Saturday Sex Post

Well, two-thirds of it is Teh Sex.

We'll start with this little video from the Sydney Morning Herald, where Brooke Hemphill explores what is healthy and what's not in fetishes and bondage. Neat stuff, and not something you'll find on a stuffy old Yankee news site.

Moving on, this bit from Pakistan provides enough material for at least three Jerry Springer episodes. Seems this woman decided to become a man, did the hormones and such, and married her cousin. The high court in Lahore sentenced them to three years in prison and fined them 10,000 Pakistani rupees (about $165).

The Supreme Court in that country has ordered them released on bail (of 50,000 rupees each) pending an appeal.

Pakistan, it seems, has an attitude towards same-sex marriage that would gladden any wingnut's cinder-black little heart.

***

And finally, to cheer people up: Odd video clip

Definitely a Way to End a TV Show

No, it's not who you think it is. This is lovable Farfur, who was a regular on Al-Aqsa TV for the children's show Tomorrow's Pioneers. Farfur sang, danced, taught kids their letters and numbers, and regularly denounced Israel and called for violent jihad and martyrdom.

Disney objected (for obvious reasons).

Israel objected (for obvious reasons).

Fatah objected (their rivals, Hamas, ran the station).

Until today, when Farfur himself was martyred.

Yes, kiddie shows have changed a lot since the last time I watched Romper Room. Farfur was "killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfur's land. At one point, the mouse called the Israeli a "terrorist."

Ouch.

That's certainly one way to go out on a high note.

Here Kitty Kitty

Why Do Cats Hang Around Us? (Hint: They Can't Open Cans)
Genetic Research Suggests Felines 'Domesticated Themselves'
By David Brown Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 29, 2007; Page A03

Your hunch is correct. Your cat decided to live with you, not the other way around. The sad truth is, it may not be a final decision.

But don't take this feline diffidence personally. It runs in the family. And it goes back a long way -- about 12,000 years, actually.

Turns out that wild cats started hanging around humans at a time when mice were feeding on and contaminating graineries in the Near East. The cats were looking for mice as food and came out of the woods. They weren't looking to be petted by humans. That's all. It took about 12 millenia for natural selection to kick in and make cats tolerant of human contact.

Israeli President- Convicted Sex Offender

Not to mention that the whole state of Israel now looks like a big old sex offender. (oops, am I allowed to say that?)

From the independent-

"The outgoing President of Israel, Moshe Katsav, yesterday escaped jail by agreeing a plea bargain under which rape charges against him will be dropped. In return he is admitting charges of lesser sexual offences against former employees."

The AG said that

"there had been a "consideration of the public interest in reducing the harm caused to the presidency... and to the State of Israel's image due to a trial which would have been held for a long period of time with unflattering headlines to the presidency in Israel and in the world"."

Worried about Israel's worldwide 'unflattering' image? Gimme a break.
The whole thing stinks. If in fact he did rape former employees, which we won't know for certain unless there is a fair trial, and he got a plea deal, then this makes Israel look even more "unflattering" and just as barbaric as any third world country. feh.

So here's the deal

If the terrorists don't get you, god certainly will try.

The students who graduated from terrorist suicide camp 20 days ago have already gotten jobs. See Red State's post below. Should we freak out? Nah. Leave it to the "authorities" to freak out. You still have a better chance of being struck by lightning or a tree falling on you than being killed in a terrorist attack. Trees and lightning don't always kill you either.

Speaking of lighting and trees. In my tiny little corner of this neck of the woods on Long Island last evening, something freaky happened. We haven't had weather in my area like this in over 20 years. We were having day 2 of wicked thunder storms and these were more intense than even the night before. At one point, my family and I were in the kitchen looking out the window and there was nothing to be seen as it was white and all you could hear was clanking and creaking and then thunder clapping simultaneously with the lightning. Quite spectacular in the audio aspect anyway. I bolted the windows closed and considered putting boards in front of them. I was able to see out the back windows better and there were sticks flying across the yard like spears. I got askeered and backed away from the windows. My kitty cat bolted up the stairs so fast his tail looked like a comet's.

Soon afterward when we began to be able to see outside the front again, our street was like a river with all sorts of neat stuff flowing downstream- mostly garbage can lids. My lawn was strewn with branches from trees. The golf course across the street was under water. I expected to see boats. Then we heard sirens and more sirens and more sirens. Too hungry to find out what was going on, we ate dinner. My son makes killer homemade pizza. After din, I took a walk and starting from about 6 houses down from me, it appears that some sort of twister or cyclonic thingy touched down for an instant because for a few blocks there were uprooted trees galore and a few telephone poles were down. Pieces of houses were strewn about. No one was hurt. Some cars were bashed and some parts of houses too. Today was the cleanup. It was noisy. Chain saws and those machines that eat trees.

We were lucky. Weather much worse than this threatens communities all across the world every day. Should we all dig bomb shelters and storm shelters? Then what? Stay in them? Life is very risky. We should take precautions but we just can't live in fear. It would be very counterproductive.

Just some thoughts.

So Which Is It?

This is the lead article on MSNBC.com right now: On Edge: London Fears More Devices After Car Bomb

Here is the take in the NY Times: Stoic Londoners Shrug at Latest Threat

Someone should write to MSNBC.com and tell them to stop the fucking fear mongering.

Not surprising

Daily Show Viewers are more up on current events than Fox viewers, network news watchers, CNN watchers. Wired

Interesting...

Court Allows Student's Anti-Bush T-Shirt

Jun 29 10:22 AM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON (AP) - Putting its recent ruling on student speech into practice, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected a school district's appeal of a ruling that it violated a student's rights by censoring his anti-Bush T-shirt.

A seventh-grader from Vermont was suspended for wearing a shirt that bore images of cocaine and a martini glass—but also had messages calling President Bush a lying drunk driver who abused cocaine and marijuana, and the "chicken-hawk-in-chief" who was engaged in a "world domination tour."

After his suspension, Zachary Guiles returned to school with duct tape covering the offending images.

Williamstown Middle School Principal Kathleen Morris-Kortz said the images violated the school dress code, which prohibits clothing that promotes the use of drugs or alcohol.

An appeals court said the school had no right to censor any part of the shirt.

On Monday, the court said schools could regulate student expression if it advocated illegal drug use. Justice Samuel Alito cautioned that schools could not censor political speech.

The case is Marineau v. Guiles, 06-757.

Plane? What Plane?

Well yeah, there was a plane. But maybe more than one.
Caught these articles over at Signs-of-the-Times:
"New study from Pilots for 9-11 Truth: No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon"

And then of course, there's that curious story about Norman Mineta:
Norman Mineta sticks to his story: Cheney in White House bunker before Pentagon hit on 9-11, "Of course the orders still stand".

UPDATE: From Conspiracy Planet: Pentagon Eyewitness: Official 9/11 Legend Exposed
"(Samuel D.) Danner, a civilian pilot and electrical engineer from Hagerstown, Maryland, has recently come forward and told American Free Press that he saw an aircraft that resembled a Global Hawk making a tight turn at high speed before leveling off near ground level and smashing into the Pentagon."

Lampoon Vacation

When I first read the story in the boston globe, it was reported that while taking his family on vacation from Boston to Ontario, Mitt Romney strapped the family dog in a cage (with a windshield) to the roof of the car. When the dog's diarrhea dripped onto the windows of the car, his kids alerted their dad (with ewwwws) who simply stopped at the next service station, hosed off the dog and the car and continued on his way. This story was to exemplify how very efficient and goal oriented Romney is. It was called, "emotion-free crisis management" as if this is always a good thing. They lost me when I read that he strapped the dog cage to the roof of the car... with the dog in it. I wondered if he killed animals when he was a child... for kicks.

In all my years of traveling the interstates, I have never seen a live animal, let alone the family pet, strapped to the outside of a vehicle. Maybe some Americans may find that macho and an example of good leadership without a bunch of gooey human emotions. I find it uncomfortable.

Turns out that it is illegal in the state of Massachusetts to do such a thing- even to travel with an animal in the open bed of a pickup truck is against the law. The animal rights activists are all over this story.

The "Justices" Are On a Roll

Justices End 96-Year-Old Ban on Price Floors

WASHINGTON, June 28 — Striking down an antitrust rule nearly a century old, the Supreme Court ruled today that it is no longer automatically unlawful for manufacturers and distributors to agree on setting minimum retail prices.

The decision will give producers significantly more leeway, though not unlimited power, to dictate retail prices and to restrict the flexibility of discounters.

Five justices said the new rule could, in some instances, lead to more competition and better service. But four dissenting justices agreed with the submission of 37 states and consumer groups that the abandonment of the old rule would lead to significantly higher prices and less competition for consumer and other goods.

The court struck down the 96-year-old rule that resale price maintenance agreements were an automatic, or per se, violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. In its place, the court instructed judges considering such agreements for possible antitrust violations to apply a case-by-case approach, known as a “rule of reason,” to assess their impact on competition.

The decision was the latest in a string of opinions this term to overturn Supreme Court precedents. It marked the latest in a line of Supreme Court victories for big businesses and antitrust defendants. And it was the latest of the court’s antitrust decisions in recent years to reject rules that had prohibited various marketing agreements between companies.

read more

The conservatives agree

Impeach Cheney

before he hurts someone else

Congressional Showdown?

Bush says no to subpoenaed documents.
No documents, no talking to Harriet Myers and Sara Taylor.
Executive privilege you know.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Desegregation Law

So much for Brown v Board of Education

Lacking empirical data and a sense of irony, activist judges Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy formed the majority that would rewrite history. Read it all at Think Progress.

Watch Conservative Senators Suck Ass On Purpose (pardon my french)

Trent Lott (R-MS): “The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail… so far it’s working for us.”

How is being an obstructionist working for the American people? Who the hell cares?
Party before country.
Money before ethics.

The legislation being blocked by right-wing senators has broad public support:

• – Conservatives blocked debate on raising the minimum wage (54-43, Roll Call Vote #23)
• – Conservatives blocked debate ethics reforms (Rejected 51-46, Roll Call Vote #16)
• – Conservatives blocked debate on funding for renewable energy (Rejected 57-36, Roll Call Vote #223)
• – Conservatives blocked a vote on funding for the intelligence community (Rejected 41-40, Roll Call Vote #130)
• – Conservatives delayed legislation fulfilling the 9/11 Commission recommendations (Passed 97-0, Roll Call Vote #53)

via Think Progress

The family jewels exposed

The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.



It's all there at the National Archives for you to read online or download.
The highlights (if you want to call them that) are:

• Top Ten Most Interesting "Family Jewels"
• Released by the CIA to the National Security Archive, June 26, 2007
• 1) Journalist surveillance - operation CELOTEX I-II (pp. 26-30)
• 2) Covert mail opening, codenamed SRPOINTER / HTLINGUAL at JFK airport (pp. 28, 644-45)
• 3) Watergate burglar and former CIA operative E. Howard Hunt requests a lock picker (p. 107)
• 4) CIA Science and Technology Directorate Chief Carl Duckett "thinks the Director would be ill-advised to say he is acquainted with this program" (Sidney Gottlieb's drug experiments) (p. 213)
• 5) MHCHAOS documents (investigating foreign support for domestic U.S. dissent) reflecting Agency employee resentment against participation (p. 326)
• 6) Plan to poison Congo leader Patrice Lumumba (p. 464)
• 7) Report of detention of Soviet defector Yuriy Nosenko (p. 522)
• 8) Document describing John Lennon funding anti-war activists (p. 552)
• 9) MHCHAOS documents (investigating foreign support for domestic U.S. dissent) (pp. 591-93)
• 10) CIA counter-intelligence official James J. Angleton and issue of training foreign police in bomb-making, sabotage, etc. (pp. 599-603)
• Plus a bonus "Jewel":
• Warrantless wiretapping by CIA's Division D (pp. 533-539)

There is also information about:

• Behavior modification experiments on "unwitting" U.S. citizens.
• Assassination plots against Castro, Lumumba, and Trujillo (on the latter, "no active part" but a "faint connection" to the killers).
• Surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971.
• Polygraph experiments with the San Mateo, California, sheriff.
• Fake CIA identification documents that might violate state laws.
• Testing of electronic equipment on US telephone circuits.

None of this surprises me. I just have to make a few phone calls to apologize to people I accused of being paranoid conspiracy theorists way back when.

The Queen Wore a Beard

About 3,500 years ago (more than half the age of the planet, if you listen to the Yahoos) there was a ruler of Egypt named Thutmosis III. By all accounts he was a bit of a waste, so his stepmother put the move on him and took over the kingdom. The lady's name was Hatshepsut.

Since the Pharaoh had to be a man (after all, one of the titles was "Son of Amon") Hatshepsut was often portrayed in male clothing, complete with fake beard as a mark of nobility. Her reign was generally beneficent but after she died the stepson took over again and tried to erase her from memory.

Gotta love the patriarchy.

Her funerary temple, however, is one of the grandest and most visited monuments in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. However, her actual tomb was thought to be lost forever.

Until now, that is.

The Egyptian Department of Antiquities has announced that they have found Hatshepsut's mummy, and will be running a DNA test to prove the authenticity of their claims.

Now, why on earth, you may ask, am I going on about this?

Well, apart from applauding the continuing advances made in both archeology and in genetic science, I applaud the fact that there were strong-willed women leaders even that far back in our history.

I wonder how Hillary would look in a fake beard?

Priorities Please

My heart just bleeds for these poor football players who make millions but does Congress really have nothing more important to do than spend time on this? What with the millions having no medical coverage, making minimum wage, not to mention the veterans who won't begin to get the kind of care these football players have.

The honeymoon is over for the new Democratic Congress. They really need to get their act together quick. I can't possibly vote for a Republican ever again (yes I have) but I am not happy.

She's At It Again

Would someone please explain why this woman is still given a public platform? Is this really the dialogue the country needs? I had a long argument with some friends when Imus was kicked off the air. They were certain that was censorship. It is not censorship when consumers refuse to buy into a very bad product. Matthews claims he has Coulter on because she sells books. This is not a good reason for spreading more hatred. And those are not books they are ignorant, hateful screeds.

Six Years of this crap already

It's kind of ironic that I have been sending off faxes and emails to congresscritters and senatecritters of the republican persuasion calling for them to put their country before their party for a change and grow a set- get rid of Cheney. Now.

I was just now reading a story in WP about how the Republicans would get rid of Cheney. Of course, they wouldn't dare impeach one of their own, if they hinted strongly that he should step down, he'd just tell them to go fuck themselves so it's suggested that when Cheney goes in to get the batteries replaced on that organ that pumps blood, a replacement for him should be found. Then it can just be said that the doctor ordered him not to go back to work. A good save? Not really.

No matter what happens, the republican legislators have done a great disservice to the country by wringing their hands in back rooms and not joining up with the democrats in order to oust this monster. While they are fearing that Cheney's presence will ruin their chances for re-election, their counting on him retiring after a heart procedure doesn't quite cut it- the man needs to be charged with crimes and not simply allowed to go back to hunting birds in cages and shooting old men in the face.

What Year Is It Anyway?

This story is for all those who claim that racism no longer exists in the good ole US of A. It's one of the sickest stories I've read in a long, long time.

Teach Your Children Well

The parents of these high school graduates should be mighty proud today.

H/T to HuffPo.

Sucking It Up

It boggles the mind to think what productive things could be done with tax dollars if they weren't being squandered on wars for oil and abstinence programs. Now we have the Supreme Court insisting that we have no right to challenge the way our money is spent. Not that most people seem to care. After reading Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming I am painfully aware of the many religious purposes to which our tax dollars go. But apparently I should not complain about it.

Speaking of our tax dollars do we know how many of them pay for Cheney and his staff. John Dean has a very good idea. Let's just stop funding them. I say we go for it. Impeachment does not seem to be going anywhere.

Finally, something I can't even begin to understand are the results of this poll. The number of Americans who believe Saddam was behind 9/11 has now gone up! How can it be possible that our fellow citizens are becoming even more uninformed?

Update: Looks like someone is taking up Dean's idea. What are the odds it will not pass?

I Love A Parade

Elizabeth Edwards went to the gay pride parade in SF yesterday. When interviewed about gay marriage, she spoke the truth.

"I don't know why someone else's marriage has anything to do with me. I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage."

She made the remark almost offhandedly in answering a question from reporters after she delivered a standard campaign stump speech during a breakfast hosted by the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, an influential San Francisco political organization. California's presidential primary is Feb. 5, one of the earliest contests in the nation.

She conceded her support puts her at odds with her husband, a former senator from North Carolina who she said supports civil unions among gay couples but not same-sex marriages.

"John has been pretty clear about it, that he is very conflicted," she said. "He has a deeply held belief against any form of discrimination, but that's up against his being raised in the 1950s in a rural southern town."

Well John, if you got over discrimination practices, then you can get over your hangup with gay marriage. The 1950's are over.

Free Press or Corporate Takeover

It just amazes me that an Australian guy can have so much control over what Americans read and watch. I am canceling my subscription to the WSJ.

Boo hoo. The number of black military enlistees have dropped

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of blacks joining the military has plunged by more than one-third since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars began. Other job prospects are soaring and relatives of potential recruits increasingly are discouraging them from joining the armed services.

And they also think that the daily death toll has been deterrent. Ya think?
And there was no mention that the war is fucking bogus. That might also be a factor.

According to Pentagon data, there were nearly 51,500 new black recruits for active duty and reserves in 2001. That number fell to less than 32,000 in 2006, a 38 percent decline.

When only active duty troops are counted, the number of black recruits went from more than 31,000 in 2002 to about 23,600 in 2006, almost one-quarter fewer.

The decline is particularly stark for the Army. Blacks represented about 23 percent of the active Army's enlisted recruits in 2000, but 12.4 percent in 2006.

Oh dear. Black people are smarter and better informed than the military bargained for. The article goes on to say that the poor recruiters have to spend a lot of time, more time with those who can influence students to join the war military than ever before. They still aren't having much luck.

Gilroy, the Pentagon official, said the improving economy is giving potential recruits more opportunities for better paying jobs outside the military.

But he said the growing dissatisfaction with the war among black political and community leaders, as well as parents and teachers, is a major factor, too.

Well I don't know about better paying jobs these days, but you don't have to be black to notice that the chimperor is naked.
And this is funny:

...it is up to the country's leaders, particularly members of Congress who have served in the military to "talk about the nobility of service."

Hahahahaha
Oh yes, young black people really look up to rich white men in Washington.

With detailed, color-coded graphs, the military can chart the erosion in support for the war among the adults who surround recruits of all ethnicities.

Hey most vets I know wouldn't let their kids go and fight in this ridiculous fiasco. I'd lock my son in his room if he even suggested a stint in the military under this clown commander in chief. It's graduate school, a job or the Peace Corps. Those are the options on the table and I don't care if he's 21.

Everyone's al Qaeda now

Glenn Greenwald notes (and I would guess that most of us noticed this) that the Iraqi insurgents are now referred to as al Qaeda in the press.

And note that even for the "smallest" group among those we are fighting in Iraq, the president described them not as "Al Qaeda," but as those "affiliated with or inspired by al Qaeda." Claiming that our enemy in Iraq was comprised primarily or largely of "Al Qaeda" was too patently false even for the President to invoke in defense of his war.

But now, support for the war is at an all-time low and war supporters are truly desperate to find a way to stay in Iraq. So the administration has thrown any remnants of rhetorical caution to the wind, overtly calling everyone we are fighting "Al Qaeda." This strategy was first unveiled by Joe Lieberman when he went on Meet the Press in January and claimed that the U.S. was "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy that we're fighting in Iraq today".

We know that al Qaeda are Sunni's and we know that trucks of money and supplies have been sent to Iraq from Saudi Arabia (Sunni) so how do we know which Sunni insurgents are al Qaeda?

I think that Darth Cheney is al Qaeda. Really.

What the Hell Is

This guy's major godsdamned malfunction?

This, believe it or not, is not a raving psychopathic with a United States Embassy seal photoshopped behind him. This is the 46th Vice President of the United States, the "honorable" Richard Cheney.

This so-called honorable man, who has sworn - twice! - to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, has done more to circumvent that very Constitution and those very laws than all of his predecessors combined.

He has ramrodded Executive Orders past his all-too-willing dupe, the hapless Distracter George W. Bush, who has dutifully signed everything thrust under his nose.

He has snarled and hissed like a rabid wildcat at any who dare criticise or question His Supreme Authority.

He has had his underlings make the startling assertion that his office is not subject to oversight or scrutiny, and is essentially above the law.

He has had his underlings assert, beyond all good sense, that his office is not part of the Executive Branch but a fourth part of our government (something that would make James Madison spin in his grave if he weren't already).

This disgusting creature who dares sully our government deserves to be impeached and removed from all political office, then brought to criminal trial for treason and fraud.

Impeach Dick Cheney.

Cast the fucker out.

Mandatory Service

Chris Dodd is proposing a system of mandatory community service for all high school students, among other points. What does everyone think of this? I think it is a good idea. I would like to see how it will be structured and funded. Instead of going shopping all the time, thereby polluting the planet even more with stuff we don't need, we could do something positive. Young people can always use a chance to feel useful. When I was in high school and college I belonged to a group called The Third Order (of St. Francis). I was still catholic. It was a large group composed of multifaith, multiracial, multigender young people. We were drawn from high schools and colleges in the Detroit Metro area. There was socializing and religious discussion but we also did work with orphans and the elderly. It remains one of the best memories of that time for me and gave me some confidence to face the world as an adult. My daughter is working for Americorps right now and it is saving her from despair while she tries to find a job in her field.

I think we can all agree that Dodd is a very long shot for the Presidency but this could be something we demand of whoever gets the nomination. There are so many positives inherent in the idea it needs a hearing.

Movie Review -1408 NO spoilers

O!M!G! 1408...if you like Hitchcock flavoured films you really do need to see this one. Light on the gore, heavy on the psychological twists and turns.

The scenes with S. Jackson are handled deftly; intense yet light; and leaving you wondering who is being played.

You need to be able to follow the plot, keep an open and curious mind and you'll still wonder if its real, a dream, a drug/alcohol induced hallucination, a concussion or a mental breakdown.

J. Cusack plays a once talented writer who switches genres and now debunks paranormal claims. Oddly enough, they make his atheism known fairly early into the storyline, and he wrestles with the untimely death of his ill daughter and whether it was 'right' to tell her 'lies and stories' about the afterlife. (something many atheists wonder themselves from time to time when dealing with the recently dead and dying). He is a no nonsense, NYC-er transplanted to L.A. and living a basically comfortable, if emotionally damaged life. The character is played extremely well by Mr. Cusack and at time brought tears to my eyes.

I took four tweenagers with me to see this. The boys loved it, one girl thought it was okay, and the last one was just plain confused. Although she thought it was pretty neat when I pointed out two scenes in the movie that she had missed.

1] 1408 = 1+4+0+8 = 13.
2] In an elevator scene, you are SPECIFICALLY shown the buttons with the floor numbers on them, and like many old NYC hotels (built at the turn of the 1900s) they omitted the 13th floor, going straight from 12 to 14.

Making room 1408 the 13th room on the 13th floor. (She finally started putting some pieces together after that.) Take a chance, catch a matinée and go see it. If nothing else I PROMISE you will never be able to listen to the Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun" the same way ever again. (^-^)

Religion: Still Screwing Over Women and Science

This goes SO FAR beyond 'get your rosaries out of my ovaries' that I can't even begin to verbalize how pissed off I am. Full article

Catholic and conservative Christian health care providers are denying women a range of standard, legal medical care. Planned Parenthood M.D.s report patients coming to them because other gynecologists would not dole out birth control prescriptions or abortion referrals. Infertility clinics have turned away lesbians and unmarried women; anesthesiologists and obstetricians are refusing to do sterilizations; Catholic hospitals have delayed ending doomed pregnancies because abortions are only allowed to save the life of the mother.

"It's obscene," says Jamie D. Brooks, a former staff attorney for the National Health Law Program who continues to work on projects with the Los Angeles advocacy group. "Doctors swear an oath to serve their patients. But instead, they are allowing their religious beliefs to compromise patient care. And too often, the victims of this practice are women."



Once again, I am so grateful to live in the liberal, reality-based, educated, North Eastern edge of the country. As some of you know I have been working within my hospital and state-wide community to help get a law passed which would mandate that ALL Pennsylvania hospitals offer emergency contraception to rape victims. And of course, being a proactive hospital, after the ban on intact dilation and extraction was signed my hospital suggested that all OB/GYN physicians conduct ALL abortions that are past 12 weeks WITHIN the hospital, as opposed to in the private offices. Why? Because the hospital has a stable of lawyers who can review, document and 'bullet-proof' each case. (Most of the procedures we are getting are chromosome based, between 12-16 weeks gestation) We are going to challenge the ban and show, in excruciating detail, who is getting these procedures and why.

Can you imagine having your water break at only 14 weeks gestation and knowing that the child is dead and STILL not be able to obtain an abortion, because the local hospital merged with a Catholic hospital which now refuses to perform the procedure for anything other than immediate risk to the mother's LIFE. Imagine being the doctor or patient who heard this: "I was told I could not admit her unless there was a risk to her life," Dr. Goldner remembers. "They said, 'Why don't you wait until she has an infection or she gets a fever?' They were asking me to do something other than the standard of care. They wanted me to put her health in jeopardy."

So, remember ladies, check to see if your local hospital, doctor, pharmacist or other health provider's superstitious beliefs may cost you your life, your health, your family or your fertility. The answer may horribly surprise you.

Sex Games of the Stone Age

No, I kid you not. (Granted a tad bit late for the traditional Friday Sex-Posts) This was a British research paper that looked at several stone age sites:

“The widespread lay belief that sex in the past was predominantly heterosexual and reproductive can be challenged,” said Taylor.

A quick and interesting read, although a few of the comments are a bit unkind.

All The Hullabaloo

I don't know if anyone at Blondesense is a Hullabaloo reader. I have been for years. Digby is one of the best writers on the internet. For those who are not aware of the recent 'hullabaloo' Digby finally revealed herself as a woman. As a longtime reader, I am sorry to say, I was surprised. I do think the choice of the name 'Digby' whether concious or not was intended to convey some masculine authority.

Today The Bag has a visual examination of the whole Digby hullabaloo. Some of this discussion is pertinent to those of us who blog. Does it really make a difference whether we are reading a male or female blogger. Would Digby have reached the level of respect she has if she had put a photo of herself on the blog from the beginning. Is it better to blog pseudonymously or with our own name.

Digby herself has promised to address some of these issues in the near future. As a woman, one who is short, small and blonde, not to mention named Candy, I can understand the desire to leave my name off. I wonder what her reason really was.

Finally! Everything's Gonna Be Okay:

From the New York Times no less comes this headline:
"C.I.A. to Release Documents on Decades-Old Misdeeds"
"The Central Intelligence Agency will make public next week a collection of long-secret documents compiled in 1974 that detail domestic spying, assassination plots and other C.I.A. misdeeds in the 1960s and early 1970s, the agency’s director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, said yesterday."
I sure hope one of the documents to be highlighted is the one found at "Prison Planet which reads: "De-Classified Document Admits Oswald Was CIA".

Friday Sex Post, Part Deux

Ladies, is your vibrator "green"?


Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Just one more rant on legalizing gay marriage...

Every time I talk about religion or morality with someone, the issue of gay marriage comes up. WTF?

I spent my formative years in religious schools and not once were we taught that homosexuals were a blight on society. My teachers were priests, nuns and brothers which might explain that. We were taught to be kind to one another and to oppose war unless of course we were in defense mode.

I just can't get worked up about the issue of "homosexuals ruining the sanctity of marriage." They don't ruin the sanctity of marriage if they marry each other. The only way a homosexual would destroy my marriage is if I married a closeted gay man who neglected to inform me that he had a hankering for sexual trysts with other men and I found out and it broke my heart. So I don't see how banning gay marriage would hurt me as a straight person who is married to a straight man.

If I am a straight person married to someone who is gay and gay marriage was suddenly made legal, then that could be a threat to my marriage should my spouse decide to leave me and marry someone else of the same sex. But my gay spouse could also just leave me to live with another gay person even if they don't get married. Hell, I could be a straight person married to another straight person and my spouse could hook up with another straight babe on the side and destroy our marriage. So where does it end? What is the point of this discussion anyway?

Guantánamo to close?

The AP reports that the Bushistas may be nearing a decision to close Guantánamo and move the "terror" suspects to other prisons like Fort Leavenworth in Kansas where they may face trial.

Officials familiar with the agenda of the Friday meeting said Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Peter Pace were expected to attend.

It was not immediately clear if the meeting would result in a final recommendation to Bush.

What the hell does that mean? And if Cheney is there, can you imagine him being concerned about Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution, let alone any human beings other than himself and his cronies?

Candy linked to this article in Vanity Fair recently and if you haven't read it, Taking on Guantánamo, it's compelling and it sends chills up your spine because of what is being done in our name.

The whole purpose of setting up Guantánamo Bay is for torture. Why do this? Because you want to escape the rule of law. There is only one thing that you want to escape the rule of law to do, and that is to question people coercively—what some people call torture. Guantánamo and the military commissions are implements for breaking the law. Why build a prison here when there are plenty of prisons in Nebraska? Why is it, when we see photos of Abu Ghraib, we think that it is "exporting Guantánamo"? That it is the "Guantánamo method"? —Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift to the author, January 2007.

It's immoral to pay taxes to a government that tortures people. How the fuck dare they? It's against my religion- whatever that is. I can't seem to find a religion that is sufficiently outraged.

Friday Sex Post

First of all, let's bop on down to sunny Australia to look at this article where a Brisbane woman stabbed her boyfriend because he continually masturbated in front of her kids. After being stabbed twice, however, the man continued masturbating.

Now, a recent study from Down Under said that frequent masturbation is actually healthy and can reduce the chances of prostate cancer, but this guy took it a bit too far. The sentencing judge in the case gave the woman who stabbed him nine moths in jail, then immediately released her on parole, citing the fact that she was provoked and was defending her kids.

***

And now to Columbia, South Carolina where - well, you have got to read it:

Nude rooftop romp ends in tragedy
June 21, 2007 - 7:55AM

COLUMBIA, South Carolina - Police today were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet (15 metres) from the roof of a South Carolina office building to their deaths.

The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver around 5am today.

Clothing was discovered on the roof, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released.

"It's too early to rule out anything," Columbia police Sgt Florence McCants said, but McCants said a preliminary investigation did not show any sign of foul play.

Just What Is Civilized?

I watched Little Children a few days ago and I still don't know what I think of it. It underscores a problem that I don't believe anyone has yet answered in a satisfactory way. The problem is that of what to do with people whose perversions can cause harm to others, particularly children. The answer is not as simple as you might think as the film points out. Obviously children need protection from predators but where is the line drawn when people are mentally ill, as I think this is. Incarceration is not going to cure them and we cannot hold them forever. To me it is similar to a suicidal person. You try to protect them from themselves but there is only so far you can take that.

For those who have not seen the film, there is a character who has exposed himself and is now out of prison. He lives with his mother in a neighborhood with many children. I want to say the parents are ridiculously hostile but my children are adults. I might feel differently if they were small. By the end of the film you are well aware that this is a sick man.

So what does a civilized culture do to solve this problem?

Doesn't The Constitution Cover This?

The Big Dick says he's not a part of the executive branch of the government.

Huh?

H/T to AmericaBlog.

Ex-Presidents and Their Lackeys

The Secret Service is scrambling to train and plot security detail for ex-president Bush, when he leaves office. They consider Bush will be the most targeted by terrorists or other "crazy persons" ex-president in the history of US. (I wonder why?)
I guess the same goes for ex-vice president Cheney. Do ex-VPs get security detail also? If they do, that would be great for the Cheney family.
The looming question is, what about the lackeys who attract the same hatred as their bosses?
Are they all gonna move to Crawford Texas? Is Rove going to move in with the ex-president? Will he continue to be Bush's butler, or Bush will assign some of the 103 Secret Service people to guard Turdblossom?
We all know, that no republican will employ him as their brain.

Do you have any ideas for Turdblossom's retirement?

Happy Summer

I have so many favorite summer songs and so many favorite types of summer music that I can't decide what the definitive summer theme song is for me. I guess it depends where I am and what I'm drinking. Summer is more nostalgic than Christmastime.

Today's Musical Interlude

Touchy Subject

I had read that Jimmy Carter blasted the US on Palestine. So I looked it up further. A google search proved that right wingers are furious with him.

Far from encouraging Hamas' move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the U.S. and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power. "That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.

"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said. (Time Magazine)

Speaking of that section of the world... Israel's Indymedia reports that US, Israel Finalise Iran Strike Plan

Olmert also met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to obtain their broad support for military action against Iran.

Pelosi's comments welcoming the Prime Minister indicate that he is likely to get the backing he is seeking from the Congress.

“With the Republican and Democratic leaders gathered here, you see how strong the bipartisanship is for a great U.S.-Israel relationship," Pelosi said.

Meanwhile, Iran has formally complained to the United Nations about the planned strike by US and Israel.

A rape trial without using the word "rape"

A judge in Nebraska barred some words from his courtroom in an alleged rape trial. The banned words are: rape and sexual assault.

Read why the new trend is to ban certain words like "victim" in courtrooms.

Hat tip Eclectics Anonymous

"Light Up and Live"

Don't dump your tobacco company stock just yet.

"Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug"
"Smoking may be bad for you, but researchers and biotech companies are quietly developing pharmaceuticals that are decidedly good for brains, bowels, blood vessels and even immune systems -- and they're inspired by tobacco's deadly active ingredient: nicotine.
"Nicotine acts on the acetylcholine receptors in the brain, stimulating and regulating the release of a slew of brain chemicals, including seratonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Not surprisingly, the first scientific work that identified these chemicals and how they affect the body came out of nicotine research -- much of it performed by tobacco companies.
"Now drugs derived from nicotine and the research on nicotine receptors are in clinical trials for everything from helping to heal wounds, to depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Tourette Syndrome, ADHD, anger management and anxiety."
Full article at Wired.com and thanks to the good folks at the "Health & Wellness" section of Signs-of-the-Times, whose headlines this a.m. include:
"UK: A million children now suffer from mental health problems"
"Circumcision Fight: Profit, Pleasure, or Population Control?"

Good thing I'm not a conspiracy theorist; if I was, I'd speculate about how the smoking bans taking place all over the Earth are an attempt by the PTB to influence people's thinking that everything about smoking is bad for your health. Ah, for the good old days, when they put cocaine in coca-cola. Which is how it got its name.

Douchebag of the Week

Winner
Norman Podhoretz
Neocon

“Well, if we were to bomb the Iranians as I hope and pray we will,” Podhoretz says, “we’ll unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that will make the anti-Americanism we’ve experienced so far look like a lovefest.”

First runner up
GW Bush vetoed the stem cell bill:
"Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical."

I Am Speechless Yet Again

This should be a warning to any immigrants thinking to come back in after they pay their fine. I guess 'support the troops' is another instance of Orwellian doublespeak. Well we all knew that. Thanks to Americablog.

Wishful Thinking?

So I haven't felt too much like talking about politics, what with my liberal outrage fatigue and all, but something got me thinking last night. I was sitting there catching a buzz and vegging out watching the teevee. This commercial came on showing beautiful beaches, beautiful valleys, beautiful countryside and beautiful Asian people, and I knew before the final banner came on that the advertisement was for Vietnam tourism. And that's when it struck me.

The only good argument for keeping US troops in Iraq is that there will be a bloodbath if we leave. It's the same argument that was advanced against pulling out of Vietnam. When we left Vietnam, there was indeed a bloodbath, as there inevitably is in any civil war. Those South Vietnamese who could get out, got out; the communist North Vietnamese were victorious after the downfall of Saigon in 1975. There were mass killings and brutality, there were re-education camps, there was (and I assume still is) suppression of democratic ideals. There were years and years of international isolation. There were years of poverty.

Now, 35 years later, it appears that Vietnam is coming out the other side. While still relatively poor like many Asian nations, it is starting to prosper. The country is politically stable, and foreign investment (an affirmation of that stability) is thriving. I remember when I worked for an oil company in the 1990s, we couldn't wait for the US government to lift the trade embargo so we could get our asses in there to explore for oil. The country has transitioned from a planned to a market based economy, though Vietnam is still a communist country. And even though it is a communist country, the United States has normalized relations with Vietnam.

And it seems the Vietnamese have forgiven us, and more importantly, they seem to have forgiven each other. We had no business going there in the first instance. We killed a few million of their kin and millions more became refugees. We laced their countryside with herbicides and pesticides. We dropped millions of bombs and riddled the countryside with landmines. We attempted to impose our ideas of democracy at the point of a gun. Yet they have forgiven us. It took 35 years.

It is as sad to think of the Vietnamese who were killed in the bloodbath following the US withdrawal as it is to think of the Yankee and Confederate war dead in the 1860s. As sad as it is to think of the Yugoslav dead in their 1990s civil war. As sad as it is to think of the Rwandan dead in their 1994 civil war. As sad as it is to think of the Iraqis who will die in their own civil war following the US withdrawal. Yet there is nothing the US could have done, other than sacrifice the lives of more US soldiers, to forestall the Vietnamese civil war. Nor is there anything the US can do to forestall an Iraqi civil war, except to sacrifice the lives of more US soldiers. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong would never have surrendered except through utter annihilation that would have destroyed the entire country. Nor will the Iraqi insurgency be suppressed through force without the further destruction of the Cradle of Civilization.

Dare we hope that in 35 years, the Iraqis will forgive us as the Vietnamese have? Maybe one day Little Red State Blues will be sitting on her couch catching a buzz and watching the teevee, and she'll see an advert encouraging her to come visit Iraq for a fabulous vacation. I hope so. It's just a shame it will take a generation or more to get there.

Pro-Choice By Default

Just caught this rather disheartening bit of news off ABC's Blotter:

Report: Iraq Violence Leading to Abortions, Drug Abuse Among Civilians
June 19, 2007 2:31 PM
Justin Rood Reports:

"Pregnant Iraqi women who have been forced from their homes by worsening violence are obtaining illegal abortions because they are unable to get medical care for themselves and their unborn, according to a new report by a national humanitarian group.

A record number of Iraqis -- most of them women and children -- are fleeing their homes to escape the bloodshed of sectarian violence and anti-U.S. attacks, according to a new report by the Iraqi Red Crescent organization, the largest aid group operating in Iraq.

Health care is inadequate and difficult to access for those people, according to the IRC report.

"Pregnant women, infants and children are unable to get...required medical care," states the report, which was translated from Arabic, "and criminal abortion became [sic] the norms."

Rape, theft and drug addiction have also become "commonplace" among the displaced, who live in government buildings, at relatives' homes, tents, or squat in abandoned homes or makeshift huts on empty land, according to the report, which was first noted on the Iraq news site Iraqslogger.com.

The number of "internally displaced persons" -- refugees who leave their homes but remain in the country -- has quadrupled since January, the group found. As of May 2007, 1,024,430 Iraqis have left their neighborhoods to live in safer regions, the group reported, with more than 400,000 people pouring out of the areas around Baghdad and Mosul, which have been plagued by sectarian violence and anti-U.S. attacks.

More than 1.8 million Iraqis have fled the country entirely, according to the United Nations.
The report by Iraqi Red Crescent, which says its personnel reach every village in Iraq, comes on the heels of a May report from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which warned of the "immense suffering" caused by the ongoing conflict.

"Shootings, bombings, abductions, murders, military operations and other forms of violence are forcing thousands of people to flee their homes and seek safety elsewhere in Iraq or in neighbouring countries," the group said, noting that food is scarce in some regions, and power shortages are worsening.

"The outlook is bleak," the Red Cross noted, and "likely to worsen."

***

You know a humanitarian catastrophe is in the making when pregnant women seek abortions rather than a) risk their health in a war-torn apocalyptic landscape, or b) when conditions are so parlous that they can not see when it will ever end, and don't want to have children in such a world.

Way to go, Bush.

US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs

Fascinating stuff for geekozoids like myself. Andrew Sullivan notes that DC is equated with New Zealand. hmm. See all the details at Strange Maps.




From Strange Maps, via Andrew Sullivan via oddjob

Not so far fetched

After 5 Years In U.S., Terrorist Cell Too Complacent To Carry Out Attack
Excerpt

According to cell leader and boat owner Jameel al-Sharif, the potentially devastating operation, which involves breaching the station's reactor core and triggering a meltdown that could rival the Chernobyl disaster, "can wait."

"We remain wholly committed to the destruction of America, the Great Satan," al-Sharif said. "But now is not a good time for us. The season finale of Lost was such a cliff- hanger that we have to at least catch the first episode of the new season. After that, though, death to the infidels."

"Probably," added al-Sharif, who noted that his nearly $6,000 in credit-card debt from recent purchases of a 52-inch HDTV and a backyard gas grill prevents him from buying needed materials for the attack.

From the Onion.

Today's News

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is no longer a Republican. There is speculation that he may run for president. Maybe he is just fed up.

NYC's poor will get paid in cash for making good decisions. Interesting premise.

NY's state assembly approves gay marriage bill. Opponents say it will lead to more immoral bills. oy. I'm still waiting for a health care bill.

Say it isn't so. NH bans smoking in bars and restaurants.

When are we going to ban war profiteering? That's not healthy either.

Most Americans (7 in 10) believe the economy is getting worse according to a Gallop poll. If you ask rich people, they believe that it's fantastic. Talk about a great divide. Most Americans are pessimistic about the job market and face financial problems due to health care costs, low wages, high oil and gas prices.

The president will veto the stem cell bill today. On moral grounds. ha.

I just loved the Hillary and Bill clip that spoofs the Sopranos. A guest appearance by Johny Sack takes the cake.

Now they do it. Pentagon sends archaeological playing cards to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan. I wonder if there is anything left?

WWJD

The United States as a country is officially insane. When you have a Supreme Court Justice using a television character to justify his decisions what else can you call it? What would Jack do? Heaven help us all. (thanks to Think Progress)

How soon will it be $4-5 a gallon?

No, not for gas; for water.
The Chicago Tribune's headline reads:
Tensions rise as drought worsens, threatens to spread
North and South Carolina are fighting over a river. In Tennessee, springs are drying up, jeopardizing production of Jack Daniels whiskey. The mayor of Los Angeles is asking residents to take shorter showers. And in Georgia, the governor is praying for rain.
More than a third of the United States is in the grip of a menacing drought that threatens to spread before the summer ends.
While much of the West has experienced drought conditions for close to a decade, the latest system is centered over Alabama and extends to much of the Southeast, heavily affecting Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Virginia as well as parts of Arkansas and West Virginia.

More

Without oil, we stand still.
Without water, we die.
Without Jack Daniels, life isn't worth living.
Although PoLT's pa would've said, "Gimme a Seagram 7; tall glass, lotsa ice, not much water". He used to hide his empty jugs in the vegetable bin of the Frigidaire until it wouldn't hold anymore and then haul them out to the curb in used grocery bags with a newspaper folded down over the top so the neighbors wouldn't see. Along comes the garbage truck the next day, which in those days was an open-top dump truck. The "pitcher" riding the running board jumps off, bumps one of the half-dozen or so sacks, and out spill at least a dozen bottles or more (I'm peeking through the blinds.) The "pitcher" just kinda stared for a while, then reached down and grabbed one of the jugs, held it up to the light, unscrewed the cap, and let the last few drops trickle down his throat. ('Jever notice how if you let an "empty" bottle stand for a while, what's stuck to the sides will accumulate in the bottom?) The driver finally notices, gets out and the two of them sat there on the curb for five minutes or more, sipping down the dregs from pa's empties. Bet they got the equivalent of two or three shots apiece. Hope they made to the end of the route okay.

UPDATE: "Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake, has dropped to its lowest level in 81 years. The water is 20 inches below average and a foot lower than just a year ago."

UPDATE II: "The worst summer drought to hit northeast China's Liaoning Province in 30 years has left more than one million people short of drinking water, the provincial government said."

They don't call it a "concentration camp", "internment center", or "gulag"

No; they call it a "Communications Management Unit".
We're fucking doomed.
"Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir at Terre Haute Prison’s New Communications Management Unit" reads the headline.
Text begins: "AT PRECISELY 7 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 11, 2006, 17 federal prisoners across the country were taken out of their cells, held in isolation for two days, then bused to the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Terre Haute, Indiana. Here the government quietly began implementing the first stages of a secret new program, the Communications Management Unit (CMU). A completely self-contained unit housing almost exclusively Arab and/or Muslim inmates, it eventually will hold approximately 85 prisoners.
"Special new rules set out in a “CMU Institutional Supplement” dated Nov. 30, 2006 include severe restrictions on prisoner communication. Contact with family and friends is limited; outgoing and incoming mail is monitored and copied, with a one- to two- week delivery delay; and no contact visits are allowed. Instead of 300 minutes of phone time a month, prisoners may receive only one 15-minute call a week, which the warden has the power to reduce to just three minutes a month. Unlike the usual weekly or biweekly all-day contact visits, visits in the CMU are for two hours, just twice a month, and are restricted to non-contact only. Calls and visits must be conducted in English unless prior arrangement is made."

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Didja catch that bit about Arab OR Muslim inmates?

No longer am I able to endure the shame, disgrace, and humiliation.

First, there's the news that former Iowa Congressman and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle is replacing Rob Portman as White House Budget Director.

And now this: West Burlington Man Accused of Not Paying for Lap Dances: "A West Burlington man faces theft charges after police say he got eight lap dances at a strip club -- but didn't pay.
Joseph Parrott, 20, is charged with fifth-degree theft and public intoxication.
He's accused of failing to pay for the eight lap dances he got -- at $25 a piece -- at The Lumberyard II in Cedar Rapids this weekend."

Sy Hersh plays Hardball

Taliban graduation.

The Taliban's suicide bomb school will send forth graduates who are willing to carry out attacks on the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.

ABC News has the story and lots of pictures.
hmmm. And the comments are worth the read.

Contempt of press

Tony Snow vs Helen Thomas, 6/14/07

Q I have one follow-up. Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?

MR. SNOW: Yes, the President. The President is in the war every day.

Q Come on. That isn't my question.

MR. SNOW: If you ask any President who is a Commander-in-Chief --

Q On the front lines --

MR. SNOW: The President

via TPM

Justice In The Bush Administration

I am abysmally behind on my periodical reading. Tonight I picked up the March issue of Vanity Fair to try and catch up. I began with this article, a fairly lengthy one but well worth the time.

Early in the article there is a quote by one of the JAG lawyers that is stunning in its simplicity and it pretty much sums up the whole situation with our country right now. "Justice is based on a simple idea: it can happen to you." Perhaps we could get that tattooed on the foreheads of the American public. It might get their attention. Or plaster it across their television screens. That statement reminded me immediately of the Nazis and the way their campaign of terror started. As someone pointed out in the comments recently we are the frogs being slowly brought to a boil.

A simple informational campaign could be started with the slogan 'It Can Happen To You'. Any takers?

I am not ignoring the ethics of the Guantanamo detentions or torture. The article takes those on and does an excellent job.

Farther Down The Rabbit Hole

I fear for my sanity's sake every time I read the news. There are more missing emails today (anyone suspect Rove), Afghanistan is a growing disaster with 100 killed there today, absolutely no one in this administration feels the need to tell the truth or stop dissembling for ANY reason.

And now we find Pakistan is experiencing a resurgence of al Qaeda. And whose fault is that? Apparently Darth has control of that policy (from Think Progress):

" Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney’s office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I’m told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney’s aides, rather than taken to the State Department."

Do You Feel Safer Now?

I, for one, most assuredly do not.

Everything they touch turns to shit

Iraq is rated second among the world's failed states. Sudan is first.

We're going to be in Iraq for many many years. That is, as long as they can recruit willing participants.

Asserting steady, albeit slow, military and political progress, Petraeus said that the "many, many challenges" would not be resolved "in a year or even two years." Similar counterinsurgency operations, he said, citing Britain's experience in Northern Ireland, "have gone at least nine or 10 years." He said he and Crocker would make "some recommendations on the way ahead" to Congress, and that it was realistic to assume "some form of long-term security arrangement" with Iraq. WP

US ATTORNEY FALLOUT
Fallout from the U.S. attorney scandal is “starting to hit the department in federal courtrooms around the country.” Defense lawyers are “raising questions about the motives of government lawyers who have brought charges against their clients,” and “are citing the furor over the U.S. attorney dismissals as evidence that their cases may have been infected by politics.” LA TIMES

Watergate

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Watergate break-in.
Simpler times.

Good morning America

In "Entertainment News" there's a report that NY weatherman, Sam Champion, of ABC received a suspicious letter, with mysterious powder, that mentioned "anthrax." He works at Good Morning America. Speaking of anthrax and reflecting on that time when we warned that terrorists would rent crop dusters and sprinkle the stuff all over us here in the NY metro area, and thinking about how Democrats and news anchors were targeted, it kind of makes you wonder about the lack of spine in the Dems and the media today. Death threats are serious business.

Speaking about threatening people into silence... The families of the four Blackwater contractors who were brutally murdered in Fallujah were told by Blackwater that they would have to sue Blackwater to find out why their loved ones were killed. So they get a lawyer and sue. How does Blackwater respond? By suing the families of the slain for $10 million dollars so that they would shut up. I know young men who were recruited by Blackwater. They looked at it as a well paying job which would help their families. They weren't greedy and they certainly wouldn't get rich from the job. It just paid better than re-enlisting. But God forbid if you die while being a contracted combatant.

The family of Pat Tillman still can't get to the bottom of how their son died. Everything's a big secret and if you ask, then you're unpatriotic, as if being a robot is a good thing. Speaking of robots, I have little or no respect left for military service, because the more I read and study history, the more I realize that it's not about defense at all. It's about brainwashing young people into doing the dirty work of bad men who accept no accountability. If you come home just a little bit psycho after fighting a war, and now it's a war where we are funding the bad guys, the VA has news for you- our services for mental patients suck.

Speaking of brainwashing in the military, I finished reading Seymour Hersh's latest offering in the New Yorker, The General's Report about General Taguba who produced the report about the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. His report was denied all the way to the top of the administration. Why he didn't resign earlier is a question not answered in the article. And yes, everything you imagined about the DOD, the pentagon and the CIA are all probably true. The young soldiers took the rap.

Everyone is discussing who the scariest candidate for president is. It depends on whether you're a christian war monger or not in how you determine your choice. They are all pretty scary to me.

This coming Fourth of July, or Independence Day, as some like to call it, will leave me thinking about how much killing was done to provide us with a false sense of freedom.

Things haven't changed much.

"We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. These people are demoralized.... The newspapers are subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrate, our homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists.
"The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army . .. established to shoot them down... . The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes. . .. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two classes-paupers and millionaires...." -- Ignatius Donnelly, The People's party national convention in 1892 in St. Louis

and

"Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street.... Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. . .. the politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children . .. starve to death every year in the U.S. and over 100,000 shop girls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for bread." -- Mary Ellen Lease, Populist party convention in 1890 in Topeka, Kansas

as quoted by Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, Chapter 11 "Robber Barons and Rebels"

Summertime And . . . . . . . . .

I wrote about this last year. The past year has only added exponentially to the list of things that trigger it. It is sort of like an accident scene. You don't want to look, don't want to know, but you keep on reading - possibly until your head explodes.

To keep our heads on we sometimes need to take a break from heartache and worry. Summer is the perfect time and I am going to link to some book reviews I have done over the last year. If you are so inclined, pick one of them up and disappear for a few hours to the beach, the hammock, a tree house. Take a glass of lemonade and perhaps you will come up for air refreshed and ready to rejoin the fray. At the very least you may feel like this for a bit:

So here is a short, selective list. This is one of my favorites of all time. You may have read it but, if not, it is engrossing. If you are a foodie, try this, or anything by Ruhlman. If you just need to laugh (and who doesn't) at the insanity of the last six years, try this. Only Olbermann can do that. If you want to escape into another time and place for a few hours there are many great offerings such as this, this, this, this, this, this, or this.

I have mentioned before that I have been dangerously depressed. I was fortunate to learn from that and know what to do for myself when I feel it coming on. If you are feeling bad, try a book or a really funny film. If it starts to look like the end is near, as it does on a daily basis with Bush in the White House, I would rather go down laughing my ass off than cowering and afraid or hiding under the covers with depression. Take a tip from Bowie and Jagger and JC. Or even me.

Stuff I was reading and watching this week

Putin's Censored Press Conference.
Putin has a point too. Russia is being screwed over by the bushistas. You don't see much of what is happening between Russia and the US in the US media. Another Cold War may be on the horizon.

Things Your Momma Didn't Tell You
There is a movement to impeach Bush and Cheney. You wouldn't know it if you read the US media.

By Lieberman’s Logic, the US May Have to Bomb Itself
“The United States should launch airstrikes against any country which is supplying weapons or other support to insurgents in Iraq.”

How the Neocons Misread Machiavelli
It's funny the author should mention that. I was just reading The Prince. If you are going to go to war, make sure you win.

Another J. Edgar Hoover?
Almost 90 years later, today's war on terror exists in an echo chamber of the 1919 Red scare.

What Every American Should Know About Iraq
Professor David Green is right on with this no spin history that everyone should read.
Maybe I need to print this out and keep it with me in case the topic comes up.

The City of New Orleans Turns to International Aid.
If you read between the lines of this story, you almost get the impression that the Feds failed NOLA on purpose to illustrate why "we need less government."

A Visual Glossary of Religious Symbols
Stuff I like to look at and know about.

Atomic Veterans History Project
Since we were speaking about the Cold War

If you like old movies, Check out Thermonuclear Tests at archive.org. I downloaded most of them and burned them to DVD so I could sit on the couch and eat popcorn as I trip down memory lane. I suppose it's time to wake up and smell the napalm, but on the other hand, you may want to bury your head in the hot southwestern sand or maybe go on vacay to some pacific island.

Sounded pretty good at the time

From Popular Science, November 1933 via Modern Mechanix Blog


Click image for larger view.

OIL PIPE LINE CROSSES PALESTINE
Crossing the Tigris, Jordan, and Euphrates rivers and winding for 1,180 miles across the birthplace of Christian civilization, a new pipe line will soon begin transporting oil from the rich fields of Iraq to the Mediterranean sea coast. At some points, the line descends into valleys more than 800 feet below sea level and at others has to rise over mountains. It is estimated that the twin ten-inch pipes of the line will transport 30,000,000 barrels of oil a year. In spite of dust storms, heat, and the rugged nature of the country, gangs of welders have been laying as much as four miles of pipe in an eight-hour shift. Many American methods are in use. Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia, is the site of some of the world’s richest oil fields and the new pipe line will cut the cost of getting this oil to outside markets.

A Modest Proposal: Victims of the Oil Crisis Can be used as Fuel for the survivors

Instead of hearing a report from the National Petroleum Council which is now headed by Lee "Fat Bastard" Raymond, formerly of Exxon/Mobil at the latest Gas and Oil Exposition in Calgary, Alberta, two trickster political activist duped the attendees at the keynote luncheon.

"Without oil, at least four billion people would starve. This spiral of trouble would make the oil infrastructure utterly useless" -- unless their bodies could be turned into fuel.

...

After noting that current energy policies will likely lead to "huge global calamities" and disrupt oil supplies, Wolff told the audience "that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who die into oil," said a Yes Men press release.

Yes Man Mike Bonnano, posing as an Exxon representative named Florian Osenberg, added that "With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left."

...
The impostors led growingly suspicious attendees in lighting Vivoleum candles made, they said, from a former Exxon janitor who died from cleaning a toxic spill. When shown a mock video of the janitor professing his desire to be turned in death into candles, a conference organizer pulled Bonanno and Bichlbaum from the stage.

Wow. Hilarious.

When I first saw the headline:

"Gates makes surprise trip to Iraq"
I said to myself, "Omigawd, doesn't Bill know that the country has already been sacked and plundered for its riches? Why would he want to go over there on some capitalistic enterprise?"

It was only after hitting the link to the article that I realized that it's War Secretary Robert they're talking about, and folks in that line of work have an insatiable greed to inflict death, destruction, murder, and suffering. Maybe he's going to sow the ground with salt.

How we learned to stop having fun

I came across this article in the Guardian Unlimited Health and Wellbeing section a few months ago.

"We used to know how to get together and really let our hair down. Then, in the early 1600s, a mass epidemic of depression broke out - and we've been living with it ever since. Something went wrong, but what?"

Barbara Ehrenreich provides some well founded reasons for the causes of our unhappiness IN THIS EDITED EXTRACT from Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreich.

First, let's set the mood with a video of one of my favorite songs, performed by two artists, who year after year continue to amaze me because, well... for all intents and purposes, should be dead!!

Here's Jagger and Bowie DANCING IN THE STREETS

I'm pretty sure they both live by this motto:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body,but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming.... Wow, what a ride!"

This is also MY mantra and I am convinced it is what keeps me from being in a depressive state. It's hard work, but "you have to fight for your right to party!!"

From the article:

According to the World Health Organization, depression is now the fifth leading cause of death and disability in the world.

But to my knowledge, no one has suggested that the epidemic may have begun in a particular historical time, and started as a result of cultural circumstances that arose at that time and have persisted or intensified since.

if there was, in fact, a beginning to the epidemic of depression, sometime in the 16th or 17th century, it confronts us with this question: could this apparent decline in the ability to experience pleasure be in any way connected with the decline in opportunities for pleasure, such as carnival and other traditional festivities?

There is reason to think that something like an epidemic of depression in fact began around 1600, or the time when the Anglican minister Robert Burton undertook his "anatomy" of the disease, published as The Anatomy of Melancholy in 1621

And very likely the phenomena of this early "epidemic of depression" and the suppression of communal rituals and festivities are entangled in various ways. It could be, for example, that, as a result of their illness, depressed individuals lost their taste for communal festivities and even came to view them with revulsion. But there are other possibilities. First, that both the rise of depression and the decline of festivities are symptomatic of some deeper, underlying psychological change, which began about 400 years ago and persists, in some form, in our own time. The second, more intriguing possibility is that the disappearance of traditional festivities was itself a factor contributing to depression.

---------------

This is a fascinating analysis and I believe merits much consideration. So, get the calendar section of the paper out, look for what's happening in your area -- a fair, a parade, an outdoor concert; or grab a bunch of people in your neighborhood --

"This is an invitation
Across the nation
A chance for the folks to meet
There'll be laughin' and singin' and music swingin'
And dancin' in the streets!

Friday Obligatory Sex Post

The case of Wilson v Georgia is still raging on. It should be over by now.

When Genarlow Wilson was 17 he attended an orgy-like New Year's Eve party in a motel with other teens who engaged in consensual sex acts. He is now 21 and has served 2 years of a 10 year sentence in jail.

The party-goers were minors. The party was videotaped. The shit hit the fan when a 17 year old girl and Wilson had sex. The next morning she claimed that she was raped by Wilson. The videotape showed that the girl, while clearly buzzed, did not try to stop Wilson. He was not charged with rape. In Georgia, consensual intercourse between minor aged teens is a misdemeanor. On the other hand, consensual oral sex between teenagers was a felony in Georgia at the time.

Several young men at the party received oral sex from a willing 15 year old girl at the party. Genarlow Wilson was one of them. He did not accept a plea bargain and expected to be acquitted after a trial. He wasn't. If he had accepted the plea bargain, he would have had to have registered as a sex offender which would have prohibited him from going home because he has an 8 year old sister. He would have been deemed a threat to his little sister. Instead he ended up in jail.

The young African-American teenaged honor student who had the misfortune of living in Georgia was sentenced to 10 years in jail and was charged with aggravated child molestation. Had he "merely" had intercourse with her, he would have been charged with a misdemeanor and a much lighter sentence would have been imposed.

The law in Georgia was then deemed so ridiculous after this case that in 2006 that the legislature changed it so that oral sex between consenting teenaged minors is now a misdemeanor. Genarlow Wilson's lawyer, ironically named B.J. Bernstein, appealed the case recently. Because the law was changed after the fact, Wilson could not use that as a defense but Bernstein maintained that serving 10 years in jail is unconstitutional under Georgia's Eight amendment which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The judge agreed and ordered Wilson released from jail on Monday and would not have to register as a sex offender. His sentence was changed to 12 months. Since he was already in jail for 2 years, he could go home.

But not so fast. Georgia state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, has filed an appeal. He wants a higher court to decide whether it has the power to commute Wilson's sentence to a sentence that didn't exist at the time of the "crime."

While technically he has a point, I contend that he is nitpicking, he should drop it already and spend tax payer money on prosecuting those who commit dangerous crimes. He is using the justice system to ruin a young once promising life. While criminal cases should not be determined by popular opinion, and Georgians are outraged by this case, including Jimmy Carter, it is clear that the law on the books at the time of Wilson's trial was poorly framed in the first place or the legislature wouldn't have changed it.

Let this boy carry on with his life or Georgia will be the laughing stock of the country.

Blondesense Liz is not an attorney, nor does she play one on TV (although her dad was.) She's a former teenager who remembers what it was like and currently the mother of a son.

Busy News Day - Yowza!

There's been a lot of movement in the news today, so let's have a look at the creme de la creme, shall we?

Haaretz reports that President Mahmoud Al-Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has dissolved his government after most of the Gaza Strip fell to Hamas fighters. Abbas' own Fatah supporters were rounded up and may be either dead or fled. Either way, things are getting out of hand in Palestine. The European Union's already cut off humanitarian aid, and the US (through Bush's trophy wife Condi) has already chosen sides.

Former White House aide Irving "Scooter" Libby is going to jail - do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Judge Walton ruled on that today. Have a merry Fitzmas!

As possible retaliation for the bombing of the Askariya Mosque in Samarra yesterday, CNN reports that nine Sunni mosques were attacked. A little quo to go along with the quid, and if you think it's nasty now, brother you probably ain't seen nothing yet.

On the moral crusade front, the Massachusetts Legislature voted today on whether to bring a gay marriage ban amendment up for a referendum later this year. Pam Spaulding at Pandagon reports that it was defeated, 45-151. A good blow struck for equality.

In news guaranteed to cause GOP spinmeisters to gyrate like Sufi dervishes on crank, a Wall Street Journal / MSNBC poll shows Obama beating Fred Thompson in a head-to-head matchup, 50-31 percent. And we're only - what? 17 months away?

Finally, in our Animals Behaving Like, Well, Animals department, a squirrel in Passau, Germany ran amok. He attacked and bit a 70-year old woman, then a construction worker. He got his comeuppance when he attacked a 72-year old man who beat the terrorist squirrel to death with one of his crutches.

What's going on in your neighborhood?

Dear Dad:

A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished to see that
his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to "Dad." With the worst premonition he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad:

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mum and you. I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice. But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it's not only the passion...Dad she's pregnant. Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children. Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy. In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better. She deserves it. Don't worry Dad. I'm 15 and I know how to take care of myself.
Someday I'm sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know your grandchildren.

Love,
Your Son John
PS. Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the report card that's in my desk drawer. I love you. Call me when it's safe to come home.

I'm learning

I spoke at length to a friend in Arizona last night who made me aware of just how fucked up the situation is with the Mexican illegal immigrants there, how the immigration bill is on everyone's mind, how they say McCain is doomed and no matter what rhetoric you hear from DC, the truth is that the current immigration laws aren't being enforced, the borders will never be secured, not even the present ones, everything benefits rich white business owners and if anything we should address the Mexican government for encouraging their citizens to go to the US to work and send money back to Mexico. Fat chance. The border patrol is also on the take.

The legal Mexican immigrants are pissed off at the illegals who are dragging their pay down too. Jails are full of illegal immigrants. Construction jobs, the mainstay of many American workers are being filled by illegal Mexican aliens. The pay for an American who once worked building homes in Arizona is now down to $8/hr. to start and if you are experienced will only go up to $15/hour. Incredible. And it's not like the prices of new homes are any cheaper with this cheap labor. I would like to know if John McCain ever contemplated living on $15/hour, let alone $8/hr.

After recently visiting Texas and Arizona I did go away wondering just how the middle class is surviving there. I wondered if there even is a middle class there. It's not that the illegals are doing jobs that Americans don't want to do, it's that the illegals will work for a few bucks an hour and are dragging wages down so that Americans can't even survive on those paychecks. If the "authorities" would even enforce the laws on the books, the middle class there wouldn't be struggling so. It all boils down to greed. There is also a radical movement to take back Mexican land that I wasn't aware of. And I really wanted to move there because it's so beautiful. I don't know what I would do for work.

Lots to learn.

My experiences with immigrants, because I live in the 'melting pot,' has been mostly positive. I don't like the idea of the point system for immigrants but I can certainly see why those living on border states would support that. In reality it wouldn't matter if there was a point system or not to those in the southwest because it probably wouldn't be enforced. While immigrants enhance the way of life and the culture here in the NYC metropolitan area, it is not so all across the country. I have no solution. I am just thinking about how much I don't know.

And now a new threat from China

It's not enough that they manufacture shitty products for American corporations, they have been busy making WMDs and war machines.

Richard Lawless, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for Asia-Pacific affairs, said the US government urgently wanted to launch a strategic dialogue to discuss China's military intentions, especially over nuclear arms.

I am especially concerned about the guy's name. Lawless. Hmm. Reminds me of a Hawthorn novel.

Lawless goes on to say that since we can't have a dialog with China, but the reason why we can't isn't given, "we must plan and prepare for the worst." What the worst is, isn't clear in the article.

Robert Gates called for a dialog with China and is not as pessimistic as Mr Lawless. But recently China tested an anti-satellite weapon and is also becoming quite adept at "Cyber warfare."

About 900 Chinese missiles are in place opposite Taiwan, while China is also rolling out far more sophisticated long-range nuclear missiles, combat planes, warships and submarines, the Department of Defense official said.

...
The expensive upgrading of Chinese offensive systems "is tilting the military balance in the mainland's favor" against Taiwan, but also risks upsetting the regional balance of power in Asia and beyond, Lawless said.

To me, it just seems like the whole world is pissed off and the terrorists have won. The US is funding Sunni's in Iraq and the whole thing doesn't make sense. The media is doing a very bad job of explaining this rationale and most likely it's because there isn't one except that there are some very hawkish guys like Lieberman who are itching to start something in Iran.

Headlines of the Day:

"McCain says he'll fight Clinton's 'pork'"

"Clinton says she'll fight McCain's 'dork'"

(Okay, maybe I made up one of them, but they're both political articles from the All Pravd...er, Associated Press.)
A quote from McCain: "We need a bigger Army. We need a bigger Marine Corps. You look around the world — Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan. It's not going to be over for a long time." No wonder they want to legalize 12 million "illegal immigrants". The army missed its recruiting goal last month.

Quote of the Day:

"Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson—that everything thing we do matters—is the meaning of the people’s struggle here in United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think. When we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But men who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back." — Howard Zinn author of "A People's History Of The United States"

And Woe It Is To Be Young

My daughter graduated from college last year with a degree in Environmental Health. She has a temporary position with the DNR through Americorps. She has been actively searching for a permanent position since she graduated. We live in Michigan which, as you may know, has the worst economy in the country due in large part to the blindness of the auto industry.

In her search for a job Sarah pointed out to me something that is bothering her increasingly. She uses the internet for the most part and, apparently, the military is getting sneakier and sneakier about inserting recruitment posts. This one is not too sneaky but she says some of the posts you must read all the way through to get to any army reference. Here in Michigan things are getting more dire every day. To balance the state budget the governor is now taking money away from the DNR and Bush does not want to fund Americorps any longer.

Now Sarah will find a job even if she has to go out of state or accept a position she doesn't want for awhile. There are millions here in Michigan who are not as fortunate. I guess the government has a plan for them.

Further evaluation:

First, I read this from the AP: "Officials: Subpoenas for Bush figures", which begins: "Two congressional committees are issuing subpoenas for testimony from former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor on their roles in the firings of eight federal prosecutors, according to two officials familiar with the investigation."
Full Article.

And then I slid on over to Harriet Miers's Blog!!!, with a hat tip to Joe Sudbay at Americablog. And now, I'm beginning to feel compassion instead of contempt for Harriet. Maybe you'll understand if you click on her blog. The slang expression "patsy" comes to mind.

Scientific Proof! Why gentlemen prefer blondes

Why Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Modern Mechanix September, 1929
IF THE much discussed statement that “gentlemen prefer blondes” is true, then perhaps it is because they are steadier workers. At least, that is what a recent test made with movie stars as subjects tends to show. In a comparative series of tests with this apparatus shown below, blondes far surpassed brunettes. While exercising on a rowing machine, their breathing and blood pressure were compared. A highly sensitive air tube placed around each girl’s chest recorded the regularity of breathing. Blood pressure was tested on the left arm.

So there you have it.

Hey all you lefties and progressives -- Are you angry? Well, if you are -- GOOD FOR YOU, because........

Anger Fuels Better Decisions:

Despite its reputation as an impetus to rash behavior, anger actually seems to help people make better choices—even aiding those who are usually very poor at thinking rationally. This could be because angry people base their decisions on the cues that "really matter" rather than things that can be called irrelevant or a distraction.........

In both studies, the researchers found that the angry subjects were better at discriminating between strong and weak arguments and were more convinced by the stronger arguments. Those who were not made to feel angry tended to be equally convinced by both arguments, indicating that they were not as analytical in their assessments.

The researchers repeated the experiment a third time .............
Once again, they found that the angry subjects were better able to discriminate between strong and weak arguments than the ones who were not angry—suggesting that anger can transform even those people who are, by disposition, not very analytical into more careful thinkers.

Their findings......suggest that anger helps people focus on the cues that matter most to making a rational decision and ignore cues that are irrelevant to the task of decision-making.


Are you sick and tired of the "Angry Left" accusations? "The source of the anger of liberals, “progressives,” or radicals is by no means readily apparent. The targets of their anger have included people who are non-confrontational or even genial, such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. It is hard to think of a time when Karl Rove or Dick Cheney has even raised his voice, but they are hated like the devil incarnate."

Or, how about Peter Wood's take on "how American politics got infected with a distinctly contemporary style of anger that I call New Anger. This is the anger of show-offs and eager-to-ignite match-heads. It had been gaining ground in American culture for decades before arriving in mainstream politics. When it did arrive in politics, New Anger found homes on both the Left (e.g. Howard Dean) and Right (e.g. Ann Coulter), but the Left provided much more commodious quarters."


I am SO sick of this "pleasant" BULLSHIT and I know you guys are also. I almost punched one of my Bush loving relatives at the last family gathering. I was spouting (calmly, I thought) about the sad state our country had become since w's cabal stole the 2000 election. With a smile on their face (always) she replied: "my dear, you certainly have quite a bit of anger inside of you -- you really should try to get a hold of yourself". I replied (again, calmly I thought) --
Yes, anger and hatred are emotions that, for the most part, are a way of life. It has been festering everywhere (under the surface) forever, until it was unleashed by George W. Bush, et al, on that cold, dark day back in 2000.


".....but New Anger itself had been churning through American culture for several decades. Think of Jimi Hendrix de-constructing “The Star-Spangled Banner” on his Stratocaster guitar..."

GO JIMI!! YOU ROCK!! --

I think we all know the point you were making.

See -- anger CAN be beautiful.



h/t to Mars needs guitars for the anger article.




Crossposted at BigBrassBlog

Losing Their Joementum

Joe Lieberman is losing his "joementum" with Connecticut following his remarks on Face the Nation on Sunday. In case anyone forgot, he said something to the effect of diplomacy be damned, let's attack Iran aggressively.

WTNH News: The Connecticut for Lieberman Chair, Dr. John Orman, called for Lieberman's resignation saying that he "crossed the line" and "no longer represents the views of the citizens of Connecticut."

No longer? How about never did?

Must They Always Use Their Powers For Evil?

Apparently so. Please understand that there has not been a merger or acquisition in the oil and gas industry, the chemical industry, the banking sector, you name it, that the current malAdministration hasn't hearted with all its might. Most often DOJ and FTC don't even take a second look.

So why, oh why, does the FTC feel the need to challenge a merger of two small organic grocery chains? How could it be that this combination would hurt consumers (which is, after all, the purpose of antitrust laws)? I readily admit that this isn't my area of the law (antitrust is highly specialized), but I would think just the opposite: that the combination will allow the merged company to have significantly more buying power, and that savings would be passed along to the consumers. Now who possibly could be unhappy with that?

Oh, maybe Giant and Safeway, Krogers and Albertson's? And maybe some of King George's agri-business cronies like Archer-Daniels-Midland, Purdue and Dole? Because you know that the last thing these motherfuckers want is for organic growers and grocers to have more market power, through which they could grow their business and expand their customer base.

WMD's Have Been Found

Now, the USA Army admits that they have dumped thousands of tones of Chemical, Biological and Nuclear waste into the Atlantic, by the east coast of the USA according to Truthout article.

I feel much better now, since they are on the bottom of the ocean, unreachable by Al Qaida.

I wonder sometimes, what is it with these "islamo-fascist" we blame for everything evil in this world.

The scary skies over New York

In 2006 there were 3 near misses in the NYC area skies according to the FAA. In 2007, there have been 7 so far and 5 of them happened in May. The head of the air traffic controllers union said that passengers should be seriously concerned. Ok. I'm concerned and now what?


What's the difference between a near miss and a near collision?

Speaking of air travel, did you know that the US is still using a 1950's era air traffic control network? And 1960's technology? Some think it will be hard to convince congress that an upgrade is necessary because accident rates are low. But radar is slow and GPS is fast. With an expected jump of 78% in air travel by 2025, it would behoove congress to vote to upgrade the system.

Talk about no confidence

Do you have any confidence in our government at all other than to screw things up?
What are we American tax paying citizens anyway? Chopped liver?

Even if the symbolic vote of no confidence against AG Gonzalez was not blocked by the GOP senate for political reasons, Bush said, "They can have their votes of no confidence, but it's not going to make the determination about who serves in my government," "This process has been drug (sic) out a long time," Bush added. "It's political."

Well yeah it's political. It's the same old story of My Party, Right or Wrong.

Gonzalez says he has no intention of stepping down.

Kingdom Coming

Pursuant to Liz's post below here is a review of Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming:

I am having a very difficult time finishing this book since every time I pick it up my blood pressure rises. I am going to finish it this time so I can move on (sort of). I started on chapter six today and I will quote some of it later. I keep harping on this issue because it seems the majority of Americans are oblivious to the march of theocracy in our government. As I have said before, it will not necessarily be your religion which wins. Matter of fact, it is unlikely. If you believe it is okay to kill gay people or abortionists then you will be delighted. Pick up your bible and read the bloodthirsty sanctions contained therein. This is what the theocrats want enacted into law and they are getting ever closer, with the collusion of some in our government. Ignorant, desperate people across the country are turning to religion for answers - just as they do in Muslim countries. Are these the answers we want to give them:

"The entire Christian nationalist agenda ultimately hinges on conquering the courts. A remade judiciary could let state governments criminalize abortion and gay sex."

"To take just one example, if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it would undermine the ruling Roe was based on, Griswold v. Connecticut. That 1965 decision, which struck down bans on birth control for married women (extended to unmarried women in 1972's Eisenstadt v. Baird), was the first to infer a right to privacy from the constitution. If the court ruled that no constitutional right to privacy exists, states would again have the latitude to make contraception illegal."

"The fact that adults' access to contraception was suddenly subject to debate was evidence of how fevered the climate was in the spring of 2005. In such an atmosphere, few in the media seemed astonished, when at Confronting the Judicial War on Faith, congressmen and Senate staffers shared the stage with men who advocate the execution of sexual deviants and the replacement of democracy with the bloody strictures of the Old Testament."

I have been spending a lot of time studying Islam these past few years for obvious reasons. The beliefs of fundamentalist christians are fundamentally (pun intended) indistinguishable from those of Islam. These people want to legalize murder. I know this is appalling to me. This is happening in the United States of America. These people would like to repeal the Bill of Rights. Is that really the kind of country we want to live in?

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." Thomas Jefferson


This is cross-posted at my blog. All are welcome.

Don’t think, just listen and believe

Fun at The "Creation Museum"
Media Czech at BlueGrassRoots blog went to the creation museum and gives a full report complete with pictures you can click on for a better view and snarky commentary.

The museum's theme? “Don’t think, just listen and believe”
That seems to be the theme of christian fundamentalists. The refusal to use their "god given" powers of thinking and reasoning.


---------

Islamic fundies have a problem with Darwin. In Turkey, three out of four residents don't believe in evolution and there's a new book out, "Atlas of Creation." The reviewer says that it resembles the American creationist version and that may be because American fundies influenced Turks in the 80's. however...

"The political message is different, with evolution blamed for communism, Nazism and -- under a photograph of the Twin Towers in flames -- September 11."

---------

Speaking of creationists, I am not sure how these questions were posed, but this survey/poll is quite frightening. I love how this story is all over the foreign press, goddess help us.
God or evolution? That is the question

Asked whether human life is a result of God's creation or evolution over millions of years, a majority of Americans said both are probable explanations.

Overall, more Americans expressed a strong belief in creationism, or the theory that God created humans in their present form at a single period in time within the last 10 000 years.

A full 66 percent said they believed in creationism, with 39 percent of those polled saying it was definitely true and 27 percent believing it was probably true.

But 53 percent said they believed in evolution, the scientific theory that humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. Eighteen percent said evolution was definitely true, while 35 percent said it was probably true.

I know I'm blonde... but huh?

The US is giving "arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies" to Sunni groups in Iraq. These Sunni's supposedly are opposed to al Qaeda and promise to fight them (even though many of them were once allied with al Qaeda) and to alert US soldiers as to where the roadside bombs are. Critics have a lot to say about this. I have a few questions.

Joe Lieberman must have been watching the same cold war movies and snuff military training films that I was watching over the weekend because he sounds like your typical congress critter in the 1950's warning Americans that their lives are at stake, that their "democracy" is at stake. Regarding Iran he said, “we can’t just talk to them. … We’ve got to use our force and to me that would include taking military action.” I've heard that before.

Pentagon Sought To Build Gay Bomb

Someone please tell me this is a joke. If not, I think I have finally become totally insane. Or they have. One or the other. (ht Americablog)

At Least He's Consistent

This is a copy & paste from the article, since blogger is being funky:


Vatican City - US President George W Bush drew gasps at the Vatican on Saturday by referring to Pope Benedict XVI as "sir" instead of the expected "His Holiness", pool reporters said.

They could clearly hear the US leader say "Yes, sir" when the pope asked him if he was going to meet with officials of the lay Catholic Sant'Egidio community at the US embassy later during his visit.

A handful of pool reporters were on hand as Benedict greeted Bush at the door of his private library ahead of a private audience of about half an hour.

On his way to see the 80-year-old pontiff, the US leader apparently recognised someone he knew, and could be heard greeting the person with a casual "How ya doin'?"

The pool reporters also noted Bush's relaxed posture, crossing his legs "Texan style" while facing the pope across his desk in the private study of the apostolic palace.

The Atomic Age in review

Watch Atomic Cafe - Crude Industrial Fascism 1
See how the government made light of the pacific islanders who were radiated when the wind shifted after a nuclear test. See young military men duped into participating in an atomic maneuver where they will storm ground zero. They will see "one of the most beautiful sights known by man" and then told that radiation is one of the least effects of nuclear testing. If you follow instructions, you should avoid radiation sickness. If you actually do get enough dosage of radiation, the explosion would have killed you anyway. So don't worry. You'll be ok.
Then watch the Army chaplain reciting a statement on how nuclear testing is a wonderful sight to behold.

Then watch Atomic Cafe - Crude Industrial Fascism 2
See our boys in action at a nuclear test. See how radiation isn't really that important unless you opened your mouth and let it in your body.
Did you wear any protective gear while watching the blast?
Nope. Just regular gear.
What's that badge you're wearing?
It's to show whether or not I received a lethal dose of radiation.
Watch our boys jump out of their fox holes immediately after the explosion and run to ground zero with their guns.
See a happy little town in Utah affected by radioactive fallout due to a change in wind direction and ordered to stay inside their homes for one whole hour and not to worry about their kids at school.
Cue the cute Leave It To Beaver Music while we get acquainted with an A bomb and learn that risk is just a regular part of life like slipping on a bar of soap in the shower. Beware of "propaganda" that warns you that your hair will fall out, because your hair will grow back. You can wear a toupee in the meantime.

See Atomic Cafe - Déjà vu a.k.a. Mad Men Talking
We are fighting in Korea for our own national security and survival!
We should fight it to win militarily rather than diplomatically and we should use the atomic bomb. We can destroy Korea and Manchuria with the A bomb!
See little old ladies agree just blow up Korea and get the boys home.
See how the military responds to anti-war "propaganda" and how the commies plant the propaganda. Watch our boys learn to tell peace loving Americans: "Why don't you go live in a communist country?" and my all time favorite: "You look pretty well off, sister, for tearing down the country that gives you freedom of speech." Indeed. Silly commies. We'll take care of them. Watch a young Dick Nixon warn of our secrets being sold to Russia by American traitors.

Atomic Cafe - Time Machine
American propaganda aimed at convincing us that the H bomb should be built for our liberty and protection. See monks, priests, little old ladies and Eisenhower endorse the H bomb. It's patriotic!

History repeating itself?

Lots of talk here about the seeming apathy of the American people. A trip down memory lane at The Realist Archive Project (you have GOT to read it) and an article from April, 1966, p.11 which can be read here gives you some insight as to the goings on in the peace movement in the 60's and more.

Tidbits:

A Little Sunday Animal Fun

How about a little change of pace?

From Thailand, we hear of two drug-sniffing dogs that were doing a bit more than sniffing. One was piddling on the bags, while the other made himself agreeable to the ladies by doing the old leg hump.

Both were fired for sexual harrassment, and now work on a farm.

And from Wisconsin, the military cemetery near the town of Neenah reported a disturbing problem - the American flags put out at the soldiers' graves were going missing. Sometimes all that was left was the little woooden poles.

After some observations a culprit was found:

Squirrels. Squirrels were stealing the flags to line their nests.

No word on whether this constitutes a terrorist act, or we'd be hearing about the Global War on Squirrels.

My Opinion

This is in response to Candy's excellent post below. I wanted to answer her in the comments, but I'm afraid I can't put my feelings into a comment.

APATHY- Yes, Americans have become apathetic to their fellow countrymen, let alone the world in general. It has been a growing trend since WW II and has only gotten worse as the decades have rolled past. Since the 80's it seems as though Americans (through the age of Yuppyism) have also become apathetic to their own neighbors. First it was "keeping up with the Jones'", then it was 'taking care of number one', now it seems its just trying to survive from day to day.

The Middle Class have effectively vanished, taking with it a large tax base that supported the social programs that tended to the ill, elderly and economically challenged. Now the Middle Class IS the economically challenged; petroleum products (heating fuel, gasoline) rising at exorbitant rates, the cost of groceries rising even faster than that with utilities close behind. No one has the time or energy to fight back or rise up against the oppressor when they are working night and day to keep their homes and food on the table for their children.

Foreclosure rates are at a decade high, predatory lending practices are rampant, and I'm sure we all remember those huge changes to the bankruptcy laws they passed during W's first term. The economy is sinking fast, workers are losing healthcare benefits, getting no cost of living increases and are being forced to take on more and more responsibilities for the same or even less pay than they did a decade ago.

That Patriot Bill, the one that took away our rights, the one that was passed during a frenzy of terror and 'trust us, we'll protect you' smarmy smiles and pats on the head. The mismanagement of the country, its money and its people. The loss of lives, not just on the battlefield that was once Iraq, but on the streets and in the schools.

I constantly hear people complain about the quality of life issues; drugs, traffic, pollution, education, civility but these are all related to one basic human need. The need to feel safe and secure; we lost that a long time ago, 9/11 was just the point in time that most people came to realize it. Too bad so many of those people have stuck their heads back up their collective asses and haven't realized how much we're STILL losing. And that as things get worse for the middle class the rate of violence and crime are going to go up with it.


Now maybe I sound like a conspiracy theorist, or maybe someone in a position of power saw the same things I have and decided to use that against the country to their own ends. But this is not something that has happened overnight; its been happening for years, decades even. We (the People) may make a few token advances, but we are so far behind the 8 ball in this game that we may never gain back what was taken from us.

Our Civic Duty

I have Fibromyalgia which keeps me from doing much actively to protest these days. Blogging at least allows one to vent and speak with like-minded citizens. It is the Town Square of the 21st Century. I am pretty certain we all hate spending time researching the downward spiral our politics is taking us on, hate wading through the muck of corruption and covering up by our reigning monarchy. I know I hate watching the country I love become something different, something I am not sure I would have had children in. But I can only speak. My experience with that is usually 'oh, I don't pay attention to politics'. And this from intelligent, caring people. Well I don't usually pay attention to politics either. I hate politics. But there comes a time when a responsible citizen had better start paying attention and now is the time.

Democracy is a wonderful invention but it is not something that will flourish untended. It requires every citizen who votes to have access to accurate information to make choices, even though those choices have been dismal of late. As the media is not fulfilling its obligation in that respect, we have to work harder than normal. Blogs like this one attempt to make that a little easier.

It is impossible not to draw comparisons now with Germany in the thirties. They did not have the benefit of two hundred years of democracy. That is not to excuse them and many people did speak out and knew what was happening. Many people are doing so in America today. These are the people we should be paying attention to. Hiding our heads in the sand today could result in our losing them in the future.

Millions of people in this country vote and the only thing they know or acknowledge is what they are being told by the propaganda machine. A recent commenter on here is a prime example. I feel like I am in the midst of a nightmare and will not be waking anytime soon. So, while it is nice to come on Blondesense and share our frustrations and even rage, more is asked of all of us. I know many write letters and emails and make phone calls. I do - it is the only thing I can do. But where are the massive protests of the Viet Nam era? Why did Cindy Sheehan have to give up? Why is America so passive these days? If anything, the situation now is far more dire than it was in the seventies. Al Gore has attempted to answer the question of what brought this apathy on, but it remains to us to stand up and raise our voices. In a democracy that is the most valuable resource there is. Are we ready?

Drawing copyrighted by candy schultz

The Universe, Expanding Beyond All Understanding

June 5, 2007
New York Times Essay - by Dennis Overbye

(here is a link to the same essay for use when the NYT one expires)

Right after I read this essay, and the goose bumps on my arms went down a bit, I switched gears and started surfing my favorite music blogs. Talk about creepy.....check out my first stop:

Mars Needs Guitars blog (from the moon mix post)

This is one of the coolest pictures I'v ever seen:
a composite of images taken roughly every two minutes beginning shortly after Sunset, following the rising Moon as it moves up.

here's the link to check for their (NASA's) astronomy pic of the day
(Check out a few of the pics to set the mood prior to reading the essay.)


Excerpts from the essay:

If things keep going the way they are.....in 100 billion years the only galaxies left visible in the sky will be the half-dozen or so bound together gravitationally into what is known as the Local Group, which is not expanding and in fact will probably merge into one starry ball.

It is hard to count all the ways in which this is sad. Forget the implied mortality of our species and everything it has or has not accomplished. If you are of a certain science fiction age, like me, you might have grown up with a vague notion of the evolution of the universe as a form of growing self-awareness: the universe coming to know itself, getting smarter and smarter, culminating in some grand understanding, commanding the power to engineer galaxies and redesign local spacetime.

Instead, we have the prospect of a million separate Sisyphean efforts with one species after another pushing the rock up the hill only to have it roll back down and be forgotten.

Worse, it makes you wonder just how smug we should feel about our own knowledge.

The proximate culprit here is dark energy, which has been responsible for much of the bad news in physics over the last 10 years. This is the mysterious force, discovered in 1998, that is accelerating the cosmic expansion that is causing the galaxies to rush away faster and faster.

As this universe expands and there is more space, there is more force pushing the galaxies outward faster and faster. As they approach the speed of light, the galaxies will approach a sort of horizon and simply vanish from view, as if they were falling into a black hole, their light shifted to infinitely long wavelengths and dimmed by their great speed. The most distant galaxies disappear first as the horizon slowly shrinks around us like a noose.................

I know most of us can't wrap our heads around a billion years, nevermind a HUNDRED billion, but can you just imagine that last and final expansion moment -- our universe finally gets that peace/love/harmony thing figured out and then ZAP!!

"It took you long enough!!" (~~~~?)

Now wouldn't that just be the cruelest joke yet?

My imagination is running wild at the moment, thinking about this "other side".

This blonde has one simple (?stupid) question I pose to our readers:

What do you think we are expanding into?





crossposted at BigBrassBlog

"If There Is A God, Then He Is The Devil."

(Voltaire said that, by the way.)

I've always been interested in the problem of how to explain evil, ever since I read the following:

"I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the LORD do all these things." - Isaiah 45:7

That's pretty unequivocal, isn't it? God (at least the Old Testament flavor) was a lot like a lot of the gods back then - capable of doing bad things as well as good, with little or no explanation of why he bothers at all. If you don't believe me, witness the way he manages to avoid answering Job's questions regarding his suffering.

The philosopher Pierre Bayle had a similar problem with evil, likening God to a doctor who allows his children to break their legs just so he can demonstrate his skill at healing. He broke it down into three statements, all of which (if you are Christian) are true:
1. Evil exists.
2. God is all-powerful.
3. God is good.

In order to reconcile ourselves, one of these statements has to go. Now, evil does exist; we see it all the time, so we can't readily discard that. That leaves the last two. Strike away #2, and you reach a heresy known as Manicheanism, which supposes that God is counterbalanced by the Devil - the two are coequal in power. But, strike away #3, and you have a capricious, all-powerful ogre on your hands.

Back in 2001 Christian leaders (at least the bigmouthed, smallbrained variety) blamed the 9/11 attacks on God, saying that it was God's punishment for having feminists, gay and liberals running around in America. After the earthquake and tsunami in 2004, similar points were raised because the 200,000 or so dead people weren't Christians.

And in 2005, there was Katrina.

I'm fairly convinced that there is no deity superintending us; every good thing and bad thing is the result of randomicity and contingency. The bad things hurt more, but they can teach us valuable lessons.

And maybe we can learn, and advance beyond the need for tribal totems.

Let's at LEAST be honest

There's a utopian view that women ought to be able to have sex any time they want to without consequences — that's the bottom line of all these bills," said Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America

Well, lets hear it for honesty shall we. Because in the end that is ALWAYS what it is about; controlling women. (Heaven effin forbid a woman actually chooses to have, let alone enjoy sex).

Do you want to know how bad this has gotten? Have you read the article about the woman from Pennsylvania who is being charged with concealing the death of a child for having a MISCARRIAGE at approximately 15 weeks gestation? Per the coroner, the death was in utero (as most at this age are) and there was nothing suspicious about the death. (Granted, keeping the fetus in the freezer has the 'ick' factor, but I think grief may have played a rather large role in that action)

And lets not forget the 'only white virgins who are brutally beaten, raped and anally penetrated MAY be allowed an abortion in this state' frame of mind that showed the true depth of hatred that drives these laws. Oh, and what about the strong push to have women who give birth to unhealthy or stillborn children imprisoned, under the auspices of the war on drugs (Yeh, that's been going well, hasn't it). Note also that no where is the father of said child held responsible, even it he was the one to PROVIDE said drugs. Also notice no mention of treatment for the drug addiction or rehab services are brought up.

Why am I in a tither over this bullshit? One, I'm still pissed off at that yutz who took a swing at me while I was doing our Oncology outreach at the Woman's Clinic. Two, I've spent the past few weeks gathering data and testifying before our state's lawmakers to get a law passed that ALL hospitals across Pennsylvania MUST offer emergency contraception to all rape victims. Currently 40% of rape victims aren't even TOLD of its availability.

Advocates who testified said the so-called ''morning-after pill'' can reduce the risk of pregnancy if it's taken within 24 hours. The effectiveness diminishes the longer a woman has to wait. Advocates also said it's up to patients, not doctors or hospitals, to decide whether they want to take the drugs.

The proposal, sponsored by Rep. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, would also require all 176 Pennsylvania hospitals to have a written policy requiring physicians and other caregivers to provide medically and factually accurate information on the medication.

Some family and religious groups say the legislation should provide a ''conscience clause'' exempting hospitals with religious affiliations whose beliefs preclude them from offering the pills.


As for the conscience clause - cry me an effing river. If you can't do your job and offer a patient the BEST medical care available (are you LISTENING pharmacists) then quit and get your sorry asses to a convent or monastery or Wally-world or whatever it is you decided was more important than your fellow human beings.

Luckily Pennsylvania is not the only state working on this.

The initiative's centerpiece is a comprehensive federal bill, the Prevention First Act, which went nowhere when first introduced in the Republican-controlled Congress in 2005. It now has bright prospects with the Democrats in power; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is its principal Senate sponsor.

The bill would increase funding for family planning clinics, expand Medicaid and private health insurance coverage of contraceptives, require hospitals to make emergency contraception available to rape victims, and allocate money for comprehensive sex education programs that teach youths about birth control as well as abstinence.

A separate bill introduced this week would ensure that women can access contraceptives at pharmacies regardless of whether any employee they encounter has moral objections.

The lead House sponsor of the Prevention First Act, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., promoted the bill Thursday at the National Press Club — declaring that it would "give women the tools they need to make the best possible decisions for themselves."

Take a CLOSE look at this pic

1] Isn't he supposed to be a recovered alcoholic

2] Doesn't the Evangelical Christian frown upon alcohol

3] Doesn't it put THIS into a different perspective

(for those of you not wanting to click, here is the money part of the article:)

The president stayed in bed and skipped morning sessions at the summit of world leaders in Heiligendamm, Germany, and he appeared subdued later after talks in Poland with President Lech Kaczynski.


Sooooo....upset tummy, hangover or alcohol/medication interaction?

Neary 1,00 Years and Not Much Has Change

Yesterday, June 7th, was the 912th (1095 a.c.e) anniversary of the First Crusade was launched by Pope Urban II with the dual goals of liberating the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslims and freeing the Eastern Christians from Muslim rule.

Interestingly enough, W's Crusade has now topped 3,500 dead on the ground American Service Members. This does NOT take into account Service Members who died in transit to Germany or there after.

Now is it just my perspective that so much of humanities problems seem to be centered around religion in general and the Middle East in particular? Or is that just my Euro-centric upbringing rearing its ugly head?

Well the answer regarding religion is fairly self evident, especially when you have 'men of the cloth' stating that lesbians are giving God every right to attack the United States again. They are basically making God a terrorist and then siding with him....this isn't what I recall hearing in Sunday School. But it seems more and more Americans are embracing this twisted version of the new religion of hate and bigotry.

I think maybe Liz, JC and Peter are right; maybe people just like and/or need to be frightened. Maybe they NEED that overwhelming fear and worry to JUSTIFY their most basic and base need to hate anyone who isn't like themselves.

Personally I'm glad that when my family came to this country we settled in the North Eastern region of the States where diversity is a good thing. Where we love to see how other's live, eat, celebrate. (Imagine a city with NO Chinese restaurants, Tex-Mex houses, no Curry to go, no sushi) How bored their mouths must be; perhaps that's why they are always flapping their gums about how horrible the 'others' are. I say stick some General Tso's Chicken in their pie hole and the world would be a more peaceful place.

Obligatory Friday Sex Post, Creationist Edition

Remember a couple of weeks ago when BlondeLiz posted the article about the New Creationist Museum? Seems the fellow who played Adam has a bit of a past. He runs (or at least used to run) a website that posts sexually explicit materials, and flogs for an apparel company that sells sexy clothing.

Oops.

H/T to AmericaBlog.

oh god no

Lynne Cheney's name is being floated as a replacement for Sen. Craig Thomas who died on Monday night. Check out her record.

Smell another conspiracy?

Well, maybe. Mention the words "courtroom" and "jail" and what image is conjured up?
Paris Hilton's boobs & bush, right.
So let's take a look at what "courtroom" news the MSM might be trying to NOT have us notice:
(From Reuters)
CIA agents go on trial in Italy before Bush visit
Secret CIA jails hosted by Poland, Romania: watchdog

My contempt for the American journalistic profession grows with each passing day.

Menopausal Women Are Hot. Deal with it.

True story.

We were in the mall ordering iced chai.
"Mom. Do you see that water on the floor?"
"Um yes."
"It's dripping off your head."
"Well hurry and find me a napkin or something."
No wonder my eyeballs were burning. Where are those trendy sweat bands made popular by Olivia Newton John in the 80's when you need them?

Just finished reading, "Listen up everybody: I'm in menopause." It pissed me off in 2 parts. This one:

“I didn’t have a clue the women were using the room to cool off,” said Peter Caton, 34, the library’s network administrator who works out of the room. “I only found out it was the ‘Hot Flash Room’ after they put up the poster. I was shocked and kind of offended. It’s my office. If I was an older man and I put an erectile dysfunction ad on your cubicle, how would you feel?”

I would feel that this man is an idiot and I would have to kick him in the ass. If you experience ED at work, then you have a bigger problem than you think.

And this part pissed me off:

“A hot flash is an opportunity to get away with saying stuff that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do,” said Ms. Mahone, the Durham author. “You can curse at people. That’s your moment to get even. Afterward, you can apologize and they’ll understand and feel sorry for you.”

Not every woman wants to use her new found freedom of speech to hurt people. I much prefer to use it when I flirt with cute young guys. And I do. I don't see well enough to notice when they are rolling their eyeballs.

Mood swings were something I wanted to be killed for when I was younger, "Just shoot me when I get like mom." But thanks to modern pharm, mood stabilizing meds methodically tweaked to perfection put an end to those nasty outbursts I experienced for about 2 months before I felt like I was ready to kill someone or my former happy-go-lucky self. The pills have kept me on an even keel for 4 years, righteously mad at right wingers and SUV owners, but they keep me chubby and make me sweat more. Peace comes at a price.

Hot flashes are a royal pain and sometimes you just have to laugh about it or you will end up crying, thus messing up your hair and makeup making you look like a raving mad woman (with a mustache). We can't have that. I can't go anywhere without a supply of items to tie or clip my hair up off my face and neck at a moment's notice. I swipe those big dinner napkins in restaurants to keep in my bag in case I have to mop my brow. No wonder older women always seemed to have shorter hair or wear a bun. hmmm. They didn't even tell us that when we were growing up. The bitches. I guess they wanted us to find out for ourselves.

In the summer, you rarely see me with my hair down unless it's quite breezy or I have the air conditioner turned on to 11. Yes, I use the A/C in the convertible when I have the top down. Yes, you can see me sitting at a traffic light with my hair blowing in the dashboard wind as if I were traveling at 60 mph. Deal. I keep the windows open in the winter allowing expensive heat to warm the landscape and cause the daffodils to bloom early.

I have to use a 5x magnifying mirror to apply makeup and it's just too traumatic... I much prefer the blurry view in a regular mirror if I happen to find myself in front of one inadvertently. As a menopausal woman, I no longer embrace my reflection in the mirror. I prefer to smash mirrors or put large plants in front of them. My family got tired of hearing me pass the mirror in the early stages of menopause complaining, "What the fuck now!?!?! Who is that man?"

I leave it to my "loving" son to tell me when it's time to wax my lip. Why didn't anyone tell me when the fu manchu started sprouting the first time? I felt it with my tongue, but I was in denial. Being that I couldn't see too well anymore and the hair was light colored, it wasn't until I looked like Hulk Hogan that I realized that I better find out how a woman goes about removing such a thing. I called my dark haired Italian cousins to inquire. They laughed at me. Bitches.

Hey. I can have indiscriminate sex without worrying about getting knocked up. Nyeh.

Coincidence?

So there was this developer, Daniel J Aronoff who owned 4,000 acres of real estate on Coconut Road in Florida. It's near lots of golf courses and cool stuff like that. Now if Coconut Road were to be connected to Interstate 75 in Florida, the land would be worth much much more. Environmentalists were concerned about the traffic having an adverse affect on the wetlands and giving the developer a hard time. What to do. What to do.

Mr Aronoff held a fundraiser for Alaskan Representative Don Young (R) and raised $40,000 for him in a hotel in Florida. Suddenly, a $10 million earmark to connect Coconut Road to I 75 "mysteriously" appeared in a 2006 transportation bill written by Rep. Don Young of Alaska. Coincidence?
source: The New York Times.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, famous for his earmarks, has been asked by the FBI not to lose any of his records pertaining to a tremendous investigation of political corruption in Alaska. Details at Washington Post.

celebrity justice

I know I shouldn't cover "celebrity" news, but Paris Hilton was so depressed in jail, poor thing, that she cried. I could barely sleep last night knowing that she was incarcerated after I had the good fortune of knocking back some cold ones at happy hour in my favorite watering hole.

A care package consisting of red roses and a fruit basket was turned away by the jail. She had to have help making a collect phone call because she wasn't used to making collect calls. No cell phones are allowed at jail. Oh the humanity! She avoided a cavity search probably due to her luck in being born of rich people and you'd think she'd be grateful. But no. The heiress was also visited by a psychiatrist in jail. It was reported that she could barely eat or sleep. She doesn't look like she ever ate or slept though.

Seriously, I kind of thought that her jail time would serve as an example to all the little useless bimbo wannabees. So much for that.

The poor little rich girl is reportedly out of jail already.
She served almost 3 whole days, the brave little soul. She was supposedly released for confidential medical reasons and will be confined to her home for 40 days.

Now I wonder if Libby's connections will bust him out of the slammer.

UPDATE: OY VAY. Al Sharpton denounces Paris Hilton's jail release.

Get A Life

"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life," said NYC Mayor Michael on the so called terror plot to blow up JFK airport.

I was reading a bunch of nutjob's comments in a news message board about the hapless plot to blow up the local airport. It's a darn good thing that most people are sensible or the nutjobs would have declared martial law around here. Now that would be a bigger problem than a fire near the airport.

I imagine that some people enjoy being scared. The popularity of horror films and politicos spewing terrorist plots prove it. What good does being scared do for a society though? It's paralyzing. Imagine if everyone in the NY metropolitan area was always afraid? The economy would collapse. Then we'd have to deal with worse shit than being nuked.

If something bad doesn't happen, then you've just wasted precious time worrying about nothing. If something bad does happen, then you deal with it. You can build a fallout shelter if you want. Odds are that you won't even be home on the day you get nuked, if that day comes before a tree falls on you in a lightning storm. Every day could be one's last day on earth, one's end of the world. You can sit in your safe house, watch the news and wait 80 years until you die or you can come out and appreciate the sunlight while you have it.

Julie Amero -- The people spoke and justice prevailed!!!

From WaPo article 1/25/07 by Brian Krebs:

On the morning of Oct 19, 2004, Amero said she reported for duty at a seventh grade classroom at Kelly Middle School in Norwich, Conn. After stepping out into the hall for a moment, Amero returned to find two students hovering over the computer at the teacher's desk. As supported by an analysis of her computer during the court proceedings, the site the children were looking at was a seemingly innocuous hairstyling site called "new-hair-styles.com." Amero said that shortly thereafter, she noticed a series of new Web browser windows opening up displaying pornographic images, and that no matter how quickly she closed each one out, another would pop up in its place.

"I went back to computer and found a bunch of pop-ups," Amero said. "They wouldn't go away. I mean, some of the sites stayed on there no matter how many times I clicked the red X, and others would just pop back up."

Amero said she panicked and ran down the hall to the teacher's lounge to ask for help. "I dared not turn the the computer off. The teacher had asked me not to sign him out" of the computer, she recalled. Amero said none of the teachers in the lounge moved to help her, and that another teacher later told her to ignore the ads, that they were a common annoyance. Later on, prosecutors would ask why she hadn't just thrown a coat or a sweater over monitor. On that day Amero hadn't worn either.

Several children told their parents about the incident, who in turn demanded answers from the school's principal. Three days later, school administrators told Amero she was not welcome back. Not long after that, local police arrested her on charges of risking injury to several students.

(Amero describes herself as the kind of person who can hardly find the power button on a computer...)

The case came to trial this month, and computer expert W. Herbert Horner testified for the defense that the images were the result of incessant pop-up ads served by spyware on the classroom computer. The prosecution's expert, a local police officer, said time-stamped logs on the machine showing adult-themed images and Web pages accessed by the Web browser at the time she was in the classroom proved that someone had intentionally visited the sites by clicking on a link or typing the address into the browser address bar.

So, the prosecution's expert is a local police officer and the defense has a computer expert testify, BUT
the judge in the case barred Horner from presenting technical evidence to back up his claims:

We asked the prosecution to arrange for the defense to have unfettered access to the internet so that we could reenact the events of October 19, 2004. It was not granted. I went to court with two laptops and a box full of reference material prepared to very clearly illustrate what happened to Julie Amero. But, the prosecution objected because they were not given "full disclosure" of my examination.

She was convicted of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 40 years. Her sentencing was postponed til May, and then again til yesterday. Needless to say, you can imagine the nasty letters hubby and I have been sending to the Governor these past few months. We've been outraged since this happened and it seems we were amongst many many others who felt the same.

Well folks, it does pay to bitch, moan, make calls, to stand up and say WHAT THE FUCK is wrong with you people????

From Today's Hartford Courant - A Lesson in Justice:

Although the state police crime lab had Amero's computer for months during the two-year period before the case went to trial, it never produced an analysis.

Only after the conviction - and after a groundswell of angry bloggers and computer security experts from around the country - did the state's attorney's office demand an investigation by the state police computer experts.

Judge Strackbein ordered a new trial and tossed out the conviction when she realized it was based on bogus, incomplete evidence that Amero willfully let loose a pornographic computer storm in her classroom and failed to stop students from seeing the images.

The ugly truth is nobody bothered to check out the story. The tale of a porn-surfing sub was just too irresistible. They didn't even get the state police computer crime lab to investigate - until after the conviction. When you hear what the experts have to say, the story of a pregnant, 37-year-old woman clicking porn websites in front of seventh-graders collapses.

If the state - your government - had done its job, the preposterous charges against Amero would have evaporated.

If sanity prevails in the offices of State's Attorney Michael L. Regan, there won't be a new trial. On Wednesday, the state admitted it relied on false testimony and offered no resistance to Amero attorney Willie Dow's motion for a new trial.

Well, you can bet your sweet bippy that the State's Attorney will be receving numerous calls and letters from JerseyCynic.

Yes, sanity WILL and MUST prevail.

Get With The Program

June is starting off with a surge all right. Does this mean the surge isn't working? Or did I just not get this week's talking points.

Is Cold War II Just Around The Corner?

by Randolph T Holhut (via smirkingchimp)

The miraculous autumn of 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down and Eastern Europe threw off its chains, marked a turning point for the United States.

With the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union two years later, the superpower standoff that had defined the four decades since the end of World War II was over.

Our nation had a choice. We could have laid down the burden of being a superpower, and worked to create a new world free of runaway militarism and nuclear threats.

Instead, this nation decided to head down a different path. There would be one superpower, the United States, and treaties or international law would not stand in the way of achieving the goals of global hegemony. Our former enemies, Russia and China, were supposed to sit idly by, cowed by our awesome military might.

As a result of the road not taken, the Cold War we thought had ended could easily resume. The conflict that defined the postwar world from 1945 to 1991, a conflict that is rapidly receding into memory, may be heating up once more.con't

Fill'er up now

Thar she blows. A massive cyclone is hitting mideast oil producing countries. The biggest in 60 years.

americablog, via Petey and oddjob

I beg your pardon

Paris Hilton and Scooter Libby face jail in the same week.

The bush administration has not publicly mentioned pardoning either of them. Yet. The right wingers are furiously calling for a pardon for Libby. Last night in the Republican debates, Giuliani and Romney said that they would have seriously considered pardoning Scooter Libby. What many people seem to forget is that we are at war over his deceitfulness.

Logo causes epileptic seizures

The London 2012 logo footage has been withdrawn because it has caused epileptics to suffer seizures. "One section of the film, in which a diver plunges into a pool with a multicolour ripple effect, is thought to have triggered the seizures."

I looked around the innernets for more on this and it seems that even before it was animated, there was a huge movement to get rid of the awful logo even when it wasn't animated.

We're so bad at capital punishment

We just ought to quit killing people. It's just plain hard to find a good and humane executioner these days.

In addition, what makes it hard for anyone to oversee what the executioners do is that their identities are kept secret. Death penalty opponents and the ACLU in Ohio think that their identities should be made public and that capital punishment should be open to public scrutiny. Death penalty advocates want it to be kept private so that death penalty opponents won't intimidate executioners. They say that doctors who sign up to be executioners would get in trouble with the AMA and then it would be harder to find executioners. Doctors who perform executions, advocates say, should be no more intimidated than abortion doctors.

Read the story here.

What do you think?

We're such big polluters that it's embarrasing.

At the G8 the US will refuse to agree to targets and timetables for cutting greenhouse gasses.

In fact, the US, according to a confidential report to the WH, the Defense Department has decided to downsize satellites that were intended to gather weather and climate data due to the high cost, and will rely on European satellite data. Scientists are in a tizzy. Really.

Bush plans to tell the G8'ers that each country should be on its own to handle their greenhouse emissions. It seems that in our country the states are on their own whether or not pollute the atmosphere. It's surprising which states are ruining it for the rest of the world. The reason is the burning of high-carbon coal to produce cheap energy.

The US is the largest polluter on earth. Texas leads in carbon emissions and cranks out more than the next two biggest producers combined, California and Pennsylvania. Texas belches almost 1 1/2 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide yearly. That's more than every nation in the world except six: the United States, China, Russia, Japan, India and Germany.

North Dakota, a sparsely populated state cranks out 68% more spew than NJ!

Wyoming's coal-fired power plants produce more carbon dioxide in just eight hours than the power generators of more populous Vermont do in a year. On a per person basis, Wyoming spews more carbon dioxide than any other state or any other country.

In sparsely populated Alaska, the carbon dioxide produced per person by all the flying and driving is six times the per capita amount generated by travelers in New York state.

Guess who represents all this coal pollution? Bracewell Giuliani. Jeffrey Holmstead of Bracewell Giuliani was the guy who worked for the bush administration as an air pollution regulater who ruled that coal is not a polluter. It took the Supreme Court to overturn his decision.

RON PAUL HAS IT ALL

I am hopeful that the American people will recognize that Ron Paul is our best bet to lead us in the steps necessary to take our country and Constitution back. I have a feeling that after seeing him debate the other republicans in New Hampshire this evening, he will be the favorite. I think he already IS the favorite, however, up until now he has been pretty much censored. I think this is about to change. Ron Paul is the only reason I remain hopeful for our futures. Here is a truly inspirational video (with great background music, btw) about Ron Paul and what he stands for:
"Stop Dreaming"

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto"
~Thomas Jefferson

"Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don't have brains enough to be honest"
~Ben Franklin

"failure of government programs prompts more determined efforts, while the loss of liberty is ignored or rationalized away whether it's the war against poverty, drugs, terrorism or the current Hitler of the day, an appeal to patriotism is used to convince people that a little sacrifice of liberty, here and there, is a small price to pay. The results, thought, are frightening and will soon become even more so."

~Ron Paul, 2003

"If we can't or won't define the enemy, the cost to fight such a war will be endless. How many troops are we prepared to lose?"

~Ron Paul

Read his speech before the House last week In the Name of Patriotism (Who are the Patriots?), which is posted on his government web page.


Here is Ron Paul on The Daily Show last night -- Stewart's best interview yet!

Watch him on Bill Maher (he's Bill's new hero)

Even Neil Cavuto of Fox News had Ron Paul on his show recently because (brace yoursevles now) "Never have I seen so many viewer e-mails urging us to get a candidate on the air as we have with Ron Paul -- our mailbox is consistantly flooded with these requests...."



TONIGHT's THE NIGHT FOLKS!!

GO GET 'EM RON PAUL!!!



Crossposted at BigBrassBlog

Douchebag of the Week

Dennis Milligan, GOP chief in Arkansas, fully supports bush's war on terra saying,

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country.”

This New Yorker would like to reply with a great big "Bite me!"

The Assault On Reason

I finished Gore's book last night. It is extremely well written and researched with all the requisite citations. It is a chronology of the worst offenses perpetrated by the current administration and, yes, maybe even a screed as some have categorized it. That is not a complaint on my part. I think he feels just like us only more so.

Gore does an excellent job of explaining the founders' intentions with regard to a free press and its importance to a democracy. Brilliant though they were, they could not have foreseen the advent of electronic media. And it is this that has been the most damaging development in our country. Television is still the main source of information for Americans and it is now pretty much totally controlled by the wealthy who own it. Wealth also determines which candidates actually are electable. Yet this media is one way only and Gore deplores the lack of conversation between the leaders and the led. The internet has the potential to get us back on a two way conversational track with our leaders but it still has a way to go and net neutrality is very important if we want that to happen.

Basically this book is a history of the egregious, not to mention illegal, power grabbing of the past six years. As such, readers of this blog will find nothing new here. And this leads me to wonder what his purpose was in writing it. Those of us who know will not benefit from reading. Those who need to know - the 28% - will never read it believing the media distortion of Al Gore as crazy 'he said he invented the internet', etc. I am hoping it is a step in the direction of running for office.

If Gore were to run it would be bad to spend all his time badmouthing the Bushies. That is not the democrats' style, and rightly so I think. But he has put it all out here for anyone to read and, if he does run, he can now focus on what he would do. Let us hope so because, as he also points out in the book, it will take decades to undo some of the damage this administration has done. We have the tools to work on climate change. Our reputation will take some serious work to regain. But if we do not act now it will all only get worse.

The book is a good read and a quick one and organizes all the problems very succinctly. Read it and let us hope it portends a new bid for the White House.

Inner Peace

I am passing this on to all of you because it definitely worked for me and we all could use more calm in our lives. Now, I'm not much for these teevee talk show hosts/pseudo-psychologists, but I did hear something this morning that caught my attention. And by following the simple advice I heard on a Dr. Phil show, I have finally found inner peace.

Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you've started."

I took a good look around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished. So, before leaving this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's, a bottle of Kahlua, a doobie, a package of Oreos, the remainder of the Valium prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some saltines and a box of chocolates.

You have no idea how freakin' good I feel.

La Dolce Vita: Love is in the air

Rome, where affection is everywhere whether it's romantic or platonic. It's where I need to vacation.

Study Finds Cocaine, Pot in Rome's Air

ROME — Researchers may have figured out what makes la vita so dolce in Rome. A report from Italy's National Research Council released Thursday found that there are traces of cocaine and cannabis in the air of the Eternal City.

The institute made the discovery during a study of toxic substances in the air of Rome, Taranto, in the heel of boot-shaped Italy, as well as in Algiers. The results found that in Rome, there were traces of cocaine and cannabis _ as well as nicotine, caffeine and benzopirene, which is commonly released in cigarette smoke and auto emissions.

"The highest concentrations of cocaine were found in the center of Rome and especially in the area of the University of La Sapienza," said Dr. Angelo Cecinato, who led the investigation.

Researchers can't say for sure why the high concentrations were registered in those locations, but Cecinato stressed that the findings didn't necessarily mean that cocaine and cannabis are more heavily used there.

The report said the maximum concentration of cocaine in Rome _ 0.1 nanograms per cubic meter _ was five times less than the legal limit for toxic substances in the air. Nevertheless, researchers said even the small amount was reason for concern.

There were small traces of the drugs found in Taranto and none in Algiers, the researchers said.

Way to start another cold war, bushie

You don't read much about this in the US media, but bush's plan to install missile shields in Europe (because of the Iran "threat") is pissing off Mr Putin of Russia who says that, "We are being told the anti-missile defense system is targeted against something that does not exist. Doesn't it seem funny to you?" I've been thinking the same thing.

He said that a new arms race would be the fault of the U.S. Now Russia claims to have developed and tested an RS-24 missile "that successfully struck its target 5,500km (3,400 miles) away." It is designed to evade missile defense systems. If the US doesn't change it's mind about installing missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic, Mr Putin said, "...then we disclaim responsibility for our retaliatory steps, because it is not we who are the initiators of the new arms race which is undoubtedly brewing in Europe."

Read the whole story at the BBC.
--------

UPDATE:
"My message will be Vladimir — I call him Vladimir — you shouldn't fear a missile defense system," Bush said.

Morning Read

Nora Ephron: How to Foil a Terrorist Plot in Seven Simple Steps

Once you get past the first step, it's pretty easy and you can be an American hero.

Step 1. In order to foil a terrorist plot, you must first find a terrorist plot. This is not easy.

You Can't Trust Anyone These Days ...

... not even your dominatrix. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Dominatrix accused of stealing $300,000
June 4, 2007 - 7:14PM

A dominatrix has been ordered to stand trial for allegedly stealing more than $300,000 from her brain damaged friend who worked as a "slave" at a Melbourne bondage centre.

Taran Whyte first visited the bondage and discipline establishment known as The Correction Centre, in Fitzroy, in May 1999 after her mother died and she was "desperately lonely". At the centre, Whyte befriended dominatrix Susan Shepherd, who allegedly stole $335,000 from her after she received a $483,500 inheritance.

Shepherd reserved her plea in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court today to seven counts each of theft and obtaining property by deception and was ordered to stand trial in the Victorian County Court. Police allege Shepherd gambled away hundreds-of-thousands of dollars of Whyte's money, which she had convinced Whyte to deposit into her bank account between April and October 2005. Money was allegedly transferred into Shepherd's account on several occasions in amounts totalling as much as $113,000.

In court today, Ms Whyte said she was a needy, submissive person who was often generous to friends so she could in effect buy their friendship.

She said eventually she began working as a slave at the centre and Shepherd moved into her house.

"We had a strong emotional bond. Physically, Susan and I didn't find each other attractive at all but emotionally we did," Ms Whyte told the court. "Susan once said to me: `You like to serve' - well I suppose I did, I like to be needed. I was not aware that Susan had a very different agenda and was basically feeding my need to be needed."

Ms Whyte, who suffers from brain damage as a result of heavy alcohol consumption, said she was aware of Shepherd's gambling problem before she received her inheritance. She said she thought Shepherd was having trouble getting clients because younger women were more popular.

Shepherd told Whyte the money would be safer in her account and that she had invested $210,000 in property in the Port of Spain, the court was told.

She told police she spent the money Whyte transferred into her account on pokie machines.

Magistrate Peter Mealy ordered Shepherd to appear at the County Court for a case conference on July 30.

The "far-left's" agenda to subvert our power structure

Did you know that the NY Times and the "far-left" want to "break down the white, christian, male power structure?" BillO said so. And do you know what is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back? Mexican workers. Yep. It's all part of the evil plan of the "far left." I shudder.
No offense to Mexicans, but I was hoping that women would do the honor.


Someone over at DU had a great idea for a bumper sticker:
"I'd rather be smashing the white christian male power structure."
I'd add "rich" to that.

If you want to have some fun. Play with the Pocket O'Reilly. The link is on the right side.

We Are In The Labyrinth All Right

I used to write poetry. I even had a couple of poems published a long time ago. We watched Pan's Labyrinth last night and it reminded me of a poem. I will get to that later.

Pan's Labyrinth is a stunning film in every meaning of the word. I knew very little about it so I neglected to have my kleenex at hand. Set in Spain near the end of the Civil War, it is graphic and horrifying as good war films are. It also tells the tale of a little girl's imaginary way of dealing with the horror around her. Either way it is a tearjerker, but it is worth it, as all good war films are. Being me I kept thinking of Iraq throughout the film, which is where the poem comes in. This was written in 1992. At the time I was studying the American Civil War for a poem, taking graduate history classes on Viet Nam and doing my own research on Federico Garcia Lorca. Lorca was a Spanish poet and playwright executed during the Civil War. You can sort of see why the following poem came to mind. (This one was never published but it is copyrighted.) It seems that man's greatest accomplishment may be the many ways we can conjure to cause pain and suffering to our fellow men.

The Maw

Shrieking rockets sear the night
Obscuring starlight.
Bodies writhe, claw the sand,
Youth reaches for a hand,
Lifeblood reddens the land.

Waves lash the shore,
Gulls gnash in a feeding furor,
Youth strains on the beach,
The dying eternally beseech.

Old men scorn, do not mourn,
The young.
The world will hate, kill.
Wars will fill
Yawning graveyards
Hungering still.

"Man Does Not Live By Bread Alone".

But if you ain't got any bread, well....Caught the following at Kitco.com:

"...what I am in a panic about is that from the Financial Times we read the terrible news that "Retail food prices are heading for their biggest annual increase in as much as 30 years, raising fears that the world faces an unprecedented period of food price inflation."

Think I'll take inventory of my canned meat and vegetables stockpile. You folks who have enormous freezers DO have generators to keep them running when the electricity is either cut off or becomes too expensive to use, I hope.

Friday Funny

Have at it with the captions.

The Sinking Ship:

Top Bush adviser Dan Bartlett resigns as of July 4 9:03am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dan Bartlett, a key member of President George W. Bush's inner circle and an aide for him going back more than 13 years, announced on Friday he is resigning as White House counselor effective July 4.

Bartlett Bio.

I Hate Totalitarianism

In this so-called "liberal" state of NY we are always bombarded with new rules by legislators, most of whom I don't remember ever voting for. I somehow survived 50 years on earth, my parents survived 80 years on earth and millions of people somehow survived without having the government interfering with what we do on our own time and criminalizing it.

When I was growing up in the atomic age and the cold war, we lived with a background fear that we were going to get blown up, but people went about their own business and yes, some people got killed, but you didn't punish the rest of society for the results of a few irresponsible actions by a few irresponsible people.

There are risks in a free society. Freedom isn't free. Freedom isn't license. It never was. With it comes responsibility. And risk. I'd rather take the risk at living free than give it up. If I live in fear then I am not free and I certainly am not living. I am merely existing. If I wanted to merely exist, then I'd move to China.

If there are to be even more new laws about living safely in a society then the rule ought to be that we teach responsibility and the price of freedom in the schools. Whatever happened to civics classes?

With the swollen population in NY and on Long Island, new rules had to be made in order to keep things running smoothly. Many of them make sense and keep order in public places. Many of them are a nuisance to the majority who are responsible tax-paying citizens who do things in moderation. Yes, people want to be safe but a stern warning in many cases does the trick for keeping people out of harm's way.

New rule coming to light on Long Island: Criminalize adults who allow or don't even know that underage people are drinking in their homes. It doesn't matter if the children are not driving afterwards and if a responsible adult is present and monitoring the intake. It will simply be illegal for children to drink in a private home. The owner of the home will be punished.

This is simply ridiculous.

Discuss.