Catholic Church threatens to stop helping the poor if gay people are allowed to marry
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to pull out of contracts it has with the District to provide various social service programs for the city’s needy if a proposed gay marriage law goes into effect next month. Churches would not be forced to conduct gay marriages. They, along with every other business or organization in the District, simply would not be allowed to discriminate against gay or lesbian people because they were gay or lesbian people.
I hate to point out the obvious, but Jesus wouldn’t discriminate anyone. Though he never spoke about gay people, Jesus was all about extending love and kindness to the people everyone else looked down upon. Is there a group of people more looked down upon today than gays and lesbians?
Jesus ministered to everyone, but he made a point of especially ministering to those that everyone else despised and rejected. If the Catholic Church is correct and gays and lesbians are sinners for being gay or lesbian, then these are just the people they should be ministering to. Jesus would not discriminate against gay or lesbian people.
Jesus wouldn’t withhold love or kindness from someone because the local government enacted a policy he didn’t agree with. Jesus cured lepers and healed the sick even though I’m sure he didn’t agree with everything the Roman Empire did. To think otherwise is just silly.
When Jesus said to go out and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and to comfort those in distress, he didn’t preface it first by saying to only do these things if the local government passed laws you agree with.
Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum [Washington Post]
The state of Virgina is fixin to kill Muhammad
Tonight at 9 p.m the state of Virgina will be executing John Allen Muhammad, one of the so-called beltway snipers.
Back in 2002, Muhammad and his young ward, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized people in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Virgina. People were afraid to cut their grass, pump gas, or go shopping. Before they were done, they had killed 10 people and wounded 3 others.
The three weeks they were driving around and shooting people from the trunk of their car was a colossal bucket of suck for everyone. They were caught sleeping in their car at a rest stop here in Maryland on Interstate 70, about halfway between Frederick and Hagerstown.
The reason Muhammad is now in Virgina and not Maryland is because the Bush administration had him transfered to Virginia so that he could be tried there first. The reason? Because the prosecutor in Virginia was a Republican who had aspirations for higher office.
The prosecutor in Maryland was a Democrat.
I’m generally against the death penalty, not because I care about people like John Allen Muhammad. I don’t. I just don’t see how it solves anything. When Muhammad shuts his eyes for the last time tonight, the people he killed will still be dead. I also have a problem with how the death penalty is given to some, but not others.
It seems far too arbitrary.
With that said, I’m glad Muhammad is getting his ticket punched tonight. If we are going to have the death penalty in this country, why not him? I can think of no better person than John Allen Muhammad to get strapped down on a gurney and a toxic cocktail pumped through his veins.
I hope this man has good health insurance
Republican Teabaggers held a protest yesterday on the steps of the Capitol in Washington D.C. to protest against government run health care and/or health care reform. Unfortunately, one of the people at the protest collapsed. Luckily for him, paramedics from the Office of the Attending Physician, the organization responsible for the medical welfare of the members of the House, members of the Senate, and members of the Supreme Court, were on the scene and were able to quickly provide assistance to this man.
As this photo shows, they gave him oxygen and started an I.V. They later removed him from the scene via a stretcher, presumably to take him to a hospital.
For this man’s sake, I hope the Office of the Attending Physician is in his health insurance plan. Otherwise, his out-of-pocket expenses are going to be ginormous. I don’t even want to think about the added surcharge someone has to pay for paramedics wearing a jacket and tie.
Also, I hope that he had the foresight to call his health insurance company before he collapsed to get pre-authorization for the collapse. As we all know, failure to do so can be grounds for your insurance company to deny the claim.
The man doesn’t appear to be old enough to qualify for Medicare, the popular and very successful government run health insurance plan for our nation’s seniors and disabled. That’s too bad because if he was on Medicare, he wouldn’t have to worry about his claim being denied because of a preexisting condition or because he was treated by health care professionals outside his insurance plan’s network.
If he was on Medicare, he’d only have to worry about getting well.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla of Getty Images
Teabaggers are confusing
People associated with the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) crowd held a rally yesterday morning in Washington D.C. to protest against health care reform and people were seen passing out these printed signs that referred to the recent passing of Senator Ted Kennedy.
Why do these people hate President Barack Obama so much? I just don’t get it. Is it because he raised their taxes? Unless they earn more than $250,000 a year, Obama actually lowered their taxes. In fact, nobody, even the richest of the rich, have not had their taxes raised under President Obama.
I just don’t understand these people. One minute they whine and cry about the Federal government being incapable of doing anything well, the next they are waiving the flag and demanding that everyone join them in singing God Bless America.
It gets confusing.
D.C. metro death toll reaches 9
The number of dead is now up to nine people in the crash between two metro trains on the Red line near the Washington D.C./Maryland border. The number of injured is at 70. The crash happened in north-east Washington D.C. between Fort Totten and Takoma. Evidently one train was sitting still on the track waiting for another train to clear the station up ahead (Fort Totten) when another train plowed into it from behind. Fort Totten serves as a stop for both the Red line and the Green line (map).
The impact was so bad that the trailing train jumped the track and landed on top the other train.
The death toll includes the operator of the trailing train, Jeanice McMillan of Springfield, Virginia.
The accident happened near 5:00 p.m., the height of rush hour in the Washington D.C. area. I can only imagine the trains were packed with commuters when the accident happened. Considering how many people were on both trains, along with the force of the impact, it’s a miracle the death toll isn’t much higher.
Real football coming to Baltimore
Two of the world’s top football teams, Chelsea of the English Premier League (EPL), and A.C. Milan, from Italy’s top division, are coming to Maryland to play on exhibition in Baltimore on July 24.
I can’t begin to describe just how excited I am about this. I ordered tickets from Ticketmaster as soon as I read about it. I went ahead and purchased two of the fancy $175 VIP tickets. It allowed us to get two seats five rows up from the field along with access to the pre-game party tent before the game. It also allows us to watch both teams practice the day prior to the game. I’m not sure if we will be making the practice or not. I bought the VIP tickets because I wanted us to get the very best seats possible. When will we ever be able to see Chelsea and A.C. Milan play again? Probably never.
Chelsea is one of the teams in the EPL that I love to hate. They are owned by a Russian mobster and other than German midfielder Michael Ballack, I pretty much despise every player on Chelsea. A.C. Milan has Brazilian superstar Kaká, probably the world’s greatest football player.
We went to Washington D.C. to watch the U.S. National team defeat the Cuban National team in a qualifier for the 2010 World Cup. It was an awful game played in a run down, awful stadium. Many of the Cuban players had defected before the game. Some of the fans in attendance were making asses of themselves by throwing their expensive, watery stadium beers into the air and lighting smokes bombs every time the U.S. team scored.
Hopefully none of that crap will be going on in Baltimore.
Where’s Earl Douglas?
Towards the end of Friday’s Ron and Fez Show on Sirius/XM radio, executive producer Earl Douglas announced that he was stepping down from his position on the show and would be perusing other opportunities. Whatever that means.
I assumed while listening to it that it was just a radio bit. Who in their right mind voluntarily leaves a job in radio at a time when jobs in radio are hard to get? The radio industry is not what you would call a growth industry.
When I listened to Ron and Fez yesterday, it was clear that Earl wasn’t there. Ron mentioned Earl’s absence through out the day. He seemed just as surprised by Earl’s Friday announcement as were the listeners.
I’m hoping that it’s just a bit. My hope is that he wasn’t there yesterday because he decided to travel down from New York to Washington D.C. to witness the Obama inauguration.
I think I would rather watch soccer on TV
Last night Sheri and I went to RFK stadium and watched the U.S. national soccer team trounce the Cuban national team. The final score was 6-1. The score is misleading in that the game was not nearly as close as a 6-1 score might reflect.
It was a drumming. The Cubans weren’t very good. Two of the players evidently defected before the game and were nowhere to be seen.
You know what else took a drumming? My wallet. We paid $50 each for our tickets up in section 446. That doesn’t include the $18.20 “convenience charge” Ticketmaster charged me for buying two tickets. It also doesn’t include the $4 processing charge or the $4.75 they charged me for the convenience of printing the tickets with my own printer using my own ink. We also had to pay $15 to park in a poorly maintained, unlit parking lot next to the stadium.
The stadium had a massive amount of empty seats. The announced attendance was 20,293. If there were that many people there, many of them must have been dressed up as faded burgundy and gold plastic seats covered with bird droppings. Maybe if they charged a lot less for the tickets, more people would have attended. Maybe.
The spectators sitting in the lower level did their best to make up for all of the empty seats. They beat drums. They blew whistles. They wore American flags as capes. They screamed and yelled and tried their best to draw attention to themselves. Mostly, they were just annoying. I’d like to think that most people were at the game last night to watch world-class soccer, not to see a bunch of basement living dorks pretending to be soccer hooligans.
You know what’s dumber then spending $8 on a Bud Light? Throwing that $8 Bud Light high up in the air, covering you and your fellow spectators in beer every time the U.S. team scores. There were some in the lower section doing that.
For some unknown reason, some in the lower section would also light smoke bombs after the U.S. team would score. Smoke bombs? I don’t know a lot about smoke bombs. I do know they stink. This made me wonder why they even bothered searching people’s bags when entering the stadium if some are allowed to bring in smoke bombs.
I think I’d rather just watch soccer on TV. It’s cheaper, nobody is setting off smoke bombs, and nobody is throwing beer in the air. In my home, beer is for drinking, not for liquid confetti.
The U.S. takes on Cuba tonight in World Cup qualifying play
Sheri and I are heading down to Washington D.C. to watch the U.S. men’s national team take on Cuba in a 2010 World Cup qualifier match. The U.S. team has been good so far in the first round of qualifying games. Cuba on the other hand, not so much. The U.S. sits atop the CONCACAF’s Group 1 with three wins in three games. The Cuba national team has failed to score a point. Cuba’s best player, forward Roberto Linares, was red carded in his last game and subsequently will be suspended for tonight’s match.
This will be the first soccer (football) game either one of us has ever attended. The more I watch the English Premiere League on Fox Soccer Channel, the less I am able to watch the NFL. American football (throwball) is just too boring. An NFL game consists of four 15-minute quarters and because of the never ending time outs and commercial breaks, it takes nearly four hours to get through.
A real football game (soccer) consists of two 45-minute halves and it takes around two hours.
There are no commercials during play. There are no times out. Commercials are shown during the 15-minute break between halves.
The game will be shown live tonight at 7:00 p.m. on ESPN Classic. Look for me on the TV. I’ll be the guy in the stands dressed up like Uncle Sam holding a sign stating that Fidel Castro’s parents were brother and sister.
Didn’t something happen on this day in history?
I almost forgot all about the terrorist attacks 9-11, but then I got stuck driving behind a rusty pick-up truck with a bumper sticker on the back that told me to never forget what happened on September 11, 2001. So I wont.
Of course I am being facetious. You would have to be a complete retard to ever forget about the attacks on 9-11. Like most Americans living on the east coast, I remember that day only too well. I was working second shift back then. I’d get home from work around 1:00 a.m. and would normally sleep in till 9:00 a.m. I remember waking up that morning and checking my email to find three frantic messages from my mother back in California. She wrote about trying to call me and not getting through and how she just saw on the news that Washington D.C. was being attacked too.
Huh?
I immediately woke up Sheri. She too was working second shift. I didn’t know yet what exactly was going on, but I wanted both of us to find out together.
If you had told me then that we would quickly ascertain who was responsible for the attacks and instead of capturing or killing the individual responsible, we would focus all of our resources on invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks, I would have told you that you were smoking crack.
It’s been seven years and Osama bin Laden is still at large. Who would have thought that?
It’s about friggin time
All is now well in the universe. Art Monk was finally inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio yesterday. There’s a lot in life I just simply don’t understand. How it took Art Monk this long to be inducted into Canton is a mystery.
If I was in any way connected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I’d be embarrassed that it took eight tries for Art Monk to make it in. Eight tries.
Even though he played primarily on run happy Washington Redskins Joe Gibbs offenses, he was still able to put together some impressive career statistics. He comes in at 7th on the all-time reception list with 940 catches and 12th on the all-time receiving yards with 12,721 yards.
The man simply played the game the way it ought to be played. He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t do anything to draw unnecessary attention to himself. The reason you don’t remember what any of his touchdown dances looked like is because he didn’t do any. He just made plays.
Imagine that.
Robert Novak hits a man in a crosswalk
It looks like conservative commentator Robert Novak has one more nugget to add to his legacy. First he was the guy known for dropping the S-bomb on CNN and storming off the set. He then outed a covert CIA agent and ignited a big mess resulting in the prosecution, conviction, and subsequent Presidential commutation of a prison sentence of a man named “Scooter”. Now he has struck a man in a crosswalk with his car in downtown Washington D.C.
Novak, who is 77-years “young”, claims that he didn’t know he had struck a pedestrian in a crosswalk. After hitting the man, Novak continued driving. He had to be chased down by another man, David Bono, on a bicycle who had witnessed the accident.
Bono dismisses the claim from Novak that he didn’t know he had struck a pedestrian. Bona told a reporter from WJLA TV that the vicim was “splayed on his windshield” and would have been impossible to miss.
Novak was slapped with a $50 ticket and allowed to go on his way. That’s more then he got when he leaked the name of a covert CIA agent.
The Supreme Court says it is OK to defend yourself with a handgun
The Supreme Court has struck down the Washington D.C ban on owning a handgun. I can’t imagine why anyone would feel the need to defend themselves with a handgun within the confines of our Nation’s capital.
It’s such a safe place to be, especially late at night.
I of course am being extremely sarcastic. I once took a wrong turn when I left and Washington D.C. Ronald Reagan National airport. I thought I had somehow crossed some kind of temporal wormhole and had come out in a post-apocalyptic alternate Earth. I had to fight off the urge to cry like a little girl until I got back on the George Washington parkway.
It’s not a happy memory.
Personally, I think this is a good decision. The people who shouldn’t own a handgun probably already have one. This merely allows law abiding people to own a gun if they feel the need.
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