Ever wonder where those stereotypes of Arab-Americans come from?

An Iranian-born man faces up to five years in federal prison for conspiring to violate a U.S. embargo by providing Iran with military aircraft parts.

Hassan Keshari pleaded guilty Monday to a single count in Miami federal court.

Prosecutors say Keshari, a 48-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who was living in California, was a middleman between Iranian buyers and a supplier based in South Florida. The supplier also has been charged and is scheduled to go to trial in May.

Keshari lawyer David O. Markus says his client is cooperating with investigators and wants to get the matter behind him. The parts were for such aircraft as the F-14 fighter jet, the C-130 cargo plane and the AH-1 attack helicopter.

[source]

Here’s a little poem I made for the occasion:

Navy beat Army for the seventh year in a row
But the Navy’s still crashing airplanes into homes.

The pilot, who was assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101, had taken off from the Navy’s aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, which is conducting carrier qualifications off the Southern California coast, Delarosa said. The F/A-18 was preparing to land at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego when the jet plunged into a suburban neighborhood in University City, an area of single-family homes that sits across Interstate 805 from the west end of the air station’s flight line.

Today’s guest post is by Roxamox from thoughts and such who wrote this brilliant editorial sharing her feelings of the Right’s opinion of Prop 8 .

Proposition 8 recently banned same-sex marriage in California on November 4th, 2008.

Today I was sitting at work, trying to pay attention and stay engaged in the editing View Drafts and re-editing of the group report we are writing. It’s about as fun as it sounds.

Inevitably, my mind wandered and I succumbed to the temptations of the Internet in front of me. I took advantage of the fact that I’m hidden behind the monitor and navigated away momentarily from our net-meeting and onto the Internet. Don’t judge, I know I’m not the only one doing this!

I hit the usual places: CNN.com, huffingtonpost.com, MSNBC.com….. scanning the headlines. As of late, I’ve become very interested in anything Prop 8 themed, so a couple of things caught my eye.

This morning on Morning Joe there was a snippet of Newt Gingrich saying something ridiculous, so I had to read about it.

Listen, I’m not going to pretend and say I really know anything about Newt Gingrich and his beliefs or political history up until this point. I don’t. All I know about this man is that I used to hear his name on the news a lot several years ago. And now I know he’s a hate sputtering, fear mongering idiot..

Sorry, was that harsh?

This man, in a conversation with Bill O’Riley (naturally) was quoted as saying: “I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.”

Fascism? What is with people thinking it’s okay to throw around words like “fascist,” “socialist,” and “Nazi” lately, just because they disagree with someone? So…let me get this straight (pun!), if I’m gay and I want to be treated like an equal human being and be given the same rights and as any other person, and refuse to send this country back to the 1960s and settle for “separate but equal”, that would make me a fascist?

*Shakes head*

Of course Bill O’Riley starts listing off all the examples he has of how “out of control” all those darned gay people are over this darned Proposition 8. Listen. There are violent, crazy people on both sides of this thing. You will have that no matter what group of people you are talking about, regardless of the topic. It’s not the right thing to do on either side, obviously. And though there may be some isolated incidents of these unfortunate cases, that’s not the majority, and it’s not right that Fox News can spread lies leading people to believe the GLBT community is a violent, crazed, immoral group of….I can’t even say citizens, because they don’t even see GLBT people as equal citizens of this country. Homosexuals. I can just picture the contempt in these peoples faces as they utter the word homosexual. You can practically feel the shutter going through their bodies.

Gingrich also said “you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they’re the opposite, of what you’re taught in Sunday school.”

Wait a minute… didn’t they teach “love thy neighbor” and “do unto others what you would have done unto you” in Sunday School? Along with tolerance, forgiveness, and “judge not lest ye be judged”? Couldn’t the bible-thumper ideology he just spouted off be thrown right back in his face and the face of all those right wing Christians who preach hate masked behind a thin veil of Christian righteousness? Does he not see the irony in those words? What does he think Focus on the Family does?? But wait, I’m the one that’s “antiethical” right? Right. My new favorite person Keith Olbermann got it SO RIGHT on this very topic in his Special Comment (grab the Kleenex if you haven’t seen this yet)

THEN. Then. Then I read….of all people….. Chuck Norris’s article on Prop 8. First of all, who the hell does Chuck Norris think he is, and why on EARTH is he now writing a column? Please. Go back to making terrible television shows about Texas Rangers.
Read the full story

I will no longer consider California as the lynch pin of far left liberals.  Not only did Proposition 8 pass (outlawing gay marriages) but California voters also crushed renewable-energy initiatives:

Prop 8:

The measure would alter the state constitution to once again outlaw same-sex weddings five months after they were legalised. Since then thousands of couples have wed, among them celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi and Star Trek actor George Takei, who wed Brad Altman, his partner of 21 years.

The status of their unions would be thrown into doubt should the measure pass.

Proposition 8 marks the first time a vote to ban gay marriage has taken place in a state where such unions are already legal.

Prop 7:

…would have required that California’s electric utilities get half of their power from renewable sources by 2025 (the current requirement is 20 percent by the end of 2010), was easily defeated with 65 percent of voters casting ballots against the measure.

Prop 10:

…would have created rebate incentives for the purchase of cars and trucks running on natural gas or other alternative fuels, was also struck down, with nearly 60 percent voting “no” at last count.

I’ll no longer imagine half naked muscular gay boys on surf board swigging wheat grass when I think of you, California. Welcome to the same socially conservative blob the rest of the country has been floating around in.

Proposition 8.  Never heard of it?  With all the other news that’s been so heavily on the minds of the American public these days (economic failure, gas prices suddenly being low again, multiple wars, Presidential Elections, World Series, football season, etc…) it’s not surprising if it’s gone undetected by your radar.  But in California religious conservatives seem to have little else on their minds.

Prop 8 is an amendment to be voted on next month that would undo the California Supreme Court verdict that approved same sex marriages.

Conservative religious leaders from across the country are pouring time, talent and millions of dollars into the state in support of Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriage. They are hoping to reverse a California Supreme Court ruling in May that gave same-sex couples permission to marry, resulting in thousands of exultant same-sex weddings.

Similar marriage amendments are on the ballot next month in Arizona and Florida. But religious conservatives have cast the campaign in California as the decisive last stand, warning in stunningly apocalyptic terms of dire consequences to the entire nation if Proposition 8 does not pass.

California, they say, sets cultural trends for the rest of the country and even the world. If same-sex marriage is allowed to become entrenched there, they warn, there will be no going back.

“This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon,” said Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and an eminent evangelical voice, speaking to pastors in a video promoting Proposition 8. “We lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion.”

The propaganda being spread by the pro-8 crowd includes statements that “churches that refuse to marry same-sex couples will be sued and lose their tax-exempt status. Ministers will be jailed if they preach against homosexuality. Parents will have no right to prevent their children from being taught in school about same-sex marriage”, none of which of course is true.  Just as no such things occurred when people started living together before marriage, or when couples first started getting divorced, or when following those divorces people started remarrying (and then divorcing and remarrying any number of times after that) all things that could be argued to be detrimental to the “sanctity of marriage” all things that religious figures have been free to accept or belittle of their own accord, without government interference.

Just because same sex marriages are being permitted, doesn’t mean every church would have to do them- that would be against freedom of religion.  There are plenty of churches that are willing to hold the ceremonies and recognise the marriages within the realm of their religious scope, and to deny them that right is also against freedom of religion.  Or how about those who don’t do it up all churchy and just have a justice of the peace confirm the marriage?  Religion isn’t even involved then.

There are even some who claim that this vote is more important than the Presidential Elections.  Of course they are primarily of the gloom and doom “it’s the end of the world as we know it if we allow this to continue” set.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, “It’s more important than the presidential election.”

“We’ve picked bad presidents before, and we’ve survived as a nation,” said Mr. Perkins, who has made two trips to California in the last six weeks. “But we will not survive if we lose the institution of marriage.”

Sadly it’s not just Californians who are debating the issue.  Nope, anti-gay activists are being imported from all over the globe to try to swing voters to their side.

(T)he “Yes on 8” campaign has brought over from Sweden a pastor named Ake Green, who a few years ago was sentenced to a month in prison under Sweden’s law banning hate speech, because he gave a sermon denouncing homosexuality. Mr. Green’s testimony was featured in a 90-minute “Yes on 8” satellite simulcast that was recently downlinked to 170 churches throughout the state.

“He is a symbol of what is ahead,” said the Rev. Jim Garlow, the senior pastor of Skyline Church in the San Diego area, a leading organizer of the “Yes” ranks.

Both sides recognize that this could be a dangerously close vote, and it’s entirely possible that Prop 8 could pass.  I for one (and recognize that I really have little personal stake in this, being that I am a heterosexual male) hope that this doesn’t pass.  To continue to deny the place of homosexuals in our country’s culture, and even further- to deny them the same basic civil rights that we all hold, to deny the ability for two loving consenting adults to have their relationship recognized both socially and legally is one of the more reprehensible trends that is sadly still prevailent in our society.

The evangelical windbags are right about one thing though, California is a trend setter in American Culture, and with that in mind I suppose now there are two events now in which I’ll be keeping an eye on the results to see where voters hearts and minds really rest.

In the wake of the senseless killings at NIU, there was another story that went practically unreported by the media, also involving an in-school shooting. Though this one, rather than a random act of violence, was a pointed premeditated attack on a single student.

(A) 15-year-old gay California student is brain dead after a student allegedly shot him because of his sexual orientation and gender expression.

Lawrence King, an eighth-grader at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, was being kept alive today for organ donation after being shot Tuesday morning in class. The 14-year-old attacker, among a group of students known to bully and harass King because he sometimes wore makeup and jewelry and told classmates he was gay, will be charged with murder and a hate crime.

Ignoring the fact that almost half the kids I see these days wear makeup and jewelry, along with those “skinny girl jeans”, part of the story could sound a little misleading. Some may be trying to make it sound like the kid was flamboyantly decked out in drag but in perhaps he was really just dressing in “emo fashion”. Not that it should make a difference either way, I really don’t know. But…

I thought this was an important story to report, because while acts such as what happened at NIU are tragic, we can’t forget that there are acts of violence such as this that happen everyday due to prejudice and intolerance. It’s a sad truth that we can’t lose sight of, and should work everyday to prevent, regardless of how you may feel about homosexuality (or any other differences between people for that matter). Such occurrences simply should not be allowed to take place. Ever.