Video here. I walk the line for you Each and everyday And there's a bullet with my name on it Or at least that's what they say You take me for granted And it's such a cryin' shame Because I would gladly give my life for you Each and everyday It's been a long time coming It took a long ...

For many years, I blogged heavily, mostly trying to build the brand of this group blog. Though I never officially went on hiatus, after the election of 2008, I was so worn out from fighting the terrors the Bush Administration unleashed on our country and Iraq that my blogging became ...

Video here. Said you'd found a way to end it peacefully I remember finding shoes near the lake under a tree And I'm sittin' on the shore I thought I saw your charm float by It doesn't matter now 'Cause all you wanted to do was die If only you'd stuck around I never would have made ...

Video here. While I'm at this funeral You're in New York I've been dividing my grieving You're sleeping with a mutual friend I dreamed that I kissed your mouth And you thought about me Over Christmas Oh, you might know who I am But I know who you are Your heart is in your art And mine's in New York I'm wearing ...

. While taking a short break from writing my graphic novel, I decided to draw this cartoon that I've had kicking around in my head. The marketing of politics and politicians has been one of my recurring themes, and much to my delight, the wonderful Driftglass/Bluegal podcast took the marketing ...

photo: kamper vision via Flickr

So once again, here we are with the bigotry of the Catholic Church on display, this time coming to us from Denver, CO.

A few days ago, I first noticed the stories on how the Archdiocese of Denver had banned a child from re-enrolling at one of their schools because the parents were lesbians. Of course, the Archdiocese is defending the decision:

“The Church does not claim that people with a homosexual orientation are ‘bad,’ or that their children are less loved by God,” wrote Archbishop Charles J. Chaput in an article to be published in Thursday’s edition of the Denver Catholic Register.

It appears to me, that the Archdiocese has taken to heart the admonition from Exodus 20:5-6 :

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

But somehow, it seems the folks at the Archdiocese making this decision missed the admonitions from Jesus in Matthew 19:14:

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Apparently, the Archdiocese (like many of the fundamentalist “Christians” organizations) gives far more credence to the Old Testament rather than the New Testament, even though they all profess their love for Jesus and his teachings.

My question for them is do they really want to take this path? Especially given the concurrent reports over the last couple of weeks about the Vatican Choir? Combined with allegations of physical and sexual abuse in a choir run by the Pope’s brother?

Maybe the Archdiocese and the Roman Catholic Church as a whole should once again be reminded of Jesus’s statement in John 8:7:

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

But then, this is the church that has been active in covering up for pedophile priests across the world for decades, so I think I already have the answer to my questions.

Tags: Bigotry, Catholic Church, Christianity, religious intolerance

 

Ennobling people from outside Parliament to make them ministers should be "exceptional", cross-party MPs say.

Chilean tycoon Sebastian Pinera will be sworn in as president, with a major post-earthquake rebuilding effort ahead of him.

Plans for a new high-speed rail line between London and Birmingham are to be published by the government later.

My last whip count can be found here. Since then, in the absence of language, we’ve had few changes:

• Charlie Melancon, a Blue Dog who is leaving the House for an ill-fated Senate run against David Vitter, is a no on the bill, according to my sources. He has criticized the comprehensive approach as recently as a week ago, and he voted against the House bill previously, so this is no surprise.

• As I mentioned earlier today, Dale Kildee left the Stupak bloc and flipped to yes on the bill.

• Joe Donnelly confirmed himself as a member of the Stupak bloc.

• I’m going to put Solomon Ortiz and Baron Hill in the “undecided” camp. They haven’t made any public statements, but they are being publicly targeted by both sides and are rumored to be part of the Stupak bloc.

Put that all together, and you’re at 191 yes, 195 no. I’ll break down the numbers on the flip. But first, there’s this important update, via Jon Walker.

Senate Republicans have basically signaled that they will not play ball on any attempt to use reconciliation to change the abortion language. That’s the meaning of their letter to Harry Reid, pledging to unite to block any effort to waive a point of order on the Byrd rule:

In that regard, to endeavor to ensure that the reconciliation process is not used to fast-track an unpopular bill through Congress, we wish to inform you that we will oppose efforts to waive the so-called Byrd Rule during Senate consideration of any reconciliation bill concerning health reform. The Byrd Rule, as you know, was created by Senator Byrd to ensure that reconciliation bills were not used to enact policy changes, the primary purpose of which is not specifically related to the federal budget. As it takes 60 votes to waive the Byrd Rule, we can ensure that any provision that trips the Byrd Rule will be stripped from the bill, which will require that the bill be sent back to the House for further consideration and additional votes.

As you may know, the Catholic bishops floated a plan to waive points of order for changes to the abortion language. Senate GOPers are basically proclaiming that strategy dead. And Stupak himself has dismissed the idea a “third bill” after health care is completed, because he would lose all his leverage over the bill at that point.

This does effectively make the Stupak dilemma unsolvable. The language cannot change from the Senate language, essentially, and Stupak won’t go for that. The House will have to go around Stupak, because they can’t go through him. The path to passage just got a lot harder, because Democrats would basically have to retain every non-Stupak bloc Yes vote and pick up around 10-12 former No votes, a herculean task to say the least.

Details on the whip count on the flip. . . .

Definite YES:
191 Democrats.

Definite NO:
177 Republicans.

Definite NO:
18 Democrats.

17 Democrats who voted No in November:
Bobby Bright, Mike McIntyre, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Walt Minnick, Artur Davis, Chet Edwards, Frank Kratovil, Mike Ross, Dan Boren, Gene Taylor, Larry Kissell, Dennis Kucinich, Collin Peterson, Ike Skelton, Jim Marshall, Mike McMahon, Charlie Melancon.

1 Democrat who voted Yes in November:
Mike Arcuri.

21 potential Democratic No-Yes flip votes

14 possible:
Jason Altmire, Bart Gordon, Glenn Nye, Brian Baird, John Tanner, Rick Boucher, Allen Boyd, John Boccieri, Suzanne Kosmas, Betsy Markey, John Adler, Scott Murphy, Lincoln Davis, Jim Matheson.

6 less possible:
Travis Childers, Harry Teague, Heath Shuler (severe lean no), John Barrow, Tim Holden, Ben Chandler.

25 potential Yes-No flip votes:

11 Stupak bloc:
Bart Stupak, Jerry Costello, Charlie Wilson, Kathy Dahlkemper, Joe Donnelly, Joseph Cao (R), Steve Driehaus, Brad Ellsworth, Marion Berry, Marcy Kaptur, Dan Lipinski.

13 other wary Democrats:
Zack Space, Chris Carney, Mike Doyle, Paul Kanjorski, Ann Kirkpatrick, Alan Mollohan, Nick Rahall, Dan Maffei, Bill Owens, John Spratt, Dennis Cardoza, James Oberstar, Baron Hill, Solomon Ortiz.

Tags: abortion, Bart Stupak, budget reconciliation, Democrats, Health care, House of Representatives, Republicans, whip count

 

Mexican Carlos Slim overtakes Bill Gates as the world's richest man, according to the Forbes "rich list", with a fortune of $53.5bn.

A new study from security firm Barracuda Labs provides some interesting insights into the state of the Twitterverse. Unfortunately for the microblogging startup, the stats say that most of its users aren’t very active.

The study looked at around 19 million Twitter accounts (PDF) in order to figure out how people are using Twitter. It started with one assumption: an active or “True” Twitter user has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people, and had tweeted at least 10 times. By that definition though, only 21% of Twitter users are active users.

There’s a great deal of interesting data in the breakdown. Only 26% of Twitter users had 10 followers or more by December 2009, while only 40% were following 10 people or more (in fact, a majority of Twitter users, 51%, were following less than five people).

In terms of tweets, the report estimates that 34% of Twitter users hadn’t tweeted even once, while a whopping 73% of Twitter’s users tweeted less than 10 times. That means nearly all of the tweets on the social network were coming from about 1/4 of the userbase. Power users dominate.

Barracuda Labs also analyzed Twitter’s growth over time, and the numbers are consistent with previous reports that show while Twitter grew like wildfire in early 2009, it has dramatically slowed down in recent months. Going back further to early 2008, the report estimates that the microblogging tool grew by just 0.31%. However, with the quick rise of media coverage and the influx of celebrities such as Oprah and Shaq, Twitter use grew by 20% in April 2009 before dropping off to 0.34% growth in December 2009.

While the news isn’t stellar, it isn’t all bad for Twitter — these metrics are moving in the right direction. A full 79% of users had less than ten tweets in June 2009, but that number dropped to 73% by December. 80% of users had less than 10 followers in June 2009, but that percentage dropped to 74% by December. If that trend continues, you’ll hopefully see a more diverse and active Twitterverse going forward.

[via MediaMemo]

Tags: Barracuda Labs, followers, stats, twitter

'Open carry' activists do weekly shop with a gun

Police failures to tackle anti-social behaviour risk public confidence, says the chief inspector of constabulary.

all ya' need (photo: Bern@t)

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is saying that the Senate has a majority for a public option–in direct contradiction to claims by President Obama. From TPM:

Sanders said he thinks Democrats have 50 votes in the Senate to pass a bill “certainly to include a public option.” It was a bit of good news for progressives, who have turned their attention to using reconciliation in the Senate to bolster a reform bill with the addition of a public option.

Last week, Obama met with House progressives, and blamed demise of the public option on the lack of votes in the Senate. Of course, I don’t know how Obama came to the conclusion the public option could not get fifty votes in the Senate through reconciliation, since every indication is that he never once whipped for it, or even politely asked a single senator to please support the idea. If the public option lacks 50 votes in the Senate, it probably does in no small part to the Obama administration’s constant signals that he did not really care about it and was more than prepared to give it up for fig leaves like triggers and co-ops.

Who is right–Sanders or Obama? The PCCC now has a total of 41 senators on record supporting the public option through reconciliation. Only 9 short of fulfilling a major health care promise Obama made to his supporters throughout the 2008 campaign.

One would hope that, if Democrats use reconciliation, the Democratic leadership will not try to stop a public option amendment when it does come up for an up-or-down vote, so we can know which senators stand with the American people, and which are fighting to protect the private insurance industry.

Tags: Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Health care, majority rule, PCCC, public option, Reconciliation, Senate, TPM, whip count

 

Forbes has released its annual list of the world’s billionaires and when it comes to technology, the list includes many of the same faces we see year after year.

After regaining the throne last year, Bill Gates has once again been displaced as the world’s richest man — this time by Carlos Slim (who held that post back in 2007), but he remains the richest man in tech by a wide margin with an estimated net worth of $53 billion.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who fell off the list last year, has rejoined, tied with 20 others at #212 with an estimated net worth of $4 billion.

Check out how some other tech heavyweights weighed in:

Larry Ellison: $28 Billion

The Oracle founder and CEO is the sixth richest person in the world this year, sitting pretty with $28 billion as his estimated net worth.

Sergey Brin & Larry Page: $17.5 Billion Each

The two Google co-founders both place 24th on the list with $17.5 billion in estimated net worth.

Steve Ballmer: $14.5 Billion

Thanks to a rise in Microsoft’s stock price, Ballmer saw his net worth rise and he sits at #33 on the overall list.

Paul Allen and Michael Dell: $13.5 Billion

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen might appear to spend money like its water, but he’s still ranked at #37 on the list, tied with Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell.

Jeff Bezos: $12.3 Billion

The Amazon founder and CEO is ranked #43 with $12.3 billion in estimated net worth. That’s a lot of eBooks!

Eric Schmidt: $6.3 Billion

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is ranked #117 this year, tied with News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Steve Jobs: $5.5 Billion

Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has watch his company’s stock price soar over the last twelve months. He’s ranked #136 with an estimated $5.5 Billion.

Pierre Omidyar: $5.2 Billion

The eBay founder is ranked #148 on the list.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg: $3 Billion each

While most filmmakers don’t necessarily fall into the category of technology players, I think we can make an exception for the guy who gave us Jaws, E.T. and Minority Report and the guy that gave us Star Wars and Howard The Duck. Both directors are tied at #316.

Jerry Yang: $1.3 Billion

Hey, being ousted wasn’t the worst thing to happen to Yang — Yahoo’s stock was up 26% in the last year, buoying the co-founders net worth along with it.

Reviews: Facebook, Google

Tags: bill gates, billionaires, mark zuckerberg, steve jobs

The UK Fire Service College failed to comply with fire safety laws when part of its own premises burnt down, the BBC learns.

Many lives could be saved if GPs followed guidelines for reducing cholesterol in those at high risk of heart disease, a study suggests.

Twitter has just flipped the switch on geolocation within Twitter.com. Now at least some users can pull up location-based information from individual tweets on the microblogging website.

While attaching locations to tweets has been possible for several months now through third party apps, Twitter.com itself hasn’t done much geolocation until today. It was first noticed yesterday, but the full rollout seems to be happening today.

It’s a simple integration: with any tweet that has a location attached to it (mostly via apps that support it, such as Foursquare and Tweetie), a small location icon will appear at the end of the byline of that tweet. Clicking on it will bring up a Google Map showing the location where that tweet was sent.

Here’s a screenshot:

It’s a simple integration, but it’s important to the future of Twitter. Location has become this year’s big trend, and with Facebook set to launch location features next month, the company can’t afford to be left behind.

What do you think: is this an important market for Twitter to command? What location features should it launch next? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Foursquare, Twitter, tweetie

Tags: geolocation, twitter

Former rebels in DR Congo, now in the army, are running mafia-style extortion rackets in mines, campaigners say.