Ten Percent always has been an important blog, but the current postings on Burma have taken it to a new level. By gathering information by a variety of international activist and media sources, this blog is giving readers far better coverage of what is going on than any corporate media outlet here in the US.

See for Yourself.

The Human Rights Campaign has put itself in a terrible position by previously inviting Nancy Pelosi to its 2007 National Dinner. In a previous post, I outlined Pelosi's heterosexist history and how she is trying to divide and conquer the queer community by kicking trans people out of ENDA.

It would shameful for the HRC to allow Pelosi to appear at any of their events under these circumstances. We need to unite as a community against homophobic bigots like Pelosi rather than allow her to turn us against each other.

Contact the HRC!

Heterosexist House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a contact page in her capacity as House Speaker. You can go there and let her know that your are outraged by her effort to divide and weaken us queers politically by kicking trans people out of ENDA.

Contact That Bigot Now!

If you live in Barney Frank's district, you should let him know you are angry at him for selling ALL of us out.

Having lived in the Bay Area when Nancy Pelosi originally ran for her House seat, I have unpleasant memories of how she gay-baited the initial frontrunner, openly gay Supervisor Harry Britt. The homophobic campaign tactics occurred when the queer community in San Francisco was most devastated by the impact of AIDS, and it got Pelosi into Congress.

Since then, that vicious bigot has pretended to support the lgbt community in public while doing absolutely nothing of substance for us. She has used her power as a major Democratic Party fundraiser to intimidate queer politicians into silence.

I was filled with dread when I heard that Pelosi was going to be the next House Speaker. I was hoping, irrationally, that she would be less hateful and bigoted against queers as House Speaker than she had been in the past.

My hopes were in vain.

Pelosi has engineered a scheme to divide queers and make it more difficult to get ENDA through a conference committee. She has maneuvered to eliminate the transgender community from ENDA.

Pelosi knew that all credible and honorable queer organizations have insisted that our trans sisters and brothers be included in ENDA. Pelosi knew that if she got trans inclusion removed from ENDA, it would pit trans queers against other queers. It also would pit partisan hacks against queers with integrity.

Worst of all, she did this knowing that Bush would veto ENDA in any form. This was gratuitous sabotage against our civil rights movement.

Pelosi's ultimate goals are:

• to keep the queer community too divided to fight for our rights if Democrats get the White House and keep Congress


• to keep the queer community in San Francisco so weak politically that they can't fight back against her and her homophobia. After all, they have all the power they need to get that bigot out of Congress if they work together.

We need to unite as a community against bigots like Nancy Pelosi.

I would like to say thanks for the kind words at Some Notes on Living. More importantly, the actual blog posting brings up a very important point about "connecting dots."

Many of us liberals and progressives can get so caught up in vital, individual issues that our analysis fails to include how the issues are connected. For instance, many on the left can get so justifiably upset about what is going on in Burma that they forget to follow the money trail.

The blog also has an excellent post about a dot connector whose fame is growing, Naomi Klein. Her book, The Shock Doctrine, Rise of Disaster Capitalism, connects a lot of seemingly unrelated events and entities to show how the far right has exploited natural and human created disasters in order to ram unpopular and unwise policies down the throats of people worldwide.

In a previous posting here, I mentioned an excellent example of dot connecting by Dennis Kucinich at the YouTube/CNN Democratic Presidential Debate.

Well, we have to understand the connection between global warring and global warming. Because when we start talking about wars for oil, we're essentially keeping the same approach to energy.

Since Kucinich's statement, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now has been asking a lot of questions about the connections between "global warring and global warming." Goodman has an excellent grasp of which ideas in our society are the most significant and how to confront people on all sides of issues with their implications.

The Burma Campaign UK has an extensive list of corporations supporting the brutal military dictatorship in Burma.

Here are some of the more familiar names to those of us who live here in the US.

Chevron
Daewoo International Corporation
Fodor's/Random House
Lonely Planet
Siemens
Suzuki

There was an excellent article on TomPaine.com, connecting the dots between the Bush regime, Halliburton, Chevron, and the Burmese regime.

Jesus can't save his followers from bad web design.

(It would be an awful lot to ask of a dead guy.)

A thought along the lines of "all fundamentalist web sites suck" may be going through your head. In terms of content, you would be absolutely right. However, I'm talking about a web site whose design is like a tutorial in how not to design for the Web:

www.jesus-is-savior.com

It is listed as one of The Worst Non/Not-for-Profit Web Sites of 2007: January through June by webpagesthatsuck.com. Here are some of the many web design mistakes this goofy fundie makes.

• The background has an irregular variety of dark and light color, making it impossible to get enough contrast for all the text to be easily readable.


• Said background is really ugly.


• Much of the text is too small, making it irritating for some and unreadable for some others.


• The link color and unlinked text colors often are too similar.


• Headings are in a variety of fonts and sizes that confuse and disorient the user rather than communicating about the purposes of the headings.


• There are lots of colors that clash, and the colors are arranged in a way that increases the clashing.


• Some text is double spaced. Some text is single spaced. There is no rhyme or reason to it.


• Some links are underlined, but some are not.


• The site uses too much centered text.


• Centered and left-justified text are used inconsistently.


• There are too many links on a single page. If the content was worth looking at, finding what your are looking for would be very frustrating.


• The page abruptly changes design part way down.


• The page is way too long.


• Animated gifs are thrown in for bad measure.


• A scrolling marquee was added just because it could be added.


• Lots of the graphics are very low in quality. Some are barely readable.

The site's author also made an amusing tactical error in putting a "Say No to Psychiatry" banner link a ways down on the site. It just gives the visitor too many ideas about the author.

Also, it probably wasn't such a good idea to start a paragraph as follows:

The world has become a large insane asylum; people are crazy and confused...

Scott Leland has a silly blog where he spews rightist talking points. His recent headline is quite funny.

More OpenLeft unabashed election manipulation using "Google bombs"

He seems to be more worried about a "Google Bomb" than the thefts of the last two presidential elections by the GOP. The far-right mind has a very selective view of so-called "election manipulation." Gee, what a surprise.

Anyway, the dimwit linked to page on the Open Left site with the "Google Bombs" against my city's corrupt former mayor, Rudolf Giuliani.

One of the links, Firefighters Union Letter On Rudy Giuliani, is quite important and deserves to be the first thing people think of when they think of Rudy Giuliani.

I've added the link to my right-hand column and urge you to add it to your blog. It turns out that an extremist from the right-wing fringe actually proved to be useful for once.

"Outsiders need to stay away."

- Billy Fowler, School Board Member, Jena, Louisiana

This claim about the Jena Six protesters is one I've heard other people in the South saying when criticizing the Jena Six protesters. "Outsiders" as a code word for white supremacists has a long history in the South, and that alone makes it offensive.

However, there is another reason why it is so repugnant. I am an American. That means that I am an insider in every square inch of my country. The same goes for the vast majority of the protesters who are Americans.

The claim that Americans are "outsiders" in our own country is a legacy of a treasonous Confederacy that was created to preserve the heinous institution of slavery. It goes completely against American values.

Billy Fowler should be ashamed of himself.

I went to the WBAI book sale this week. A Pacifica station that gives people access to information and views often taboo in the corporate media, WBAI is one of New York City's greatest treasures.

Their book sale certainly did not disappoint. One of the better finds was the "Regime Change Begins at Home" playing cards. You probably remember the playing cards the Bush regime created with pictures of people Big Oil and war profiteers wanted captured or killed during the early days of the Iraq War. If you followed the alternative media at the time, you should also remember that this aspect of the occupation inspired several parody card sets. The one I bought this week is quite amusing.

The description on the box is stark, apt, and funny.

A set of playing cards to help you identify the profiteers and warmongers who have seized control of America.

Spades: Department of Imperialism
Clubs: Department of Homeland Insecurity
Diamonds: Department of War Profiteering
Hearts: Department of Propaganda

Rumsfeld is the Queen of Spades. Ariel Sharon is the Two of Spades. James A. Baker III (Senior Counselor, the Carlyle Group) gets to be the Nine of Diamonds. Dick Cheney is the Ace of Clubs. Judith Miller gets her place as the Six of Hearts.

The Jokers, Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton, are particularly appropriate. The quote from her spokeperson is chilling.

Senator Clinton fully supports the steps the president has taken to disarm Iraq.

These days, Clinton is criticizing Bush, but she still supports the US occupation of Iraq. She says she wants to continue the war, but with fewer troops (at least when she is talking to the New York Times).

The New Press still offers the cards for sale.

The gun terrorists at the NRA (National Rifle Association) often use the catch-phrase "sport hunting" and no one calls them on this nonsense.

Those of us who have played actual sports know that hunting with guns is too one sided to be honestly called a sport. The animal has no chance of fighting back against a hunter a large distance away.

"Sport hunting" is an oxymoron used by the NRA terrorists to keep guns in the hands of murderers, rapists, muggers, organized crime, and street gangs.

The corporate media should start accurately reporting this fact rather than pander to the interests of the gun manufacturers.