St. Andrew of the Sacred Heart-Ache just had a conniption.

Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean has contradicted his party's platform and infuriated gay rights advocates by saying the party's platform states "marriage is between a man and a woman."

Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean, appearing on the Christian Broadcasting Network, erroneously stated that the party's 2004 platform says 'marriage is between a man and a woman.' Christian conservative Pat Robertson is host of the program.

"The Democratic Party platform from 2004 says marriage is between a man and a woman," Dean said May 10 during a "700 Club" program hosted by conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson on his Christian Broadcasting Network.

That statement contradicts the Democratic National Committee's official stance, which was adopted in 2004.

"We support full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits, and protections for these families," the platform says.

...

Jo Wyrick, interim executive director of National Stonewall Democrats, a gay partisan group, noted Dean was not accurately representing the Democratic Party's position.

"Democrats do not believe that the federal government should forcefully dictate family policy for individual states, as championed by congressional Republicans and the Bush administration," she said in a statement. "Therefore, we strongly point out that Governor Dean incorrectly spoke when stating that the 2004 Democratic Party platform defines marriage as between a man and a woman."

Within hours of the program's broadcast, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force denounced Dean's misrepresentation.

"Disturbingly, this is not the first time he has misrepresented this important and affirming plank [of the Democratic Party platform], and he has been asked before to correct the record and to cease making these misleading statements," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the Task Force.

Let me get this straight: A prominent spokesman for Democrats is misrepresenting the actual Democratic position on a hot-button issue in order to make a play for centrist voters?

My mind spins and my stomach churns. It's as if the very foundations of reality have buckled and snapped beneath me.

Thanks to Andrew. Not sure which one. They seem to travel in packs, like gazelles, hyenas, and retards.

Posted by: Ace at 08:17 AM | Comments (26)
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I use the word "modern world" advisedly; we're talking about Colombia here.

The article seems to undermine several cherished leftist beliefs-- that a "natural" Rousseauian existence is preferable to a modern one, and that Marxist revolutionaries are romantic, cool dudes whose faces you should display on t-shirts.

Since time immemorial the Nukak-Makú have lived a Stone Age life, roaming across hundreds of miles of isolated and pristine Amazon jungle, killing monkeys with blowguns and scouring the forest floor for berries.

But recently, and rather mysteriously, a group of nearly 80 wandered out of the wilderness, half-naked, a gaggle of children and pet monkeys in tow, and declared themselves ready to join the modern world.

"We do not want to go back," explained one man, who uses the sole name Ma-be, and who arrived with the others at this outpost in southern Colombia in March. "We want to stay near town. We can plant our own food. In the meantime the town can help us."

While it is not known for sure why they left the jungle, what is abundantly clear is that the Nukak's experience as nomads and hunter-gatherers has left them wholly unprepared for the world they have just entered.

The Nukak have no concept of money, of property, of the role of government, or even of the existence of a country called Colombia. They ask whether the planes that fly overhead are moving on some sort of invisible road.

They have no government identification cards, making them nonentities to Colombia's bureaucracy.

"The Nukak don't know what they've gotten themselves into," said Dr. Javier Maldonado, 27, a physician who has been working with them.

When asked if the Nukak were concerned about the future, Belisario, the only one in the group who had been to the outside world before and spoke Spanish, seemed perplexed, less by the word than by the concept. "The future," he said, "what's that?"

...

The newly arrived Nukak do not provide much detail about why they left. They just say that "the Green Nukak," a possible reference to Marxist guerrillas, who wear camouflage, told them to leave.

Kinda Sorta Related: Climate Shifts, Not Human Overhunting, Killed Off The Mammoths. I guess this can be read in two different ways.

The conservative way: Climate changes have been around a hell of lot longer than industrialization and massive human populations. They're part of nature.

The liberal way: We have to stop global cooling warming change right now, or else we could end up losing even more wooly mammoths.

Posted by: Ace at 08:04 AM | Comments (19)
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Saints preserve us, the dorkwads are getting press.

What draws people to the game is its ability to tap into something almost atavistic in human nature, the same need for belonging that Sigmund Freud would tell us birthed the world’s religions. In fact, the players feel it fills a deficiency found in today’s culture, which Andrew Mattingly (aka Shapwin of Laconia) sums up best in the movie: “Everything that was once noble and good in this world is gone, and it’s been replaced with Wal-Mart.”

And, Neel says, “These outsiders found and created this sort of social utopia.”

Populated by blue-collar stiffs, white-collar number pushers, lawyers and doctors, and ex-military seeking to regain the camaraderie they had in the service, Darkon is “a testament of the imagination,” Smith insists. “Everything you see in the movie is an accumulation of 20 years of people’s imaginations. What I really love about it is you feel like you’re 5 years old again. People kind of live their lives like they’re born with a finite amount of imagination, and they use up most of it when they’re little, and they use less and less and less of it the older they get. Darkon really does put you back in that mind-set of a little kid when you’re enveloped in your own world of make-believe. Nothing else really does that.”

Lipman, a poster child for men who never grew up, calls Darkon an “escapist hobby” that can, at times, cost players more than it should. “Some people are running away from their real-life problems, whether it be with their families or an inability to put things together in real life and hold down a job, or school’s not going well,” he says. “And sometimes Darkon can just be a part of that negative thing, because they push away their real life and they focus too much on Darkon, rather than it being a positive experience where at least there’s someplace where I’ve got my shit together. It can be an anchor for those who are adrift.”

“Every once in a while you see someone [in Darkon] and you think, You really should pay a little more attention to your day-to-day life,” says Meyer, who is soft-spoken and so intimidated by interviews that he has a habit of stammering. “But as a whole, it’s not a major problem. No one’s getting carried away.”

I guess this is no dorkier than Civil War re-enactors getting together to "refight" the Battle of Antietam. Trouble is, that's pretty damn dorky too. And no one there is dressing up like this:

I think it was Steven den Beste who noted that America has a big advantage over repressive, unfree socieites, because people have both the leisure time and freedom to pursue hobbies-- hobbies which, in some circumstances, can actually be useful in war.

So, if Iran decides to smuggle in an atomic bomb guarded by an "adventuring party" of epic-level cleric-assassins, we should be able to combat them with an Army of Dorkwads.

Thanks to Craig.

Related: Sexy "Booth Babes" Banned From E3 Expo: In an event dedicated to debuting new video games, isn't a bit of real, non-pixelogenic cleavage the healthiest thing on display?

Thanks to The Wardrobe Door.

Posted by: Ace at 07:51 AM | Comments (21)
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Makes sense:

A German man who unsuccessfully tried to kill himself by jumping in front of a train must pay compensation for the damage he caused, a court in the southern city of Munich ruled Tuesday.

A spokesman for the court said the 47-year-old man leapt too late to land under the train and instead crashed through the side window of the driver's cabin. He suffered head wounds but no other lasting physical injuries, the court said.

The driver of the metro train suffered shock and was unable to work for several weeks.

...

For repairs to the train and lost wages for the driver, Munich municipal authorities sued for damages of some 4,200 euros ($5,325). The court ordered the man to pay half the sum.

He should pay punitive damages, too, for risking a lifetime of traumatic memories to the train's driver. Had he been successful, he'd have involved someone else in his death.

Posted by: Ace at 06:36 AM | Comments (13)
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Unbelievable:

Need proof of how pork-addicted Congress has become? Consider this: Some in the Senate are looking for ways to shift funds from the troops in Iraq to some of their favorite pet projects.

...

Unable to control their colleagues, 35 senators signed a letter promising to support a veto, and the House of Representatives' leadership announced it would refuse to accept any supplemental exceeding the $94.4 billion target. Despite these positive signs in favor of spending restraint, some in the Senate want to concoct a face-saving deal with the president to sustain these wasteful proposals. Their plan: Shortchange the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to preserve most of the pork.

This is exactly what Bush needed politically.

Bush has been unwilling to stand up to GOP porkers generally, but he's especially resistant to veto a bill funding the troops. The only strength of the GOP right now is its commitment to fighting the war. If Bush vetoes a spending bill which primarily funds the troops, it will be used against him-- and the GOP generally -- as "evidence" that he doesn't want to fund our troops sufficiently.

Remember Kerry's "I actually voted in favor of it, before I voted against it"? That was actually a vote by Kerry against funding the war, not against funding pork; but the Democrats (and the liberal media spirit squad) will pretend not to notice the difference and will claim that Bush is doing exactly what Kerry did, i.e., block funding of the troops.

So Bush, being a bit of gutless punk on domestic spending anyway, and being hyperpolitical to the point of abject stupidity on foreign policy, will probably just sign whatever spending bill is offered to him, because the Bush/Rove Genius Committee cannot, they think, risk being perceived as willing to sign anything that has a dollar or two of spending for the troops.

Actually, of course, it's the porker Senators who are cynically jeopardizing a bill that's supposed to be about the troops (and Katrina relief, and bird flu preparation) by larding it up with unrelated porkbarrel spending. They are cynically attaching their low-priority, non-national-security, non-emergency local pet projects to high priority, national security, emergency spending, believing that the latter will shield the former from being blocked.

But this suggestion by some senators -- and I do wonder if the "wily" Trent Lott is among them -- that they will actually cut war spending to save local boondoggles provides Bush all the political cover he needs for a veto.

But he has to be aggressive and merciless on this -- and very public. He needs to explain in a national prime-time address that he is required to veto the porked up bill because some senators -- he doesn't have to name them -- have decided to risk national security for personal political interest. He has to be absolutely ruthless in pinning the blame on the veto on "wily" senators like Lott.

If he does that, it will be clear to the public who is to blame for the (temporary) blockage of appropriations for the troops.

The risk, of course, is that he will strongly alienate a lot of senators who are already wavering in their support of him and the Iraq War (reading the polls, of course; no profiles in courage here). But it's worth it-- and further, he can get some of those senators to fall back in line by putting into question their own commitment to winning the war. The power of incumbency will be diminished, and they will be at risk of losing the only war that seems to matter to them -- the war to keep their comfortable government offices in perpetuity.

Those risks aside, it's a likely win-win-win-win situation. He'll get the military spending he wants, hold the line on pork (and thereby please his increasingly distraught conservative base), assert control over the parochial and cynical senators, and get back some of the public perception of having strong "leadership" abilities, which, in case he hasn't been reading the polls (and I rather doubt that), has all but evaporated.

That's what Bush needs to do.

Of course, he'll do nothing of the sort. He'll meekly roll over and sign the porked-up bill, even if it cuts a lot of actual war spending, and call it a victory.

As he always does.

Via Instapundit, who also links an interview with a real wartime leader, Tom Coburn.

Posted by: Ace at 06:31 AM | Comments (19)
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Maybe the White House needed someone from the outside to tell them what the world looks like beyond the White House gate.

A great way to start:

New White House Press Secretary Tony Snow is starting off in a combative mode against the press by issuing detailed rebuttals to what he considers unfair coverage of Bush.

“The New York Times continues to ignore America’s economic progress,” blared the headline of an e-mail sent to reporters Wednesday by the White House press office.

Keep doing this, day in, day out. If you want to draw a crowd, pick a fight.

At some point, the press has to cover the dispute as being newsworthy. And then, of course, the press has to -- reluctantly -- actually dig into the objective facts underlying the dispute.

And then, maybe, they'll actually note we're in a strong and long-lived expansion.

Posted by: Ace at 05:32 AM | Comments (40)
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Dave Munger:

Hold the phone, you're saying heterosexual women are attracted to men? In my personal experience, I have not found that to be the case.

Well, yeah, I have little personal experience in that regard myself. But I've seen data-sets which assure me this is the case.

Men love the NOTION of two women (because we are actually attracted to women in a straightforward way; Two women are better than one in the same way two scoops of ice cream are better than one), but we tend often to be not so delighted with real lesbians when we meet them.

Everyone is grossed out by the notion of two men, but in PRACTICE, homos are pretty easy to get along with. I've never thought the gay guy/hetero girl best friends phenomenon was very healthy though. No one likes women as much as gay guys claim to, it's got to be a reaction formation or something.

Definitely. Liking women that much is just, what's the word?, gay.

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (37)
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If the economy's doing so badly, and Bush has lowered taxes so recklessly, how is it mathematically possible we just had the second biggest month of tax revenues in history, behind only a month of cash-outs at the peak of the Clinton stock market bubble?

Posted by: Ace at 11:56 AM | Comments (75)
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I re-link this occasionally, because it's actually helped a few readers who read this and realized they too had panic disorder.

But I'm posting it today because the lefty bloggers are still having themselves a ball over the fact that Goldstein is on anti-anxiety/panic medication.

To be honest, I hope they make an issue of my delibitating panic episodes. I could use the traffic. And, you know, not to be all concerned and responsible or anything, but it's good to get the word out about a very under-diagnosed, very debilitating, but very curable condition.

I don't get the attacks about this. First of all, they reflect very poorly on the person making an issue of it. Second of all, they reflect not at all on the person so attacked. Really, if someone is publicly announcing he has panic or anxiety and takes a drug to help this condition -- if he's declaring that to thousands of strangers -- do you really imagine he's terribly embarrassed by it?

I met one reader at a bar who praised me for my "courage" in posting about my anxiety. I told him there was no courage in it at all, because I had no embarrassment or shame about it. Posting about my panic was no more difficult to me than, say, complaining about my nearsightedness. I no more worried about being called "Panicky Pete" than I lay in bed at nights fearing people might call me "Four-Eyes," or (when I wear contacts), "A dirty, stinking four-eyes who's trying to 'pass' as someone who doesn't need corrective lenses."

It's "indecent" in one way-- it's the sort of thing decent people just don't do. But it's not "indecent" in the sense that you actually wound the person you're trying to embarrass. So you get all of the downside of making a petty, nasty attack -- exposing yourself as a jagoff -- and none of the upside -- actually hurting the feelings of the object of your ire.

It's just not tactically effective, even barring considerations of decency.

But then, such practicalities don't seem to bother the Frothing Left much these days.

As they haven't bothered them in the past.

The left has always been extremely nasty, personal, and vicious, as Crossed Swords' post points out. One could fill several thick volumes of nasty attacks by the left. And yet they're forever patting themselves on the back, claiming that they try to be "civil" while the right maligns them.

That was always a crock of shit.

But they've decided, collectively, that in the old days, when they were as vicious as all get out, they were actually being too nice and restrained, not "tough" enough, and that the reason Republicans beat them was just because Republicans were so meeeeaaan and they weren't mean enough.

Again, this is complete and utter monkeycrap.

So, they've decided to "get really tough," and throw off just about all standards of decent behavior.

A website attempted to increase on-line civility by asking bloggers to make a pledge not to out personal information about other bloggers or political figures. I didn't realize it, but there was actually a widespread REJECTION of this simple request for decency by the lefty bloggers.

Unbelievable. They can't even agree to those most basic terms of decency.

The left has always allowed for itself a much greater tolerance of nastiness and actual violence than it has for anyone else. But it's worse now, because they've convinced themselves they were actually acting too damn nice before.

And now the gloves are off. They're all real "tough-guys" now.

Yeah. Real bad-asses. They type nasty things into a computer and then publish them.

Do I do that? Sometimes (but not like they do!). But I don't consider myself "tough" for doing it. Quite frankly, it's unmanly.

But for these little sissies, it's the closest they've come to a physical fight in their lives.

Beer muscles encourage all sorts of bad behavior. But blog muscles encourage much worse behavior, as you don't even have to worry about getting socked in your jaw.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (69)
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From Taranto:

Democrats in the 7th Congressional District will have to decide whether the naked truth is the best policy in a political campaign.

Brad Blanton has written to Democratic leaders in the sprawling district that he runs honesty workshops where people get naked and talk about their sexual histories.

Figuratively baring all in his letter, Blanton said there might be some who believe "I could be an embarrassment to the party."

Is that possible at this point?

Democrats in the district will meet in a convention Saturday to decide whether to nominate Blanton or to choose not to have a candidate.

...

As part of his work to bring out the truth in people, Blanton runs eight-day workshops called "The Course in Honesty." At $2,400 per person, a maximum of 16 people spend 8½ days together, "Telling the truth to each other," he explained. About five days into the workshop, "We all take off our clothes, stand up in front of the camera and the other naked people and talk about what we like and what we dislike or are ashamed of about our bodies. This is also videotaped. Then we tell the story of our sexual history."

The videotape is then erased.

Uh-huh.

Marjorie Clark, the district chairwoman, said: "We've known about this for some time. We'll see at the convention how it plays out. There are some who feel this doesn't represent the views of a majority of people in the district."

No, you're worried because it does represent a good portion of the cultural views of Democratic voters in the district.

I can't think of anyone I'd rather have representing me in Congress than James Spader's character in Sex, Lies, & Videotape. He really seemed to "share my values."

And yet the GOP continues making nasty insinuations that liberals are kinda weird.

Thanks to GWynn.

Posted by: Ace at 11:26 AM | Comments (18)
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