Can't do a little cause he can't do enough.

A special prize to the person who comes up with the best explaination of what the hell exactly is going on here.

Where is my transgender beauty pageant?

First, an explanation. I've been on the American Family Association's mailing list for a couple months now. I ended up on there because I signed up for some free stuff. A meme popped up on my friends list suggesting that people drain their coffers by signing up for as much free stuff as possible. Apparently, the AFA is still around and has responded with the cunning ploy of not sending out their free crap. At least I didn't get any, but if you did, please post a comment to this entry.

I never unsubscribed. "Know your enemy" and all that. It amused me to see what they were outraged by from week to week: Bill Maher doesn't love Jesus, Paris Hilton in that Hardee's ad, Ford Motors advertising to gays ("AFA has identified Ford as a leading corporate promoter of homosexual marriage and the homosexual agenda."), etc. Most of the time I don't even bother reading their "Action Alerts", but the subject line of the latest one intrigued me:

You just paid for a transgender beauty pageant

I did? Where was it? Why didn't I get tickets? Is there a DVD available?

The claim (and others in the same Outrage Alert) was lifted by the AFA from in a report(pdf) on spending by the Center for Disease Control produced by the office of Senator Dr. Tom "Involuntary Sterilization" Coburn (R-Oklahoma). It's called "CDC Off Center", so you pretty much know how this is gonna go.

The specific outrage in question was the 2001 Mr./Ms. "Jewel of the Pacific" pageant held by UTOPIA (The United Territories of Polynesian Islanders' Alliance) and partially funded by the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center, which gets some million and change from the US government for fighting and education about HIV/AIDS. The report also mentions, hey, by the way, there was AIDS testing at the event. Gee, you think, maybe that this is the reason the pageant got funding from the APIWC? I guess I'm naive, but I would think a taxpayer-funded report with the resources of a congressional staff behind it might answer basic questions like these.

Sure, when it isn't making partisan talking points, it raises some important questions about the efficiency and accountability regarding CDC funding, but the report glosses over that in favor of an attempt to manufacture outrage over things like the "CDC-Funded Drag Contest", which is why the report itself is the true outrage.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall

I've never been a fan of Charles Krauthammer. While I generally dislike conservative columnists, I have a special ire for Krauthammer, who likes to abandon the ethics of his first profession of psychiatry (Harvard, '75) to score cheap points in his current profession by publically "diagnosing" the supposed mental issues of Democratic politicians. In his latest column, Dr. Krauthammer voices his support for a wall on the US-Mexico border:

A barrier is a very simple thing to do. The technology is well tested. The Chinese had success with it, as did Hadrian

They did, eh? How did that work out for them exactly? Wikipedia says:

The Manchus were finally able to cross the Great Wall in 1644, when the gates of Shanhai Pass were opened by Wu Sangui, a corrupt Ming border general, after being bribed. The Manchus quickly seized Beijing, and defeated the remaining Ming resistance, to establish the Qing Dynasty.

So success = the complete overthrow of your country and the establishment of a 300 year dynasty. Gotcha. Well, I guess we have some interesting times ahead of us.

Best People magazine cover ever