THE GUN THING

Well, it seems that disgraced Senator Larry Craig jumped his pistol before solicitating an undercover officer for gay sex in June. Sen. Larry Craig was thinking of suing an Idaho newspaper that was delving into his personal life months before the washroom toe dance with the officer. The suit came to nought and Sen.Craig went onto infamy.

Speaking of guns, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani believes that blind people should be able to possess firearms. At a town hall meeting, a former police officer who had injuries that left him blind asked about gun possession and disabilities.

Sure! Hell yes! Give the blind guns. At least they could hit better than Dick Cheney who is organizing another hunting party in Poughkeepsie. Dick Cheney once mistook one of his friends, Harry Whittington, for quail and peppered him soundly. Maybe he can take Condi Rice and try the quarter trick on her butt, with a shotgun. A friend of Ms. Rice joked that her posterior was so tight that he could bounce the coin off her gluteus maximus while she danced. He did, without her noticing the coin.

It wouldn't be a waste of a 28-gauge Perazzi.

Technorati Tags:condoleeza rice,dick cheney,guns,larry craig

A GREAT MAN

Hurrah for Arnie! Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 821, the bill to ban lead bullets that endangered condors. Not only did he sign that bill but he signed 17 other bills promoted by the Sierra Club. That makes a grand and unprecedented 72% of the Club's list.
Call, write, or e-mail Governor Schwarzenegger. He did a good deed for the environment.


Technorati Tags:condors, governor arnold schwarzenegger

I'VE GOT TO KEEP UP WITH THE NEWS

Blushing embarrassed. I didn't realize that Dennis James Kennedy, a prominent Religious Right figure died on September 5, 2007. Mr. Kennedy was an outspoken advocate against gay rights. I have since remedied the tracking problem by creating news alerts on several remaining conservative figures. My apologies. Anne

In other (and more current) religious news, Regent University has suspended a student for allegedly posting a picture of Pat Robertson giving the finger on Facebook.

Adam Key was told to report to mental health services at the University and harassed about Mr. Key's possession of a gun that he denies owning.

Gee, I don't know if Pat Robertson giving the finger is that out of line. The digitus impudicus (warning: the Wiki account shows the finger) is an ancient Mediterranean gesture for thwarting the evil eye . Robertson might need it if James Dobson and other religious conservatives who are disgruntled with the current slate of Republican candidates, form a breakaway political party. This would just be the thing to put the Clintons back into the White House. And, oh, wouldn't Pat Robertson be tempted to flip someone off then?

Technorati Tags: d. james kennedy, james dobson,pat robertson

I'M WITH STUPID UPDATE

The Sooke school board reprimanded schoolteacher Kathryn Sihota. Sihota is the teacher who refused to give her students a standard reading test after

a little girl burst into tears.

In fairness to Ms. Sihota, here is her speech that she gave at a rally for her defence. My gut reaction to the speech was to feel queasy at the touchy-feeliness of the diatribe. Nowhere in the speech is there mentioned a way how to somewhat accurately measure the students' aggregate performances. While it is good to be concerned about the individual student, that is not how governments determine funding.

Furthermore, life does not coddle. Ms. Shiota's worries that the students are subject to unfamiliar material on the test and that this will somehow damage them is specious. Each day brings some new event or challenge in a person's history. New material on a test only preps kids for adulthood when life will be a constant test.

Technorati Tags: british columbia,canada education,kathryn sihota

BULLETS ARE BAD FOR BIRDS

I realize that this may be a silly title to some but the topic is very serious. Lead in carrion left by hunters is killing off the California condor, an endangered species.

If there are any remnants when a hunter shoots an animal, condors ingest the lead in the corpse. The condors mistake the bullets for the bones that they need for calcium. Since the bullets do not digest, the lead sits in the condor's gut and gradually poisons the condor to death.

Currently, there is legislation, Assembly Bill 821, the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act, to outlaw lead bullets in California. Please help save the condors. Write to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and ask him to sign the bill.

Here is the letter that I wrote to him:

October 12, 2007

Dear Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger:

My political blog has an international readership. I have urged my readers to contact you regarding the Assembly Bill 821, the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act. Please sign the bill not only for the sake of an endangered species but for the care of the environment.

As a parent, I think it is important to create a healthy world for children. Lead ammunition in the environment is dangerous for humans as well as birds. Condors are an indicator of lead's toxic and fatal qualities to all species.

Please do what is right for the environment and for future generations. Please sign the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act.

Sincerely,

Anne Cagle
http://radiofreedomcanada.blogspot.com

Please write to the Governor.
Thanks,

Anne

Technorati Tags:condors, governor arnold schwarzenegger

WORKS OF ART UPDATE

A survivor, Charlie Neitzel is in serious condition. The 21-year-old is recovering at a local hospital.

The dead are:

Katrina McCorkle

Leanna Thomas

Lindsey Stahl

Aaron Smith

Bradley Schultz.

More details emerge from the shooting. The killer used a AR-15 rifle, basically a semi-automatic, to murder his victims. He fled to another town and briefly held a family hostage. It is currently unclear whether a police sniper killed him or he killed himself.

Technorati Tags:crandon wisconsin,guns

WHY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS IS WRONG

I read an article in the Vancouver Sun about Christopher Hitchen's visit to Vancouver. I disagree with his stance on the Iraq war because it is not well considered. I know in challenging Mr. Hitchens on his opinions on the war, that I might as well be ingesting poison hemlock for the efficacy of the conversation. However, since I have the personality that likes this kind of challenge ---the bravo gesture such as the time I took down a mugger--- here goes.
Christopher Hitchens is wrong in his support of America's war in Iraq because he thinks it will wipe out Islamic fundamentalism in that country. He is dead-on about that aspect of the war that is troubling. No one would like to see the imposition of sharia law in Iraq. No thoughtful person would want to see Iraq's oil riches in the hands of the Parties of God. However, there are similar "Parties of God" in America that cannot be entrusted to wisely use oil reserves. Politicians, of both the conservative and so-called liberal parties, in that country have strong theological biases. Religion clouds their ethical judgements and their public policies. If the United States captures Iraq's oil reserves , the result will substitute the supremacy of one theological world view for another. The moral equation does not change with an American win in Iraq, just the cast.

Technorati Tags: christopher hitchens,iraq, religious right

WORKS OF ART

I gave a groan of horror when I read about vandals who broke into the Musée d’Orsay and punched a hole into a painting,“The Argenteuil Bridge,” by Claude Monet. No cultured person would ever imagine such a deed. To destroy a treasured work is uncivilized. The authorities should severely punish the perpetrators.

I thought this barbarism disgusting until I scrolled down the page to read the other news stories. In Crandon Wisconsin, an off-duty sheriff 's deputy shot and killed six people at a party before himself dying under circumstances that police have not yet released.

Tyler Peterson stormed into the house and began shooting. Some of the victims were young, in their early teens. Others were graduates of the same high school. One victim was 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl. From the news photo, she looks like a pretty redhead. A child that any parent would be proud to call their daughter. Would have been proud to call their daughter.

The four inch hole in the Monet can be easily repaired. The lifelong hurt from these senseless gun deaths won't.

Technorati Tags: monet,crandon wisconsin,guns

AT LEAST THEY KNOW HOW TO SHARE

Who says fundie Christians don't have big hearts?, Despite Oral Robert University president Richard Robert's greed, the Religious Right seems to play nice with each other. Recently Mike Jones, the male escort who dated Ted Haggard, said that disgraced Senator Larry Craig came to him for services. Mr. Jones was rather coy about whether Sen. Craig had received any attention but half the fun is speculation. I'll leave that thought, without further comment , for my readers.

Technorati Tags:larry craig,oral roberts university

RELIGION IN THE NEWS

The Religious Right just plops news stories into my computer.

The most notable article from the fundie camp is about Oral Roberts University.ORU president Richard Roberts,son of Oral, is caught up in a scandal that questions his use of university funds.

Allegedly, Roberts has misused donors funds to pay for swanky cars, a red Mercedes convertible for him and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay. He diverted funds for home remodelling, use of the university jet to give his daughter a trip to the Bahamas, and that the university maintains a stable of horses exclusively for the Roberts family. Richard Roberts says that he pays for all family expenses out of his own pocket. An audit is on track for ORU funds.

This would all be simply an accusation of financial impropriety but sex, as it usually does in Religious Right scandals, rears its ugly head. Allegations have been made that Lindsey Roberts suffers from oniomania, shopaholicism with a kink for underage boys. The allegations are that she had a maintenance worker fired to favour one of her underage boy toys for the job. One of those perhaps she text-messaged, at the cost of $800 a month, on cell-phones provided by the university.

Geez, where is God and how can I get my cut of that action? Not the underage boys. Ew. The cash. Being a humanist has not been very lucrative.The Roberts family allegedly gets hot tubs, wide-screen televisions, and fast Internet connections courtesy of the university. They get a private soda vending machine. Perhaps ---just maybe--- if I became a Bible thumping fundamentalist Christian, my revenue would pick up?

Try to sell that one to Focus on the Family in their present economic condition. FOF has laid off 30 people in Constituent Response Services and has reassigned 15 more. FOF has increased its revenue but inflation, the religiously impartial judgement of economics, has cut into the increase in the organization's budget. James Dobson and crew have felt the invisible hand, not of God, but the marketplace.

Technorati Tags:focus on the family,oral roberts university

THERE ARE NO WORDS

The military junta in Burma has massacred thousands of people, including hundreds of Buddhist monks.

At least four, perhaps six, journalists, have been arrested.

A Japanese cameraman, Kenji Nagai,was shot and killed by military police. NOTICE: This link takes the reader to YouTube which shows the killing. This video is only for people 18 or older. Although someone my age cannot comprehend the incident.

Hell was not created by any one.... The fire of the angry mind produces the fire of hell . . . When a person does evil, he lights the fire of hell, and burns with his own fire. {Mulamuli*}
*Meaning: "beginning"

Technorati Tags: burma

SPEAKING OF MEDS

Find of the Week:
George W. Bush blotto

at a wedding in 1992.

"So drink, tra la la,
Drink, tra la la,
Drink, drank, drunk last night,
Drunk the night before;
Gonna get drunk tonight
Like I never got drunk before;
For when I'm drunk, I'm as happy as can be

For I am member of the Souse family..."


Technorati Tags: george w. bush drunk

PASS THE MEDS

Child killer Ian Huntley in Great Britain has been found in his cell for the third time with a drug overdose. In August 2002, Huntley killed ten-year-old friends Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells.

Kudos to the person who brought the drugs into Huntley's confinement. It is terrible that prison discipline has broken down so that drugs are available to the inmates but the phrase "It couldn't happen to a nicer guy" is apt. After all, he murdered two innocent little girls and had previously been accused of rape. The more perps that off themselves, the much better and safer the world will be for the remainder of us. If one of that disgusting type is reading this, be my guest and go ahead with the dive. The child you save may be our own.

Technorati Tags: ian_huntley,jessica chapman and holly wells

I'M WITH STUPID IN DC

The Lieberman/Kyle amendment has passed in the Senate. Essentially, the amendment would authorize "the prudent calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military instruments". In other words, it is a call for war against Iran.

Hello? What have Senators Kyle and Lieberman been smoking? Ain't nothing kosher. Let's look at some pertinent realities before America rushes off to yet another disastrous war:

The military is overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American credit and housing markets have gone flop belly up.

America imports most of its food.

The United States manufacturing base is gone.

American domestic infrastructures, bridges , roads, schools, and sewers, are shaky.

Now is not the time for more war talk in the United States. It is necessary to have a domestic policy that focuses on America's problems to place the country on firmer economic ground.
Technorati Tags: lieberman,iran,american economy

I'M WITH STUPID

A teacher on Vancouver Island is facing disciplinary action for refusing to give her students a standard reading test.


Kathryn Sihota refused to give her students the District Assessment of Reading Team test (DART) after a little girl in her class cried about taking the test. Sihota complained to an assistant superintendent that she would not give the test again because she couldn't do that to her students anymore.

Well, waah...There are few problems with Ms. Sihota's attitude. First, it is in her job description to administer tests. If she were so heartbroken about making her students work, perhaps another line of employment would be better for her. Students need firm guidance, not some New Age type who succumbs to a child's meltdown. Children need to learn that, in real life at jobs, they will face performance evaluations. A standardized test is a just a performance evaluation of skills. There is nothing wrong with assessment of the capabilities of either children or adults. Of course, this needs to be in the context of work outside the test such as practical application of those skills. In the classroom (and in life) application and evaluation should compliment one another.

Second, Ms. Sihota is not teaching her students very good business and employment skills. When the children become adults they can't be teary eyed at the idea of performance evaluation, a job interview, or a presentation in front of a client. Life is hard, an unforgiving bastard. If teachers coddle their students in this manner, let them off homework and testing, how will the children learn to survive the adult world? The sad fact is that they won't learn to manage their lives without a childhood foundation of discipline.

Ms. Sihota gets an “F” in Life Skills.

Technorati Tags: british columbia,canada education,kathryn sihota

A MOMENT OF SILENCE

For Marcel Marceau

Mime, actor, and French Resistance fighter

March 22, 1923 to September 22, 2007

Technorati Tags: marcel marceau

CONDI RICE CRAPS OUT

Meanwhile, as Her Maj cleans ups with her winning soap raffle, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice gets the thumbs down from Il Papa. Seems our woman in DC asked for an audience with Pope Benedict (Latin Mass) XVI about Middle East foreign policy. However, His Holiness was taking a vacation at the Residenza Papale at Castel Gandolfo. The Vatican has been at odds with the Bush Administration over America's foreign policy by condemning the violence in the Middle East.

The official word from the Holy See was that the Pope never sees diplomatic officials during his vacation. Condi won the booby prize of speaking to the Vatican's number two official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Now, it should have been obvious to Ms. Rice that the Pope was en vacances, and did not want to be disturbed. But just like her boss, George Bush, Condi had to be a pushy American about the situation. The rebuff from the Vatican should be taken as a very strong hint, not only about m-a-n-n-e-r-s but also p-o-l-i-c-y. You have to spell it out for the Bushites.

Of course, Condi did not take the heave-ho from the His Holiness as a message (from God? from the Acme Sign Company?). She got a cold shoulder from the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, with both refusing to speak directly to each other at a United Nations shindig about a small incident involving private American military contractors killing eight Iraqi citizens. One would think, by now, Ms. Rice would have a clue that she is not representative of America's best interests. A graceful bow to the world stage would be the best career move for the current Secretary of State.


Technorati Tags:condoleeza rice,pope benedict XVI

HER MAJESTY HITS THE JACKPOT

Let it be known that Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
has won two bars of soap and bath oil,worth $20,
in the

Fox Hill Primary School raffle.

She also, according to news reports, has a rubber ducky with a crown that she floats in the bath.

Stay sweet, your Maj.

Technorati Tags:Queen Elizabeth II

LOCK UP YOUR (YOUNG) SONS AND DAUGHTERS

Lordy, those Republican perverts keep my fingers busy...on the keyboard. The latest scandal is that John David R. Atchison, an associate attorney from the United States Justice Department, has been caught travelling to Detroit to solicit from a police officer posing as the mom who offered her five-year-old daughter for sex.

Yeepers... these are the guys who are supposed to keep children safe. With a nod toward traditional values, Atchison called himself "a family man" in the e-mails sent to the detective. The perp attorney was also the head of a sports organization in Florida. One worries about the children he coached. Especially when he arrives at the rendezvous with a doll and hoop earrings for the purported girl, and sexual materials such as petroleum jelly. Is this the type of person Alberto R. Gonzales hired after the prosecutor firings? Gack ...the sooner the whole sorry lot of the Bush administration is keel hauled out of the White House the better.

Technorati Tags: John David R. Atchison

SALUTE TO THE BRAVE / PRAY

Many of the rescue workers for Crandall County Mine are still in recovery. Please pause a moment to acknowledge their sacrifice.

Technorati Tags: Crandall County Mine

Please?

While RadioCanada does not advocate violence toward anyone, we cannot help but note the recent threats of Muslim terrorists against Madonna and Britney Spears. Muslim terrorists have threatened to execute the aforementioned faded pop stars because they tempt men to wickedness.

Hokay... obviously they have not seen the photos of a bald Britney Spears. Or seen stories about her failed comeback on MTV? I saw a Madonna video about a year ago and my first thought was that cellulite happens to the best of us. You could see the pock marks on the Material Girl's thighs. This is why the term "washed up" exists. If Muslim terrorists are serious about offing randy pop stars, can't they keep a little more current with their celebrities? Please. The tabloid stories about the two don't even,um,tittilate anymore.

Muslims who decry those like Spears and Madonna or Paris Hilton need only wait until the starlets trip over their own egos. Spears and Madonna are not indicative of sexual immorality but of intellectual sloth on the part of Western culture. Tabloids exist because people would rather not think about issues that are of importance. Like world poverty or a failed war in Iraq that creates destitution for thousands.
Technorati Tags: Britney Spears,Madonna

PRAY: THE END

The search is over for the Crandall Canyon miners. The owner of the mine plans to seal the mine to further mining.

The resident in chief, George W. Bush and Laura Bush have offered their condolences to the miners' families. Crocodile tears. What is needed, and it won't happen under a Republican government, is a complete ban on retreat mining. Retreat mining consists of pulling down coal pillars behind the miners to dig out the last shard of coal off the supports. Without this reform, coal mining will continue to be a dangerous --- and deadly --- occupation.

UPDATE: According to news reports, Utah American Energy, Inc. was operating the mining at the Crandell County Mine illegally, since they did not inform the Bureau of Land Management about the mine activities. Furthermore, UAE did not inform the Mine Safety and Health Administration about previous mountain collapses at the mine.

Technorati Tags: Crandall County Mine

PRAY UPDATE

There will be no more holes drilled in the Crandall Canyon Mine. With the sixth hole showing no sign of life, or the oxygen levels to sustain life, this is the last attempt and papers have been filed to permanently seal the mine.

Meanwhile, seven people died in a coal mine gas explosion in Northern China. This too, like the Crandall mine, was in a marginal dig that should not have been excavated.

181 people are still waiting for rescue,after a week, in a flooded mine in eastern China.


My religious preferences tend toward the agnostic, but I think it is appropriate to send out, in some shape or form to whatever god/desses exist , an angry wish for vengeance on the greedy bastards who run these mines and kill off workers like old rust parts. And send sorrow and hope for the families in their grief.

Technorati Tags: Crandall County Mine

CHEERS FOR THE GRIM REAPER

John Couey, the killer who raped and buried alive 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in 2005, has received the death penalty. He will die by lethal injection.

I suppose, if you have read my posts on this blog before, you might think I am a bleeding heart liberal. Ordinarily, I would have my doubts about the effectiveness of the death penalty and not advise that it continue. In this case, where the perp raped the girl and then buried her alive until she suffocated in the grave, I think there has to be justice. Sometimes, evil cannot be rid of without final measures like the death penalty. I see in such a case as the Lunsford murder, the perp is no longer human when he killed an innocent child in such a horrible manner. He does not deserve any sympathy as a human since he did not act in a human(e) manner to a child.

Technorati Tags: Jessica Lunsford,death penalty

PRAY

In the event of something happening to me,
there is something I would like you all to see.
It's just a photograph of someone that I knew...

New York Mining Disaster 1941
The BeeGees


Three mine rescue workers, at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, died in a cave-in. Six rescue workers were injured. There is no word about the six men who have been trapped in the mine for nine days.

The mine company, Murray Energy Corporation, according to news reports, was running a
marginal operation where, to eck out the last scab of coal, they used a dangerous mining practice known as "retreat mining". This type of mining is dangerous because the workers use coal as shaft props and remove these supports through mining of the coal pillars as they retreat out of the mine. Despite these concerns, the Mine Safety and Health Administration signed off on the Crandall Canyon mine's safety.

In another mining story, three construction workers were killed at an Indiana coal mine on August 10

Technorati Tags: Crandall County Mine

In the event of something happening to me,
there is something I would like you all to see.
It's just a photograph of someone that I knew...

New York Mining Disaster 1941
The BeeGees


Three mine rescue workers, at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, died in a cave-in. There is no word about the six men who have been trapped in the mine for nine days.

Technorati Tags: mining

WHOOPS, I SPOKE TOO SOON

Well, I said I wouldn't do it,but this is too delicious. Deborah Jeane Palfrey's 'phone records are on-line. Have fun.

Technorati Tags: deborah jeane palfrey

Hokay...so sometimes blogs bring out the most, um, interesting characters. And fascinating references. Stuff I would never know otherwise. But it is nice,I guess, to know that your readers respond. Just a little background on the Noel Pemberton-Billing case.

LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS AND SONS UPDATE

More charges have been set against Kevin Alfred Strom. The white supremacist is now indicted for trying to sexually coerce one or more young girls. Mr. Strom has a June 20 jury trial in federal court.

Technorati Tags: kevin alfred strom ,ku klux klan,white supremacist movement

THE NRA CAN'T HEAR YOU WHEN YOU SCREAM PART II

A woman and three children were found shot to death in a van outside of Chicago. A man is in custody.

Meanwhile, in an update to the Delavan Wisconsin story, the police have ruled the shootings as a murder suicide. Ambrosio Analco killed himself and five other people including his twin sons. He wounded his one-year-old daughter who is still in critical condition.

Technorati Tags: guns

THE NRA CAN'T HEAR YOU WHEN YOU SCREAM

Six people were shot to death in a Delavan,Wisconsin home. Four adults, and twin baby boys. The survivor is a one-year-old girl who was shot in the chest and is in critical condition.
Technorati Tags: guns

GIGGLE, GIGGLE...NO DICE UPDATE JUNE 11,2007

"God does not play dice with the universe."

-- Albert Einstein

As I reported earlier, there is a creation science museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Their Adam is in trouble. The creationist museum had a video with the Biblical portrayal of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Unfortunately the actor, Eric Linden, who portrayed Adam was the owner of a pornographic website called Bedroom Acrobat and is current a model for a website that sells t-shirts with explicit messages. The creation museum, very red-faced, pulled the video. God should do better background checks.

Technorati Tags:creationism,evolution,religious right

GODDESS BLESS CONGRATULATIONS HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Hurrah for the British Columbian Anglicans! They recently approved same-sex church blessings. I've always had a soft spot
in my Humanist /Pagan/Whatever heart for Anglicans ever since they ordained a gay bishop, the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson (who is celebrating his own marriage in the middle of 2008),and ordained a female bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. God does not discriminate. Congratulations to Rev.Gene Robinson and his partner, Mark Andrews.

Congratulations also to Mary Cheney and her partner Heather Poe for little Samuel David Cheney born on May 23, 2007. The bundle of lesbian joy was 8 pounds, 6 ounces. The Religious Right is having a hissy fit about the birth with the accusation that the parents are sinful but Mary Cheney is no Karla Homolka, the serial killer, who had a baby boy too. Leave the Cheney-Poes alone with their kid. Let them muddle, like all new parents muddle, through the sleepless nights, disappointments and joys without the religious guilt trip.

Technorati Tags:gene robinson,mary cheney,religious right

GONE TO GLORY UPDATE

Mark D. Uhl appeared in federal court with the charges of having illegal explosives. The Liberty University student planned to use the bombs against the Westboro Baptist Church when they protested at the funeral of televangelist Jerry Falwell.

Technorati Tags:jerry falwell,religious right,westboro baptist church

LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS AND SONS UPDATE 05/30/07

Kevin Alfred Strom, 50, is set to go on trial in U.S District Court in Charlottesville, North Carolina next month for charges that he possessed child pornography, enticed a 9-year-old girl for sex, and then repeatedly stalked and harassed the child.

As I previously reported, Strom is also charged with using the Internet for the purpose of obtaining sex from a ten-year-old girl. and witness tampering due to physical and mental intimidation of a witness.

This just in, 05/30/07: More evidence against Kevin Strom has been found on a computer hard drive. Prosecutors are asking for more time to prepare for the trial.

Technorati Tags: kevin alfred strom ,ku klux klan,white supremacist movement

WHERE IT HURTS

Another Fort Lewis soldier was killed in Iraq this month, bringing the total of sixteen soldiers from the Tacoma fort killed this month. Spc. Matthew P. LaForest of Austin, Texas died during small arms enemy fire in Taji, Iraq. He was a soldier in C Company, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division --- a Stryker combat team.

So far this month, there have been 104 American casualties, 3 United Kingdom, and 3 of other countries.

But it never hurts as much as when it is this close to home.

Technorati Tags: iraq,washington state

IN MEMORIAM

Norm Maleng on May 24, 2007 at age 68.

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng was one of the last of fading species. He was a Republican but he was fair and even-handed in his application of the law. As a Washingtonian who was raised on a Whatcom county dairy farm, Norm Maleng served his state with honesty and integrity. He headed the first state task force to create a sex offender law, created a special unit in the prosecutor's office to address the needs of those affected by domestic violence and child abuse, worked towards sentence reform, anti-drug legislation, and laws dealing with runaway youths.

Major cases under his astute overview were the Wah Mee murders where 13 victims were massacred for gambling money, the Green River Killer Gary Ridgeway (NOTE: Do not read this if you a sensitive person or subject to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder --- these articles are very graphic), and the Goldmark slayings where right-wing and Christian Identity extremist David Rice murdered a civil-rights attorney and his family.

Norm Maleng will be sorely missed in Washington.


Technorati Tags: norm maleng,washington state

SEND IN THE PERPS

Ted Klaudt, a former GOP legislator in South Dakota, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree rape, one count of sexual contact with a child younger than sixteen,two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of witness tampering for saying to one of his victims that he would send her to juvenile detention if she did not recant the rape accusations, and one count of stalking.

Klaudt molested his victims by saying that the girls could make $20,000 as egg donors and that he was ascertaining their eligibility by sexually abusing them with fondling and using speculums to invade their bodies.

Ted Klaudt was an anti-abortion, anti- gay Republican who promoted legislation to toughen laws against sex offenders. Several of Klaudt's victims were his foster children.

Now, is it me or are there more sexual perverts on the political right than on the political left? Let's take a walk down (recent) memory lane: Mark Foley, the Republican senator from Florida, who harassed underage aides with sexual explicit e-mails,Craig Schelske a former candidate for Congress whose marriage ended among allegations of adultery and exposing his children to pornography,Cary Lee Cramer who molested a little girl that he used in an anti-John Kerry ad,Phil Giordano former Mayor of Waterbury Connecticut sentenced to 37 years for child sexual abuse...if I missed anyone it is not through lack of material.

Technorati Tags: child abuse,republicans

HANG 'EM HIGH

The Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for child rape. The case in question is that of Patrick Kennedy, 42, who raped an 8-year-old relative as the girl sorted Girl Scout cookies in the basement of her New Orleans home. Kennedy later bragged about the rape to an acquaintance, saying that the innocent girl had "become a lady today".
The case now goes to the national Supreme Court.

I think it is appropriate for this perpetrator to get the death penalty. Rape is a lifelong devastation to the child victim. The death penalty for rape is the only acceptable closure for this malicious deed. None of this weeny New Age schlock about "forgiving the evildoer in one's heart so I can get on with my life" or, horrors of horrors, reconciliation with the perp and forgiveness. The death penalty is a very straightforward action and consequences discipline for the wrongdoing. Like many people, I've become tired of the pop psych nonsense promoted by far-left liberals. I am a rational moderate who abhors the touchy-feely fluff and emotionalistic idiocy that characterizes edge of the spectrum lefties. Sexual offenders usually aren't salvageable as human beings and one less rapist to worry about will make the world a better place.

Technorati Tags: child abuse,death penalty

YOU DID IT YOURSELF

A Galveston man was arrested for burning his baby in a motel microwave. Joshua Mauldin is charged with felony child injury for harming his two-month-old daughter by punching her in the groin, placing her in a refrigerator, then a safe, and then setting her in the microwave. His wife, Eva Marie Mauldin, has blamed Satan, citing the Devil's desire to thwart her husband's ambitions to be a Christian minister for the man's abuse of the baby.

Eva Marie Mauldin

Mrs. Mauldin has set up a web site on MySpace (ew...) to defend her husband.* Texas child protection officials plan to sever the parents' custody.

I think that "the Devil made me do it". is a lousy excuse. Satan doesn't exist. If the two-month-old were my child and someone had injured her, I'd be first in line to deball the perp. It is obvious that Christianity has given licence for the most horrible of crimes against children and yet the religion still continues to flourish. There is something pathologically wrong with a society that allows this injurious mythology to continue at the expense of innocent lives. It is a religion that does not promote personal responsibility and accountability.The Texas child protection services should cut parents' rights without any other consideration.

*NOTE: I went to MySpace (reporters do the dirty work so you don't have to, eecchh...) and searched for the Joshua Maudlin site but only found the wife's personal site, not the site to defend her husband.


Technorati Tags:child abuse,religious right,satan

GONE TO GLORY

"Kill them all. God will know his own"

Arnaud Amaury,Abbot of Cîteaux

The Reverend Jerry Falwell was buried today in Lynchburg,Virgina. It was a to-do that the White House ignored and that sparked more controversy after his death.

Despite the large turnout of 10,000 people at the Thomas Road Baptist Church, the White House sent only a mid-level aide to the funeral. I guess that is the Bush administration's opinion of its evangelical supporters.

The funeral goers faced the heckles of only a half-dozen Westboro Baptist Church members who considered Falwell soft on gay issues. Obvious in the poor turnout for the protest, the Westborians couldn't gather enough evidence that a fundie minister was going to hell. Virginia police roped off an area for the protesters and Christian bikers blocked the Westborians from funeral view.

In an exciting note, a Liberty University student planned to napalm the Westborians during their protest of the Falwell funeral. Mark D. Uhl, a 19-year-old student at LU had multiple gas and detergent bombs in his car that he planned to use on those who would disrupt the services for Falwell. Law enforcement officers are seeking three other suspects.

Technorati Tags:jerry falwell,religious right,westboro baptist church

GONER

Paul Wolfowitz will leave his post from the World Bank following charges that he engaged in nepotism to favour his companion, Shaha Riza.


Technorati Tags: paul wolfowitz, shaha riza, world bank

NO DICE

"God does not play dice with the universe."

-- Albert Einstein

In Petersburg, Kentucky evangelical Christians are prepared to open a creation science history centre, the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum. No self-respecting Muse would find herself in such a place, especially Clio. The girlfriend, Muse of history and poetry, liked to hang with Herodotus the father of history and Anna Comnena the first woman historian. The Greeks, with their inquiry into knowledge, would be appalled that this sham could be called a museum. Certainly, this gnat of a religious centre, could never make the revered claims of being of intellectual descent from the first museum, the Library at Alexandria established by Ptolemy I Soter (Savior). There is not the spirit of scientific quest or honesty that characterizes a good museum in the Answers in Genesis theme park. It is a waste of 27 million dollars to create a theme park that has no basis in facts and that supports an outdated and dangerous belief system.

Creationists, being the muddleheads that they are, believe that the world is 6,000 years old. In geographic dating of rocks, the nearest estimate is 4.54 billion years old. They think that the Grand Canyon was created with a flood such as that in the Bible, or in the Christian's borrowed theology from the stories of Ziusudra,Xisuthros,Atrahasis and Utnapishtim. In reality, slow erosion from wind, rain, and the Colorado River (what is left of this waterway with pollution, drought, and overuse) form the Grand Canyon.

In the biological sciences, the evangelicals do not fare much better. The Answers in Creation Science centre displays dinosaurs coexisting with humans but the dinosaurs, with the exception of their evolved descendants the birds, died out 65 million years ago. The centre also portrays Tyrannosaurus rex as a vegetarian although he was one of the nastiest meat-eaters around at the time. Anthropological evidence of humans show our species to be only 3 million years young (Note: George W. Bush no doubt considers Queen Elizabeth II of the same era...).

This evangelical ignorance of the sciences not only lacks factual basis but endangers human life. By promoting creationism the evangelicals disregard that, for example, bats and humans have a common ancestor. It is very critical to public health to have only evolution taught in schools because with a common ancestor, as mammals, bats are vectors for human diseases through rabies, Ebola, Marburg, Nipah and Hendra and SARS viruses. Creationists imperil human lives with their superstition and stubborn idiocy.

Hopefully, the Answer in Genesis Creation Museum will close its doors soon after its opening. Human life depends on science like evolution being taught to the public, not the charlatan trickery of creationism.

Technorati Tags:creationism ,evolution,religious right

GONE UPDATED 5/19/2007

The Reverend Jerry Falwell at age 73 died of heart complications in his office at Liberty University.

Now, let's me see, some of the Religious Right's leaders are becoming awfully old. Pat Robertson is 77, James Dobson is 71, and Phyllis Schlafly is 83. Beverly LaHaye is 78 and her husband Tim is 81.

Not that they will be missed, mind you. These deaths will not be a tragedy because they have set back the course of American progress in science, literature, medicine, and technology with their ignorant, uneducated, and superstitious view of the world. Instead of promoting research and development in the fight against AIDS and cervical cancer as well as in the general realms of medicine, they have promulgated scientifically incompetent abstinence programs for teen age sex education, discouraged fact based solutions against the transmission of AIDS on the basis of their hatred for gay people, and thwarted future careers of children who would be doctors with introduction of the false science of intelligent design in schools. These are people who don't understand that even cats get a form of AIDS . Preventing the virus should not be a matter of biblical morality, but of the most effective way of stopping transmission.Evangelicals also do not understand sex is not the only way the human papillomavirus infection (HPV) that causes cervical canver can be transmitted.

Furthermore, the religious right grudge against the teaching of evolution imperils scientific research in the fight against fatal diseases. It is relevant, for example, that bats are related to humans through a distant and common ancestor. Bats, as mammals, can not only transmit diseases like rabies to humans but very lethal diseases like Ebola, Marburg virus and SARS. There is nothing wrong with evolution in schools because teaching this science is a matter of human life and death.

The leaders of the religious right will not be regretted when they pass on. The world will be a better place without their outdated and harmful beliefs.

UPDATED 5/19/2007 Okay, this is cute. The Westboro Baptist Church, home of those ultra-fundies the Phelps, has decided to picket the funeral of the late Jerry Falwell because the Phelps think that he was too tolerant. This is the guy who blamed 9/11 on gay people, feminists, Pagans, et alius.

If that isn't enough fun check out the amateur video that the Westborians have created. The production values of "God Hates the World" suck wind but what can one expect from hard-core Xians? Not MTV quality fer sure.Near the end of the video, they wave a Canadian flag upside down. Does that have the same symbolism as an upside down pentacle with a goat's head? Or was someone not watching where they put the flag this morning? For a moment, I thought that the video was a joke but the Westborians are serious in their copyright infringement of "We Are the World."

Technorati Tags:abstinence , aids,hpv,jerry falwell,religious right,westboro baptist church

A BURDEN NO CHILD SHOULD CARRY

A four-year-old child killed his father in Vallejo, California. Brian Sparks was on disability leave when his son shot him. The child, due to his minority, is not identified.

No child should have to bear this burden for the rest of his life. This is why guns and children should never be in the same house.

Technorati Tags:guns

HISTORICAL PRECEDENT

It seems that most ambitious rulers of the male persuasion are felled with the same flaw. To be precise,if you have a penis then you are screwed.



Recently, presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson pleaded his little man in an embarrassing response to a question about gay rights.

The question was if an employer had the right to fire a gay person because the employer considered homosexuality to be immoral. Mr. Thompson answered, "I think that is left up to the individual business. I really sincerely believe that that is an issue that business people have got to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be." That is a clear and cogent answer but Thompson backtracked on his response after protests by saying that he was lost hearing in one ear and his hearing aid went dead in the other. So, how did he hear the question initially? When this answer did not suffice, Thompson explained that he had the flu and bronchitis and not only was he deaf but he had an urgent need to go to the bathroom.

While we have all had moments when nature's call has caused hasty exits at the most awkward of times, having reliance on one's plenipotentiary instrument can get you in trouble.

A case in point is that of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus also known as Caracalla for the hooded cloak that he wore. Caracalla was born Lucius Septimius Bassianus. His parents, Emperor Septimius Severus and Julia Domma renamed their son when he was seven to gain support from the powerful Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. The Severus' had two sons, the youngest Publius Septimius Geta who was at heart an administrator and Caracalla who was a soldier. The elder Severus progeny was ruthless to the point of attempting the assassination of his own father. When Septimius Severus died (of gout), the two brothers were co-regent until Caracalla murdered Geta and his followers. Caracalla ruled with a bloodthirsty administration. He killed his father-in-law Lucius Fulvius Plautianus, his wife Publia Fulvia Plautilla and their daughter, and thousands of others that stood in the way of total power.

However, after only five years of rule, Caracalla made a fateful error in judgment. On April 8, 217, he requested privacy from his bodyguards to urinate and was promptly assassinated by Julius Martialis, an officer in the imperial bodyguard. Martilalis, who was hunted down and killed, either was angry about not getting a post as a centurion or was upset about Caracalla executing Martilalis' brother. With either reason, the disgruntled bodyguard proved once again that men in power or those who seek power should take care how their privates affect their public life.

Technorati Tags:roman history,tommy thompson