Incompetence runs amuck with the Schrub.  I can write I told you so, for some of my essays are still on this site.  How did the Schrub get away with his incompetence in 2001?  If anything, Katrina proved the environmentalists correct, something like the movie "The Day after Tomorrow", and the response to the disaster proved the stupidity of Schrubomics.  Cutting simple infrastructure to give more taxcuts to the rich resulted in a worsening of the impact of the hurricane.  Taking time from another five-week vacation long after disaster has struck only provides the same pattern the Scrub has been using since he stole the election in 2000.

 

Suppose terrorists blew up the levees in New Orleans without warning (unlike Katrina)?  Would Schrub have stayed on vacation as well?  The terrorists know that if they strike while Schrub is on vacation, they'll succeed even moreso.  Now all they have to do is blow up Dallas or somewhere near the Schrub's state.

BusinessWeek noted that those nonaffiliated with relgious organizations have quadrupled over the last decade.  As the relgious bigots use big business tactics to control government, their victims push back.  Brainless wimps like Schrub are left as mere clowns for them.

 

This country needs a good dose of anticlericalism to put these theocrats back in their place.  Spain is a fine example of taking revenge for the Inquisition and Franco in one swoop.  What it comes down to is that religion is an individual view of philosophy, and there it should stay!

 

Cathollcism is not growing any more.  After the prelates stuck their noses into the presidential campaign, is it any wonder that many Catholics simply left, as I did in 1991?  Pope Benny laid down the law about "cafeteria Catholics" right after his ascension, yet he should be glad that such Catholics did not yet leave the cafeteria.  Benny is as far in the Middle Ages as his predecessor. 

 

It comes down to power.  The fascist theocrats lust for power like the Pharisees and Sadducees in Christ's time.  They disobey Christ's teaching to render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.  They want their deluded followers to worship them as gods.  What they don't count on is that God will judge them harshly, because they used Him for power.  They'd better hope there's no afterlife.  Speaking of gods, I see Ronald Reagan is already on a stamp.  Normally, one must be dead ten years.  Then I realized that gods never die, so they didn't wait the ten years.

I'm starting late this year, for I just finished my second job with Block.  It will take me a month to catch up from three months of neglect.

 

Sun 29 May

On JFK's 88th birthday, I will finally get around to straightening out a hoax ABC perpetuated right after Thanksgiving.  Here' s to a Memorial Day thought for Matthew Wayne Shepard of Casper Wyoming  (1976-98):

So far, there seems little to modify.

 

ABC's Presentation Last November

 

I've waited six months, and I've had time to thrash out the program.  I begin with the contradictions.  Besides the obvious attempt to force a conclusion, there are four: Did Aaron McKinney know Matthew Shepard?  Is McKinney bisexual?  Was Shepard HIV+?  Did McKinney kill Shepard because Shepard was gay?

 

McKinney denies he knew Shepard and that he is bisexual.  ABC presents some flimsy evidence to support both.  "Jean" contends that McKinney knew Shepard months before school started.  Well, that is very news to me.  The incident at Cody shows that Matt was with his family on the Fourth of July.  He did not go to Laramie until late July, after he moved out of Denver.  He didn't even decide on a major until September (which "Story" got wrong).

Ryan Bopp claims they were together at parties.  Although it is possible that both were at the same party, it doesn't mean they knew each other.  In fact, it is possible that both knew the same drug dealer, but nothing more.

Besides that inconsistency, I noticed how both used their eyes, "Jean" consistently slants to the upper left suggesting making it up.  I watched McKinney closely as he denied knowing Shepard.  His eyes slanted to the right, which means he cannot recall it.  Certainly the Shepards cannot know if it is true.

(Because ABC staged this program so much, only the eyes are left to watch.  Normally, body language and such help determine if someone is lying.)

 

Is McKinney bisexual?  Kristen Price admitted she didn't know it until now.  Was that why she abandoned McKinney and became pregnant with another man?  "Doc" O Connor also showed he believes McKinney is bisexual, but he eyes question how the ménage à trois occurred.  Doesn't it prove O Connor is also bisexual?  The eyes showed me nothing, and probably they were all too drunk to remember.

Every time any of them looked up to the right, each confirmed what we know is true -- they were trying to remember.  Every time any of them looked to the left, each was making it up, or downright lying.  I did notice that McKinney's eyes suggested he was lying when he denied he is bisexual.  Could it be his secret to survival in prision -- like Richard Speck?  Is he a gay prostitute in the prison near Las Vegas?  Unless something else changes it, my opinion is that McKinney is bisexual, and that McKinney doesn't ever remember meeting Shepard (if they ever did).  The latter also proves how Shepard did not "read" the license plate on McKinney's truck.  Russell Henderson and McKinney pretended to be a gay couple from California.  Once Shepard saw the Wyoming plate (and the first number indicates the county), he knew Henderson and McKinney were locals, which also means he didn't know them, either!

 

Matt Shepard was HIV- at the time of his death

There is NO evidence that Shepard was HIV+, but circumstances rule it out.  First Matt was tested every six months after the rape in Morocco in February 1995.  Each time he was negative up to September 1998.  Romaine Patterson confirms that Matt told her he'd had a test just prior to June 1998.  Such tests occur only once every six months to be effective, so I cannot follow that Romaine overheard the doctors say Matt was HIV+.  The statement could have been out of context -- Matt was constantly swinging back and forth that he was positive.  He was in a hospital in June because he'd been bulemic, throwing up until his stomach hurt.  Therefore, the doctors could have been trying to humor him.  Romaine admits that Matt refused to have another test done or to admit he was positive -- ever.

Second, the autopsy did NOT mention it -- surely a murdered gay man would be tested.  Third, McKinney's defense NEVER mentioned it.  Surely a "gay panic" defense would use HIV to help them out.  McKinney shows he's lying (eyes again slanted to the left while he moved his head to the right -- nice try at concealing it!) when he says that he did not kill Shepard because he was gay and that his attorneys thought the "gay panic" defense was much better than calling it a drug debt (which showed another slant to the left!).

 

"Doc" O Connor only confirms my suspicions.  When Vanity Fair interviewed him in 1999, it never asked him if Shepard knew he was HIV+.  Vanity Fair spread the rumor that Shepard was HIV+ and didn't know it -- which means he could NOT have told anyone.

ABC then interviews O Connor who states (Here the eyes don't help.) that Shepard told him he was HIV+.  O Connor could have thought Shepard worried so much he was HIV+ that O Connor assumed Shepard was positive.  However, O Connor does not mention it in the article in Vanity Fair.  He and Shepard did talk that evening (Saturday, 3 October 1998) for hours, but he never mentioned Shepard told him Shepard was HIV+.  Something's definitely wrong here!

 

Why would Shepard tell a virtual stranger (whom he'd just met a day earlier) that he was the first person to tell?  Shepard had spoken to his mother earlier that day because he had overdrawn his bank account, yet he did not tell her.  Again, if he had told her, then how could he have not known it?  How could Shepard know he was HIV+ one month after he was HIV-?  Why would he get tested only a month later?  ABC does NOT run a convincing show.  Until I can see some real evidence to the contrary, I am not changing my position on my websites.

 

The REAL damaging evidence shows that even if McKinney did not target Shepard because he was gay, McKinney used homogenophobia to get a lighter sentence.  As Kristen Price admitted, she also used homosexophobia to get McKinney a lighter sentence.  It doesn't matter otherwise.  It still shows that such defenses do not excuse such behavior.   Therefore, it's time to eliminate this bias in the law.