The Constitutional Right To Matchmaking Services

If you ever wondered why people worry so much about activist judges, this would be a sterling example of why. EHarmoney, the on-line dating site, has now agreed to start a matchmaking service for gays, as part of a court settlement, to be called Compatible Partners. Evidently, EHarmony's policy of arranging matches with compatible couples did not include homosexuals, and this was deemed discrimination and thus unconstitutional according to a suit filed in New Jersey.

But EHarmony's new relationship with the gay community is more like a shotgun wedding: The company agreed in November to start the dating service as part of a settlement with the New Jersey attorney general in the wake of a discrimination suit.

Dating site consultant Mark Brooks says Compatible Partners will be watched closely.

"This will be one of the most scrutinized products in Internet dating," said Brooks, who hasn't worked for EHarmony. "They will have to introduce an A1 product."

It's not a comfortable fit for EHarmony's founder, Neil Clark Warren, who based the original service -- which requires applicants to fill out lengthy questionnaires -- on his own practice as a psychologist.

"It's what I did for 40 years," said Warren, 74, who is retired but remains on the board. "I never had a gay couple."

Warren is the former dean of the psychology graduate school at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. Much of the early promotion of EHarmony was done by well-known figures in the evangelical community, some of whom preach against gay rights.


Well, it sounds ridiculous to me. No one has a constitutional right to be fixed up, any more than I would have a constitutional right to be accepted as a member of the Goth community if I weren't a Goth. Yeah, if I go into a Goth hangout I can sue them if they refuse to serve me, but do I really have a right to bitch if the customers don't like me? What am I doing there? Why should gays expect to fit in with a heterosexual dating service? If there are homosexual dating services, do heteros now have the right to sue them as well?

Just another case of judicial overreach. No one is preventing gays from having their own dating service, and by the same token no one should prevent a business from catering to a specific clientele when it doesn't pertain to a vital service. Matchmaking is not a vital service. EHarmony's policies is a private business decision. This is not Matthew Shepherd strung out across a fence in Montana.

So what's next, restaurants are going to be expected to cater to gays to the point they must advertise themselves openly as gay friendly?

This is one of the biggest reasons many are against gay marriage, and why I in fact am very wary of it even though I am okay with the concept. It's just that I can see the floodgates suddenly opened to a flurry of frivolous lawsuits, including gay couples wanting to adopt and demanding the right. Sure, you can make the case some gays would make worthwhile adoptive parents and might then have the right to file a legitimate suit.

The problem becomes, how many adoption agencies cave in to the demands of unworthy or unqualified gay couples just to avoid a lawsuit? This is just the kind of test case activist groups salivate over. It's not about rights, its about power and control with the aid of government officials and a judiciary subverting the constitution in order to impose unreasonable standards of fairness and equality, with freedom being the true casualty.

Beware The Worm

Imagine that you were with a sex partner who happened to have a new, previously unknown strain of a sexually transmitted disease. Say this strain was so advanced that it had tiny little hands with which it could surreptitiously remove your condom right in mid-thrust. It could then go about doing its dirty work. What is worse, even though specialists are aware of the existence of this new strain, they aren't really sure what its long-range effect will be. Maybe it will make you permanently sterile, or possibly turn you into a sex addict, after which, after you have infected dozens of others, it might make you totally and permanently impotent. Maybe it would, much like AIDS, shut down your bodies defenses against all other known and unknown diseases, viruses, and bacteria.

Then, it might steal your passwords and your banking information.

Okay, that's not going to happen, but then again, I guess you know I'm not really talking about a venereal disease, right? Actually, I'm talking about Conflicker, the computer worm virus that experts say might well affect at least twelve million computers tomorrow, April Fool's Day. No one knows who made it, no one knows what it might do, and no one knows what to do about it. It knows how to prevent computers from downloading software meant to combat it.

If you happen across this post tonight, or tomorrow, you should really read this article from the New York Daily News.

Me, I'm not going to be on the Internet tomorrow, and maybe not even on my computer at all. Who knows, if this thing is programmed to attack on April 1st, maybe the simple avoidance of the internet on that day might render it completely useless.

In other words, for once, abstinence might well be the only proper form of protection.

Rumblings And Eruptions

Even though I was and still am a strong supporter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, I decided almost immediately after the election that I was not going to allow this blog to degenerate into a support site for Sarah Palin or any other politician.

In fact, I don't, unlike Lemuel Calhoun from Hillbilly White Trash even advocate that Palin run for President until 2016 unless things get so rotten over the course of the next two or three years almost any Republican could win in 2012, which at this stage would seem by no means improbable.

Still, I have to weight in every now and then, and recent events seem to scream out that this should be one of those times. Many Democratic activists and other such types would probably be inclined to snatch Sarah Palin up, along with her entire family, and toss them unceremoniously into the open, smoldering caldera of Mount Redoubt, while many Republicans might well be of a mind to view the recent eruptions of the volcano as some kind of heavenly sign that Sarah is indeed the annointed one. I have an attraction to that sort of symbolism, especially since Redoubt began its eruptions just two days following Oestra and coincided with the retrograde movements of Venus as it finally entered its conjunction phase with the Sun. As tempting as it is to view that as some kind of potential omen, I will try to keep things a bit more down to earth here.

Then again, this is a pagan owned and operated blog, so don't hold me to that too strongly, especially since the rumblings from Palin's opponents seem almost integrally tied to the hot, smoldering ash that has spewed fifty thousand miles into the sky, threatening the immediate environs and even the relatively nearby city of Anchorage.

Nor would I be the first to draw significance from this event. Note the following comment on the Huffington Post from Mojoman-

Governor Palin has issued an emergency order: All residents of Wasilla are required to mark the doorposts of their homes with Turkey blood. The Lord will then pass over their houses, Wasilla will be saved and Palin will be on teevee nonstop between now and the Rapture.

Of course, some of Palin's moves are questionable and worthy of criticism, and as such I would be the first to admit that I don't agree with her on every issue, such as her probable stance on embryonic stem cells, something I am going to go out on a limb and assume she is opposed to, or at least is opposed to federal funding of such research projects.

There is also something to be said for the concerns of the Inuit population of Alaska over her recent Attorney General appointment, who questions the constitutionality of federal laws giving priority to "native American" fishing and hunting rights. It doesn't really help his cause-or Palin's-that he recently referred to gays as "degenerates".

Somewhat more trivial is the recent ethics complaint against her, revolving around her appearance at a recent event during which she wore a shirt that featured the logo of husband Todd's snowmobile team, which according to blogger Celtic Diva amounts to a conflict of interest. Palin responded to this and a slew of similarly ludicrous ethics complaints.

The Alaska governor said last week she's accumulated more than half a million dollars for her defense against various complaints and may be forced to create a legal defense fund

"Yes, I wore Arctic Cat snow gear at an outdoor event, because it was cold outside, and by the way, today, I am wearing clothes bearing the names of Alaska artists, and a Glennallen Panthers basketball hoodie," Palin said in Tuesday's release. "I am a walking billboard for the team's fundraiser! Should I expect to see an ethics charge for wearing these, or the Carhartts I wear to many public events?"

Evidently, according to Celtic Diva, she should, regardless of whether there was or was not a quid pro quo involved in Palin's actions, because the Palin family benefits financially from the company.

Yet, it is not only Democrats who are giving Palin grief, but in fact the Republican Party, both the national party and those within her own state's legislatures, the latter of which are up in arms over Palin's stated intent to refuse as much as one-third of the promised federal stimulus package. From the Miami Herald article-

The scrap comes as the governor and legislative leaders are increasingly at odds over the federal stimulus funds. Palin announced last week that she was not accepting nearly a third of the money. But leading legislators seem to want nearly all of it, with Anchorage Republican Rep. Mike Hawker saying they are finding very few strings attached to the money.

Yeah, I'm sure they do. Evidently, the problem here is one of missed communications, at least on the surface. The real problem is, they just want the money, she would prefer to pass on some parts of it. Whatever the reasons, for good or bad, it is threatening a split in the state party between the legislative Republicans and the Governor, but then again that's nothing new. I've always told anybody who would listen that Palin is not an in-the-tank Republican apparatchik. It was mainly her own party she had to fight in reforming the Alaska state government. She certainly raised more than a few eyebrows when she took on the oil companies that had for years been so used to having the Alaska state legislature in its deep pockets. Kind of makes a logo on a shirt and a loudmouthed AG seem kind of trivial to me, however undeniably problematic they might be on a political level.

Yet, Palin would be well-advised to not fall into the trap of listening to the national Republican Party, when they accuse her of surrounding herself with a "Junior Varsity" team. In fact, if McCain had listened to Palin's team instead of other way around, the eelction might have turned out considerably different. The Christian Science Monitor probably put it best-

Right. Why would she surround herself with people who helped her topple an incumbent governor during the Republican primary two and a half years ago, then best a popular former two-time governor in the general election to become the youngest governor in the history of the state, not to mention the first female to have the job.

The best thing Sarah Palin could do, in my opinion, is resist whatever pressure she might face to fall in line with Republican strategists and national party leaders, who almost seem determined to insure a permanent minority status for their party. Well, why wouldn't they? There are perks that go with minority status, along with very limited responsibility.

Sarah Palin doesn't need to fall in line behind the expectations and manipulations of the National Republican Party. The National Republican Party needs to fall in line behind her. I'm afraid that its just too unrealistic to expect that is possible in a mere four years. By the time eight years comes and goes, however, it might well be the only chance the conservative movement has of resurrecting itself from the ashes as a relevant political entity.

Please Heal Our Earth

Earth Hour? Oh yeah, it was a big success, and because there was reportedly such a large degree of participation throughout all parts of the world by so many people (a good many of whom were politicians and businesses looking to make a good impression) suddenly we have a "mandate".

Hasn't there already been an "Earth Day" for a while? I guess "Earth Month" is next, and of course don't forget "Earth Week".

Hey, I know, what about Earth Minute? Everybody just take one deep breath and hold it for a full minute, all at the same time. That's a whole minute with no carbon dioxide emissions from human lungs. Think of our earth and its survival, people.

I might have an even better idea though, one that would accomplish more towards healing the earth than all the carbon reduction attempts you ever could or would make.

I call it "Earth Second". That's where all you harebrained fanatics buy a gun while you can still do so legally, store one bullet in the chamber, and then, at the same precise second, blow your fucking brains out and leave the rest of us alone. There goes your carbon footprints, assholes.

WhiskeyDrumCock-Who Is He And What The Hell Does He Think He Is?

Yep, that would be me.

Here Comes The Sun

I don't know about anybody else, but I sure need this. I suspect a lot of us do.



And with that-Happy (Belated) Oestra

Oestra-All Things Being Equal

In a mud hut lives an heiress
Parked outside is her sedan
She has roses
Made from gemstones that
She sewed inside her garden

A Great Horned Owl her caretaker
A gelding horse her fool
With fireflies she beckons me
My whore needs wool
(Patrick Kelley)



These last four days have realy been hell, which explains why I've been so late getting this latest series of Sabbat posts published, but I am nothing if not determined-even with family problems, illness, and computer glitches. The amazing thing is that I got it finished when I did, considering the number of posts I actually ended up doing. And to think, just three or four days ago I was thinking I would be lucky to come up with four or five. Then, the deluge.

I don't know how it just so happened that I drew such a fitting card as The Lovers. Much more fitting for Beltane, to be sure, but still a good fit for Oestra, particularly this one, what with Venus in retrograde and in-at the time of the solstice-squared the Moon and Mars and coming into conjunction with the Sun which is squared with Pluto. Actually, by now, the Sun and Venus sre in conjunction, though not a perfect conjunction.

The Lovers doesn't necessarily pertain to marriage and romance of course. It can, and seeing as Oestra is a fertility based Sabbat, more so than most of the other ones, with its implications of sexuality, and longing, and the urge to plant seeds-or "sew wild oats" as the case may be. But its more than that. Fertility can be also about the acquisition or the drive to acquire abundance and prosperity. Of course back in the day, agricultural pursuits were the major source of prosperity, before the advent of trade through sea travel and mining, to mention just two of many later yet now ancient developments.

And, of course, a large family was seen as a boon. Now, of course, such a situation presents more challenges than ever before. And this is also inherent in the card of The Lovers. It's not all lover, roses, and sunshine. It implies a period of testing, a testing of faith for one, of loyalty for another, and of hope and trust.

I'm afraid we will all for the most part see great periods of such testing in the days and weeks-and months-ahead of us. May we all get through them and emerge stronger than ever.

Geraldine-Oestra Video

It's all about growing up, you know.

Oestra Drink-Peaches And Cream

Well, unfortunately, I got caught up in so many different things over the weekend and the preceding three or four days I just was unable to get this posted in time for the Sabbat, which is a perfect occasion for it, as it can be seen as the symbolic meeting of winter and spring. The good thing is, you can enjoy this drink on any occasion. I know that because I happen to have invented it, and so far as I know its unique.

It's also quite simple to prepare. Just take three scoops of ice cream and pour over this three jiggers of peach schnapps. The drink is perfect at that, but if you prefer you can blend the two ingredients together and add a garnish of a cinnamon stick or fresh fruit slices to your taste. A dash of grenadine can also be used.

Food of the gods, indeed.

Get Your Free Whores Here

Jane's Addiction has just announced their up-coming tour with Nine Inch Nails and Street Sweeper. You can get all of the details on this Ninja 2009 website, where by the way you can also download a bunch of great songs by all three of the bands-all for free.

Yeah, I know the title of this post is lame-o, but you know I made you look. I just wish all the news that came out over the Oestra Sabbat could be this cool. Now, without further ado-

New Births Off The Charts

When it rains it pours, and these days we must be having a semen storm, or an ovary flood, or something. Recent birth records have finally eclipsed the previous known record set during the baby boom, when so many kids were born because soldiers returning from overseas duty during World War II were so happy to see their wives and girlfriends. That's understandable, but what have so many people got to be so happy about today? I know I should try to shine a positive light on things here, in that the Oestra season is supposed to be a fertility festival, but from the looks of things, lack of fertility is not the problem. Unfortunately, it might well be adding to the many problems we have. What fool in their right mind wants to have kids under the current set of world economic conditions and outlook? Is it just that people are that damned careless and unthinking?

Well, I guess that's a good part of it, and it becomes more comprehensible when you consider that a large part of the new birth parents are teenagers, the mothers in particular being unwed mothers. Yes, that sad statistic is once more on the rise.

As for Oestra and the idea of fertility rites, there's something to be said for viewing fertility not in the sense so much of procreation but first of building a prosperous life. An over-abundance of new births during harsh economic conditions kind of defeats the purpose of aiming first for prosperity, and then building a life that might include a family, one assured of at least some degree of security and stability. In fact, this is pouring gasoline on the fire. Welcome to life in the twenty-first century. Oh, by the way, you owe about twenty-billion dollars-if you're lucky.

I do think its incumbent on us all to be a little more responsible in our actions, and to try to encourage greater forethought and self-discipline. Its not all about what feels good at the moment.

It Must Be A Bitch Being So Damned Infallible

I think the Pope might want to think about staying home more. It seems like every time he goes anywhere and opens his mouth, disaster follows. This usually amounts to PR problems and doesn't involve death, but this time, during his visit to Angola, he managed to inspire a riot which left several people dead and injured, two of them teenage girls.

In the meantime, he managed to undermine those, including many in his own church, who are promoting condom use in Africa as a means of combating AIDS, by proclaiming that condoms might actually be a contributing factor to AIDS. In doing so he discouraged their use. He capped this off with a warning about the dangers of animism, witchcraft, and other forms of superstition.

Look, no one should be surprised by this, as the Catholic Church is by rights a two-thousand year old incarnation of one or more much older Roman fertility cults it basically supplanted, albeit with more spiritual trappings. What was the purpose of these ancient fertility cults? Of course, they encouraged population growth at a time when this was vital. Yes, it has evolved over time into more outwardly civil and modern trappings, but it is still obvious that the Pope isn't going to encourage the practice of sex without an emphasis on procreation, and he certainly isn't going to encourage birth control, AIDS be damned. Nor is he going to preside over such a profound change in Church policy as to turn it into something that is diametrically opposed to such an important part of its historical existence and spiritual meaning.

The witchcraft thing is a little trickier. In Angola, and other parts of Africa, thousands of people, including children, have been beaten, tortured, dispossessed, and even murdered, due to accusations of witchcraft. It is a big problem there, and the Pope with his words may have unintentionally contributed to it. He of course considers all kinds of witchcraft and paganism hedonistic at best, and malign superstition at worse, so when he specifies malign witchcraft, you can be pretty sure he is meaning all of its forms as it might exist in Africa, where the practice and belief is widespread and so inculcated in the popular mind and culture.

Recently, a robbery was foiled in Nigeria in which the driver of the getaway car attempted to evade the police by supposedly transforming himself into a goat-this according to the official Lagos police report. See what I mean?

The Pope means well, and to a great extent is a positive influence on people's lives, but the Catholic Church is not some infallible spiritually based organization that can do no wrong, nor is the Pope infallible. If this was the case, what does he need with advisers and PR people to begin with? No, the Church is just another powerful organization made up of people who are by no means, by the way, united in all matters, and which can and has been sadly wrong on many occasion. That is just as true today as at any time.

The irony is, in a way the Pope was right. We would be much better off if we limited sexual activity to the confines of marriage. If everyone did that, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases would not be an issue, nor would out-of-wedlock births. People shouldn't get too outraged that the Pope is promoting his beliefs and those of the religion of which he is the head. It's really quite simple. If you don't believe in the Pope or what he says or his church, then use the damned condoms. His opinion shouldn't matter to you anyway. If you do believe in him, and follow his teachings, then do so in all regards, because if you pick and choose what sounds palatable and discard the rest because its inconvenient or distasteful, then you are playing Russian roulette.

Granted, somebody does need to talk to the Pope about choosing his words more carefully and making sure the full meaning of what he says is clear. If only he wasn't so damned infallible.

Snuggle Bunny

Since Easter is coming up soon, and was really derived from the original Oestra-or to be more precise, it was based on the various spring fertility cult festivals on which the modern Oestra was also based-I thought this video would be-well, cute.



Not to mention you can dance to it.

Oestra Power Animal Twins

It seems like Polar Bears always end up in the picture somewhere during the last few Sabbats, and well, here we go again. This time, though, you get two for one.

A set of twins, actually, born in an animal park in The Netherlands. Twin births are probably very unusual for a polar bear mother, even one who gives birth within a relatively stable, comfortable, secure, and controlled environment.

Something For Your Cat

Since I'm on an animal kick here, I thought I'd just throw out there that I made a pretty interesting discovery with cats. If you want to do something that will get your cat to play-even an older cat-buy a bag of soft peppermint. Not the sticks, or the hard discs, but the kind of barrel shaped pieces that are soft, and come individually wrapped. I don't know whether its the scent or the red-and-white striped colors, but my cat goes wild over them. I tend to think its mostly the scent, because after she tears the paper open she seems more attracted to the empty wrapper than she does the loose peppermint candy. I have to take it away from here as I'm afraid she'll swallow it. She's play with the loose candy, but not as much, because she doesn't like to pick it up in her mouth due to the strong and to her doubtless overpowering taste.

But, for what its worth, it works as good or better than catnip or anything else I've ever found.

The Iditarod

I have mixed feelings about the Iditarod. I'm not a touchy feely kind of guy when it comes to animal activism, but on the other hand, I tend to have more sympathy for animals than I do for most people. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but there it is. Animals tend to not get a vote on what goes on. People can vote with their wallets, their feet, or their opinions. None of the five dogs that died during this years race were asked, "hey, do you feel up to running it this year, buddy?" Granted, they are checked out thoroughly, and are well cared for throughout the year, but there have been something like one hundred seventy dogs that have died since this thing started like thirty-five years ago or thereabouts.

I don't want to ban the race, or do anything to lessen the excitement, but surely there's something that can be done. Use more dogs, maybe?

Anyway, congratulation to Lance MacKey, who has now already won this years race, his third straight. By the way, it might also help if they would declare the race over after there is a declared winner and all the other top prize winners have finished.

Turn The Page

Lindsay Lohan is one of those celebrity pop tarts I would like to, you know, well, fuck. When I found out she had a girlfriend, it made me want to find a cure for lesbianism. Funny how the mind works. I see Lohan as a wild, tempestuous, impulsive woman with loads or raw talent, but seriously lacking in drive, ambition, and self-discipline. Her girlfriend Samantha Ronson on the other hand I see as a probably relatively mediocre talent with overweening ambition and drive, but nothing else going for her but connections. Her step-father is former Rolling Stones and Foreigner band member Mick Taylor. I saw their relationship as a disaster in the making, and when they got into their latest row, I thought, well this is the end of it, until I figured out Ronson may have just been trying to keep Lohan from screwing up by driving intoxicated on a suspended license.

Now, come to find out, she has turned to none other than Steven Baldwin for aid and support in hopes of finding a secure environment in order to get herself together and her life back on track. Why is this important and what does it have to do with Oestra? Well, it isn't, and it doesn't, except it's always good when somebody seriously wants to get their shit together. Good luck to her.

Get Down In It

I was going to just include a Jane's Addiction video for this Ostra series of posts, but this is just too good to not include something by all three of the bands that are offering free downloads-including Nine Inch Nails.

Equinox Tourists Over London

I'm not much of a believer in visitors from other galaxies, dimensions, etc., but since this picture was taken so close to Oestra, I thought it warranted inclusion in this series. The photographer claims he didn't see the objects when he first took the picture, they just showed there after the photo was developed. Which of course begs the question, just what in the hell was he photographing.

Free Street Sweeper

Get yer free downloads and tour dates here