I strongly opposed Proposition 8 and I find it offensive that people want to manipulate the California constitution to suit their religious dogma over a minority that has been marginalized under the rule of law. The proponents had changed the argument on Proposition 8 where they used kids and schools to their advantage to keep the status quo and void over 18,000 same sex weddings.

The answer is simple why the LGBT community and its allies are campaigning for equal rights. For example, in many states across this country you can be fired for being gay, you cannot bring your partner from abroad to live with you; you cannot inherit social security or private pensions from your partner if they die. Although traditionalists and some minority groups may find the LGBT community finding common ground in the civil rights movement offensive because they feel like it’s a choice to be gay. For most homosexuals being gay is innate as a trait and conversion programs have an overwhelming failure rate.

Although California Domestic Partnerships come close to marriage even though California has the most expansive domestic partnerships in the nation. Many rights are limited due to the Defense of Marriage act passed in 1996, where these rights and privileges are not portable across state lines. Even if marriage equality was marketed with a different brand name such as Civil Unions or Partnerships many people would still oppose it because it is counterfeit to marriage.

Pastors of all faiths have the right to be affirming or critical of gay and lesbians. Even if Proposition 8 was rejected by the voters or the courts, traditionalists have the right not to officiate same sex weddings and denounce the idea of homosexuality in their religious houses of worship.

There may be a good number who believe that we have to wear our faith in our government, but there is a good number who believe otherwise that our faith is private and personal. It does not mean that we should be raving atheists or burn our bibles, but we need to be more understanding about the changing demographics of our country. The youth and non-Christians are not voting Republican and its difficult to convert people to your same faith.

It even strikes down to the Yes on 8 supporters who want to recall our supreme court justices not knowing that even though they may be fair minded towards the queers, they will end up replacing them with justices that will be even more leftist than they can imagine. It is ironic that these traditionalists will want to make their job much harder.

The questions I would like to ask is:

What hours will this service run?

What are the funding options that will help pay for this project? Will this extension be paid for by bond money, a sales tax increase, federal money, state money or a combination of all funding sources to get this capital investment paid for.

Will these two preferred alignments for routing help provide maximum ridership? Public transportation does not rely on government money entirely, it needs to have at least 30% fare box recovery. I do not want to see a white elephant that is paid for with our hard earned tax money, I want something as a worthwhile investment for our community.

The good thing from looking at their website that it will take 40 minutes to get from Montclair to Pasadena and 70 minutes from Montclair to Los Angeles.  And lets assume it will take 15 more minutes if we add Ontario as the final destination. Not that bad compared to the express bus routes offered from Foothill Transit.

The meetings are during the following times:

Upland: December 3rd 5-6:30pm (arrive any time) at the Carnegie Library on 123 east D street

Rancho Cucamonga: December 3th 5-6:30pm (arrive any time) at the Brulte Senior Center at 11200 Baseline Road at the Clay Creek Room.

There is not much on his site right now, but when 2009 approaches there will likely be more content about why he wants to be the Republican nominee.

If the return was under two or three dollars I might embellish the return form, but if its over ten dollars I am going to be a pistol with the rules. The receipt actually does say valid ID is required for the return, but we generally trust our customers to be honest with the paperwork. If the writing is sloppy or does not look honest, then I will ask for your identification. The address looked somewhat genuine, but next time I have the issue with a customer and their information I will ask for ID and if they don’t procure it, I am simply going to decline the return. It is corporate policy, and if you do not like the corporate policy, then pay with credit card or ask for store credit.

Then I have the experience as a customer. Right now I am not a big fan of Dish Network having called them in trying to get my remote control working. Since I lease the unit I should be able to get the remote replaced, my remote is not working, blowing five minutes for trouble shooting is not going to do anything for me. I just want a remote control shipped so I could use the service that I pay almost 660 a year for. And I do not want to pay 20.00 for a remote control that I freaking lease. I actually fired my former internet provider DSL Extreme for having a dodgy internet connection and not willing to do anything reasonable to get it resolved for me. My connection was dropping and was rather unreliable so I just moved to cable.

My prior rant about Dish Network is providing good fuel for consumer rants. There will be a future column about them not carrying LOGO. I may organize a letter writing campaign to Dish Network to encourage them to add the channel in the 2009 lineup. Traditionalist families who do not want LOGO on their system can always block the channel.

We have had a spending problem because our Republican Governor and the Democrats became too cocky when our economy was driven by the housing bubble, not knowing that the good times will sustain. Now the bubble has burst and revenues are down where we have a 12 billion dollar deficit to deal with before the next budget has passed.

Republicans have been rabidly against any tax in any shape or form. However tax increases should be utilized to help close the deficit and fund needed public services. We should utilize spending caps and have a reserve fund for the next economic crisis so we would be secure in these difficult times. Maybe we should dare the Democratic Party in California to implement a budget without any Repubican restraint and see if it cripples the state economy, making the budget a 50%+1 affair would allow us to have the Democratic Party have ownership of their economic policies. If the budget is passed by 50%+1, and the state economy still goes down in the toilet then the Republicans would have a mandate for change.

The same playbook from 2008 should not be used in 2010, Californians understand the implications of Republican fiscal policy and did not reward them with any substantial gain or loss in Sacramento. Fiscal restraint while helping to maintain public services will be the winning strategy for the future.

I wish the store had an option for people to confirm the purchase instead of instantly billing and downloading the music. I prefer using a shopping cart because it gives an extra layer of security so I do not end up buying a 169 dollar box set of Depeche Mode music because of the wrong click when you wanted to buy a remix of “I Feel Loved” and not the box set.

I tested out the feature and disabling your credit cards prevents you from clicking on the music on Amazon, so that is a good thing. I finally found the song I REALLY WANTED to buy and now I am prompted to list my credit card if I want to pay for it.

Recently the family upgraded the television set and the television antenna is failing to produce digital reception for channel 11 and 13 not even the new fangled digital antenna and the classic antennas are working to produce the over the air signals. My family would like to see various channels as HD, but Dish Network adds another barrier to entry. It costs 75 dollars for the HD receiver to be installed or configured and then 25 dollars to ship the unit, when in the past it used to be on the house to have the units shipped.

Dish Network is nickel and diming the customers and I hope to be looking forwards to new programming options. 

The economy is becoming rough for all of us and we all do need to save money. However I do need to consider my options in who would become my hosting provider when my subscription ends. If my web site traffic is not as heavy, then maybe I could afford to get a reasonable hosting provider.

Voting is secret, no one really knows who you voted for unless you yell it around the neighborhood. However political contributions are public record and people have the right to know who donated for and against each measure. The Yes side is not the only victims of political retaliation, even proponents of the anti-gay ballot measures this year  have fired employees for either advertising that they voted against the side of the employer or they have contributed on the other side.

When people stood for the side of discrimination and hate the GLBT community and its allies have the memory of elephants. People still remember Anita Bryant and never drank a drop of Coors Beer even today. Today people are refusing to visit Utah, staying at a Hilton instead of a Marriot and refusing to watch a movie at Cinemark thanks to the donations from the Latter Day Saint community that helped to propel Proposition 8.

The donation that Scott Eckern made for Yes on 8 while being a director of the California Musical Theater in Sacramento made the news last week. Eckern’s donation made the news because he is the artistic director in a musical theater, where being in an industry dominated by gay men he does not realize the implications of his decision to donate 1000.00 against people who help make his industry what it is. When you are in a position of leadership or you are the owner of the company you have to make sure you do not alienate the communities you serve. If your store is in a Latino area you do not post signs thanking the Minutemen for patrolling the southern border near San Diego, just as much as donating Yes on Proposition 8 if your business is in the Castro district in San Francisco.

Just as like the Dixie Chicks, conservatives in the heartland had the right to criticize them when they were standing up against the Iraq war effort. If Matthew Cunningham thinks that Scott Eckern should be left alone from any ‘intimidation’, maybe we should of left the Dixie Chicks alone even though many of us thought they were more shrill than entertainment.

Scott Erckern was not just an artistic director, he was an officer of the non-profit organization. When his actions affect the bottom line of the organization where leading playwrights refuse to let him run their musicals at the California Musical Theater, then it is understandable that he was led to resign from his position. 

It is ironic that organizations such as the American Family Association uses the same techniques that the No on 8 supporters use. If any business shows any favorable light to GLBT customers, Donald Wildmon will organize a boycott against them and most of them have been generally ineffective. And the Yes on 8 side in October used threats and intimidation as well. Four of the leading organizers of Yes on 8 tried to extort some of the leading donors of Equality California and told them to donate the same amount of money to Yes on 8 else we will spread the word that you are not for the traditional family.

Free speech is not entirely free. The talk show host has to be mindful of his audience and if he slipped up like Don Imus, he would be without of a job. Advertisers have the right not to sponsor the radio show of a talk show host that upsets a major demographic group. The wallet is mightier than the sword, in a weak economy businesses should understand that by alienating their consumers people have the right to take their business elsewhere.

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