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Happy Birthday, George Eliot!

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There are holidays we all celebrate. In a couple of days, most Americans will join their families for a festive Thanksgiving meal. And there are some holidays sacred to our religions — or our region. And then there are the personal days, the anniversary of a wedding, the day we first met our beloved, the birthday of a friend, special relative or favorite writer. Today, November 22 is one of those days for me. Not only does it mark the anniversary of the birth of a very dear great Aunt, my Aunt Ruth, who would have been 109 today, it is also the 186th anniversary of birth of the greatest English novelist, George Eliot. Last year, I honored her with this post.
Born Mary Ann Evans in South Arbury, England on November 22, 1819, she was particularly close to her brother Isaac as a child. She describes that sweet relationship in her novel The Mill on the Floss. In her early adulthood, she wrote countless essays and translated several works German into English. She, however, did not become the great novelist we know today until after she met George Henry Lewes in 1851. Like her, he wasn’t particularly physically attractive, but like her was charming in person. When people met Miss Evans, they soon forget her looks, more entranced were they by her conversation, her intelligence and her insight, her wisdom.
Even though Lewes never divorced his wife, he and Evans lived together as husband and wife until his death in 1878. While their love produced no children, it did help her “give birth” to many great ideas which she turned into some of the greatest novels, including the greatest novel, in the English language. She did not publish her novels under her own name, taking the name George from Lewes, the great love of her life.
Her greatest books include the aforementioned Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede, Felix Holt, Romola, the touching Silas Marner and Middlemarch the greatest novel in the English language. There is much, so much, I could say about this great woman such that I would take up our blog’s entire home page. She had a keen sense of values, understood human psychology, could peer into the human heart and show the positive sides of her villains. Indeed, none of her characters were completely evil and none purely good. Yet, they all performed acts of kindness, cruelty and/or stupidity.
The selfish Bulstrode in the end shows some kindness to his nephew Fred Vincy. And that well-meaning Fred had previously gambled away a loan that Caleb Garth, the father of Mary, his one true love, had guaranteed for him, draining that good man’s family of money they had saved to pay for their son’s education.
She spoke of compassion, of the importance of finding that one person who could “be all” to her heroines. She had lived so long alone, well understand the value and promise of romance and how true love sustains those of us who recognize its power and are willing to work hard to keep it alive. And she exhorted us to understand our fellow man and showing sensitivity to his difficulties: “More helpful,” she wrote in The Mill on the Floss, “than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.” “Fellow-feeling” was one of her treasured experessions.
To honor her birthday, I offer a few more quotes from the writings of this great lady so that you will may celebrate her life with nuggets of her wisdom. Then, as Glenn Reynolds might say, go read the “whole thing” — her collected works! Happy Birthday, Mary Ann Evans, George Eliot. And thank you, thank you for the compassionate, the insightful, the profound, the wise work you left behind.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
The quotations are all below: [Read more…]

Reports Suggest Zarqawi May Be Dead

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OpenSourceMedia has a compilation of the reports coming in this afternoon of a fierce battle in Mosul today where eight al-Qaeda members blew themselves up rather than be caputured by US and Iraqi force.
Is Zarqawi dead? – OpenSourceMedia
I’m reluctant to get too excited yet. But this news sounds promising.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Is 2006 Hollywood’s Turning Point?

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(CLICK ON PHOTO FOR LINK TO TRAILER)

After watching this powerful and, frankly emotional, trailer for “Superman Returns“, (h/t – Malcontent) it made me think of Dan’s posting a few months ago.
A Screenwriter’s Solution to Hollywood’s Slump – GayPatriotWest
Dan highlighted a column by his screenwriter friend Craig Titley about Hollywood’s slump and the need to get back to more traditional, pro-American movies. From Craig’s piece about 1985’s successful movies:

[T]hese films were optimistic in a time of fear, and they didn’t endlessly bag on their own country or send a negative message to the world implying that America is full of corrupt, greedy, selfish, dishonest, Capitalist pigs and that the Russians have every right to hate us and nuke us. On the contrary, these films wore the flag proudly, celebrated American valor and the American spirit, and used the real world villains as the reel world villains.

There has never been a film screen character that epitomizes American values more than Christopher Reeve’s “Superman.” Based on what I’ve seen in this trailer, Brandon Routh (a Midwestern boy like Clark Kent himself) has channeled Reeve in a way that is nearly mindboggling. I hope “Superman Returns” lives up to this trailer and helps Hollywood rediscover the America it is a part of.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

We Must Leave The War Zone Immediately!!!

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If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraqi theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000.
The rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation’s Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.
Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C. !!!
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UN CONFIRMS SADDAM SMUGGLED WMD OUT OF IRAQ IN 2003

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[Ed. note – Thanks to “SonicFrog” for the link to the actual UN report in the comments, and for pointing out to me that this story is over a year old. I missed the date when I first posted it because I wrongly assumed that this was new news. After all, this is so important in debunking the myth that there were no WMD in Iraq, that I was naive to think that we would have heard about this from the NYTCNNABCNBC before now.]
Well, no kidding. Anyone with a brain knows this since everyone from Madeleine Albright to Bill Clinton to Kofi Annan to Jacques Chirac were convinced that Saddam had WMD.
But now… at last… the UN agency tasked with finding and dismantling Saddam’s weapons has come to the conclusion that I assumed years ago. Saddam dismantled his WMD stockpile and smuggled them out of his country before the invasion.
UN Confirms: WMDs Smuggled Out of Iraq – The Vanguard

Late last week, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) briefed the Security Council on Saddam’s lightning-fast dismantling of missile and WMD sites before and during the war. UNMOVIC executive chairman Demetrius Perricos detailed not only the export of thousands of tons of missile components, nuclear reactor vessels and fermenters for chemical and biological warheads, but also the discovery of many (but not most) of these items – with UN inspection tags still on them — as far afield as Jordan, Turkey and even Holland.
Notably absent from that list is Iraq’s western neighbor Syria, ruled by its own Baath Party just like Saddam’s and closed to even the thought of an UNMOVIC inspection. Israeli intelligence has been reporting the large-scale smuggling of Saddam’s WMD program across the Syrian border since at least two months before the war. Syria has long been the world’s foremost state-sponsor of terrorism.

Shouldn’t this be the lead on NBC Nightly News tonight? THIS is why OpenSourceMedia was formed!
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Philly Inquirer In Free Fall… Awwww

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Sorry if I don’t weep at what looks like another slow bleed for another pillar of the Mainstream Media.

We said goodbye to more than 70 Inquirer journalists today. This time we were spared the speeches from the departing about how everything will be all right.
Those who left got a buffet, heart-felt hugs and bracing applause. We sent them off with framed copies of the newspapers from the day they were hired – black and white sheets with names like Rizzo and Longstreth on them. All now gone.
< ....>
Publisher Joe Natoli and editor Amanda Bennett said how they’d hoped this day would never come, a day when 15 percent of the newsroom was paid to walk away early.
< ....>
“Don’t let corporate raiders liquidate the fourth estate,” John McManus headlined his letter. The only force that can stand up to Wall Street is that of Main Street, McManus wrote. The communities should threaten a boycott if new management or ownership sheds jobs or lowers pay to meet investors’ demands, he suggested. Higher returns would inevitably come at the expense of investigative reporting and independence from advertisers.

Boo hoo. Perhaps if they didn’t editorialize with every “news item” they write, their circulation wouldn’t be plummetting.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

US HOUSE VOTES 403-3 TO KEEP FREEDOM ALIVE IN IRAQ

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US Armed Forces on the ground in Iraq were given a strong bi-partisan show of support late Friday evening when the United States House of Representatives.
By a vote of 403-3, the House voted overwhelmingly to reject a resolution calling on the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. (Link to roll call of vote) Republican leaders agreed to the quick vote after world headlines, including this one posted on al-Jazeera, touted a proposal offered yesterday by leading Democrat Jack Murtha to bring the troops home immediately.
Democrats turned their backs 180-degrees after months of party-sanctioned sniping and name-calling of the Commander-in-Chief and joined Republicans in this show of support for the brave men and women defending the fledgling democracy in Iraq. It was a stunning turnaround for Democrats.
Left wing lunatics were immediately confused as shown by this comment from Americablog.com:

Why did all the Dems vote against withdrawal?
Hornet | 11.18.05 – 11:30 pm


Voting for immediate withdrawal were three lone Democrats:
Cynthia McKinney – (D-GA)
Robert Wexler – (D-FL)
Jose Serrano – (D-NY)
Not having the brass tacks to take any side at all and voting “Present” were six lone Democrats:
Michael Capuano – (D-MA)
Jim McDermott – (D-WA), who despite voting “Present” gave a one-minute speech after the vote about withdrawing troops from “Iran”
Maurice Hinchey – (D-NY)
Wm. Lacy Clay – (D-MO)
Jerrold Nadler – (D-NY)
Major Owens – (D-NY)
The debate was fantastic and long overdue. The Democrats whined and complained about being attacked, while the Republicans voiced support for the troops and winning the global war on terror. That says volumes.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

C-SPAN Caller: Democrats Act Like French People!

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Just nearly fell off my chair as a woman from Sarasota, Florida called into C-SPAN to express her support of our troops and the mission of democracy in the Middle East.
“If the Democrats want to act like French people, that’s their problem. But we are Americans.”
An observation: it is obvious which C-SPAN callers are reading their LibDemSur-moonbat-faxed talking points and those who truly have their own sincere independent thoughts.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

BBC: Mideast Embracing Democracy

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There is a wide range of democratisation across the Middle East, a survey by a leading research and advisory firm has found.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked 20 countries on 15 indicators of political and civil liberty.
The Index of Political Freedom lists Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories as the most democratic parts of the region.

Why did I bold the three nations of Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine? Their earthquake moves toward democracy are as the direct result of the Bush Doctrine.
Take that, “Democrat” Party of America!
(Hat tip: Betsy Newmark @ Michelle Malkin)
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Double Standard Democrats

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Hey America… it’s okay that I come to the floor every day for five years and call the President and Commander-In-Chief a liar, a draft dodger, a cocaine addict, an election stealer, a corrupt man, incompetent yet Hitleresque….
But…. *sniff, sniff*…..Don’t you dare say mean things about my friend Jack Murtha!!!!!!!!!!!!

That would be soooo unfair and I’m gonna cry.
PS — America is evil and I hate handguns and puppies.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
10PM Update – Because of the multiple procedural votes before the actual vote on the Iraq withdrawal resolution, it will allow the Democrats to be able to say that they voted FOR surrender before they voted AGAINST it.

US House to Vote on Iraq Withdrawal Tonight

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(hat tip: GayOrbit)
House GOP Seeks Quick Vote On Iraq Pullout – AP

House Republicans, seeing an opportunity, maneuvered for a quick vote and swift rejection Friday of a Democratic lawmaker’s call for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. “We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. “We will not retreat.” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California had no immediate reaction to the idea of a quick vote before Congress leaves Washington for two weeks.
GOP leaders decided to act little more than 24 hours after Rep. John Murtha, a hawkish Democrat with close ties to the military, said the time had come to pull out the troops. By forcing the issue to a vote, Republicans placed many Democrats in a politically unappealing position — whether to side with Murtha and expose themselves to attacks from the White House and congressional Republicans, or whether to oppose him and risk angering the voters that polls show want an end to the conflict.
Murtha offered a resolution that would force the president to withdraw the nearly 160,000 troops in Iraq “at the earliest practicable date.” It would establish a quick-reaction force and a nearby presence of Marines in the region.
House Republicans planned to put to a vote — and reject — their own resolution that simply says: “It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.” Most Republicans oppose Murtha’s plan, and some Democrats also have been reluctant to back his position.

As Don at GayOrbit says to Democrats…. sometimes you get what you ask for.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha. The Party of Surrender gets to have its Members go on the record in support of its defeatist platform.
You can rest assured I will print all of the “YES” votes right here later on tonight.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

College Professor Urges Soldiers to Shoot Their Officers… For Freedom

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I heard about this on Sean Hannity’s radio program yesterday and it sickened my stomach.

Warren Community College English professor, John Daly, said that “Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors.” Rebecca Beach, a freshman at Warren Community College in Washington, New Jersey, received this unexpected reply to a recent email she sent the faculty at her school announcing the appearance of decorated Iraq war hero, Lt. Col. Scott Rutter, on Thursday, November 17 to discuss America’s accomplishments in Iraq.

Full text of email from Warren Community College Professor John Daly:

November 13, 2005
Dear Rebecca:
I am asking my students to boycott your event. I am also going to ask others to boycott it. Your literature and signs in the entrance lobby look like fascist propaganda and is extremely offensive. Your main poster “Communism killed 100,000,000” is not only untrue, but ignores the fact that CAPITALISM has killed many more and the evidence for that can be seen in the daily news papers.
The U.S. government can fly to dominate the people of Iraq in 12 hours, yet it took them five days to assist the people devastated by huricane Katrina. Racism and profits were key to their priorities. Exxon, by the way, made $9 Billion in profits this last quarter–their highest proft margin ever. Thanks to the students of WCCC and other poor and working class people who are recruited to fight and die for EXXON and other corporations who earning megaprofits from their imperialist plunders.
If you want to count the number of deaths based on political systems, you can begin with the more than a million children who have died in Iraq from U.S.-imposed sanctions and war. Or the million African American people who died from lack of access to healthcare in the US over the last 10 years.
I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won’t dare show their face on a college campus. Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people’s needs–such freedom fighters can be counted throughout American history and they certainly will be counted again.
Prof. John Daly

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I am a proud contributor to the Young America’s Foundation (the group that keeps the Ronald Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara going) and am glad to see this young, brave American woman speaking out. Sounds like Prof. Daly and Matt (American democracy is “immoral”) Foreman would get along well in their socialist utopia.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Log Cabin Must Recapture Its Republican Roots

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Almost since this blog’s inception, we have found ourselves at odd with Log Cabin. One of us (Dan), a founding president of one Log Cabin club and former vice president of another, first discovered the blog when he read a link to the other’s (Bruce) post telling Log Cabin to “stick it” for refusing to endorse the president in last fall’s election.
While we have largely been critical of the organization, questioning whether they are really Republicans, we have also praised them on occasion. We were also the blog which broke the story of Chris Barron’s involvement in John Edwards’ campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. His departure from Log Cabin offers LCR’s Executive Director Patrick Guerriero an oportunity to prove his commitment to the GOP. A commitment which many Republicans have questioned.
While we both have frequently disagreed with Chris, each of us has had met him and found him to be a bright man, a decent fellow and all-around nice guy. We wish him well in his future endeavors.
Given that an overwhelmingly majority (at least 90%) of gay Republicans voted to reelect President Bush last fall (even as many of us disagreed with his support of the Federal Marriage Amendment), Log Cabin must hire as its new political director someone who openly supported President Bush last fall. Even after the election, Patrick refused to say who he voted for, leaving some to wonder if he, like some fair-weather gay Republicans eager for media attention, voted for John Kerry.
In order to overcome the doubts of many gay Republicans, including your humble bloggers, Log Cabin needs to appoint a political director with strong and unimpeachable Republican credentials. And one who is as willing to defend conservative principles and our Republican president in gay circles as he is to promote gay issues in conservative and Republican ones.
We feel so strongly about this that this is the first “joint” posting we have ever done. We are watching, Patrick. The time is overdue that you put “Republican” planks back into the Log Cabin many of us helped build.
– GayPatriot (Bruce) and GayPatriotWest (Dan)

The Lies Of A Gay Cowboy

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So Dan and I have had repeated conversations over the past year expressing our wonderment and the anti-GayPatriot commenters who, while loathing and despising every punctutation mark written here, nonetheless seem to troll on the site and attack at a moment’s notice of a new posting or friendly commenter.
One of the most amusing and angry of our commenters is “GayCowboyBob” who seems to gain his oxygen from doing nothing but badmouthing the hosts of this blog and everyone else in the world that thinks the sky is blue. His attacks of late have been more frequent and more “loud” than ever. Which makes his own words, on his own blog even more interesting…. especially since the last posting was September 20th.
Here’s the entire text from the existing posting on The Gay GOP Roundup – 9/20/05:

Gay Patriot – Big, Fat Partisan Blowhards
So as you can see I haven’t been blogging much of late. Traveling, busy schedule etc. have all been getting in the way.
But for the time being, until I decide to start posting more regularly, I need to post one more entry.
It is that the site GayPatriot has become so over-the-top partisan that I feel any further dialogue on my part simply wastes my time.

(GP Editorial Comment – Really? Well that was over two months ago…and yet here you still are. I guess you must be a liberal, because you can’t keep your own promises…. in your own words.)

Dan and Bruce, the main correspondents, simply post now for exposure. They select issues designed to affect maximum controversy allowing them to spin conservative rhetoric. There is no effort to critically assess current issues. There is no effort to critically assess Republican actions in government. It has simply become a sounding board for the far right perspective with little or no insight or thoughtfulness rather being an outlet for hyperbolic rhetoric.

(GP – Is there a mirror in the house?)

Therefore, I have again withdrawn myself from their debate.

(GP – And unfortunately, all of us here know that is a lie.)

The perspectives of less-than-party advocates simply drives the controversy, furthering their end of more exposure for the site a la Coulter, Malkin, Fox News. Dan and Bruce are now drawn, accidentally or deliberately, into the ratings game. They’ve gotten a little taste of the power of celebrity and feel the bloodlust. Look for them to write a book along the lines of “Dumb Liberals, Smart Conservatives” soon.

(GP – No need, the words of a Lying Cowboy prove that.)

I hope that others will also see them for their Righter-than-Right perspective and stop pandering to their baiting. The majority Centrists of the country do themselves a disservice and an injustice by giving people of Dan and Bruce’s ilk fuel to their fire.
We have given far right AND far left factions much too much power in espousing their beliefs. They have overtaken and corrupted the national debate and are the powers that cause, not resolve, the majority of problems. We do ourselves a disservice by pandering to this radical angst. It’s all too easy to be sucked into the controversy and therefore we must try even harder to eschew radical elements and promote centrist.

(GP – If someone can email me ONE “centrist” position that the Lying Cowboy has put forth… please do. He’s really into the full revisionist history spin at this point in the post, huh?)

I hope any of you reading this will join me in taking sites like GayPatriot, Coulter, Malkin, Noonan, off your usual reading.

(GP – Well, we know again that he is a true liberal. “Do as I say, not as I do.”)

Without exposure, they have no power. They will try to keep that exposure by becoming even more vitriolic and radical but it’s up to the regular guy to stop it. It’s time the real silent majority of the United States, you and your neighbors, say to all these talking head “no, we do accept you skewing the debate. You ARE the radical faction and you do not represent me.”

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Regular guy, eh Cowboy? Well, exactly who are you? Dan and I have fully disclosed who we are. So now it is the Lying Cowboy’s turn.
If anyone is to truly believe anything he says anymore (either in his comments here or on his own apparently-defunct blog), don’t we deserve to know who he is and what his agenda is? After all, he likes to dominate this blog so much, he must be well-educated in all of the important issues of the day.
Tick, tick, tick, tick….
-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Bad Week For Bush Haters

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The Special Prosecutor’s entire investigation into who allegedly leaked Valerie Plame’s allegedly covert status has “sand thrown in its eyes” by one of the liberal media’s darlings. (Woodward Was Told Of Plame More Than Two Years Ago – WaPo.)
The 9/11 Commission is shown to be the fraud that it always was.
Maybe next week, some Democrats will actually put forward a plan to win the global war on terror? But don’t hold your breath.
After all it is has been 1,528 days since our nation was attacked by al-Qaeda (for the umpteenth time since 1992) on September 11th.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)