There is something about living in San Francisco. The weather is great, there is always something to do, the food is awesome (even though the service supremely sucks). I lived in the City for nearly 8 years total and was much happier in the City than out of it. But no more. After Katrina, I made the decision to buy a handgun.

I will never again live in San Francisco because I simply will not suffer being forced by the government to turn in the handgun I am about to buy while the criminals get to keep theirs.

The City of San Francisco can kiss my white, gay, Republican, gun-toting a**. When the “big one” hits and the thugs have taken over the streets, you can bet every one of the 58% that voted to ban handguns in the City will be screaming for someone to come protect them.

They can each personally kiss my white, gay, Republican, gun-toting a** too.

This about covers it – via GOP Vixen

Check the title of this post. Now, notice the following sentence in the post itself:

If you can’t open your home to someone regardless of skin color, I’m sure you can find somewhere else to offer the help you have. It just feels wrong to me.

How odd that someone appealing for help based on sexual orientation would then chastise others for offering help based on skin color.

Isn’t offering people help based on their sexual orientation wrong too?

**UPDATE**

And, of course, Michael reacts by throwing yet another public temper-tantrum because someone DARE call him on his hypocrisy.

His reasoning? Because it may be harder for a gay person/couple to find housing than it would a straight person/couple. True, it very likely is. I don’t deny that and in this day and age, I wish it were not the case.

But here you have someone doing EXACTLY the same thing he is chastising others for. He is offering a service that, instead of advertising as “GAY FRIENDLY” and offering help to ALL that need it, he is offering help to only those people he chooses – gays. Instead of trying to bring straights and gays together on something, he throws yet another wedge in – making a distinction where there should be none.

Isn’t that what you want Michael? For there to be no distinction? That sexual orientation nor race nor gender be a factor in a decision as to whether or not someone receives critical help after a disaster like this? Isn’t that what we all want? That is why you deleted the offers to only help blacks or only help whites, right?

I don’t expect you to respond on the merits of your argument – you never do. I would not be at all surprised that, very soon, there will be a response either on this post or on yours to my comment that hurls lovely accusations that I am not as GAY as you are because I don’t agree with you. I am confident there will be more attacks along the lines of “I guess I should expect nothing less from a Republican trying to prove his creds.” Because, you know, GAY REPUBLICANS aren’t really gay. Right Michael? I am sure my Republican partner will be interested in knowing that.

I don’t know what you think I “owe” to the gay community. The fact we are both gay doesn’t mean I won’t call you on being a hypocrite. I will concede, though, you are way gayer than I am. In fact, it seems to be most of who you are.

I also makes me think what you are really pissed about is that being gay isn’t most of who I am – and you find that offensive.

**UPDATE**

Oh, and one more thing Michael. I have voted for two Republicans in my life. Arnold and GW Bush (2004). Until 9/11, I was a life-long Democrat. I voted for Clinton both times and I voted for Gore in 2000. That is why I find it hysterical and completely meaningless when you pull the “Republican” thing.

**UPDATE**

Her royal-highness has corrected me, title changed accordingly.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has said repeatedly he expects as many as 10,000 died in Katrina and the aftermath. I am hearing only 100 so far in New Orleans. The left can’t keep flogging the “Bush murdered blacks” message without a high body count – something I would not be at all surprised they are hoping for.

VERY rough language warning.

Read more…

Do you notice anything a bit odd about the Peter Jennings obituary page ABCNews.com is running? Anything a bit out of place?

Read more…

Discovery is home and all is well. Now, let’s fix that damned foam and get on with the task of finishing the ISS and getting back to the moon. Mars or bust baby!

Via Power Line, Mark Steyn calls a spade a spade.

When Cromwell instructed his portraitist to paint him ‘warts and all’, he meant both halves of that equation. To teach the warts alone is morbid and unhealthy. That’s why I argued that, in that immediate post-9/11 period, Bush should have expended some of his political capital and spectacular approval ratings in a conscious assault on the most debilitating aspects of our culture. Alas, that’s not his style. So in different ways, at Ground Zero and in Hyde Park, we’ve taken four years to come back to where we were on 10 September 2001.

This is what happened on 9/11. This is what everything associated with Ground Zero represents. 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America has a question for you.

So tell me, at Ground Zero, should we carve in cement and bury in an underground 50,000 square foot museum the names of the nearly 3,000 people that Islamic terrorists murdered that day? Should visitors to the World Trade Center’s memorial be left to wonder what happened that day and where the artifacts of 9/11 are? Above ground, should we build a park with reflecting pools, a cultural center, and a 300,000 square foot International Freedom Center where visitors can hear lectures and discussions on why they all hated us, what we did to bring 9/11 upon ourselves, and the correct world-view future generations must choose so they won’t hate us and attack us anymore? Why not also discuss all of man’s inhumanities to man, especially those by Americans on Americans and all the other people in the world, since time immortal while we are at it in order to promote our own political agenda?

Does this all sound like a good idea to you?

No, it doesn’t. Make your voice heard: Take Back The Memorial.

Richard J. Tofel, President of the International Freedom Center, responds in an op-ed piece in today’s WSJ to Debra Burlingame’s WSJ article The Great Ground Zero Heist.

Mr. Tofel had this to say with regard the space the IFC will be taking up at ground zero.

Then there will be the Memorial Center, a museum devoted to the events of September 11 itself, with exhibit space roughly equal in size to that at the International Freedom Center. The Memorial Center will tell the stories of the day–of heroism and sacrifice, of rescue and service, of courage and resolution, of memory and loss. It is the Memorial Center that will contain the iconic artifacts of September 11.

That is necessary, but not sufficient.

As envisioned in Daniel Libeskind’s master plan for the site’s redevelopment, the International Freedom Center’s building will serve as a buffer between the sacred Memorial and the hustle and bustle of the surrounding city, including the thousands of people who will move each day in and out of Santiago Calatrava’s spectacular new transit hub.

But the International Freedom Center itself will do much more than that. It will serve as a complement to the Memorial, bringing a universal “narrative of hope” to a place where hope is imperative.

“Narrative of Hope?” Ok, I can get on board with that. But here is the basic problem: how is the narrative of hope going to be told? Will visitors be greeted with a “we must understand why they did this to us” exhibit? Will the ACLU get their way and have a platform to lecture everyone on the “evils” of the Patriot Act? These are political points of view and have no place on the hallowed ground where so many people were senselessly murdered.

To be sure, the International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you–and I–will disagree. But that is the point, the proof of our society’s enduring self-confidence and humanity. Moreover, the International Freedom Center will rise above the politics of the moment. It will not exist to precisely define “freedom” or to tell people what to think, but to get them to think–and to act in the service of freedom as they see it. And it will always do so in a manner respectful of the victims of September 11.

All wonderful stuff – somewhere else. If you present the point of view that America was somehow to blame for September 11, which is clearly how some people – myself included – will regard any discussions or exhibits that attempt to “understand” how terrorists could do something so heinous, then it has no place anywhere near ground zero.That is the litmus test in my view.

The bottom line is this. Mr. Tofel says nothing in his piece that describes the types of exhibits that will appear in the IFC. He gives us a lot of flowery language and some really nice quotes from George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, but he is short on facts. He also leaves a lot open to interpretation, which is exactly what I am worried about. Does anyone honestly believe that, with that much room, George Soros and the ACLU are not going to thrust their political views on those that visit the IFC, under the guise of getting “get them to think–and to act in the service of freedom as they see it?”

Mr. Tofel can gloss over it all he wants, he can’t change these facts about the people with input into the planning and design of the IFC.

• Michael Posner, executive director at Human Rights First who is leading the world-wide “Stop Torture Now” campaign focused entirely on the U.S. military. He has stated that Mr. Rumsfeld’s refusal to resign in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal is “irresponsible and dishonorable.”

• Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, who is pushing IFC organizers for exhibits that showcase how civil liberties in this country have been curtailed since September 11.

• Eric Foner, radical-left history professor at Columbia University who, even as the bodies were being pulled out of a smoldering Ground Zero, wrote, “I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House.” This is the same man who participated in a “teach-in” at Columbia to protest the Iraq war, during which a colleague exhorted students with, “The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military,” and called for “a million Mogadishus.” The IFC website has posted Mr. Foner’s statement warning that future discussions should not be “overwhelmed” by the IFC’s location at the World Trade Center site itself. (ed. note: Really? Gee, I wonder why?)

• George Soros, billionaire founder of Open Society Institute, the nonprofit foundation that helps fund Human Rights First and is an early contributor to the IFC. Mr. Soros has stated that the pictures of Abu Ghraib “hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself.”

Do you want these people to have any part in making these decisions? I sure as hell don’t, and I venture a majority of Americans would agree. How can Mr. Tofel expect anyone to believe that the IFC will “rise above the politics of the moment” with these people involved?

These are political people with political agendas and I am not stupid or naive enough to believe they will simply leave agendas at the door.

Are you?

**UPDATE**

More responses to Tofel’s “explanation”: Michelle Malkin, Sissy, Irish Pennants

**UPDATE**

I just received a copy of the following email from a Solidier’s Mom via the takebackthememorial.org email address. She wrote to Mr. Tofel yesterday after hearing about the IFC plans. Mr. Tofel pointed her to his article in the WSJ today for “the other side” – this is her response.

Mr. Tofel:

Thank you for your response. We have read your response with great interest — hoping that the initial stories were perhaps inflated. Sadly, that is not the case. However noble your and the International Freedom Center intent is, we are still not convinced that the WTC site is the appropriate place for such an endeavor. Perhaps it should be at the United Nations, a body allegedly devoted to Peace in the World that surely could use the attention and commitment of such a gesture? You do yourself and your project no favors parading the signatories to such a grand scheme from academia, given the history of such individuals and their somewhat anti-American stance.

To be clear, we are true supporters of all the concepts of freedom and herald its great history — and mourn its tragic failings. However, the fight of the Czech Republic and such other struggles for democratic rule have no place at such a site. “Ground Zero” truly is hallowed ground to us and most Americans — as sacred as any national cemetery or battle site — and we would no more support this grand scheme were it proposed for Arlington National Cemetery or the Gettysburg Battlefield.

We remain committed to the idea that the entire site of the attack of September 11, 2001 be reserved entirely as a memorial committed to the victims of that attack, the American people and the men and women who have given their lives in this War on Terrorism.

Sincerely,

Names Withheld

That pretty much nails it.