who agree with and support Sally Kern. Not just that, but they think she’s being attacked for exercising her right to Free Speech. I’m a huge purponant of freedoms, and believe strongly in being able to say what you want. However, that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be consequenses if what you say incites violence, or like in the Sally Kern case, is hate speech that shows you believe some American citizens are the most dangerous threat to the USA. Like I said when the story first broke:

Sure, I’ll give you every right to say it, but as an elected politician, the people you supposedly represent also have the right to demand you resign. Or at the very least kick your ass out of the House next election. Which after hearing what you have to say, I surely hope they do.

Looks like some conservative Christian groups, along with the American Family Association, are going to hold a “Freedom of Speech Rally for Sally” on April 2nd at noon, at the Oklahoma State Capitol. Not sure if there are going to be counter demonstrations. I at least hope their group isn’t as big as the rally that was held earlier this month protesting Kern. About 300 turned out for that, and at least showed that not everyone here agrees with her.

One last point that I found amusing. J. M. Branum found that Sally Kern isn’t even original in her speech, lifting almost verbatim some of her hate speech from the AFA site. While you are at his post, check out the propaganda video. I’ll not be surprised if it ends up like Reefer Madness in it’s overly fearmongering cheesy graphics.

Technorati tags: hate speech, oklahoma, sally kern

Baby Grrl will be two (already!) in a couple of weeks or so, and we took her to get pictures made. The place we take her is awesome, there are always so many to choose from, it’s hard not to walk out of there with a ton of pictures. Family and friends get as many as they want and we still have some to spare. So for those of you who want to see what Baby Grrl looks like, here are just a few of the many that turned out very well. Click a picture to embiggen.

I talked already about the success NIN has found by offering the first part of their new album for free online. It’s not just music artists who are using the internet and digital media to get their work exposed to a new and emerging audience. Neil Gaiman has had his book American Gods available to read online for the month of March. (There are a few days left, go here to read it at the publisher’s site.) Critics would argue that making it available to read online, for free, wouldn’t have any effect except negative on sales. They would be wrong though. From Neil’s blog:

It’s worth drawing people’s attention to the fact that the free online reading copy of American Gods is now in its last six days online (it ends 31 March 08). I learned this from an email from Harper Collins, which also told me the latest batch of statistics.

For American Gods:

68,000 unique visitors to the book pages of American Gods

3,000,000 book pages viewed in aggregate

And that the weekly book sales of American Gods have apparently gone up by 300%, rather than tumbling into the abyss. (Which is — the rise, not the tumble — what I thought would happen. Or at least, what I devoutly hoped would happen.)

It’s very cool that more people are getting success from offering their work for free. It vindicates those of us who have said for a long time that sharing does more to help artists than hurt them. Now we can show them even more by supporting Scott Sigler on the release of his novel Infected, which he had released as a free podiobook before getting it published. The book release date is April 1st, but we can see the full PDF for free! But only from 3/27 to 3/31!

Crown Publishing is letting me give away the PDF of INFECTED from March 27 through March 31, leading up to the hardcover in-store release on April 1. So download it! Feel free to email the link to anyone you know.

Please do not email the PDF, email the LINK. This is so I can prove to Crown the value in giving away content, and if your friends click on the link, that counts on their server stats - emailing the PDF doesn’t count on the stats.
THANKS & ENJOY!

Click the cover to get the FREE PDF!!!!

Technorati tags: scott sigler, infected, free book

Remember yesterday I blogged about the Marine who was arrested crossing the police line at the Westboro protest at Tinker? On the front page of The Daily Oklahoman today, top story no less, I see the headline

Marine won’t draw penalty for flag fight

I would have been surprised if the DA would have pressed charges, even though he did break the law. This being Oklahoma and all. You can’t go 10 cars without at least two of them having some kind of Support or God Bless Our Troops with a Bush ‘04 or W sticker thrown in for good measure.

But I really took issue with the tone of the article. Read a couple of snips and see if you can tell what is missing.

He told The Oklahoman he was reacting to a war protester who was stuffing an American flag down her pants.

…..

Mitch Logston of Oklahoma City said he and about nine other friends collected $500 for Modisette. He said many of them have children in the military, some serving in Iraq.

June Parsons, 73, of Stillwater said the incident brought back bad memories of anti-military sentiment during the Vietnam War.

Have you noticed? Last time I checked the Westboro people weren’t protesting the war, they are protesting homosexuality. With some very hateful words no less. In fact, Westboro has been protesting for years now, but only recently have people become upset now that they are protesting military funerals. But not one mention of this in the “news” article. Instead it gives the implication that the group is anti-war and hence anti-military. (Another stereotype that is overplayed.) Guess with Sally Kern getting support from her fellow lawmakers and some people who live here, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Another issue that surrounds this is the attitudes toward the act that prompted the Marine’s involvement to begin with. The act of stuffing the flag down your pants. Modisette is quoted as saying:

“The way I was raised was the reason I couldn’t drive by and watch that go on,” he said. “There’s liberty, and then there’s ridiculous.”

Several comments listed on the first story say “God bless” Modisette, and how it is so terrible that the group can deface the flag and not be arrested or that they arrested the wrong person. Sorry, but I can do what I like with the flag and it is protected under the First Amendment. Not my thing to want to burn or deface it, but really. Why can people wear the flag like this be patriotic, when according to the Flag Code, it’s still wrong?

Or how about this? Yes, that’s Bush signing a flag.

Anyway, looks like I took the very long rant path, when in the end I could have just said, “Same Oklahoma, different day.”

Technorati tags: flag, protests, westboro, oklahoma

For those who really need to find out why, read my posts here and here.

Over the weekend there was a “Shame on Sally” protest, with about 200 or so people. Here’s a picture someone snapped before the end:

Tomorrow, March 18th at 11:30, there will be a rally at the State Capitol followed by a press conference.

The rally is supported by National PFLAG (Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), The Peace House, Peace Institute and many, many more organizations. Public parking lots are south of the capitol on Lincoln Blvd.

I won’t be able to leave work, but for those of you who either work next to the Capitol, or can get out of work for a bit, head on down!

In other protest news, the infamous Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church people were in town, protesting outside of Tinker over the weekend. Seems they think the Air Force guy who killed his two kids, then himself a month or so ago did so because of the homosexuals. There were some counter protesters of course, as that type of tragedy would affect many people on a military base who would very much take offense at someone saying the man and his kids are in Hell. One Marine got arrested. From the one news article I could find:

Modisette said he was leaving Tinker Air Force Base after getting a haircut when he saw the demonstration outside the main gate at SE 29 and Air Depot Boulevard.

About 150 people were demonstrating against a much smaller group of anti-military protesters from Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan.

Modisette said he intended to ignore the Topeka group and their inflammatory protest signs until he spotted one of them shoving an American flag down her pants.

“My country, my mother and my Marine Corps — that’s what the flag means to me,” Modisette said Friday afternoon. “I just couldn’t stand to see those ungrateful idiots treat it like that.”

It seems that this was the biggest issue with the protesters. The clip I saw on the news had people holding “God bless our troops” and similar signs, nothing I gleaned from the brief clip had anything to say about the hate filled speech against homosexuals.

I will say that in trying to find out more info about this story, the Air Force forums and a couple of Christian blogs I read were really coming down against the Westboro gang. I do wonder at times if they weren’t protesting funerals and the military if as many people would think they are evil, but it’s still gives me hope that one day homophobia and the related hate speech will be in a very small minority. I’d be stupid to think it would be gone entirely, since we hear sexist and racist things around still today, but hey. We’ll get there one day.

Technorati tags: sally kern, protests, westboro

It’s not often I blog about a movie or TV series unless I find one that’s either controversial or one that I think is underrated and I want to share. It’s the latter with AMC’s original series Breaking Bad.

Break Bad (v.) 1. to challenge convention 2. to defy authority 3. to raise hell

Chemistry: the study of change. Meet Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher sleepwalking through life when, boom, a terminal diagnosis changes everything. Liberates him. Empowers him to use his chemistry skills anew: to man a rolling drug lab and finance the future for his struggling family. It’s an uncontrolled experiment with the American dream. And it finally wakes him up. Breaking Bad: Change the Equation.

It stars the great Bryan Cranston, from Malcolm In The Middle, but this time in a more serious role. More specifically, he uses his knowledge of chemistry to bake meth, while trying to deal with his terminal cancer diagnosis, various family issues, still teach, and work with his not-so-smart of a meth dealing partner.

At first I was very skeptical of the show. Numb3rs didn’t work for me, as I felt the inclusion of math as a way to solve crimes seemed forced into the script. And this is coming from someone who likes math and loves to learn more. The chemistry used in the plot for this show, however, flows very easily. Doesn’t seem forced or like they’re trying to teach people stuff for the sake of teaching people stuff.

The first season has finished already, but AMC has started repeating through the episodes again. Yesterday was the Pilot, but you can catch it before the 2nd episode airs on the 23rd, 10PM Eastern. Alternately, you can get all of season one on Amazon or iTunes, or if you have On Demand, they can be found there.

On a side note, it was planned to have two more episodes in the first season, but they were cut because of the writer’s strike. I hope that there is enough buzz and support of this series to get a second season.

Technorati tags: breaking bad, chemistry, amc tv

Reporters Without Borders is hosting a 24 hour online demonstration “to condemn cyber-censorship throughout the world”.

“Today, the first time this day is being marked, we are giving all Internet users the opportunity to demonstrate in places were protests are not normally possible. We hope many will come and protest in virtual versions of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Cuba’s Revolution Square or on the streets of Rangoon, in Burma. At least 62 cyber-dissidents are currently imprisoned worldwide, while more than 2,600 websites, blogs or discussions forums were closed or made inaccessible in 2007.”

Unfortunately the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) withdrew its participation, but this is still an important issue. Governments controlling what people have access to, read, say, and in some cases arrest them if they do something the government doesn’t like, will always be an issue that is important to me. I may not always like living in Oklahoma, but I very much like living in the United States. We do have our problems, but at least I don’t have to worry about becoming one of these:

At least 62 cyber-dissidents, Internet users and online journalists are currently imprisoned worldwide.

Head to their protest page, pick a country that is on their list of the worst in online censorship, and join the demonstration.

Technorati tags: reporters without borders, protest, censorship, online free expression day

Oh Sally Kern. I just blogged about you last week, and here we go again. You are just really using your religious beliefs when you write bills there in the Oklahoma House. What is she doing now, the readers are asking? Well…

The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill saying that a student in an Earth Science class can claim that the Earth is 6000 years old, and not be failed for it. Because if the teacher said the student was wrong, that would be infringing on their religious beliefs, and we know how things like hate crime laws and no prayer in school are totally keeping the Christians down.

The Bad Astronomer puts it much better than I do:

I taught a few classes back when I was a grad student. If someone had answered a question on a test saying the Earth was 6000 years old, I would have marked it as incorrect. That’s because — and sit down for this breaking news — that answer is wrong. The student could complain, they could take it to the dean, the president, the Supreme Court for all I care — I wouldn’t have backed down. Wrong is wrong.

This bill still has to pass the Senate, then be signed by Governor Henry, before it becomes law, so for those who live here in Oklahoma, please visit Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education to learn more and contact the Senate Education Committee.

We need some good news to come out of Oklahoma soon to show that we’re not all religious homophobic rednecks. I promise, Shane (who commented on The Bad Astronomy Blog), we’re not all like this:

I’m not American so every time I hear the word Oklahoma I see Steve Martin running around with a pot on his head shouting “Oklahoma Oklahoma Oklahoma…”

Although sometimes that’s what I picture, too.

Technorati tags: anti-science, oklahoma, sally kern

Politicians gay bashing is nothing new, especially here in Oklahoma, but Sally Kern has gone too far. She believes that TEH GAYS are such a threat, that it’s more serious than anything else this nation is facing. Yep, gays are worse than terrorism. Oh, and they are a “toe cancer”. Some other gems:

“They’re going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.”

“Gays are infiltrating city councils.”

Listen to the whole thing here. Then let her know what you think about her hate speech.

Good thing she doesn’t represent the district just east of her, or she’d really be hearing from her constituents though…

What is really disturbing is that this person making decisions is on these committees:

Social Services, Chair
Education Committee
Common Education
Human Services Committee

Social services? Education? Human services??? Great, we have a gay bashing wife of a pastor making decisions that will affect the welfare of thousands of Oklahomans. Ugh.

(Via Think Progress)

UPDATE: Via Democratic Underground’s Top 10 Conservative Idiots of the Week, we find out that she’s not even sorry she got caught saying it. Because, well, it’s GOD’S WORD.

In an exclusive interview with News9.com Kern (R-Oklahoma City) admits it is her voice on the recording and stands by her comments. She said she’s just stating the facts on what she believes.

“I’m not gay bashing, but according to God’s word that is not the right kind of lifestyle,” she said. “It has deadly consequences.”

“What is wrong with me as an American exercising my free speech rights on a topic that is a very big issue today?” she said.

What’s wrong? Well, Sally, it’s called hate speech. Sure, I’ll give you every right to say it, but as an elected politician, the people you supposedly represent also have the right to demand you resign. Or at the very least kick your ass out of the House next election. Which after hearing what you have to say, I surely hope they do.

Technorati tags: hate speech, oklahoma, sally kern

This week Trent Reznor took a big step forward in music distribution by releasing the latest Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I - IV online. It’s like when I wrote back in January about what the next revolution in music could be:

Could it be that the artists who are rejecting the current model of record contracts and DRM fervor of the labels and RIAA be leading the way? There are several independent artists who are embracing current technology and getting their music out to a much wider audience thanks to the internet. Many others are using Creative Commons to shun the current model and get their music into fan’s hands

NIN has done all of that and made available the first 9 tracks, Ghosts I, as a FREE download. Perfect for those who want to sample before buying. And for those who want all 36 tracks, the DRM free download is only $5, or $10 for those who need something physical to add to their CD collection. He’s even released it under a Creative Commons license.

The response was huge; slowing, and for a short time, bringing the servers completely down. As many people became frustrated, they turned to BitTorrent sites to find the music. You’d not be surprised to find out the album was there, but you might be when you find out who put it up.

Hello from Nine Inch Nails.

Now that we’re no longer constrained by a record label, we’ve decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.

We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc. It’s licensed for all non-commercial use under Creative Commons.

Trent really understands technology and the best way to get his music out to his fans. And before someone claims the above torrent wasn’t uploaded by NIN, there has been confirmation by TorrentFreak:

“last night our website had to go down for maintenance for a little while due to the incredible amount of traffic and downloads, and we linked directly to our Pirate Bay torrent as a way for people to get the music while we were offline.” Rob Sheridan, Art Director for NIN told TorrentFreak, adding “I noticed our official torrent of Ghosts I was in the top 10 of all torrents on The Pirate Bay last night.”

As of yesterday, when I pulled down my copy of Ghosts I off BitTorrent, there were over 3200 people seeding the file, with another couple of hundred downloading. And that was only from one site.

I’m hoping this, along with Radiohead’s In Rainbows pay what you’d like online release, will show artists that the digital-Creative Commons-release without record labels is a viable and better option for fans. The artists will see more money, the fans won’t feel ripped off, and so many more people will be able to enjoy the music.

Technorati tags: nine inch nails, music, bittorrent, digital music revolution