Tragedy Yes, Crime No

Several months ago, I walked out of Trader Joe's at the same time as a woman who was coming out with her child - still seated in the basket. There is a ramp from the parking lot near the entrance of the store. There are always plants and other items displayed outside. In a split second, this woman let go of the cart to look at something on the display and, while I am sure she didn't realize it, the cart with her child began to roll into the parking lot. Cars usually are driving slowly because the mall is too crowded but there are impatient hot rodders interspersed. I saw the cart rolling at the same time the mother did and she caught it before it was in the path of traffic. But I saw the look of embarrassment and panic on her face and realized just how quickly things can happen without any deliberate negligence or abject carelessness. It was just something that happened and, at least that time with that mother, nothing bad came of it.

This story happened in San Jose not far from where I live. Once I heard about it on the news, I couldn't bring myself to listen to it again or look at newspapers where it was plastered. Tragic as this was, I hope the young mother gets some justice and some peace of mind.

The babysitter charged in the November death of a toddler on South San Jose train tracks again postponed entering a plea Thursday amid indications that the prosecutor and her attorney are getting closer to an out-of-court settlement.

Katrina Hatton, 21, is scheduled to return to court at 2 p.m. Friday.

Attorneys involved in the case said that settlement talks are ongoing. Judge Jerome Nadler indicated he wanted to hear from the toddler's family before a settlement. He is expected to receive a probation report soon.

Supervising Deputy District Attorney Dan Nishigaya said he would like to see the case resolved short of a trial.

``What we're focusing on is getting her to accept responsibility,'' he said.

Hatton is charged with a felony child endangerment charge.

On the morning of Nov. 21, Hatton walked 2-year-old Alexander Arriaga and his 4-year-old brother, Elijah, across the train tracks at an illegal but commonly used crossing near Blossom Hill Road and Monterey Highway. She told the boys to stay off the tracks while she turned back for the stroller carrying her own baby daughter, but Alexander followed her and was struck and killed by an oncoming Amtrak train.

The boys' mother, Nicole Wilson, did not know Hatton. She had asked her friend Tiffany Ball to watch the boys while she went to work. But Ball and Hatton were friends, and when Ball had to leave, the boys remained in Hatton's care. Ball was not charged in the case.

Hatton's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Craig Kennedy, said he's comfortable with his client receiving probation, but not comfortable with any additional jail time for her.

Alexander's death spotlighted the plight of young mothers struggling to hold down jobs and knit together a system of care for their children. Wilson was at a job orientation at Toys 'R Us on the morning her son was killed. Ball worked at the McDonald's on Monterey Highway, and Hatton was on her way to apply for a job there when she walked the boys across the tracks.

Again, as we have people fighting against contraception, a woman's right to choose and men bailing out of paying child support, we have to consider the lives of children after they are born. The pro-life movement ends at birth while millions of children are born to poor, mothers with few options for daycare or the means to adequately raise their children. This woman was going to apply for a job at McDonald's with three children in tow. The victim was the child of another young, working mother who was strapped for babysitters. I think it was criminal to charge this woman with a crime. Albeit devastating, it was an accident caused by a temporary lapse in judgement. This, or something similar, could happen to even the best of mothers who have access to everything they need. I hope they free this woman so that she can reunite with her own children and family.

Hiding Under A Rickshaw

These stories are just hideous and the reason why the far right's movement to remove women's rights is so crucial. We cannot revert back to a society like this:

I just got an e-mail from Women for Afghan Women directing readers to a heartbreaking-then-inspiring article by Yahoo's award-winning Kevin Sites. Taking a page from Nicholas Kristof's playbook, Sites shares the story of a 12-year-old Afghan girl named Gulsoma who, married off at age 4 (not a typo) when her widowed mother's second husband decided he didn't want her, endured seven years of truly surreal abuse at the hands of her 'husband's' family. (The faint of heart may wish to do some judicious skimming through the middle of Sites' article.) She crawled away one night after being beaten and threatened with death if a missing wristwatch did not turn up, and was taken immediately to a hospital when she was found hiding under a rickshaw. While her family denied abusing her, a neighbor corroborated Gulsoma's story and the police eventually arrested her 'husband' and father-in-law. Gulsoma wound up in an orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. Her entire body is scarred, the top of her head bald where she was scalded.

She says she still shivers involuntarily at sundown, a learned reaction from being forced to sleep outside in the cold desert night. And she's still afraid that her 'family' will come for her.

All Over The World

Rape just seems to be commmon place.

At least 15 schoolgirls in Kenya were raped during a night-time protest march in the central district of Nyeri.

Hundreds of pupils had stormed out of school in the middle of the night to go to the district commissioner's office to demand better conditions.

The BBC's Wanyama wa Chebusiri in Nyeri says three of those attacked are critically ill in hospital.

The victims say as they were marching a gang of local villagers attacked them, raping at least 15 girls in turn.

'Unfortunately their screams could have been confused with the excited shouts of protesters,' a student on the march told Kenya's East African Standard newspaper.

Our correspondent says almost 700 Kanguburi Girls High School pupils chose to make the 10-15km walk at night to disguise their identities.

Police say they are investigating the matter, but no arrests have been made.

The school's headmistress spent much of Monday in an emergency meeting with local education authorities, our reporter says.

So I guess these girls shouldn't have been marching at night, right?

But Everyone Who Gets Pregnant Should Have Children?

There is a certain level of desperation any number of us can reach but poor women with children are often the victims and perpetrators of some heinous acts.

A woman confronted a neighbor accused of sexually assaulting her 7-year-old son and threatened to call police, but then accepted $600 in hush money and let the man molest the boy again, authorities said.

The 30-year-old woman was charged Tuesday with capital sexual battery and child abuse. The neighbor, Nicholas Quiles, 48, has been charged with capital sexual battery. Both are being held without bail. The alleged sexual assaults happened the first two weeks of February, Lt. Jeffrey Harrington said. The boy told his 11-year-old sister that Quiles did "bad things to him," the girl told detectives. An anonymous tip led investigators to the neighbor and mother. The boy, his sister and their toddler brother were removed from their home, Harrington said. There is no evidence so far that the other children were sexually abused, he said. "There are definitely oddities to this case," Harrington said. "I hope we never have to investigate anything like this again."

I just don't even know what to say ...

Latino Supremists! Wow!

Leave it to Michele Maglalang Malkin to come up with with BS like this. I find it quite ironic that "Miss I'm so glad I'm in America and married me a white man so I bash every other immigrant who isn't as lucky as me" has sunk to yet another new low to prove her worthiness of citizenship.

In her March 29 nationally syndicated column, right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin referred to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante -- both Democrats -- as "Latino supremacists." Malkin's column dealt with the recent demonstrations in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities against the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives in December 2005. Malkin characterized the protests as "militant racism" marked by "virulent anti-American hatred."

From Malkin's March 29 column:

Apologists are quick to argue that Latino supremacists are just a small fringe faction of the pro-illegal immigration movement (never mind that their ranks include former and current Hispanic politicians from L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to former California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cruz Bustamante).

The Ship Goes Down With The Captain?

In the Girl Scouts, one of our favorite camp songs was The Titanic. I think the song is pretty sick now but we'd turned it into quite the little ditty. The one verse that stuck in my mind as valid was:

"Oh, The Captain Stood on deck with a tear in his eye
as he waved at the lifeboats as they sailed him goodbye
But, he thought he made a slip
so he went down with the ship
It was sad when the great ship went down ..."


SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

3. The President is seen universally as the face of the Republican Party. We are now brand W. Republicans. The following chart shows the extremely close correlation between the President's image and overall ratings of the party.

President Bush drives our image and will do so until we have real national front-runners for the '08 nomination. Attacking the President is counter productive for all Republicans, not just the candidates launching the attacks. If he drops, we all drop.

Ken Melhman and the rest of the Bush administration have lost their danged minds! Bush will blame everybody and their mama instead of taking credit for his failures but he expects the entire party to drown with his incompetent behind?

... the absolute and unmitigated gall!

Rubber Stamp Congress!

Man! There was a side show in Congress today! But I think they made their point!

Don't Start None, Won't Be None

I guess I shouldn't be condoning violence but in addition to a very deadly look, I think my reflexes might have caused me to punch this guy too!

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) punched a U.S. Capitol Police officer today after he mistakenly pursued her for failing to pass through a metal detector.

Members are not required to pass through metal detectors and the officer, manning a position at Longworth House Office Building, apparently did not recognize McKinney and didn't see her Member pin.

The officer called out 'Ma'am, Ma'am,' in an attempt to stop her.

When the officer caught up to McKinney, he grabbed her by the arm.

McKinney pulled her arm away, swung around, cell phone in hand, and punched the officer square in the chest, according to the witness.

McKinney's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

He's lucky she didn't punch him in the face!

Pretty Pathetic

They really do rely on the average American being dirt stupid! This clown who hopes to replace the imprisoned Duke Cunningham, but a picture of Turkey on his site and claimed it was Iraq!

How far will critics of media coverage of the Iraq war go to prove reporters are wrongly focusing on the negative?

One answer came this week, in a shocking if amusing episode featuring one Howard Kaloogian, a leading Republican running for the seat in Congress recently vacated by indicted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

He posted on the official Web site for his campaign a picture taken in "downtown Baghdad," he said, during his visit to the city, which supposedly indicated that the media was wrong about the level of violence in the city. "We took this photo of downtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq," he wrote. "Iraq (including Baghdad) is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be. But, each day the news media finds any violence occurring in the country and screams and shouts about it - in part because many journalists are opposed to the U.S. effort to fight terrorism."

But the blogosphere quickly smelled a rat. The photo featured people who didn’t seem dressed quite right for Iraq, and signs and billboards that looked off, too. In the now-familiar pattern, the ace detective work leaped from obscure blogs to the well-known (Talking Points Memo, Eschaton, Attytood, more), and back again, as eagle-eyed experts proposed alternative locales, with Turkey a likely suspect.

In less than a day, it was over. "Jem6X" at the popular DailyKos blog confirmed the street scene was in Istanbul, not Baghdad.

Tipped off by someone who recognized the actual intersection in Istanbul, Jem went through online photo galleries and in a matter of minutes today found a snap taken by a "Faruk" that lined up with the "Baghdad" photo in numerous conclusive ways. Game, set, and match to the blogosphere.

Aren't any of the people who support these folks embarrased that politicians think they are morons?

That Damned Saddam!

Last week the media was to blame for the continued and escalating violence in Iraq. Now it's the long captured and on trial Saddam Hussein who was supposedly despised by the majority of the country.

President Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government.

In his third speech this month to bolster public support for the war, Bush worked to counter critics who say the U.S. presence in the wartorn nation is fueling the insurgency.

Bush said that Saddam was a tyrant and used violence to exacerbate sectarian divisions to keep himself in power, and that as a result, deep tensions persist to this day.

enemies of a free Iraq are employing the same tactics Saddam used, killing and terrorizing the Iraqi people in an effort to foment sectarian division," Bush said.

At what point do we just strip this man naked and parade him through the country as the buffoon that he is. I watch Washington Journal on C-Span every morning so I know there are still some needle brained folks who still believe this clown and I guess this is for them. But these mind games they keep playing with the mindless are beyond irritating. Who's fault will it be next week?

Funny

But true!

'New Rule: Nobody can use the phrase 'our greatest problem' anymore unless you're talking about global warming. President Bush has been saying we're in a war on terror, and now I get it. He's not saying 'terror,' he's saying 'terra' as in 'terra firma,' as in the Earth. George Bush is an alien sent here to destroy the Earth! I know it sounds crazy, but it made perfect sense when Tom Cruise explained it to me last week.'
---Bill Maher


'Here now a list of requirements for Dick Cheney's `downtime suite'...Cheney wants bottled water, decaffeinated coffee. He wants his lights on. He wants the temperature at 68 degrees, the TV's must be tuned to Fox news. I was thinking, 'My God, I wish they would have put this much preparation into the Iraq War.''
---David Letterman


'We're now down to the final four. Not college basketball. The number of people who still think President Bush is doing a good job.'
---Jay Leno


'Ummm...well, uh...I wasn't prepared for that one.'
---Cobra II co-author Michael Gordon, responding to Jon Stewart's question, 'After the fall of Baghdad, what did [Bush and the neocons] get right?' on The Daily Show


'The President's mother, Barbara Bush, donated tax-deductible money to the Katrina Relief after the flood. And now we find out that it was with specific instructions that the money be spent for educational software owned by her son Neil. Because who can forget those tragic images of the poor black people on rooftops in New Orleans holding up signs that said, 'Send Educational Software'?'
---Bill Maher

Don't Hate The Player, Hate The Game

Oh my! I agree with Jesse Jackson this time (I often agree but he just works my nerves). This whole immigrant debate is really bringing out the worst in people - of all races. My issue is that, once again, poor people are being scape goated and blamed because they are the path of least resistance. Our borders are porous and people come flooding in because they have every reason and opportunity to do so. Big business created and continues to feed this gigantic problem. But I will not participate in blaming yet another group of poor brown people.

When employers brought slaves to America, few objected as long as they were prepared to work without wages and without rights. When they began to demand equal rights, all hell broke loose. No one minded when Mexican farm workers came to pick the crops, do the lawns, clean the houses. When they started to demand the right to citizenship, to vote, to organize -- the furor started.

American workers are sensibly worried that the flood of immigrant labor will bring lower wages as part of the global race to the bottom. But their complaint is with employers who prefer undocumented workers whom they can exploit without complaint, and with federal and state authorities who turn a blind eye to that exploitation.

There is no way anyone is going to locate, arrest, detain and ship millions of undocumented workers out of America. Our choice is whether we want to maintain permanently a large underclass of undocumented workers that can be easily exploited by cynical employers, and slurred by callous politicians -- or whether we want to fulfill America's promise by providing them with a road to citizenship, benefitting from their willingness to work, pay taxes and contribute.

How do we stop our country from being overrun by impoverished immigrants if we offer them pathways to citizenship? There is only one way -- and it is not mentioned in this debate. We passed a treaty called NAFTA with Mexico and Canada that guaranteed rights to employers and investors but not to workers. The results have been catastrophic. Wages in Mexico, the United States and Canada have fallen. Mexico now exports more cars to the United States than the United States exports to the world -- all made by U.S. companies benefitting from cheap labor in Mexico. And U.S. food exports have displaced millions of poor Mexican peasants and driven them from their communities. They don't come to the United States because they want to leave their homes. They come desperate for work.

Slave labor built this country and big business never got over the bloody taste that "free money" bought. So, they have a new way to exploit human beings. No American would work for sub-standard wages and sub-human treatment. All of this outrage at illegals "breaking the law" is misdirected as they are just in the dirty game they have to play to to feed their families. I don't hate them for playing. But I do hate the game.


Technorati Tags: immigration, Mexican

Sue Them Blind

This is the story, a previous gang rape, that I just couldn't bring myself to post. As if the heinous assault wasn't bad enough, the parents and the defense attorney for the culprits (who taped themselves committing this act) exhibited a level of misogyny that was worse than the actual criminals.

A pending civil action in California may establish a new legal precedent, holding defense attorneys and their investigators civilly liable for the emotional damage they inflict on sexual assault victims while preparing their client's defense.

Jane Doe was 16 years old when she was sexually assaulted by Greg Haidl, Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann, all 17, as she lay unconscious on a pool table. Haidl videotaped the incident, during which Jane Doe was violated with a variety of objects, including a pool cue, a lighted cigarette and a Snapple bottle. During the criminal action, Joseph Cavallo and other lawyers for the defense cast the victim as an aspiring porn star who had submitted to the boys' actions voluntarily. Doe was also vigorously cross-examined regarding her sexual past. The defense's efforts to smear her reputation and credibility failed. The three young men were convicted of sexual assault, and are currently serving time.

Now 20, Jane Doe has brought a civil action against the three, and named Haidl's father, a wealthy former assistant sheriff in Orange County, as a codefendant. Doe alleges that Haidl's father should have been aware of the parties, which featured drugs and alcohol, that were held in his Corona del Mar home, where the assault occurred. In an unprecedented legal move, the $26 million case also names Haidl's defense attorney, Cavallo, and his two investigators, John Warren and Shawn Smigel, for their actions in causing the plaintiff extreme emotional distress.

We can point fingers at the level of oppression and maltreatment of women in other countries but we have a definite culture of disrespect and disregard for women as something other than pieces of meat right here in America and it absolutely has to stop!

This story is just repulsive.

Nope! Not Civil War

And people want good news! The attacks are getting worse and seem to be fully organized to target specific people.

Gunmen dressed in police uniforms have attacked a trading company in Baghdad, killing at least eight Iraqi employees.

The gunmen stormed the al-Ibtikar Trade Contracting Co in the capital's western Mansour district at 0815 (0515 GMT) and opened fire, police said.

The motive of the attack was not clear, as the gunmen did not take any money.

There have been a series of robberies and attacks on shops and businesses in Baghdad in the past week.

On Tuesday, nine people working at a foreign exchange and an electronics shop were kidnapped.

Sixteen employees of another trading company in Mansour were abducted the day before.

What's going on if it isn't civil war? Read more here
and here!

Now It's A Crime

Had the ratio of girls to boys not become so skewed, would this be a crime?

A doctor in India and his assistant have been sentenced to two years in prison for revealing the sex of a fetus and then agreeing to abort it.

This is the first time medical professionals have been jailed in such a case.

Under Indian laws, ultrasound tests on a pregnant woman to determine the gender of the foetus are illegal.

It has been estimated that 10m female feotuses may have been terminated in India in the past 20 years.

Dr Anil Sabani and Kartar Singh were caught in a sting operation in the northern state of Haryana.

Government officials sent in three pregnant women as decoy patients to find out if the clinic would carry out abortions based on sex selection.

Audio and video evidence showed the doctor telling one woman that tests had revealed that she was carrying a 'female fetus and it would be taken care of'.

A cultural preference for sons over daughters has skewed India's sex ratio.

But convictions are rare due to lax and corrupt officials and the slow judicial system.

The government brought in laws 12 years ago to stop the practice of aborting female fetuses.

I would apologize for sounding cynical and am glad that women are no longer to abort babies soley based on gender but, honestly, if this weren't about a pussy shortage for the men who are now coming of age, would this practice have been stopped and criminalized?

Lacrosse Update. Not Good

I guess the difference, these days, is that these types of things are being reported. I am, though, tired of hearing about gang rapes.

Then there is the men's lacrosse team. In as ugly a story as is likely to be reported in college sports this year, a black exotic dancer says she was beaten, strangled, and raped at a party hosted at a house rented by the three Duke lacrosse captains. The woman, who says she was told she'd be dancing for a few men at a bachelor party, told police she fought fiercely against her attackers, losing four fingernails in the process.

Initially, the lacrosse team denied it all. It was all overblown, they said, although they did admit hiring a dancer and doing some drinking. The drinking was certainly no surprise. The Winston-Salem Journal reported this week that 15 of the 47 players on the team had previous misdemeanor chargers 'stemming from drunken and disruptive behavior.'' In fact, police have reportedly been called to the house four times since September.

And then the police found four red, polished, broken fingernails at the house.

Suddenly this began to look a little more serious. As one of the local papers pointed out, a first degree rape conviction carries a prison term, at least 16 years for someone with no prior convictions. Slowly, slowly, the university began to react. The athletic director announced that the team, which was considered a contender for the national championship when the season began, would forfeit two games.

Although the players still stonewalled, refusing to talk to police and hiring attorneys who claimed that the DNA tests the police ordered were 'mammothly unconstitutional,'' the students on campus weren't buying it. There were three days of campus protests, including a candlelight vigil last Saturday night.

On Tuesday, there was finally a change. The captains announced that they had decided not to play another game until, in the words of the school president, 'a clearer resolution of the legal situation,'' is reached. This sounds like one last attempt to take the high ground. They suspended themselves until this can be straightened out.

But if they really wanted to resurrect their image they'd cooperate with the police. Instead, since the team provided so little information, police took DNA samples from virtually everyone on the roster. The players had better hope their sample doesn't turn up anything suspicious. Police also said that if a rape is proved, there was the possibility that bystanders might be charged on the grounds that they could have stopped the incident but did nothing.

The DNA tests are due back next week. There is no telling what they will reveal, but we do know a few things: One, the police say they are fairly certain a rape occurred; two, news reports indicate police were able to collect compelling physical evidence from the woman when she sought medical care; and finally, we know the community and the student body are up in arms and expect action.

Even if we take race out of it, and Lord knows I think that there are a lot of white men who think of black women as sub-human (as did their great grandfathers), this must stop! This isn't about women, how they dress, what they do for a living or how late they stay out at night. It is about men who absolutely, positively do not have respect for women. Period! Violence towards women seems to be escalating in society, and despite education and campaigns to tell young men that "no means no" there seems to be a segment of men who don't seem to think that they will get caught or punished for their barbaric behavior. Are these "gangs" of men human beings or are they packs of dogs?

This Is Sorry

So do people just not understand how babies are conceived and how chromosomes play into gender selection? How are these people going to name a girl child "Sorry" because biology, not human intervention or fault, presented them with a girl? This is just as backwards as those men who think that a woman's body somehow creates boys or girls in the birth canal and blames them when a boy doesn't come out. I'm sorry for Sorry.

In many Asian cultures, begetting a female child is the biggest curse a family can endure.

Aapni Dhikri Ro Hak blog talks about families where they named their daughters 'Maafi', literally meaning 'Sorry', as a act of requesting forgiveness from God.

She is Maafi. Maafi in Hindi means 'Sorry'. She is the fourth girl born to her parents. They were so detested after Maafi's birth that they sought forgiveness from God. That is why they chose to name their fourth girl child 'Maafi'. Sorry God, no more daughters please."

It would be one thing if this only happened in poor, impoverished, uneducated communities. There are so-called informed people walking around today talking about "my wife gave me a son" as though she had something to do with it. Morons!

Do These People Have Parents?

I was totally sputtering when trying to yell at the radio while listening to this on NPR last week. I mean I could feel steam coming out of my ears and total gibberish was coming out of my mouth because I couldn't form words! What kind of monsterous and hideous hospital (and employees) would do something like this?

For many months, Los Angeles city officials have complained that regional hospitals are dropping off their indigent patients in the city's tough Skid Row area. On Wednesday, officials at a homeless shelter released a videotape that allegedly catches one hospital in the act. The incident has become part of an ongoing investigation that could result in criminal or civil penalties.

Security cameras outside the Union Rescue Mission, the city's largest homeless shelter, show a taxi pulling a U-turn in front of the building. Several seconds later, an elderly woman in a hospital gown shuffles into view. She appears to have only hospital socks on her feet, and walks in the street for a while before turning back to the mission entrance.

Mission worker Regina Chambers met the woman outside, later identified as Carol Reyes, a homeless resident of the city of Gardena, a dozen miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

'When I first approached her, she was very disoriented, didn't know where she was or what she was doing,' Chambers says. 'All she knew is that she had been to a hospital.'

It was later determined that Reyes was released from the Kaiser Permanente hospital in the city of Bellflower, 16 miles southeast of the mission.

They say that you can judge a society by the way it treats its young and elderly. I think if you add poor to that (and many times the young and old fall into this category as well) you have a perfect picture of the kind of country America is. I just cannot get this out of my mind!

In the broadcast, they commented on how the Kaiser spokesperson looked "stricken." Well, she should have looked stricken and been stricken. There is absoultely no excuse for dumping a sick, old woman out on the street in a hospital gown and no shoes! I don't think I could even work for any institution that did things like that. I wonder which attendent called the cab and gave them the address of the mission? I wonder who would put a patient out on the street with no clothes? What kind of human beings go along with this? How can someone accept a check from a place like that?

Everybody Loves Mammy!

Growing up in a black neighborhood and being tiny was almost like being an outcast at times. I had/have skinny legs, was quite flat chested, still don't have an "African" booty or thick hips. In fact, Brick House was the jam when I was in high school and while dancing to it at a party, the guy I was dancing with decided to change the words to "she's a midget house." I laughed myself silly because I definitely was far from being stacked like a brick house.

Being "thick" or "healthy" was a good thing. Being a skinny mini wasn't. So, the obsession with thin that many white women have and the body image issues that go along with that just was not the thing that black girls worried about. Being smart and/or talented had far more value than looks or weight and, truly, unless one had very fair skin and long, straight(er) hair, you knew that you weren't considered pretty or attractive outside of the black community anyway.

So, this accusation that American Idol has a double-standard for fat black women has some validity but not for the reasons these white DJs think. Black Americans, though this is changing, have always had a different standard for what is attractive and acceptable. White people, too, because blacks don't fit the typical "American" standard of beauty, tend to look beyond weight because a) there is no f'ability factor involved so appearance is less of an issue b) there is still a level of comfort with fat black women as a stereotype and what I call a "mammy fixation" - and that is unconscious racism. I think these guys are off base because it is white America's need for their women to look like boobs on a stick while the beauty of black women isn't noticed unless they are stick thin and look like Halle Berry or some other bi-racial woman.

They really need to check themselves - and perhaps history. The fact that heavy white women have to be Roseanne Barr in order to get ahead is a cultural norm that white America created, not any double standard that benefits black people!

It’s no secret that black folks, in general, do not equate beauty with being rail thin. But is the country more likely to embrace obese African Americans than overweight whites?

According to TMZ.com, two disc jockeys at Los Angeles radio station KROQ raised the question using "American Idol" contestant Mandisa as an example. On Friday morning’s Kevin and Bean Show, the jocks, both white, wondered if the powerhouse singer would’ve made it to the Top 10 if she were a hefty white girl.

'It's fascinating that she can be a front runner and look like she does, yet there's no way 'Whitey' shows up at 280 [lbs.] and gets in the Top 10. It's not even possible,' said Bean.

The hosts, along with co-hosts Ralph Garman and Lisa May, felt that fat white "Idol" hopefuls were quick to get a "no" from the judges, while blacks packing extra pounds were more likely to be considered.

'What is the double standard?,' they asked. 'Why is it acceptable for the African-American contestants -- and we're not just talking about 'American Idol'-- in all the world, you can be big and black and be considered sexy and no one's trying to get you to lose any weight... yet the big white guy all of a sudden is a pariah?'

Portly "Idol" winner Ruben Studdard was cited as an example of the double standard.

Callers, for the most part, agreed with the hosts. One female listener said that America is 'used to seeing white skinny women,' adding, 'Black women are celebrated for their curves.'

Another caller, however, wasn’t comfortable with the notion of a double standard, stating that a singer’s excess weight may be given a pass because the fat, somehow, "supports that voice." The caller cited Aretha Franklin and Fats Domino as examples of obese singers whose vocal chords were supported by the extra layers.

I don't think that a fat white woman could have become Oprah. She wouldn't have had the encouragement or the confidence to pursue it. But whose fault is that?

An Incompetent Chickenhawk

Too Funny!

Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr. called for pulling out American troops from Iraq Monday and blasted President George W. Bush as an 'incompetent chickenhawk.'

'President Bush took this country to war by choice, not because we had to fight but because he wanted a fight,' Clay said, according to a text of the speech he gave Monday at St. Louis Community College at Meramec in Kirkwood.

Noting the billions of dollars spent on the war and the 2,000-plus death toll of U.S. soldiers, Clay, D-St. Louis, said the sacrifice of American lives 'is not being shared equally' and asked why Bush's twin daughters had not enlisted.


'I have a question for President Bush,' said Clay, who voted against the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq. 'If you really believe that the war that you started in Iraq is a fight to defeat terrorism and to defend our freedoms, why haven't your girls enlisted?'

Let's guess that his girls are just as incompetent too!

Would This Be Considered Abortion?

This story is just freaky!

Surgeons operated on a 2-month-old Pakistani girl Tuesday to remove two fetuses that had grown inside her while she was still in her mother's womb, a doctor said.

The infant, who was identified only as Nazia, was in critical condition following the two-hour operation at The Children's Hospital at Pakistan Institute of Medical Science in the capital, Islamabad, said Zaheer Abbasi, head of pediatric surgery at the hospital.

Abbasi, the chief doctor who led the operation, said the case was the first he was aware of in Pakistan of fetus-in-fetu, where a fetus has grown inside another in the womb.

'It is extremely rare to have two fetuses being discovered inside another,' Abbasi told The Associated Press, adding that he did not know what caused the medical abnormality. 'Basically, it's a case of triplets, but two of the siblings grew in the other.'

The baby comes from Abbotabad, about 30 miles north of Islamabad. She is the fifth child of a woman in her 30s, who was at the hospital to be with her daughter. Her father works in the Arabian Gulf.

Abbasi said surgeons removed the two partially grown fetuses, totaling about two pounds, that had died at about 4 months.

Other fetus-in-fetu cases have been reported elsewhere in the world. A report in a June 2000 issue of the U.S. journal Pediatrics called such occurrences rare and estimated their rate at about 1 per 500,000 births.

Vile and Nasty!

This is why there is a need for abortion on demand.

A 55-year-old Lawrenceville man has been charged with raping and impregnating his 16-year-old daughter, and with raping his 19-year-old mentally disabled stepdaughter.

Police said Early Arnold Connelly was charged with two counts of rape and two counts of incest. Police do not yet consider him a fugitive, though they think he is aware of the charges against him and has been "actively avoiding the police."

Early Arnold Connelly is also accused of raping his mentally disabled stepdaughter.

Connelly, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 252 pounds, is believed to have purchased a bright blue 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser on Saturday. The car has a Carmax "drive-out" tag, according to police.

The matter became a case for the Special Victims Unit of the Gwinnett Police Department after Connelly's estranged wife took their 16-year-old daughter to a hospital. After tests confirmed the girl's pregnancy, she stated that she had been sexually assaulted by her father, according to GPD spokesman Cpl. Darren Moloney.

The investigation revealed that Connelly may have also molested his stepdaughter and that the abuse had been going on for several years, Moloney said. In 2002, Connelly was charged with battery, but Moloney said the disposition of that charge was not available.

The 19-year-old is not pregnant, but she is both mentally and physically disabled.

Neither of the victims shares Connelly's last name, Moloney said. The mother and father separated about four months ago, he said.

He's not considered a fugitive? Why?

Blank Stare, Crickets Chirping

Uh, yeah ...

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has disappeared from his haven in Nigeria, just as he was to have been handed over to face trial on war crimes charges, Nigerian officials said Tuesday.

Taylor vanished Monday night from his villa in the southern town of Calabar, the government said. Last week, Nigeria's government agreed - under pressure from the U.S. and others - to surrender him to stand before a U.N. tribunal on charges related to civil war in Liberia's neighbor, Sierra Leone. President Olusegun Obasanjo was to travel to the United States this week for a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday.

A government statement said Obasanjo was creating a panel to investigate Taylor's disappearance on Monday night. The statement raised the possibility he might have been abducted, but did not elaborate.

Nigerian presidential spokesman Oluremi Oyo said members of Taylor's Nigerian security detail had been arrested.

The presidential statement offered no details on how Taylor's disappearance was discovered or whether he was being hunted. Nigeria's Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday that dozens of people who had been living with Taylor in the villa in a walled government compound had left Monday and were flying to Lagos en route to an unknown destination.

Giving My Black Card Back

Sometimes ... Whew!

Don't these people need Jesus or something? ... And why was this on the news?

Giving To The Greedy, Not To The Needy

What was even the point of this? Why give a donation then specify that it has to go directly to your son's company?

Former first lady Barbara Bush gave relief money to a hurricane relief fund on the condition that it be spent to buy educational software from her son Neil's company.---'It's strange that the former first lady would want to do this. If her son's having a rough time of it, couldn't she write him a check?' said Daniel Borochoff, founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a Chicago-based charity watchdog group. 'Maybe she isn't aware that people could frown upon this.'

Does anybody get that this family is a stingy, greedy, lot of thieves who believe that poor people want and deserve to be poor? What was the purpose of this donation (duh, tax write off)? I'm so over these people!

Total Smackdown!

Bush and Cheney have become so dependent on the presumed stupidity of the average American. Last week, their strategy was to blame the press for reporting all of the bad news in Iraq. We've lost more members of the press in three years in Iraq than during the entire Vietnam War. It is down right insulting to blame them as messengers of bad news when security is so bad that trying to report any news means risking their lives. Lara Logan of CBS totally drove home the absurdity of Bushco's claims.

LOGAN: Well, who says things aren't falling apart in Iraq? I mean, what you didn't see on your screens this week was all the unidentified bodies that have been turning up, all the allegations here of militias that are really controlling the security forces.

What about all the American soldiers that died this week that you didn't see on our screens? I mean, we've reported on reconstruction stories over and over again…I mean, I really resent the fact that people say that we're not reflecting the true picture here. That's totally unfair and it's really unfounded.

...Our own editors back in New York are asking us the same things. They read the same comments. You know, are there positive stories? Can't you find them? You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack.

Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked. I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country….So how it is that security issues should not then dominate the media coverage coming out of here ...

You'd have to have one dull and narrow mind to think that reporters were deliberately reporting only negative news. They report what they see all day and every day and probably leave some things out as they would inflame the rest of the Arab world. As I told a debater on one of my yahoo groups, "I don't care about us rebuilding a school or hospital we blew up, or about rescuing a bloody child whose family we killed or about a bunch of dirty little kids running behind soldiers begging for candy that they don't need because they don't have adequate dental care."

It is sad, sad, sad that this administration has absolutely no other rationale for or defense of their failures other than to blame the media.

They Were A Good Christian Family

Gosh! How often do we hear that when some of the most heinous crimes are committed? I hate to be so cynical but extreme religiosity generally means extreme demons. We knew this woman was going to be charged. The question is why she did it? I say it was long term spousal abuse. We'll have to see as the story unfolds.

A minister's wife was charged Friday with shooting her husband to death in the parsonage in a crime that shocked the congregation and shattered the couple's happy and loving image.

Mary Winkler, 32, was arrested on murder charges and confessed to the slaying after fleeing to Alabama in the family's minivan with the couple's three young daughters, authorities said.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent John Mehr said authorities know the motive for the killing, but he would not disclose it. When asked whether police believed the motive was infidelity, Mehr said no. But he would not comment when asked whether Mary Winkler had accused her husband of abuse. Court papers offered no hint of a motive.

Her husband of 10 years, Matthew Winkler, a popular and charismatic 31-year-old preacher at a fundamentalist Christian church, was found dead in a bedroom at the couple's home Wednesday night in Selmer, a town of about 4,600 in western Tennessee.

Mehr said that the couple's daughters were at the house when their father was shot and that authorities had found the weapon used to kill him. Mehr would not give any further details.

Judy Woodlee, a member of a church in McMinnville where Matthew Winkler had been a youth minister before moving to Selmer, said Mary Winkler's arrest was a shock.

'They were a good Christian family. They always seemed happy,' she said.

I feel bad for the kids and I hope that it was just abuse against her and not any kind of sexual abuse with those little girls - though, that is enough to make even the most docile mother kill. I know I'd have a hard time not killing him a few times if that were the case.

In My Best Gomer Voice

Sur-prise! Sur-prise!

The analysis, much of which is based on findings of a major poll carried out last summer by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press, found that a strong plurality of 50 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe that Islam 'is more likely than others to encourage violence among its believers', while only about a third of mainline Protestants and Catholics accepted that view.

It also found that attitudes towards Muslim-Americans and Islam tended to be affected by four key factors -- education, age, knowledge of Islam and personal acquaintance with Muslims.

...

Please Tell Me The People Are Kidding!

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, I remember when the Nation of Islam had a number of restaurants and bakeries throughout the community. There was a restaurant/grocer in my neighborhood that supposedly had pretty good burgers. Every now and then, my mom would send us there (or we'd go with a friend) to get some fresh ground beef from the butcher. Then, one day one of the neighborhood kids mistakenly asked a none too educated waitress for a hamburger and the woman flipped out and informed the child that they didn't have "hamburgers" they had "beef burgers." Well, that just set off a firestorm of mischievous kids going into the store just to agitate "the Muslims" by repeatedly asking to order hamburgers. I never did it but I did witness it a couple of times and it was hard not to laugh at the woman's literal interpretation of the word hamburger and mistaking it for a slur against her faith ('cause they don't eat ham[pork]).

This stupid story about the AFA wanting to boycott travel to Australia because they use the word "bloody" in a commercial, reminds me of that woman's ignorance.

The American Family Association (AFA), which has more than two million members and leads campaigns against abortion and gay rights, was upset with the bikini-clad model Lara Bingle's use of "bloody" and "hell" in the ad's tagline.

AFA members are expected to bombard Tourism Australia with thousands of emails and phone calls in coming weeks to vent their feelings.

Members are also expected to boycott Australia as a holiday destination.

"I just feel pretty sure the typical American family who is watching TV with their children and they're exposed to this ad are going to be upset," AFA director of special projects, Randy Sharp, said.

"I don't want my children to hear that phrase.

"It's a shocking phrase because we're not familiar with it.

"I guess they use it all the time in Australia, but it's a foreign language here so I think it'll have a negative impact rather than positive."

However, Tourism Australia was not worried by the prospect of an AFA campaign, a spokesman said.

The ad's North American target market was well-educated, high-earning, widely travelled people from Canada and the US west coast, the Tourism Australia spokesman said.

"And I think we have the right campaign to do the job," he said.

I somehow think that the AFA crowd isn't likely to be rounding up their non-contraceptive taking wives and packs of children and traveling to Australia anyway. The ads, admittedly, are for an educated and affluent crowd. Decidedly, those who cannot understand that different words have different meanings and connotations in different countries, aren't part of the targeted audience. But still, don't these people have a better mission in life? Why can't they go feed some poor people and stay away from the television if so much of it is offensive and inappropriate for their children to watch?

(link via Shakespeare's Sister)

Oh Lord, Here We Go

It's funny. I had just hung up the phone with a friend discussing racism, my last blog post and the FX series Black/White when I ran across this article. For as much as people claim they want Condoleeza Rice to run for President (and that is only because they are so sure Hillary is running), I think that a whole host of people like this man would come out of the woodwork if she really were to run. Republican or not, Condoleeza is a black woman in America and folks like this still run rampant and reign supreme in many parts of the country.

A St. Louis radio station wasted no time firing a talk show host for using a racial epithet to describe Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on his morning show Wednesday.

KTRS president and general manager Tim Dorsey came on the air to announce the firing shortly after talk show host Dave Lenihan used the word 'coon,' a racial slur, instead of 'coup' in describing her attributes for the post of NFL commissioner.

Dorsey and Lenihan both called the use of the word a 'slip of the tongue,' but Dorsey said the utterance was nonetheless 'unacceptable, reprehensible and unforgivable.'

Prior to the utterance, Lenihan was heaping praise on Rice, a big football fan, who has frequently said she aspires to run the league one day. But as recently as Wednesday, Rice ruled out applying for the job of NFL commissioner after Paul Tagliabue retires.

After taking several calls from listeners, Lenihan offered this on the air:

'She's been chancellor of Stanford. She's got the patent resume of somebody that has serious skill. She loves football. She's African-American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that.

'I didn't mean that. It was just a slip of the tongue. She's definitely got all the attributes to be commissioner. I'm really sorry about that.'

A slip of the tongue means that you were thinking it and would have said it off of the air. Personally, I don't care what people say in the comfort of their own homes. I've worked with some true racists in my day. All I've ever requested is that they leave the sheet and hood in the car before they step into work because if I even see you changing out of it in the bathroom, we're going to have problems.

Glee and Sadness

I would really like to know what possesses people to think that this kind of behavior in the workplace would be acceptable in any context? If they aren't racist (and of course they claim they aren't) they are horribly stupid and deserve to pay far more than $1 million.

A black laborer for a pipe company in Conroe who contends white co-workers subjected him to racial epithets and choked him with a hangman's noose has won a $1 million settlement from his former employer.

'I find it very hard to believe that in 2006 we're finding incidents like this in the workplace,' said Cari M. Dominguez, the chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who was visiting Houston Tuesday on other business.

Charles Hickman worked at Commercial Coating Services for seven months in 2002. Hickman, the company's only black employee, said his white co-workers -- including his supervisor -- started making racial taunts almost as soon as he was hired, according to the EEOC suit.

Then, one day one of his co-workers told him someone wanted to talk to him in the bathroom, the 37-year-old claimed in the suit. When Hickman went in, two co-workers were waiting with a hangman's noose, which they put around his neck and tightened, the suit alleged.

I went to college with a white girl (if you consider Italian white) who loved to make racial "jokes" about me in my presence. Let's just say that I wasn't really into her humor and after trying to be nice about it and requesting that she refrain from demonstrating her ignorance on numerous occasions, finally wasn't so nice about it and she finally stopped. Her initial response, though, was "You're no fun because you don't let me make fun of you because you are black." I never got what there was to make fun of. Is it like teasing someone because they are buck-toothed, pigeon toed, or taller than everyone else? People make fun of people's flaws and I hardly saw being black as a flaw. Ultimately, it seemed that she was obsessed with my race and simply could not say anything to me if she didn't make some reference to it. She also had a habit of trying to date black guys - just to make her family go into conniptions - then brag about how racist her parents were.

Of course, her behavior wasn't as brutal as the workplace harassment or the noose but I'm sure it started out simple and escalated - like domestic violence - into something totally out of control. When people say black people are being too sensitive or that we blow things out of proportion, we are really just trying to nip things in the bud before they bloom into something out of control. If you allow an inch, some people will take a mile. I'd rather be curt and to the point at the first instance, than all over you like white on rice with a stick or a lawsuit much later.

Let The Thunder Roar

I'm really trying to figure out who men think they are benefiting when they come up with these laws. If every woman in the state locks their legs, men will have to go trolling across the border to another state to get laid - and that is if women in other states don't find them too ghastly. It's men - not women - who rape, are addicted to porn, buy hookers and think about sex every 6 seconds. Do they think that if women are forced to be far more discriminate in their partner choices, they will be able to control themselves? That's the same logic used by the Taliban that requires women to wear burkas. I'm nearly positive that this won't fly in the end but, really, who do they think they are kidding? This abortion ban, like rape, is about control. We'll see how righteous they are if they get control over abortion but lose access to women.

I am glad that this "Native" woman has stepped up and is creating a real challenge to these backwards buffoons.

'When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother'’s life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.

Napoli suggested that if it was a case of "simple rape," there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli's description of rape as "simple." He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by "simple rape."

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

"To me, it is now a question of sovereignty," she said to me last week. "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."

For the life of me, I cannot see how the mealy mouthed women of South Dakota let it get this far in the first place. But, I am glad that someone is fighting for the rights of women. Le sigh!


(link via Feministe)

I Love It When You Call Me Big Pope-pa

Well, not anymore. The Pope is dropping his "patriarch of the West" title which I think is a pretty progressive idea because he isn't and hasn't been the leader father of "Western civilization" in like ... centuries.

The Vatican took the unusual step Wednesday of explaining its decision to renounce a title popes have used for nearly 1,500 years, saying the omission of 'patriarch of the West' should benefit relations with the Orthodox Church, not hinder them.

In the 2006 edition of the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican's 2,373-page directory of prelates, Vatican offices and dioceses around the world, the title 'patriarch of the West' was left out of the list of titles that Pope Benedict XVI holds.

Some Orthodox scholars questioned the motives behind the omission, asking whether it might mean Benedict was signaling a broader, or at least different interpretation, of his role as pope and the role of patriarchates in the Eastern traditions of Christianity.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches split in the Great Schism of 1054, largely because of disagreements over the primacy of the pope. The issue remains the main stumbling block to efforts to reunify the two churches.

One official of the Russian Orthodox Church, Bishop Hilarion of Vienna, Austria, told the Interfax news agency this month that the omission would not improve Catholic-Orthodox relations and 'could be viewed as a further claim to the church's worldwide jurisdiction, which is reflected in the pontiff's other titles.'

Those include bishop of Rome, vicar of Christ, successor of the prince of the apostles, and supreme pontiff of the universal church.

I'm not sure it matters much. It's not like he had the power and the Orthodox churches are suspicious of the Pope's reason for doing so. I'll bet there are a few other titles they could take off of the list as well.

Seeds of Mindfulness

Via Woodmoor Village:

In Buddhist texts, consciousness is said to be a field, a plot of land in which every kind of seed has been planted, seeds of suffering, happiness, joy, sorrow, fear, anger, and hope. The quality of our life depends on which of these seeds we water. The practice of mindfulness is to recongnize each seed as it sprouts, and to water the most wholesome seeds whenever possible.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Loo-ney Toons!

Now Patty is saying that college professors are communists and killers who beat people up!

ROBERTSON: Ladies and gentleman this is a fascinating book. If you want to, you'd better take your blood pressure medicine before you read it, but it's 'The Professors: The 101 most dangerous academics in America' and that's just a short list of the 30-40,000 of them, they're like termites that have worked into the woodwork of our academic society and it's appalling. This is available at CBN.com and book stores everywhere, and you really ought to read it and be informed.

TERRI: It's interesting that so many conservatives haven't seen this because decades ago we were told that infiltrating education was the way to take over the country, we should have been on alert.

ROBERTSON: They gamed it, these guys are out and out communists, they are radicals, you know some of them killers, and they are propagandists of the first order and they don't want anybody else except them. That's why Regent University for example is so terrifically important and why we're setting up an undergraduate program that hopefully will see shortly 10,000 students, and then from there 250,000 because you don't want your child to be brainwashed by these radicals, you just don't want it to happen. Not only brainwashed but beat up, they beat these people up, cower them into submission. Ahhh! 'The Professors', read it.

They beat them up!

Look at this loon!

Passing The Damn Buck!

Though we know Iraq will be a mess for years to come, no this man just didn't say that Iraq will have to be fixed by a future President!

Public support for the war and for Bush himself has fallen in recent months, jeopardizing the political capital he claimed from his 2004 re-election victory. 'I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war,' Bush said.

The White House believes that people appreciate Bush's plainspoken approach even if they disagree with his decisions.

'I understand war creates concerns,' the president said. 'Nobody likes war. It creates a sense of uncertainty in the country.'

Bush has adamantly refused to set a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Asked if there would come a day when there would be no more U.S. forces in Iraq, Bush said, 'That, of course, is an objective. And that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq.'

LOU-ZAH!

North Korea's Gonna Get Us!

At least they are letting us know that they wouldn't hesitate to attack us first.

North Korea suggested Tuesday it had the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack on the United States, according to the North's official news agency.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the North had built atomic weapons to counter the U.S. nuclear threat.

'As we declared, our strong revolutionary might put in place all measures to counter possible U.S. pre-emptive strike,' the spokesman said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. 'Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States.'

I'm certain that this is just grand standing rhetoric - much like ours against Iran. But, as long as we're going after perceived threats, we might as well get cracking on the ones who make them for real. (But we can't, can we? Our entire military force is tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Where Is The Outrage Indeed?

Via Feministing, a perfect response to the news of two women dying due to complications from taking RU486.

When I heard about the very sad news of two women dying after taknig RU486, I started preparing myself for the onslaught of anti-choice finger wagging.

Which is why I was so very happy to see that Media Girl took the steam out of their expected response:

Where is all the outrage...over all the deaths caused by Viagra? It's not like nobody knows about it. Are erections on demand more important than life? Just wondering.

Again! It's not about the babies people! If men would risk their own lives for a hard on, you know they don't really care about some zygote or fetus. Pardon my French but it is about "all fuckin', all the time" and women who are strapped with so many children that they cannot say no.

Stay Off The Lawn or Else!

These neighborly feuds have got to stop. A kid is dead because he walked across the grass.

A man who neighbors say was devoted to his meticulously kept lawn was charged with murder in the shooting of a 15-year-old boy who apparently walked across his yard.

Charles Martin called 911 on Sunday afternoon, saying calmly: 'I just killed a kid.'

Police, who released the call's contents, said Martin also told the dispatcher: 'I've been harassed by him and his parents for five years. Today just blew it up.'

Larry Mugrage, whose family lived next door, was shot in the chest with a shotgun. The high school freshman was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Martin, 66, allegedly told police he had several times had problems with neighbors walking on his lawn. He remained jailed without bond Monday. His jailers said no attorney was listed for him.

Neighbors said Martin lived alone quietly, often sitting in front of his one-story home with its neat lawn, well-trimmed shrubbery and flag pole with U.S. and Navy flags flying.

Joanne Ritchie, 46, said Mugrage was known as 'a good kid.' She said she always also considered Martin to be friendly.

Union Township is near Batavia, about 20 miles east of Cincinnati, Ohio."

Of course, I am sure there is far more to it but I find this to be yet another reason for gun laws. As a society, we really ought to be above crazy old coots shooting young varmints who trespass on their property.

Bloodsucking Vampires!

A few years ago, I labeled someone a spiritual vampire. To me that person was someone who sought out my friendship on the premise of looking for spiritual insight into their problems. They portrayed themselves as a religious person whose prayers weren't working. Naturally, my reply was that just because you ask for something, doesn't mean you will get it and that my prayers just ask for the right thing to happen and expected that in the long run, the outcome would be for the best. Almost always, I try to help someone who approaches me in need (no, not talking about street vagrants) because it seems I've always had the gift of helping people gain perspective.

Unfortunately, some people never really take the advice, never resolve anything and, hence, never leave me alone. I realized, when I was much younger, that I had a pattern of allowing these people to zap too much out of me and, for the most part, learned how to keep the extreme versions of these people out of my life for quite a while. Unfortunately, though, every now and then one of these vampires slips in.

We all have them in our lives -- friends who complain, don’t change, and leave us feeling drained and empty. You know - energy vampires.

As someone studying Kabbalah, you have more wisdom - and reveal more Light - than you probably realize, and chances are you’re attracting people in need of advice. How do you know when you are sharing or simply being taken advantage of? How can you draw boundaries that will protect you from getting sucked dry while at the same time not hurting the other person - and still leaving them with the desire to change?

There are a few things to keep in mind. First, it’s important to remember that becoming a being of sharing doesn’t mean changing people. If somebody is unwilling to take responsibility, is in denial, or is simply so steeped in anger or self-pity that they can’t see out of their situation, it’s important to be sensitive to that and to give them their space.

Let yourself off the hook. You don’t need to fix everyone – nor can you.

I called my experience with a vampire a spiritual one because, again, they brought their alledged faith into the mix. But I found out that in actuality they had no real faith. They had some religious rituals that didn't seem to have any value other than giving them the ability to tell others how religious they were because they went to church and prayed the rosary. What I really found is that all they wanted to do was whine, blame others for their problems and ultimately blame me after I'd finally had enough of their BS. Religion then, for them, was a weapon. They accuse you of not really being a true person of faith because you would not allow them to continue to drain you of your spiritual energy. Of course, frank chick that I am, I told them that I thought that they weren't religious at all and their act was just a lure to try to bind decent, giving, faithful people to them. Just like jack leg preachers who fleece their flock, this person, who was really an empty shell of a human, was trying to suck the goodnes out of everyone who would allow them - never becoming good themselves and not caring if they actually caused damaged to the other person. I already knew that people like this, even if you humiliate them and destroy their mask, will move right along to the next suspected prey so I had no problem saying "scat you rabid dog!" But it is sad, and hard, for people who honestly try to live life compassionately and want to give to those who are truly there to accept it. The lesson is that there are some people to whom you cannot give freely. They will bleed you dry.

Starting To Wonder ...

I was talking to one of my single friends on the phone last night and that story about the pedophile, who'd kidnapped two teens and raped them in a makeshift dungeon, was on. In a sense, I think we both threw our hands up at the same time regarding all these reports of "deviant" behavior (as in not conducive to a committed relationship with a woman) among men that seems to constantly make the headlines. Either they are on the DL/Brokeback, they are addicted to porn, they are serial cheaters or they are lusting after some teenaged girl like a sick pedophile. I finally asked, "are we really supposed to believe that most men fall into one or more of these categories?" It almost seems that way.

Natalie Portman is horrified she was considered a sex symbol aged just 12.

The stunning actress shot to fame playing a young, Lolita-esque orphan who befriends a hardened assassin in ‘Leon' in 1994.

Although she won universal acclaim for her stunning performance, the ‘Star Wars' beauty admits she found it disturbing that some men lusted after her - even though she was a child.

The brunette star, now 24, revealed to Britain's Independent newspaper: "I had a bad experience when ‘Leon' first came out.

"In hindsight, I'm really proud of that film, though at the time it was unnerving to find myself being suddenly looked upon as a sexual object when I was only 12."

I remember being thoroughly disgusted at a former job when one of the guys (who was in his 30s) had a life-size cutout of Britney Spears, dressed in that school girl outfit, in his cubicle. I believe she was still a teen at the time but the fact that he had no shame openly lusting after a child (and this guy was no stud or Alpha male in the least), was wholly offensive to me. Natalie Portman should have been creeped out because had she not been an actress, and just been some neighbor's baby sitter, she probably would have had the same types of creeps leering at her without her having a clue.

Dell To Double Its Staff In India

The last startup company I worked at prior to the dot com crash had a customer support staff of about three or four. Yet, they laid those folks off and outsourced the work to a call center in India. Just months before the company folded, I was training counterparts in India to do my job (which I am sure I would have been out of had the company succeeded) too.

Well, it looks like the trend will continue as Dell plans to increase its number of employees by 100% in just 3 years. Dell to double staff in India in 3 years.

Dell Inc. plans to double the number of its employees in India to 20,000 in three years, Chairman Michael Dell said Monday, in what appeared to be moves by the world's largest personal computer maker to beef up its presence in one of the world's fastest growing markets.

Although most of the new hiring will be made at the company's call centers, there will also be substantial recruitment at its product testing center and a possible manufacturing plant.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company currently operates four call centers in India, a product testing center for corporate customers and a global software development center. Some 10,000 people are employed at these facilities.


'We will double our staff from the current level over the next three years,' Dell told reporters during a visit to Bangalore, India's technology hub.

'There is a fantastic opportunity to attract talent (here),' he said. 'We will ensure a major recruitment push in engineering talents.'

I suppose the exporting of so many jobs that used to be done in America is the reason why India is becoming our leading competitor for gas for cars. All that prosperity means these folks can afford cars. Americans aren't taking it lightly, though. I don't know a person who hasn't called a customer service line and reached a person with an Indian accent. They may be getting our jobs but they are also getting a good share of "rage." These new hires will have to get some extra skin for the abuse they will receive at the hands of angry Americans.

Of course we can curse and name call all we want. The Indian employees can laugh all the way to the bank with a nice check and a stable job - something that is becoming hard to come by around here.

Trying To Ban It All

I keep trying to tell people, particularly those who are wishy washy about abortion rights for other women (because if you don't believe in abortion, don't have one), that this battle isn't just about abortion. It is totally about a woman's right to control her body period!

On the face of it, their fight seems doomed. The vast majority of Americans support access to birth control: According to a National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association poll last year, even 80 percent of anti-choice Americans support women's access to contraception. And with the exception of a dwindling number of devout Catholics, a large majority of American women have used or regularly use some form of contraception. Perhaps most telling of all, no mainstream antiabortion organization has yet come out against contraception, a sign that they know it would be a political disaster.

Still, the anti-birth-control movement's efforts are making a significant political impact: Supporters have pressured insurance companies to refuse coverage of contraception, lobbied for 'conscience clause' laws to protect pharmacists from having to dispense birth control, and are redefining the very meaning of pregnancy to classify certain contraceptive methods as abortion. In increasing numbers, women and men opposed to contraception are marshaling health facts and figures to bolster their convictions that sex for anything but procreation is morally wrong and potentially deadly. Although its medical arguments are really just thinly veiled moral and religious arguments, using findings that are biased and unfounded, the rising anti-contraception movement, echoed by the Catholic Church, is making significant inroads. Leaders of the pro-choice movement know it, are worried about it, and realize they can't take it lightly, as they mount their own strategies to battle it.

'It is very hard to awaken people to the threat,' says Gloria Feldt, the former president of Planned Parenthood, 'because who can believe that something so accessible can be at risk? But that's what [people] said when they started attacking Roe, and now look at how close we are to losing Roe.'

Nor is the fight against birth control only the province of a few zealots. While sites like Worthington's may be new, many antiabortion activists have always been bitterly opposed to contraception. 'After Roe v. Wade was decided,' says Feldt, 'the debate focused on abortion instead of birth control. But [for anti-choicers] they are not separate issues.' She points out that what we're seeing today is more of a revival of an old movement than a shift to something new. 'It's been there from the beginning. If you go back and look at the rhetoric against birth control from 1916, it's exactly the same as the rhetoric now.'

Older Fathers and Birth Defects

So I figure that by the time the Donald gets bored with his current wife, gets divorced, dates a while, then remarries, he ought to be in his late 60s or early 70s. That means the next child that he has to make himself feel young, may not have a father by the time it reaches high school. Therein lies the problem with men who keep reproducing (with that old dusty sperm) just because they can. I get so sick of all this talk of family values and the importance of fathers when men, from all walks of life, continue to breed until they are nearly on their death beds (i.e. Tony Randall's 80-something year old ass having kids with that young lady who could have been his granddaugther). Do children need a father figure to help them grow into fine young adults or not? Is there any value to having a father around once they are adults? I think Trump's older children would definitely say yes. Don't the the children from this new generation deserve the same thing?

The boy has been named Barron William Trump, said Knauss Trump's spokeswoman, Courtney Houghton.

In a statement on her Web site, the new mom said the youngest Trump weighed in at 8 1/2 pounds and was 21 inches long.

'I continue to stay young, right? I produce children, I stay young,' said the 59-year-old Trump. The baby is Trump's fifth child and his wife's first.

Knauss Trump, 35, was in labor for eight hours, said Trump.

Trump also called in to 'Live with Regis and Kelly' on Monday. Regis Philbin and his wife, Joy, were Trump's guests at Florida club Mar-a-Lago on Saturday evening. They parted without realizing what was in store for Trump, who soon flew back to Melania in New York.

'When I left you, I had no news of this at all,' Trump said, explaining the baby was over a week early.

The tycoon's first wife, Ivana Trump, is the mother of Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, who are all in their 20s. Preteen Tiffany is the daughter of Trump's second wife, Marla Maples.

I think that creepy, crawly Geraldo - who breeds with a new wife every decade - recently became a father as well. I hope these perpetual baby makers realize that the older they get, the greater the risk that their wife/partner will give birth to a child with mental illness. Men have biological clocks too!

More info here.

Born To Be a Pissant

I guess they're born that way.

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.

The study from the Journal of Research Into Personality isn't going to make the UC Berkeley professor who published it any friends on the right. Similar conclusions a few years ago from another academic saw him excoriated on right-wing blogs, and even led to a Congressional investigation into his research funding.

But the new results are worth a look. In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids' personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There's no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it's unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.

A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The Free and Democratic Afghanistan in Action

Unless he gets declared crazy, he's going to die for being a Christian.

Despite the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and a judge said Sunday that if convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Relatives denounced him as a convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested last month. The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.

[...]

Presiding judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah tells ABC News a medical team was checking the defendant, since the team suspects insanity caused Rahman to reject Islam.

"We want to know that the doctors have given him a green light on his mental state, because he is not normal when he talks," says the judge.

Twenty Questions From The Feministe Baby Killer Edition

I ran across this list last week on Feministe. Just some things to think about as the zealots try to enforce Christian "Sharia" on us.

Since many of the people commenting on that other post are referring to "murder" in one form or another, here are some questions for those of you who claim to believe that abortion is murder, and that all women who receive them are "murdering their babies."

1) Should women who abort get life sentences in prison and/or the death penalty?
2) If a woman’s husband knows she is aborting, should he be charged as an accessory to murder?
3) How about her friends who know?
4) Should abortion doctors receive life sentences in prison and/or the death penalty?
5) If a woman smokes during her pregnancy and the fetus dies as a result, should she be charged with murder?
6) If her husband knew she was a smoker and could kill the fetus, is he criminally negligent?
7) If a woman eats unhealthily during pregnancy and the fetus dies, should she be charged with negligent homicide?
8) If the husband knew, should he, too, be charged?
9) If a woman has a serious medical condition that would almost always lead to the death of a fetus, but gets pregnant anyway, should she be criminally liable if the fetus dies?
10) If her husband knew of this condition, should he, too, be criminally liable?
11) If a company manufactures a product which lights a fire in a fertility clinic, destroying 1500 frozen embryos, should they be liable for mass murder?
12) If an electric company has a power failure which cuts power to a fertility clinic, thawing embryos and rendering them unusable, should they be liable for mass murder?
13) If a pregnant woman reports to her doctor that she is smoking during her pregnancy, should her doctor be mandated to report it to the appropriate agency for dealing with child abuse?
14) If a woman has cancer and her chemotherapy kills a fetus, should she be given a life sentence and/or sentenced to die?
15) If her doctor was aware of her pregnancy, should he be charged as an accessory to murder?
16) Should children who are disabled be allowed to sue a parent for any negligent conduct during pregnancy that may have caused their disability — for instance, smoking or consuming alcoholic beverages?
17) Should a person with 15 frozen embryos in storage be required to carry each embryo as soon as possible?
18) If I had 15 embryos in storage, should I be able to claim them as dependents on my tax paperwork?
19) If a government agency determined that a woman was being neglectful to her fetus during her pregnancy, should she be forced by the Department of Children and Families to care for the child and/or have it forcefully removed?
20) Should one in three American women be imprisoned or sentenced to death?

There will be lots of ambiguities should the nutjobs get their way.

What Kind of Sense Does This Make?

Why are they throwing this woman into jail when they should be trying to get her some help?

The mother of the 11-year-old girl whose abduction was captured by a security camera two years ago pleaded no contest Monday to drug and prostitution charges and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

Susan Schorpen has said she acknowledged problems with drug addiction and depression since the slaying of her daughter, Carlie Brucia, in February 2004.

Schorpen, 36, was sentenced to 90 days in jail for the felony drug charge and 25 days on the misdemeanor count of facilitating prostitution - which means the officer suspected her of prostitution although she did not offer sex for money.
The terms will run concurrently, and she was given credit for time served since her January arrest.

Joseph Smith, convicted of raping and killing Carlie after grabbing her behind a car wash in Sarasota, was sentenced to death last week.

So Sue Her!

Oh Please! Is the FCC going to fine her?

Nicole Richie has the family of an 11-year-old boy extremely upset after she approached him outside of their home and allegedly asked, in graphic language, if she looked hot.

The boy was shooting hoops in the driveway of his home in the Castaic neighborhood of Los Angeles when Richie, pushing a baby carriage, walked up to him and used profanity while asking his opinion of her looks.

Two cameras and another crew captured the exchange on film for the upcoming season of "The Simple Life," which was picked up by E! after Fox dropped it following the rift between Richie and her co-star, Paris Hilton. The two former friends are shooting their parts of the program separately to avoid contact.

'The girls are taking turns on their own as wife and mother in their own house,' said the show’s publicist Chris Delhomme. 'The premise is fish out of water. These rich celebutantes in the environment they know little about. That's the comedy.'

The boy’s father refused to sign a release allowing footage of his son to be shown on the series, which will debut this spring under the name, 'Simple Life 4: Till Death Do Us Part.'

Speaking of The Truth

You know this chick ain't nevah lied!

Scarborough: When you're in Washington DC, hanging out with the Republicans, are they on their best behaviour?

Carey: I actually get hit on more in Washington DC, by Republicans that are drunk than I do by porno fans in Vegas.

Scarborough: You've done enough damage to the GOP...

Carey: I want to do damage to you.

I can just imagine which prominent GOP figures were drooling in her presence! Nasty thangs!

If The Truth Be Known

These nutjobs can lie about caring about the preservation of babies all they want. The only thing these perverted zealots are concerned about is controlling a woman's body and how, whom and when she screws. Missouri blocked efforts to resume state funding for family planning and women's health ... because they felt it would promote promiscuity among single women.

An attempt to resume state spending on birth control got shot down Wednesday by House members who argued it would have amounted to an endorsement of promiscuous lifestyles.

Missouri stopped providing money for family planning and certain women's health services when Republicans gained control of both chambers of the Legislature in 2003.

But a Democratic lawmaker, in a little-noticed committee amendment, had successfully inserted language into the proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 that would have allowed part of the $9.2 million intended for 'core public health functions' to go to contraception provided through public health clinics.

The House voted 96-59 to delete the funding for contraception and infertility treatments after Rep. Susan Phillips told lawmakers that anti-abortion groups such as Missouri Right to Life were opposed to the spending.

'If you hand out contraception to single women, we're saying promiscuity is OK as a state, and I am not in support of that,' Phillips, R-Kansas City, said in an interview.

Others, including some lawmakers who described themselves as 'pro-life,' said it was illogical for anti-abortion lawmakers to deny money for contraception to low-income

Who are these cretins and why on earth are they so fixated on random women's sex lives? Aside from being totally absurd, these ignoramuses seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that a very large portion of women take contraceptives for medical reasons that have nothing to do with having sex. ABB lays it out pretty well and addresses why I, like her, have been prescribed said pills. How many of these cow chasers are doctors or have any idea about women's health? I'll bet and with whom, has no place in the legislature or in politics.

This sick obsession of these folks is insane!

Not Much Into Rap Either ...

"... So take it off like your home alone
You know dance in front your mirror while your on the phone
Checkin your reflection and tellin your best friend,
like "girl I think my butt gettin big"...

-- Nelly
Hot In Herre

I like "old school" rap ... The original stuff from the late 70s/early 80s. Jams by The Sugar Hill Gang and Grand Master Flash (the 12 inch LP versions of the songs) ensured that you stayed on the dance floor every Friday and Saturday night. It's definitely morphed into something else and even if I find the beats rather moving, once I decipher what some of these dudes are saying, I find it hard to keep bopping along in good conscience. There are definitely degrees of offensiveness. Some of the songs are pretty harmless while others are sheerly misogynistic. I don't find Nelly incredibly offensive but then, I don't typically watch the videos.

But I have to admit, that Black Rappers have some of the hottest women in their videos ...

I guess I have the opposite view from this fellow blogger. The raunchy videos are where I draw the line as far as supporting these artists. While these same videos seem to be the reason why he can tolerate them.

Speaking of Taking Things For Granted

With Costco being one of my favorite places, and definitely the only place to buy in bulk, I find this dilemma in Zimbabwe unfathomable!

In more menstrual news, donated sanitary pads are finally reaching Zimbabwe, where a shortage has forced many women to make due with newspapers and tree bark and suffer gnarly vaginal infections as a result. Given that there's about one doctor for every 6,700 people in Zimbabwe, the public-health implications of the shortage are pretty dire; local Women's Advisory Council head Thabitha Khumalo told the BBC, "We are sitting on a health time-bomb.”

The shortage is a byproduct of severe economic crisis in the country, which faces a crippling deficit; an overvalued exchange rate; an inflation rate over 780 percent; and is no longer receiving support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). There's currently very little foreign exchange between Zimbabwe and other countries, and citizens face widespread shortages of food and basic supplies. The country's unemployment rate is reported to be between 75 and 80 percent; the monthly minimum wage for those who are employed is equivalent to about $20; and a box of sanitary pads costs the equivalent of five to 10 dollars. All of which adds up mean that even if women can find pads for sale, they generally can't afford them.

Organizations like the Women's Advisory Council appealed to international relief groups for aid, and literally tons of donated sanitary supplies have poured in from South Africa and the U.K. But Zimbabwe's government, which doesn't acknowledge that there is a crisis, may require the women to pay exorbitant duty fees on the imported goods. Information and Publicity Deputy Minister Brighton Matonga -- who has responded to the situation with such head-in-the-sand gems as "People are creating a crisis that does not exist. It's a lie to seek attention," and "The Zimbabwe government won't sit back and let women suffer. We care about our women" -- suggests that the Women's Advisory Council apply to the health ministry for a duty exemption or get ready to pay up. Which, given the aforementioned poverty crisis, isn't really a viable option for most women.

Khumalo explained to the BBC that "the critical shortage has been ignored as it is taboo to talk about periods in public."

Reusable-pad company Lunapads International has a helpful site with suggestions for how to bypass the duty problem when sending donations to the country (care of the awesome Women of Zimbabwe Arise organization). If you'd like to donate -- whether it's Lunapads products or another kind -- check out their site first. Among their helpful hints: "Write a minimal amount in the 'value' section of the customs form ($5), even if the value is greater," and "Most Zimbabwean women are not familiar with tampons so if possible send pads."

I mean daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!

Where's He Been?

Alrighty then! Who is this guy kidding? I grew up in the very Catholic city of Chicago and due to very brazen and racist, de facto segregation in this northern city, I attended Catholic schools in all black parishes. I remember the first time I attended a volleyball game after school against one of the Irish Catholic all girl schools. Though the more athletic black girls at my school may have been a little tom-boyish, they always had their "hair did" and they still looked like girls. When those white chicks stepped out onto our court, I know I gasped because I'd never seen anything like that in my life. These chicks, for the most part, looked like dudes - big, matronly girls with, short ungroomed hair. I also recall getting in trouble when Sister Madonna overheard me repeating a nickname some of the girls had come up with for our art teacher. They called Sister Colette Mary, Father Colette Harry. I had no clue about gay or gender issues at that time so didn't really grasp what was going on with the volley ball team or with some of those "husky" Irish nuns. BUT, this dude who is banning the LGBT community from the St. Patrick's Day Parade cannot tell me that he doesn't know that these people have existed in their community from the get go.

It seems like everyone and their mamas come out to New York on St. Patrick’s Day. However, the Irish LGBT community won’t be doing much celebrating.

The Washington Post had a story yesterday on Christine Quinn, the city’s first openly gay councilmember in New York City, and why she is boycotting most of the St. Patrick’s Day festivities: this is the 16th straight year in a row that the Irish LGBT community has been barred from walking in the parade.

The last time they were allowed to have a banner was in 1991. Although the parade organizers didn’t allow them to have their own personal division in the parade because they didn’t want politics involved in the event, 35 member of the organization marched with a Manhattan division of the Hibernians and then-Mayor david Dinkins. The group was harassed and sprayed with beer by a number of people in the crowd.

Quinn has tried but failed to convince the Ancient Order of Hibernians to allow the community to walk with them again.

I'm sure I'm not sounding even half-way politically correct. I was a naieve little girl who grew up in a cloistered enviroment in a big city. It took me a long time to figure stuff like that out. But, this homophobe parade chair needs to get a grip and accept the folks who've always been a part of their heritage.

Losing Faith In Beliefnet

I just looked at my profile on Beliefnet.com and realized I've been subscribed for six years. During that time, I've read and shared many articles, essays and interviews on religion and faith - of all varieties. While I don't always agree with some of the premises and conclusions, for the most part I see sincere members of a particular faith, expressing real opinions on how to best live their life given their particular belief system. I've learned about Buddhism and Sikhism; Islam and Christianity. I often recommend the site to people who have questions regarding other faiths and who don't know enough about their own. When Beliefnet created an RSS feed for their site, I immediately added it to my long blogroll. Today, much to my dismay, I see a link in my feeds to an essay that turns out to be authored by La Shawn Barber - one of the most intolerant, fanatical people in the blogsphere.

During the week of March 13 through March 17, La Shawn Barber is Beliefnet's guest blogger. Barber is the creator of La Shawn Barber's Corner, where she blogs about faith and politics."

In the course of three days as a guest blogger, LaShawn has managed to write scathing posts that bash blacks, gays, Scientologists, people who consider themselves spiritual and people who believe in evolution. Is that what Beliefnet is about? I didn't think so because I've learned so much from this site in the past. I am sorely disappointed because this woman is a black, conservative, Christian with the values of Jerry Falwell (who recently claimed that Jews were going to hell) and Pat Robertson (who recently proclaimed that Muslims were satanists) and is being given a spotlight on what used to be a respectable place for religious and spiritual information.

I hope they don't ask her back.

Naughty Saudi Girls Cannot Surf Internet Alone

One of our "free and democratic" allies has decided that women are too wicked to use the internet without a male chaperone!

According to Silly Bahraini Girl, religious scholars in Saudi Arabia have issued a fatwa prohibiting women from using the Internet without the presence of a mahram (a close relative they are not allowed to marry).

Egyptian Sandmonkey provides a few more details:

The Fatwa was issued by two Saudi sheikhs called Othman Al Khamees and Saad Al Ghamdy, and it states the following: "It's Haram to let women use the internet because of their inside wickedness, and a woman shouldn't be allowed on the internet without the presence of a Moharam (close male relative) who is an expert in the deceptive and sexually corrupt nature of the women."

I wish these people would stop making me laugh! Inside wickedness! ROTFL!

They Will Tell You Anything!

As if I don't get mad enough about things, this story really has me fuming. I saw the parents of this teen on the news soon after he was killed. They were disputing the claim that he died of natural causes. Then, it seems, someone came up with the grand idea to claim he'd died of complications due to the sickle cell trait. I have the damned sickle cell trait and you cannot DIE from it. It isn't the same as having the painful and crippling disease, Sickle Cell Anemia. That any medical professional (most of whom I am sure don't have any real knowledge of this disease which primarily affects Black Americans) would have the audacity to assume that the family or anyone else would buy that the trait was the cause of this child's death shows an incredible amount of arrogance and the clear assumption that everyone was dirt stupid!

A 14-year-old boy who was beaten by guards at a Florida boot camp did not die of an undiagnosed blood disorder as a medical examiner had reported, a doctor hired by his family said on Tuesday.

Martin Lee Anderson died on January 6 at a Panama City boot camp run by the Bay County Sheriff's Office. A surveillance videotape taken that day showed Anderson being beaten by several guards.

"In my opinion, I think he (Anderson) died from what you saw on the videotape," Dr. Michael Baden, a former chief medical examiner for New York City, told a news conference with Anderson's parents in Tampa.

An autopsy performed by Bay County Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Siebert found that Anderson, an African American, died of internal bleeding from sickle cell trait. One in 12 African Americans has sickle cell trait, which is different from sickle cell disease and does not routinely cause health problems.

The finding outraged Anderson's family and civil rights groups and prompted Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to name Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober to investigate the case.

Ober had Anderson's body exhumed and taken to Tampa for a second autopsy on Monday by Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams.

Baden, who was hired by Anderson's family and was allowed to observe the autopsy, said he ruled out sickle cell trait and other natural causes for the death.

"I think he (Siebert) made a mistake," said Baden, who based his conclusion on his observation of the second autopsy.

Anderson's mother, Gina Jones, said the guards and a nurse at the camp should be arrested. "The truth is out and I want justice," Jones said.

The official results of the autopsy by Adams are not expected for several weeks. No arrests have been made but the camp has been closed.

I have iron deficiency anemia and, because my doctors never really see it get too much better, like to throw in something about me having the sickle cell trait. There is no real proof of that and since I am often so careless about taking my iron supplements, I just nod along with them to keep the heat off of myself. The labeling of this child's death as being related to having the sickle cell trait was absurd enough to invoke a response from the President of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America. I hate to lapse into "the man is out to get us" mode but that brazen lie is classic "they'll tell niggas anything" ... and expect to get away with it! That's what makes me so mad! They thought that lie would fly!

Poor, Deluded, Old Bitty

I really, really want to laugh at this one. The problem is that this woman is dead serious, probably has thousands of ignorant people who agree with her and is saying something similar to things that more than a few uninformed and idiotic white people have said to me before.

One of these days before I die, I hope to see a shift in the attitudes of so many of my black brothers and sisters in this great country we share, from perpetual victimhood, to pride in their achievements on the road from slave to American citizen.

Remember Ronald Reagan'’s story about the kid who had to shovel a huge pile of manure? He went about it with such joy he was asked why and said, 'With all that manure, there'’s got to be a pony in there somewhere.'

The pony hidden in slavery is the fact that it was the ticket to America for black people. I have long urged blacks to consider their presence here as the work of God, who wanted to bring them to this raw, new country and used slavery to achieve it. A harsh life, to be sure, but many immigrants suffered hardships and indignations as indentured servants. Their descendants rose above it. You don'’t hear them bemoaning their forebears' life the way some blacks cant rise above the fact theirs were slaves.

Besides freedom, a job and a roof over their heads, they all sought respect. But even after all these years, too many have yet to realize that to get respect, you have to give it.

With all this manure is right! This wench just plain doesn't have a clue what she is talking about and, unfortunately, she is probably part of a majority and that is frightening. This woman has totally dismissed, or never clearly was taught or understood the treachery of slavery and that, she, along with every other "immigrant" who came here after slavery began and ended, should be the ones thanking God that the free labor built them someplace to run to when they couldn't make it in their own country.


(link via Pam at Pandagon)

30 Lashes For Sheer Stupidity!

I am still trying to wrap my mind around this story about the former Bush advisor who got caught "stealing" from Target! I mean, even if he were a crack head, it would seem that he'd find a better way to get cash without risking being caught running some kind of scam on frickin' Target. This whole scenario is just plain stupid!

The former aide, Claude A. Allen, 45, was President Bush's top domestic policy adviser until resigning last month. Known as a rising conservative star, he previously served as deputy secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, and in 2003 the White House announced its intention to nominate him to a seat on the federal appeals court based in Richmond, Va. Democrats raised questions about the nomination, and it never came to a vote.

The police said Mr. Allen was seen on Jan. 2 leaving a department store in Gaithersburg, Md., with merchandise for which he had not paid. He was apprehended by a store employee and issued a misdemeanor citation for theft, said Lt. Eric Burnett, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Police Department.

A statement issued on Friday by the police said store employees saw Mr. Allen fill a shopping bag with merchandise and put additional items into a shopping cart. He then sought, and received, a refund for some of the items and left the store without paying for others.

The Police Department said that as a result of an investigation it opened after the initial incident in January, it found that Mr. Allen had received refunds of more than $5,000 last year at stores like Target and Hecht's. Mr. Allen was arrested on Thursday and charged in connection with a series of allegedly fraudulent returns. The police said he was charged with a theft scheme over $500 and theft over $500.

To make matters worse, some folks were suggesting that, his ne'r-do-well twin brother was the real culprit. But unless brother Floyd was running around with Claude's id and fingerprints, the person who was caught red-handed and got the cuffs is the perpetrator. That would be Claude!

Regardless of spin, it now seems that Claude admitted to doing the deeds so now all we can do is speculate how this buddy of Jesse Helms, Armstrong Williams and Clarence Thomas fell from grace.

I almost wish he'd committed a "normal" conservative crime or act of hypocrisy. Why couldn't he have been caught with an intern or taking money under the table like everyone else. All this fiasco did was lend credibility to the belief that you can take a person out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of them. Unfortunately, Claude Allen, like too many other black conservatives, forgot that no matter what your income or status, black is black and walking into Target, Hechts or any other store means instant monitoring. I'm surprised it took this long for him to get caught red handed. Who'd he think he was? Casper?

People who talked to Mr. Allen Monday said he remained surprisingly upbeat in the face of the charges. He said only one side of the story had been heard, said one former colleague who asked not to be identified because the conversation was private.

Like others who know him, his stepmother cannot understand the turn of events. 'I simply have no idea where things could have gone wrong in his life,' Mrs. Allen said.

Floyd was the twin who 'kept running into bad times,' while Claude Allen intervened repeatedly to help him, she said."

Kappas Doing Positive Things!

I like being able to share stories like this. I am an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and love to see fellow greeks in one of the other "Divine Nine" predominately black sororities and fraternities demonstrating what we are all about. This is a news segment on a tutoring program sponsored by the men of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

I'm Sorry

This mess is funny!

A Mexican couple were recovering separately after a marital spat got out of control and saw them firing guns, throwing knives and hurling homemade bombs, Mexican daily Milenio said on Monday.

In scenes taken straight out of hit romantic comedy 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith,' starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Juan Espinosa and Irma Contreras fought until their house blew up in a homemade gasoline bomb explosion, Milenio said.

Police called to the home in the indigenous Mayan Indian town of Oxkutzcab in the southeastern state of Yucatan arrested Espinosa. Contreras was taken to hospital with third-degree burns.

A local police official confirmed the report but declined to provide further information.

In the violence-filled movie about the fictional Smiths, Pitt and Jolie play married assassins ordered to kill each other.

Espinosa told reporters he was glad his wife had suffered burns, while Contreras said she was only sorry she had not 'hacked off his manhood' during the fight.

What's In Paraguay?

... and WHAT are we doing there?

Controversy is raging in Paraguay, where the US military is conducting secretive operations. Five hundred US troops arrived in the country on Jul. 1, 2005 with planes, weapons and ammunition. Eyewitness reports prove that an airbase exists in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay, which is 200 kilometres from its border with Bolivia and may be utilized by the US military. Officials in Paraguay claim the military operations are routine humanitarian efforts and deny that any plans are underway for a US base. Yet human rights groups in the area are deeply worried. White House officials are using rhetoric about terrorist threats in the tri-border region (where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet) in order to build their case for military operations, which are in many ways reminiscent of the build up to the invasion of Iraq.

The tri-border area is home to the Guarani Aquifer, one of the world’s largest reserves of water. Near the Estigarribia airbase are Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, the second largest in Latin America. Political analysts believe US operations in Paraguay are part of a preventative war to control these natural resources and suppress social uprisings in Bolivia.

Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel commented on the situation in Paraguay and warned, 'Once the United States arrives, it takes a long time to leave. And that really frightens me.'

Let's just guess what we are doing building a base near large natural gas reserves!

Now Here's a Charitable Solution

They will suspend all adoptions to keep from having to enable gay adoptions.

The Boston Archdiocese's Catholic Charities said Friday it would stop providing adoption services because state law allows gays and lesbians to adopt children.

The social services arm of the Roman Catholic archdiocese has provided adoption services for the state for about two decades, but said it would discontinue once it completes its current state contract. It said that the state law allowing gays to adopt runs counter to church teachings on homosexuality.

'The world was very different when Charities began this ministry at the threshold of the 20th century,' the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities, and trustees chairman Jeffrey Kaneb said in a joint statement. 'The world changed often and we adapted the ministry to meet changing times and needs. At all times we sought to place the welfare of children at the heart of our work.

'But now, we have encountered a dilemma we cannot resolve,' they said.

Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley, who had sought an exemption from the law, said the church was faced with a choice between its faith and the state law.

'Sadly, we have come to a moment when Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Boston must withdraw from the work of adoptions, in order to exercise the religious freedom that was the prompting for having begun adoptions many years ago,' O'Malley said in a statement.

The state's four Catholic bishops had said earlier this month that the law threatens the church's religious freedom by forcing it to do something it considers immoral.

Gay rights groups criticized the decision.

Granted I never heard anything about gay anything during any of my parochial education, but the decision to deny services to heterosexual couples just to keep from serving gays just seems a little un-Christian. But what do I know? I stopped trying to figure out religious ways a long time ago.

It's Not Just About Abortion Ladies

People aren't getting it. I know tons of people who claim not to believe in abortion. I wish that going to the doctor for anything but a check up wasn't necessary so I cannot say I am gung-ho for an abortion appointment either. But, the right-wing agenda isn't just about abortion. It is also about the right to and access to contraception. I have NO idea why this is such an issue with insurance companies (except covering it must be some financial drain), but legislators are also trying to abandon the commitment to women's reporductive health.

'We need to move forward, not backward in expanding access to quality health care, including birth control,' said Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards. 'Congress should work to protect patients, not undermine them.'

This federal legislation would raze hundreds of state laws that ensure patients can get the medical care they need and would

• not allow women to designate their ob/gyns as primary care providers
  
  
• not allow women to seek care directly from their ob/gyns, but would force them to be screened by their primary care doctors first
  
• dismantle coverage for contraception
  
  
• dismantle coverage for annual cervical cancer exams
  
  
• not allow women to stay with the same doctor throughout a pregnancy, if that doctor was dropped from the insurance provider
  

For years, many insurance plans covered prescription drugs, but refused to cover birth control pills and other prescription contraceptives for women. In the past decade lawmakers in 23 states have remedied this inequity and enacted contraceptive coverage laws. Under HIMMAA women will lose contraceptive-equity protections currently guaranteed by state law

'States enacted protective laws to ensure that women receive the quality health care and fair treatment that they deserve,' said Richards. 'We can't allow the health care industry to steamroll over these protections. Congress needs to stand up for women's health and safety.'

Ever Know A Serial Killer?

Even though the authorities in New York are holding a bouncer as a prime person of interest in this horrific case, I still agree with the initial assessment that there is a sadistic, "serial killer" type at the bottom of this. The person they have in custody has a criminal record and was on parole. But, there is quite a leap from being an armed robber and a sadistic rapist. So far, they've put the guy in a lineup for for rapes. None of the women has identified him. While I realize that this was a crime of opportunity, I'm still not sure that this guy fits the bill so we will have to wait for all of the DNA evidence to come back.

Imette St. Guillen was enjoying a night out in New York City with her long time friend to blow off some steam. The graduate student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice was bar hopping and soon her close pal decided it was time to go home. But Imette wasn't ready to head back.

Imette's friend called to see if everything was okay when she got home and in the brief conversation, Imette said she was fine at another bar. But this was the last time anyone heard from her.

A few hours later, her ravaged body was found wrapped in a cheap, flower print bedspread off a parkway in Brooklyn. Imette had been raped, suffocated and strangled. She had been bound hand and foot, with a sock stuffed in her mouth to muffle any sound.

Her face was wrapped like a mummy in clear plastic packaging tape, suggesting that her killer wanted to freeze the pained expression on her face. Also, the killer chopped off her signature long, black hair.

Cops say there is evidence that the petite 5'2'' woman struggled with her attacker, but still she violently was overcome.

I used to work with a guy who I think fits the profile of a serial killer. He was your average, conflicted Catholic (not like me who has doctrine vs. common sense issues but doctrine vs. behaving in a manner that violates the doctrine). He seemed to be obsessed with the notion of The Virgin Mary - not because the prospect of an "angel" coming down from heaven and telling some woman she was pregnant with the son of God sounds pretty silly, but because he couldn't control his "lower urges" and couldn't stop having random, pre-marital sex. When I told him I thought the whole Mary as a virgin thing was mythical, he replied "but that means it is okay to have sex before marriage." Dude was pushing 40. Does it not seem ridiculous that he was still obsessing over something like that? Given being so torn apart by his continuous violations of his alleged faith, he also had the classic Madonna-prostitute views of women.

He was constantly buzzing my IM, after he'd been out with friends, with complaints about the loud mouthed women he'd met at bars and how he wanted to slap them because they "said bad words" and "want to be men." He was forever making "jokes" about tying some woman up or stuffing a ball in her mouth. He all but told me that he was going to rape another co-worker, who lived overseas because, even though he befriended her, he felt that because she said that the next time she came to town, she'd stay at his place for a couple of days to sightsee, no woman would come to a man's apartment unless she wanted to sleep with him (even though this woman was living with her boyfriend at home). Of course, after bragging that she must want him, he claimed to be kidding after I told him I was going to tell her what he said.

In any case, his comments got so bad that I once asked him how many women he used the "date rape drug" on. He couldn't think fast enough to come up with an answer so he just ignored me. We no longer work together and his behavior got so out of control online that I finally terminated all contact but every time I see one of those sick crime shows on A&E or MSNBC, I think about him because so much of what he used to say, lines up perfectly with the traits of serial killers/rapists - including the outright hate of women and the hidden desire to torture them. It's pretty creepy but I'll be forever watching out to see if he pops up on America's Most Wanted.

Peddling Backwards

Moving back to Third World Status.

Over the past 10 years, more than a dozen countries have made it easier to get abortions, and women from Mexico to Ireland have mounted court challenges to get access to the procedure.

The trend contrasts sharply with the United States, where this week South Dakota’s governor signed legislation that would ban most abortions in the state, launching a bitter new battle that activists seem ready to take to the Supreme Court.

Abortion is far less divisive in the rest of the world.


Most European countries have legalized abortion, with limits, for years and the issue rarely makes news. Many Latin American countries ban abortion or severely limit it. In the Middle East, Islamic law forbids abortion, although most countries allow it if the mother’s life is endangered. Asia is a mixed bag, with the procedure banned in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, but common in China and India.

Clayton Bigsby II

Via Crooks and Liars, I'm positively speechless!

This is isn't a joke or a parody commercial. It's just insane. Robinson is running for Congress in North Carolina and he uses the Twilight Zone theme to attack gays, judges, African Americans and just about anything or anyone else you can think of.

I am rarely one to pull the "Uncle Tom" card but I don't even think that suffices for this guy. He's truly much more like Clayton Bigsby.

Yet Another Sadistic Religious Nut

What is the religious fixation with sodomy? Here is the head of the Catholic League who accuses that there are some people who would "sodomize their own mother in a movie ..." Aside from that, he is rude and verbally abusive to the person with whom he is supposed to be engaged in intelligent debate. Hmmmm. Women's uteruses, gay sex and fantasies of women being sodomized... Along with the nutjob I blogged about earlier, I think we have a definite pattern here.

What Kind Of Fool?

Honestly! I don't get some folks. Why would this clown think that his days as a prostitute (not to mention a gay prostitute) wouldn't eventually come to light. Even if he'd won the election he'd have been exposed sooner or later and forced to resign.

Tom Malin, a Democratic candidate for the Texas House who has admitted he once worked as a gay prostitute, lost his bid Tuesday for the nomination in a district which covers much of central Dallas. The former actor did gain 45% of the vote, in losing to retired salesman Jack Borden.

Support for Malin, and some endorsements, had fallen away since the Dallas Morning News revealed on Feb. 17 that he had advertised his sexual services under the name Todd Sharpe as recently as 2001. Malin had offered his services via an internet-based escort service.

A reporter at the paper had traced his telephone number to a number Malin used at the escort site as 'Sharpe.' The paper (which had earlier endorsed him) said it investigated his background following a tip from a Democrat, who it did not identify. Some gay groups, and the Morning News, revoked their endorsements after the revelations.

'I've made mistakes in my life, and I've stood before my creator and I've accepted responsibility for my behavior,' Malin told the Morning News. 'I've also accepted his grace and his redemption and his love and his forgiveness, and that's what's important.'

What a bone head!

Don't Know A Whole Lot of Ribs

I find the whole biblical account of creation, cute but unreal and sexist. While no human wants to admit that they are no more than an advanced monkey (and looking at the hairy guys I work with every day I'm not sure why this is so hard to fathom) I know that I certainly don't believe that some entity manufactured woman out of the rib of a man (who looks like an evolved monkey)!

A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, 'God created man exactly how Bible describes it.'

Another 31% says that man did evolve, but 'God guided.' Only 12% back evolution and say 'God had no part.'

Gallup summarized it this way: 'Surveys repeatedly show that a substantial portion of Americans do not believe that the theory of evolution best explains where life came from.' They are 'not so quick to agree with the preponderance of scientific evidence.'

The Sick Minds That Lead Our Nation

I tried to keep from posting about this disgusting comment by this depraved South Dakota politician but it just keeps coming up in blogs everywhere. Did anyone ever notice how closely knit religious ferociousness and sexual perversion seem to be linked? Here, this state Senator, outlines the only "acceptable" reason why a woman should be allowed an abortion. You tell me what kind of sick, sadistic mind would even come up with a scenario like this - let alone verbalize it!

During a segment about South Dakota's bill to ban most abortions, which offers no exceptions for cases of rape or incest unless the pregnant woman's life is in danger, state Sen. Bill Napoli (R) was asked if he could conceive of a scenario in which the exception might be invoked.

Indeed he could.

'A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged,' he said. 'The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.'

The next time there is a sadistic rape and murder in South Dakota, I think this guy already fits the profile.

Women of South Dakota: Run!

Backwards, misogynistic cretins have taken over your state!

Attention all funky sexy single intelligent women of South Dakota (assuming there are any left):

It is time. Pack it up. Strip the bed, box up the cat, load the U-Haul, call your hip friends over in Minneapolis, move out West, or East, or anywhere with a mind-set not stuck like a bloody nail in the moral coffin of 1845. Let this be your clarion call. Get the hell out, right now.

Here is why: Your state hates you. Your state, apparently run by pallid sexless demagogic men who think they know something of God and morality but know only ignominy and the smell of sulfur and death in their nightmares, thinks you are irresponsible dumb-ass meat, unable to handle your own decisions, your own body, your sex. Your state's leaders and your Republican governor, Mike Rounds, wish to treat you like meaningless, voiceless chattel. Get out now. You already know why.
[...]
See, modern women under 40, they simply don't accept it. They have no conception of a world in which they don't have complete control over their flesh, their reproductive rights, their sexuality. For most women of this generation, reproductive choice is simply a fundamental, incontrovertible human right, obvious and ironclad and indisputable, and so to hear that it's being deeply threatened in this back-ass BushCo world is so foreign, so surreal, it induces an immediate cringing recoil, like watching Tom Cruise stick his tongue in Katie Holmes' face, like watching flies feed, like seeing Dick Cheney naked. It simply does not compute.

No matter. South Dakota's leaders, much like those in Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi -- who've all introduced similar hateful, anti-choice measures -- don't care about women. They don't care about rights. But they care a great deal about power, about self-righteous ideology, about the ever-present egomaniacal male need to control, dominate, imprison that which it cannot understand. They care about suppression.

Slam Dunk Baby

See, this is why we need better sex education in schools. While I know there have been adults who've been pregnant without knowing it (and many adult women don't know much more about their bodies than children), it just seems crazy that this chick didn't know she was pregnant until hours before she gave birth.

It was on a bumpy bus ride home from a basketball game in Questa that 18-year-old Kayla Alire started to have terrible stomach pains.

The senior point guard at Mesa Vista High in Ojo Caliente didn't realize she was experiencing labor pains. She had just played in her last basketball game Feb. 18, a game in which she sank two 3-pointers.

Two hours later, she was at Espanola Hospital in labor. An hour after arriving, she gave birth to a 6-pound, 4-ounce baby boy no one knew was coming.

'I was shocked,' she said. 'I was just so amazed.'

Sunshine Gonzales, an assistant manager at Planned Parenthood in Albuquerque, said cases of women not knowing they are pregnant until the last minute aren't frequent, but they do occur. An athletic woman can sometimes have irregular periods and might not rely on her period as a sign of pregnancy, Gonzales said. Also, symptoms typically associated with pregnancy like nausea and weight gain can vary.

Also an issue was that this teen had unprotected sex. I am glad that she plans to finish high school and attend college but she has got to learn to be more vigilant about precautions. If she and her boyfriend had put as much effort into safe sex as she does in her game, there wouldn't have been any surprises.

More Very Compassionate Conservatism

So, while the pro-birth people are campaigning to own a woman's uterus, ye almighty President is slashing funding for children with disabilities.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed in 1975 and amended in 2004, entitles all children with disabillities to a "free appropriate public education," and currently covers 7 million children. In February, George W. Bush promised to "work to remove barriers that still confront Americans with disabilities and their families." However, as with most of Bush's promises, this one means something other than what it says.

The 2007 White House budget proposes to save $3.6 billion over five years by eliminating key Medicaid funding that helps disabled children. According to Representatives George Miller and Lynn Woolsey, the funds Bush wants to cut are used to provide medical equipment for buses, provide transportation to medical appointments, and cover the administrative costs of identifying children who need special medical and educational services.

In addition to cutting the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act by $6 billion, Bush has also proposed a cut of $15 billion for the No Child Left Behind Act. And, as Think Progress points out, America's children have already been harmed by the Medicaid cuts made in January. which caused 39,000 children to lose their Medicaid coverage altogether.

Get Out The Violin

... and cry me a frickin' river! This nimrod is whining because, in his youth, he was out whoring around without protection and knocked someone up. Now, this good ole Catholic boy is not whining about the "sins" of pre-marital sex and abortion. No, he's whining because his ex-girlfriend may have aborted an heir ... a male spawn to carry the name of his dying bloodline. This is why I think most men need to just sit down and shut up when it comes to abortion. It's rarely about the woman or the baby. It usually ends up boiling down to them, their ego and their fixation on their precious seed!

It was recently reported that several Republicans are to put forth a ballot initiative before Michigan voters eliminating abortion except for the health of the mother. I'd like to share with you the lasting impact of an abortion that occurred in my life in 1978.

I, like many in the late 1970s, experienced some of the liberal viewpoints of the era. During college, I had been with a woman and she became pregnant.

My family didn't have any other male progeny. I was the sole male Schultz remaining on the family tree - as my father was in poor health and would soon pass away, never being a grandpa. The ability to father a son meant a great deal to him, and to me. However, the action of the young lady aborting our son has left an indelible scar on my soul to this day.

As a young man who impregnated her, I offered to marry. However she feared the reaction of her family. We were both Catholic.

As the father, I never had the chance to prevent her action as it was 'her body.' Was this fair to the father who wanted a son, and offered to marry her?

As a result of this, I have become ever more adamant that abortion leaves permanent scars on those in my position; scars I have now. There was no danger to the mother. There was no impediment to her obtaining the abortion. And, I had no way to influence the outcome for a son who now would be about 28 years old and bear my name.

This emotional scar has altered my perception on both sides of the abortion issue.

Yes, the woman can claim it is her body and she can do anything with it. But what about the potential father? What right does he have? What option does he have but to live with the fact that he will know for the rest of his life that he lost a son, and potential heir, in a family where out of five males on my father's side all were unable to sire any children? Even my birth to my parents as they reached their 39th birthday was quite a surprise, as they were told they could not have children.

I wonder what my son would have been like. But with legalized abortion, I'll never know the joy. I have to live with the permanent scar for an action I did not want.

To this day I wonder about my son. What would he be like? However, I was deprived this due to perceived familial pressure.

In the meantime, I love the boy and girl I conceived in marriage. I contend that the rights of the father who wants to be a dad need to be debated.

I contend that men who want to be dads should choose women who want to have children and not run around having unprotected sex with women don't want to marry you or have your children. They had condoms in the 70s.

I'd love to go further into a long diatribe but Amanda at Pandagon does a far better job of illustrating just how ridiculous this guy sounds.

Oh Freedom Over Me ... Like A Veil

We deposed one dictator but unleashed hundreds more tyrants.

According to the Women's Rights Association, a Baghdad NGO, since 2003, the number of women in Iraq attacked because they were not wearing headscarves has more than tripled. Between 1999 and March of 2003, there were 22 attacks and one death; since then, there have been 80 attacks and 4 deaths, with no figures are available yet for 2006.

The decision to not wear a headscarf is concentrated in the area around Baghdad because that is where Iraq's modern society has grown. According to a WRA spokeswoman, there are now significantly fewer women and girls around Baghdad wearing headscarves, but many have been threatened by relatives or have been imprisoned inside their homes.

A year ago, insurgents took an Iraqi woman in Western dress out of a local pharmacy and executed her. She was found with two bullet holes in her head, and she had been covered with a traditional abaya veil with a message pinned to it that said "She was a collaborator against Islam." She was not the first woman to have a "collaborator" label pinned to her clothing.

"Honor killings" are still permitted in Iraq. One woman was strangled by her father because she went to visit him without her veil, which her husband had asked her to remove after their marriage. Her husband says there has never been an investigation of his wife's death. A police spokesman said that there is little the Iraqi police can do in these cases because "We're in a Muslim country... if you interfere in family cases concerning veils, you're considered a betrayer of Islam. We cannot touch such cases."

Human Rights Watch points out that--though the new Iraqi constitution permits women the right to transfer citizenship to their children, it fails to give women equal rights within the family. HRW also confirms that Iraqi women are being attacked for dancing, socializing with men, and not wearing headscarves.

An International Women's Day news release from the White House, dated today, states "No longer denied basic rights and brutalized by tyrants, Mr. Bush says those women are now making their own history."

Freedom at the expense of half of the population: women. Guess Bush hasn't been briefed on that ... or more likely, he has and chooses to lie about this like he does about everything else.

How About Hell de No?

At this late date, if I were to get married, I cannot say that I'd bask in taking on a man's name (too old to try to remember a new name) unless it was a really, really cool name. But, from the files of "you learn something new everyday," I didn't know that Argentine women had a word denoting ownership before their husband's last name. Not de kid!

What's in a name? If you're a married woman in Argentina, it's often a little word called 'de,' meaning 'of,' that comes after your maiden name and before your husband's last name.

But for many Argentine women these days, the possessive ring to that traditional formulation feels offensive and smacks of a not-too-distant chauvinist past here when women were put on pedestals but locked in cages ... figuratively, of course.

In this beauty-conscious country of well-defined gender roles, the role of women is being slowly but surely reconfigured.

Women here are free not to take their husbands' names. But if they choose to do so, a national law requires the use of de before the husband's last name.

The Argentine Congress is currently considering amending that law by giving women the right to use 'y,' meaning 'and,' instead of de, and even offering the husband the right to take his wife's name.

And in recent months, in the province of C�rdoba, a group of women have asked the government to let them use 'con,' or 'with,' to replace de.

Okay, I Can Talk About It Now

It's been a couple days so I've finally stopped laughing and screaming "Nooooooooooooooooooooo" over the fact that Three 6 Mafia won an Oscar.

But the veneer of the Oscar broadcast was utterly shattered when "It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp," the anthem from "Hustle & Flow," won for best song.

Three 6 Mafia, who had just performed their song, stormed the stage with a raucous, sometimes-bleeped acceptance speech of exuberant shout-outs — the likes of which the Academy Awards had never seen.

Host Jon Stewart had his best moment following the spectacle.

"How come they’re the most excited people here tonight?"

I hadn't thrown that kind of a fit in eons! Hil-arious!

An Exercise in Stupidity

Amid violent protests, Bush had to sneak into yet another country under unparalled security and the darkness of night. You'd think that he would have had a little more coaching so that he didn't sound stupid - as usual.

"I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world," the president added.

Later, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Bush meant to say Pakistan would be a force in the Muslim world. Pakistan is not an Arab country.

Not only is Pakistan not an Arab country, it can hardly be a democratic partner while it is being run by a dictator!

Misogyny By Any Other Name

Another analogy that I've made recently when discussing actions by states like Mississippi, Missouri and South Dakota to restrict and prohibit abortions was that the attempt to control women's bodies and reproductive health is no different than the rape and genocide that always comes with war (in places like the Sudan). I hardly believe that it is a moral issue to the old, white men who are watching their power and control over women slip away and the "brownification" of this country reach critical mass. We've already been where the lack of access to birth control and alternatives to pregnancy has taken us. We've evolved, like most civilized nations, beyond it. This clip compares South Dakota to Libya but brazen misogyny is brazen misogyny - no matter where it occurs.

...

You do this by demonizing feminists, by renting women for lap dances, by letting rapists off the hook in court, by buying cheap crap Victoria’s Secret thongs for your woman, by congratulating your girlfriend on her boob job, by ignoring mass rapes in Rwanda, by passing along the URL to Paris Hilton’s fuck video, by ogling that girl at the bus stop, by letting your mom do your laundry, by "giving away" a bride, by voting control of women’s uteruses over to godbag politicians, by pressuring your girlfriend to take it up the ass because all your friends are doin’ it, by having an opinion on the size of human labia, by arguing that stripping is “empowering,” by claiming you’re "hardwired" to be turned on by women who emulate the ludicrous fashion practices of strippers and centerfolds, by your inability to conceive of sex without dominance, and by refusing, despite 30 years of intelligent, educated women telling you otherwise, to concede that you don’t really, truly view women as human beings in anything approaching the same light in which you view yourself.

But women, you might be inclined to argue, having heard somewhere that some men have started doing housework, have it so much better now. You think so? Then how is it that an American woman is raped every couple of minutes, and that 78% of these rapists are husbands, boyfriends, or dates? Less than 16% of these rapes are reported. Less than half of those are prosecuted. The average amount of time these few convicted dickwads spend in the clink: 11 months.

The dehumanizing groundwork laid by these rapists forms an excellent foundation upon which to build many a creatively misogynist cultural practice. The women of South Dakota, some of the first casualties in the impending gynocide, have been bought and paid for by some lunatic bid to overturn Roe in the Supreme Court. Such a thing would not have been possible in a culture where women are viewed as you are viewed: as something beyond the essence of sex.

Is the connection between rape and modern civilization’s Xtreme Mxogyny still too fuzzy for you? Then let’s check out Libya, where they don’t pussyfoot around. It’s crystal-fucking-clear in Libya. Like in the US, getting raped in Libya is a crime. The difference is that in Libya they dispense with the charade of joke trials for rapists that really punish the rape victims. in Libya, you go directly to jail. I’m talking about the victims, not the rapists. Getting raped is punishable by indefinite detention without legal representation.

That’s right. According to the Human Rights Watch, Libya actually imprisons women for the crime of "moral misconduct," claiming it is for their own good. Like uterus-owning South Dakota, which is protecting women from themselves, or rapist-loving Illinois, which lets rapists go free despite videotaped evidence, Libya cannot trust women to make their own decisions, or put rapists in jail. So they just lock up these inconvenient women in "rehabilitation centers."

Are women in America really going to allow themselves to be reduced to being worth no more than their collective sex organs?

Volunteering For Mutilation

When a friend emailed me a link to the article about women who are having that hymen surgery as gifts to their husbands/boyfriends, I replied with "well, what are men going to do - in exchange - to their little peenies?" I found this essay over at I Blame The Patriarchy quite funny but it also rings quite true. I think the surgery verges on promoting pedophilia.

Biblical literalism is not just the enemy of truth and beauty. It is not just a vile saboteur of rational thought and intellectual freedom. It is not just the ideological assassin of fiction, of science, of art, of the rapidly vanishing hope that H. sapiens might not eventually emerge as the #1 laughingstock of the cosmos, and of the ability to buy liquor on Sundays.

It is also the enemy of right-thinkin chicas everywhere.

A couple of barbarians known as Matthew and Luke—dudes, it must be said, with serious issues—deftly invented* The Virgin a hundred years after her human inspiration was dead as a doornail. They did this to give a little extra boost of superhuman charisma to the ghost of Jesus (whose questionable paternity would otherwise have been more redneck than royal), and by extension glorified all male dudes everywhere. And ever since, women have been defined exclusively in terms of sexual function.

The good old supernatural Virgin. She’s done more than anyone in the past 2000 years to seriously fuck women up. Some day soon I’m going to take a long, luxurious stab at her. But until then, take this here woman, whose identity has been so debased by the pervasive literalizing of this absurd virgin myth that she has had one of those imbecilic revirginification surgeries as a “gift” for her husband.

I have not been exactly silent on the subject of cosmetic pussy surgery. Surgeons who hack up labia for a living rate pretty high on the blame-o-meter. But labiaplasty for the purposes of Hustlerizing the human vulva in an effort to increase its appeal to pornsick sex partners is, it turns out, only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to invasive body modifications that are of no imaginable benefit to the patient beyond the gratification of some masochistic impulse to demean herself at the altar of commercial male fantasy.

What is actually going down here? How do you convince yourself that this surgery is anything but asinine and barbaric? Why aren’t you saying, “Fuck this shit, I’ll get a new hymen when you get your dick stitched to your leg, Jack!” I mean, I don’t know how many of you have had sex with men, but if you have, you may recall, if you weren’t mercifully drunk at the time, that the first time was likely a painful bloodbath, and not something you’d care to repeat.

But you hymen-refurbishers, you’re saying, what’s a little pain? You love patriarchy and you want patriarchy to love you back. But first you have to reboot your filthy cunt, because if there’s one thing patriarchy pretends to hate more than anything, it’s a filthy cunt. Then you agree to pretend that your sexuality up to this point is now null and void. You are not a human, you are a pussy, and your pussy isn’t even a pussy, it’s a symbol, and it’s not even your symbol, it’s some fetishized male Christian symbol. You are an empty fuckhole.

At least your husband of 20 years can relive the "thrilling conquest" and pound you (sort of) like an 18-year-old for about 3 minutes before his 40-year-old dick busts through your fresh, $5000 scar tissue. That’s gonna fucking hurt, but he’ll be all right with it, because after all it’s only your blood and pain, which after all is "natural," and how can that compare to scorin’ one off a virgin? It’s every motherfucker’s dream to be the most virile dude there is: a cherry-poppin’ teen throbber.

And guess who gets to launder the bloody sheets afterward.

Years ago, after another friend of mine had her first child (and who had an episiotomy), the doctor looked at her husband and asked him if he wanted him to give his wife "the happy pappy" - an extra stitch to tighten up the area where the episiotomy had been performed. My friend was livid. I don't remember what she said happened after that but this was the same woman who, during labor, had thrown her ice chips at her husband because he sat in her room compulsively chomping on a bag of Twizzlers while she lie in pain, hungry and only able to suck ice so I can only imagine that the doctor was probably pretty lucky to get out unbruised after that insensitive, sexist remark.

Such, Such, Such A Loser!

He is threatening this guy for getting half of Keith Olberman's name out of his mouth? He didn't even know what the guy was going to say. Bill O'Reilly is such a punk! For someone who bullies people on a regular basis on his radio and cable programs, he sure has baby thin skin. What a damn loser!

On the March 2 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, host Bill O'Reilly threatened to turn over the personal information of a caller to 'Fox security' because the caller mentioned MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. As Media Matters for America has noted, in recent weeks, Olbermann has repeatedly awarded O'Reilly the 'Worst Person in the World' designation during his show, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann. O'Reilly has responded, on several occasions, by asserting that MSNBC 'is a true ratings disaster.' The caller began by telling O'Reilly, 'I like to listen to you during the day.' Continuing, the caller stated, 'I think Keith Olbermann's show,' at which point O'Reilly disconnected the call, proclaiming: 'Mike is -- he's a gone guy. You know, we have his -- we have your phone numbers, by the way. So, if you're listening, Mike, we have your phone number, and we're going to turn it over to Fox security, and you'll be getting a little visit.'

Fox security or that greasy, grimy, thug extraordinaire, Bo Dietl he calls a friend? I see why Bill is so fixated on black rappers. He sees himself. He's a wannabe gangsta pundit (who wishes he had the "game" of Snoop Dogg or Fiddy Cents)!

American Idol 2006 - My Picks So Far

During the auditions, two of my favorites were Paris Bennett and Taylor Hicks. I still love both of them and am hoping they at least make it to the top five. But right now, Elliot Yamin is "bringing it" for me. I know folks are drooling over this year's Constantine, Ace Young, and Chris Daughtry - the rocker dude. But I'll tell you, Elliot sang Moody's Mood For Love on Wenesday - a song that many greats performed and most amateurs wouldn't dare attempt - and he nailed it flawlessly and effortlessly. Lot's of folks are nitpicking about his dental issues but I don't have to look at him and I'd definitely play his music:

I also like Mandisa, Gideon and Katherine. But only so many can have the top spots at the end of the season and he is one that I am pulling for.

Positively Barbaric

Not only do we live in a country where people are trying to force women to be pregnant against their will (and actually get pregnant against their will if they are raped), but, if you happen to be a prisoner of any sort, you will also be shackled to the bed like a runaway slave during labor.

The US must stop shackling pregnant female prisoners when they are giving birth, Amnesty International has said.

'The routine use of restraints on pregnant women... [is] a cruel and unusual practice that can rarely be justified,' the group said in a report.

Only one state currently bans leg irons on female inmates while they are being taken to hospital during labour.

US government policy urges measures to ensure foetuses are not harmed if a pregnant prisoner is restrained.


Though these are pregnant women, they are still convicted felons, and sometimes violent
Dina Tyler, Arkansas Department of Corrections

The New York Times described the case of one pregnant inmate whose legs were allegedly shackled together during 12 hours of labour, despite requests by a doctor and two nurses that she not be restrained.

'The doctor who was delivering the baby made them remove the shackles for the actual delivery at the very end,' lawyer Cathleen Compton told the newspaper.

Shawanna Nelson had been jailed in Arkansas for identity fraud and writing bad cheques. She gave birth in 2003 at age 30, the newspaper said.

She is suing the prison and Correctional Medical Services, claiming she suffers ongoing back pain and damage to her sciatic nerve because she was largely unable to move during her labour.

The defendants deny having harmed Ms Nelson, the New York Times said, citing court papers.

Arkansas defends its policy.

'Though these are pregnant women, they are still convicted felons, and sometimes violent in nature,' Dina Tyler, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, told the newspaper.

'There have been instances when we've had a female inmate try to hurt hospital staff during delivery.'

I know, personally, a number of women who've tried to "hurt" their husbands during labor. Hospital staff is generally accustomed to dealing with women who may go a little over the edge when a big headed baby is trying to come out of their vagina.

It's the little things that say a lot about our country. Pay attention folks! Pay attention!

Oh NO He Didn't

This is just sad. Bush and Cheney are just so out of touch with the struggles of the average working American. I won't even include myself because, as strained as I currently am (because of being either out of work or underemployed for the past 4 years), I am still doing much, much better than most. Salaries and wages have gone down (mine is down about 20% over what it was four years ago), gas and energy prices are out of control ... everything is more expensive. How positively cavalier and condescending it is for Vice-President Cheney to tell BROKE and struggling Americans that they need to save more.

"The American dream begins with saving money and that should begin on the very first day of work," Cheney told a conference here exploring how to encourage people to boost savings and be better prepared for retirement.

Too often, workers are living paycheck to paycheck and are not saving sufficiently, Cheney said.

What an ignorant, arrogant, clueless son of a bitch!

Abuse Getting Worse

Three years after the "joyous" liberation of Iraq, human rights abuses are just as bad and the country is far less safe!

Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country, the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq said Thursday.

John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.

'Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK,' Pace said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone.'

Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the scale of atrocity under Saddam was 'daunting,' now nobody is safe from abuse.

'It is certainly as bad,' he said. 'It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam.'

Living According To God's Will

I guess God really doesn't like ugly.

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, criticized by some evangelicals for comments about Venezuela's president and Israel's prime minister, lost a bid for re-election to the National Religious Broadcasters' board of directors.

Robertson, founder of the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network, was one of 38 candidates for 33 board seats during the NRB's recent convention. The group represents mostly evangelical radio and TV broadcasters.

NRB President Frank Wright said there was no broad effort to distance the group from Robertson. But 'there was broad dismay with some of Pat's comments and a feeling they were not helpful to Christian broadcasters in general,' he said in Wednesday's Washington Post.

In the past few months, Robertson suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be assassinated and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for pulling out of the Gaza Strip.

A Robertson spokeswoman said Thursday that he had been a board member for 30 years but attended only one board meeting 'due to his extensive schedule.'

'It was amicable and expected that he would not continue to serve' on the board, spokeswoman Angell Watts said in a statement.

This Is 2006, Right?

I'm going to try not to go too far off on a type casting tangent but what coal mine has this yahoo been hiding in for the past twenty years?

From Poverty Barn comes the news that in Welch, West Virginia, Police Chief Bobby Bowman has been has been accused in a federal lawsuit of impeding a rescuer from saving the life of 43-year-old Claude Green, who died of a heart attack in June. According to Green's friend, Billy Snead, who performed chest compressions on Green, Bowman ordered him to get away and said that Green was HIV positive.

"He was a police officer so I got out the way. I assumed he would help. I didn't want to be a hindrance," Snead said. "He also told the ambulance drivers that he was HIV positive and to be careful."

Bowman denies that he he refused Green CPR and calls the accusation a "boldface lie" (obviously, he meant a "bald-faced lie"). Rose Saxe, an attorney with the ACLU AIDS Project said that Bowman's alleged actions not only contributed to Green's death (he died half an hour after arriving at the hospital), but also violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Says Saxe: "It’s hard to say what was more shameful: that Chief Bowman assumed Claude Green was HIV positive solely because he was gay, or that Bowman was so ignorant about HIV that he felt you couldn’t safely perform CPR on an HIV positive person."

First of all, gay and HIV aren't synonomous but we aren't even talking mouth to mouth resuscitation. A man died because some yahoo thought you could get HIV from doing CPR? That is just sad. Sad, ignorant and downright sinful!

Why Can't He Just Stop Lying?

The man tells lie after lie after lie! In the past they've rolled off of his back because all he had to do was say he was protecting the American public against "turrists." This time the lie was about protecting Americans from nature. He was an absolute failure and he lied about it too!

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: 'We are fully prepared.'

The footage - along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press - show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush expressed a confidence on Aug. 28 that starkly contrasted with the dire warnings his disaster chief and numerous federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced 'grave concerns' about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

'I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe,' Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

The White House and Homeland Security Department urged the public Wednesday not to read too much into the video footage.

Whooosa! Clay Is Gay?

I don't know Clay Aiken's personal business and do not care. I remember him all the way from his audition on the second season of American Idol. Even if he isn't gay, he's got a considerable amount of Skittles in his pockets so MOST people wouldn't be shocked if it turned out that he does like boys. Why these nine dumb clucks feel they have a right to sue, because they heard a rumor about him being gay and feel like they were mislead, is stupid and beyond me!

LATEST: Nine former fans of AMERICAN IDOL star CLAY AIKEN are forging ahead with threats to sue his record label bosses for false advertising.

The one-time devotees have been shocked by recent US tabloid claims the wholesome pop singer is gay and they've filed a Federal Trade Commission complain against executives at RCA and Sony/BMG, alleging they were duped in marketing and promotional campaigns.

The nine-strong group, listing themselves as "aggrieved consumers" SUSAN J, PATRICIA A, JACQUELYN C, KAREN G, PHYLLIS S, CAROL M, KAREN G, KIM M and LINDA F, hail from all over America.

They allege that employees of RCA, Sony/BMG, and Aiken himself "engaged in collusion to prevent public disclosures they believed might be harmful to their product".

The angry ladies go on to state, "This is tantamount to a manufacturer concealing information about a defective product. Therefore these actions were both unfair and deceptive to consumers."

A spokeswoman for the group says, "As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us."

The group is asking the FTC to investigate the practices of the record companies, to invoke civil penalties where appropriate, and to enjoin the companies from violating the Federal Trade Commission Act.

Ooops! Did I Do That?

Yup! He's Urkel! He made this mess and now wants to step back in his high water pants and pretend that he has no idea how it happened.

So much for Colin Powell's Pottery Barn Rule.

As new waves of sectarian violence seem to push Iraq closer and closer to civil war, George W. Bush delivered a message to Iraqi citizens today: You're on your own.

In an interview with ABC News, the president was asked if U.S. troops will "step in more actively to stop" sectarian violence in Iraq. "No," Bush said. "The troops are chasing down terrorists. They're protecting themselves and protecting the people, and -- but a major function is to train the Iraqis so they can do the work. I mean the ultimate success in Iraq -- and I believe we're going to be successful -- is for the Iraqi citizens to continue to demand unity."

As the president spoke, Dick Cheney was demanding unity at home. In a speech before the annual American Legion conference, the vice president tried to call out anyone who disagrees with the administration's stay-the-course plan for Iraq. "Here in Washington, if any believe America should suddenly withdraw from Iraq and stop fighting al-Qaida in the very place they have gathered, let them say so clearly," Cheney said. "If any believe that America should break our word and abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison, let them make it known. If any believe that America should be safer -- or would be safer with men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of Iraq, let them try to make that case."

Cheney may or may not able to out any Legionnaires who think that "America should suddenly withdraw from Iraq." But as we noted earlier today, he could probably find plenty of U.S. soldiers and Marines who believe just that. According to a new Zogby Poll, nearly one-third of the U.S. troops now serving in Iraq think the United States ought to get out of that country now, and more than 70 percent think the United States should be gone by the end of the year.

To Bush With Love

Yes, children, Bush is loved and welcomed all over the world.

Tens of thousands of Indians waving black and white flags and chanting 'Death to Bush!' rallied Wednesday in New Delhi to protest a visit by President Bush.

Surindra Singh Yadav, a senior police officer in charge of crowd control, said as many as 100,000 people, most of them Muslim, had gathered in a fairground in central New Delhi ordinarily used for political rallies.

'Whether Hindu or Muslim, the people of India have gathered here to show our anger. We have only one message - killer Bush go home,' one of the speakers, Hindu politician Raj Babbar, told the crowd.

Bush arrives in India later Wednesday for a three-day visit focused on strengthening the emerging strategic partnership between India and the United States. Dozens of protests have been planned by Islamic leaders and communist politicians.

While Bush remains more popular in India than he is in many other countries, some here object to U.S. policies, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. India, an overwhelmingly Hindu nation of more than 1 billion people, has the world's second-largest population of Muslims.

Wednesday's protesters carried placards that read: 'Bully Bush, Go Home,' and 'Death to America, Death to Bush.'