Welcome to the Wednesday edition of your open thread. I’ve been watching the Chilean mine rescue. It’s exciting to see the rescue of the miners who’ve been trapped for 2 months but also to see the interesting technology involved in the rescue. It was American technology that made the difference, the drillers that reached the miners were from an American company and the rescue capsule was designed by NASA.
The Washington Post continues its long slide into irrelevancy by publishing an op-ed by hateful homophobe Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) on National Coming Out Day.
Amid a spate of suicides and bullying — and a mere week and a half after one of the uglier anti-gay hate crimes in New York history — Perkins points the finger:
…homosexual activist groups like GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) are exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals, but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family.
Also, says Perkins, gay activists and the media are the guilty parties:
Some homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal–yet they have been told by the homosexual movement, and their allies in the media and the educational establishment, that they are “born gay” and can never change. This–and not society’s disapproval–may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.
Thank you, Washington Post Company, for bankrolling Tony Perkins’ plea against tolerance.
I’m surprised they didn’t win the asshat of the day award. But there’s so many asshats, so little time.
Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois, Mark Kirk, was caught on tape being a little too specific about his voter suppression fraud efforts:
In a private phone conversation that was secretly recorded, Mark Kirk, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois, told state Republican leaders last week about his plan to send “voter integrity” squads to four predominately African American neighborhoods of Chicago “where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat.”
Kirk’s campaign confirmed the candidate was secretly taped last week as he was talking about his anti-voter fraud effort.
“These are lawyers and other people that will be deployed in key, vulnerable precincts, for example, South and West sides of Chicago, Rockford, Metro East, where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat,” he said in the audio posted on YouTube.
Yeah, funny coincidence how those precincts were predominantly African-American precincts. I’m sure it’s all just a mistake, right?