The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
It's an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread...
Well, Thursday was fun. I spent eight-and-a-half hours at the VA. I went to the Dental Clinic for an emergency appointment -- one of my two front teeth is a cap, and it fell off Wednesday night. The dentist just cemented the fake tooth back in place. Then I went to Urgent Care to get my toe looked at as I stubbed it so bad on Tuesday morning that my nail technician and I thought it was broken. Well, it's not, but it took about seven hours before it got looked at. So, Thursday was a long day, essentially spent mostly in VA Medical Center waiting rooms. But hey, I'm fine!
So anywho, below is what my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob & I have been looking at news-wise late this week.
TEXARKANA, Arkansas - A federal judge on Friday sentenced Evangelist Tony Alamo to 175 years in prison for child sex crimes.
Several of the child "wives" who helped convict evangelist Tony Alamo of federal sex charges took the witness stand during his sentencing hearing.
The 75-year-old leader of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries was convicted in July on a 10-count indictment accusing him of taking young girls across state lines for sex...
...In court filings, federal prosecutors said three of the women Alamo "married" at ages as young as eight had submitted written statements for Alamo's sentencing report...
The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.
Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.
NASA today opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus cater near the moon's south pole.
The impact created by the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket created a two-part plume of material from the bottom of the crater. The first part was a high angle plume of vapor and fine dust and the second a lower angle ejecta curtain of heavier material. This material has not seen sunlight in billions of years.
I love planetary astronomy!
[Below the fold: The President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary talks about transgender people & clothing; school sanctioned cash for grades, and our Wiener Story Of The Day involves ex-gay Pastor Ted Haggard.]
It's an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread...
So below is what my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob & I have been looking at so far this week.
• Are you Trans? Do you live in New England? Have healthcare system related issues? Well, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders's (GLAD's) Please Share Your Story; Thank you for telling us about your experience with health care coverage related to your transition.:
GLAD is collecting stories about people's experiences with health insurance coverage related to gender transition, to help us determine how we can best address legal concerns in this area.
Please note: because GLAD's work is focused in New England, we are specifically interested in stories from people in the six New England states.
Thank you for sharing your story. All information you provide to GLAD will be kept completely confidential. We do ask that you provide contact information so that we can follow up with you if necessary.
If you would rather not fill out this survey online but would like to tell us your story, you can call GLAD's Legal InfoLine at 617-426-1350, and talk to someone on the phone...
So, follow this link to take the survey, or call the number above!
...Thousands of Muslims have served in the United States military -- a legacy that some trace to the First World War. But in the years since Sept. 11, 2001, as the United States has become mired in two wars on Muslim lands, the service of Muslim-Americans is more necessary and more complicated than ever before.
In the aftermath of the shootings at Fort Hood on Thursday by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan of the Army, a psychiatrist, many Muslim soldiers and their commanders say they fear that the relationship between the military and its Muslim service members will only grow more difficult.
On Sunday, the Army's chief of staff, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said he worried about a backlash against Muslims in the armed forces and emphasized the military's reliance on those men and women.
"Our diversity, not only in our Army but in our country, is a strength," General Casey said Sunday on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse." ...
In the world of fiddler crabs, the best form of protection for females is, apparently, having sex with the neighbors, according to an Australian study published Wednesday.
Researchers from The Australian National University in Canberra found male fiddler crabs will happily defend a nearby female against intruders - partly because the females will dole out sex in return.
"The fact that the neighbor comes over and helps to defend another territorial individual is pretty unusual," said Michael Jennions, who helped conduct the study, the results of which were published in the journal Biology Letters.
"This study shows, for the first time, that in exchange for sex and other benefits, males protect their female neighbors from territory-seeking male intruders...
This must say something about my sexuality -- Reading this article, the first thing that came to my mind is Krabby Patties.
Wheelchair Dancer extends our understanding of crip/gimp reclamation in a wonderful post about gender and embodiment that is difficult to encapsulate in a pullquote -- read the whole thing at "Butch/Femme -- Crip":
A while back in this post, I spoke of bones and muscle. I'd like to go back to that place. I am drawn there as a dancer and as a sexual person. The bones of my body hold true for me; my muscles are what my body has given me. So even when my joints are unstable and my muscles torque and spasm, I recognize in these places parts of my deepest self. I strive to hold on to these selfs in every day life and in dance. I strive to bring them to the street and to the stage. Does desiring muscle and bone make me butch and deny me femme as positions from which I can navigate the world?
This, I think, is crip, is gimp. It is an understanding of the sexuality of the deepest and rawest parts of the body -- it is not so much a focus on gender presentation and on responses to gendered roles. It is an answer to the call of the fibres, the sinews, the fluids, and the infinite structure of the bones.
Moving on from these words for physical disability, you can delve into the reclamation of pejorative terms for neurologically atypical people. The most striking example is possibly Mad Pride, a movement that fights for the rights of people labeled with psychiatric illnesses and affected by abusive mental health systems. Ira Socol argues (somewhat controversially) for "Retard Theory", at SpeEdChange.
Thought provoking stuff in that blog on the convergence of disability and feminism, for sure.
When U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the Port of Los Angeles opened a shipping container bound for the Netherlands, they discovered a 1965 Volkswagen bus stolen in Washington state 35 years ago.
Far out, man!
The unusual seizure of the bus on Oct. 19 came during a routine inspection of several Volkswagens that were being shipped by an Arizona restorer to customers in Europe. The vehicle identification number of the bus, which was swiped in Spokane on July 12, 1974, was still in police computers.
"Pretty amazing, isn't it?" customs spokesman Jaime Ruiz said Thursday when the find was announced...
Sometimes, a dish may stop you in your tracks for the right reasons: cutting through the small talk, pulling your wandering eye back to the plate and causing an involuntary movement that returns wine glass to table.
Game consomme with bacon cream and a small game hot dog --a starter at Philip Howard's informal new west London venue, Kitchen W8 -- take a bow. (The kitchen is headed by Mark Kempson of the Vineyard at Stockcross, so he should take one, too.)
The consomme comes in a mug, and I confess I've asked the restaurant what's in it, rather than just identifying through taste the grouse, venison, pheasant and mallard that have gone into it. It's topped with thick and creamy bacon foam.
The texture is like an old-fashioned Irish coffee. It's richly flavored and comforting on a cold day and the gourmet mini-hot dog served on the plate alongside the mug may raise a smile. It's venison, hare and pork and comes with a sweet-and- sour brown sauce with onions, spices, malt vinegar and beer...
So...wiener soup? Sounds interesting! Now if I ever get to London...
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
BY now, most high school dress codes have just about done away with the guesswork.
Girls: no midriff-baring blouses, stiletto heels, miniskirts.
Boys: no sagging pants, muscle shirts.
But do the math.
"Rules" + "teenager" = "challenges."
If the skirt is an acceptable length, can a boy wear it?
Can a girl attend her prom in a tuxedo?
In recent years, a growing number of teenagers have been dressing to articulate - or confound - gender identity and sexual orientation. Certainly they have been confounding school officials, whose responses have ranged from indifference to applause to bans...
The article goes on to talk about High School dress codes across the country. Recommended read.
The Senate held a hearing on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) this week. ENDA would enshrine special rights for homosexuals in the workplace, based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Craig Parshall, senior vice president and general counsel for National Religious Broadcasters, was the only witness to speak against the bill, although a number of pro-family groups are campaigning against it. Throughout the hearing, Parshall heard cries for fundamental fairness and rights.
"What about the civil rights, the civil opportunities and privileges of private enterprise," he said, "to conduct its business free of these exotic new value systems?" ...
Exotic? About half of the states in the country have nondiscrimination laws based on sexual orientation, and about a quarter of the states have nondiscrimination laws based on gender identity. Hardly exotic laws.
• Los Angeles Times' California's best years have passed, voters sayIn a survey of 1,500 registered voters, 80% say the state is on the wrong track. Respondents express little confidence in state politicians and candidates, even as support for Obama remains high.:
Frustrated at California's woes, voters are sharply pessimistic about whether the next governor will be able to move the state in the right direction, and most believe California is in the midst of a long-term decline, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll shows.
...There was little confidence that the next governor, whoever he or she may be, would be able to successfully battle California's problems. Voters were split over whether the winning candidate would be able to bring about "real change." More than half of voters said that California's problems are long-term in nature and will not ease substantially when the national economy recovers.
"I just feel like we are spinning our wheels," said Tracey Blair, a mother of two from Mar Vista who described herself in a follow-up interview as an independent-minded Democrat. "I don't feel like it's going anywhere at the moment. . . . It's a feeling of -- like we've peaked." ...
...Asked whether California was headed in the right direction or was on the wrong track, only 14% said the state was moving in the right direction. That was the lowest such finding since October 1992, when an equal percentage expressed dismay. It was statistically equivalent to the 17% level reached just before the 2003 recall swept out Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and installed Schwarzenegger. Altogether, 4 in 5 Californians surveyed said they felt the state was headed down the wrong track -- slightly worse than in 2003...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Men who eat a lot of red meat and processed meats may have a higher risk of developing prostate cancer than those who limit such foods, a large study of U.S. men suggests.
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that among more than 175,000 men they followed for nine years, those who ate the most red and processed meats had heightened risks of developing any stage of prostate cancer, or advanced cancer in particular.
The findings, reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, add to a conflicting body of research on meat intake and prostate cancer risk. Because studies over the years have come to different conclusions, experts generally consider the evidence linking red and processed meats to the disease to be limited and inconclusive.
These latest findings do not settle the question. But they do suggest that processed red meats and high-heat cooking methods -- namely, grilling and barbecuing -- may be particularly connected to prostate cancer risk, according to Dr. Rashmi Sinha and her colleagues at the NCI...
So...I'm confused. Are wieners -- as processed red meat -- evil, or not so evil? Engh, never mind. Most are too fatty anyway.
The Queen of Hot Dog's in Vermont was honored Saturday.
Lois Bodoky, known to most as "The Hot Dog Lady", received red carpet treatment today.
For 28 years Bodoky operated a hot dog cart on Church Street.
She retired in 2005.
Saturday, the city unveiled a plaque outside Homeport, honoring her years of service to hungry customers. The location is where she operated the cart after her beauty shop burned down in the 70s.
Bodoky says she misses her customers, especially feeding the needy for free...
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
The City Council on Thursday gave unanimous preliminary approval to expanding its human rights ordinance to protect transgender people from discrimination.
But does that mean cross-dressers are protected, too?
Specifically, the ordinance prohibits discrimination on the basis of "gender identity and expression." ...
So the answer would be "Yes." Realistically, cross-dressing is so stigmatized in our society that not extremely few people would be going to work one day as Albert, the next day Alice, and the next day as Albert again. As a rule, trans people just don't alternate in their work presentations like that.
Despite long lines at health clinics around the country prompted by widespead shortages of the vaccine for H1N1, some on Wall Street may have made their way to the front of the line, a public health watchdog group charged Thursday.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has demanded an investigation into why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved small amounts of H1N1 vaccine for distribution at 13 companies including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.
CREW executive director Melanie Sloan wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "Although CREW has been unable to uncover the demographic makeup of [these companies], surely it is safe to assume the vast majority of their employees are not pregnant women and children, young adults up to 24 years old, and healthcare workers," Sloan wrote. "Under these circumstances, it is the height of irresponsibility for the CDC to approve distribution of the vaccine to anywhere other than where it is most likely to be provided to those at the greatest risk." ...
Well, this can't be seen as good optics for the CDC and financial banking giants.
A controversial play which portrays Jesus as a transsexual woman was defended yesterday by its writer who has herself crossed the gender barrier to live as a woman.
Jesus, Queen of Heaven, has caused a storm of protest from Christian evangelical groups, who picketed the Tron Theatre in Glasgow when it opened this week.
However, their attacks have caused deep offence to the play's author, who also acts the leading role. For Jo Clifford -- formerly the playwright John Clifford -- wrote the piece in an attempt to create greater understanding of transgendered people like herself.
The play's opening night was attended by about 300 demonstrators. Roman Catholics joined evangelical Christians for a two-hour protest during which they waved placards and sang hymns...
I feel the Christian love.
[Below the fold: Trigger Alert for today's Washington DC Tea Party event sign, and the Wiener Story Of The Day.]
Final Destination IV: The Haunted Mansionhas been set into motion. Save the dates: Oct. 29, 30, & 31.
New Times Best of Phoenix - Beware: Final Destination, in its fourth incarnation at the Door Christian Center in Chandler, is not a traditional haunted house. If you're looking for a fun and scary activity to work in between bouts of recreational drug use, promiscuous sex, and idol worship, this "haunted house-style attraction" run by evangelical Christians is not for you. Unless, that is, you're willing to watch a doctor hold down a screaming patient during a mock abortion before going back to your normal weekend routine of smoking up a hooker (using a Bible as rolling paper) while listening to Marilyn Manson. Final Destination is, however, very well put together, with great acting, impressive production values, and passionate workers who'll do their best to save your soul. If you're a remorseless heathen who's Hell-bound anyway, or if you're maybe interested in getting saved, Final Destination makes for a pretty ***** entertaining night.
Participate in our Final Destination event for 2009. More than 1400 persons attended last year with more than 300 decisions. Volunteers will be needed in all areas, acting, make-up, special effects, set construction, and security to mention a few. Be a part of impacting the East Valley for Jesus. Be sure to invite friends, family, co-workers, peers, and anyone that you meet. It'll be an event you don't want to miss!!
A former cosmetics company employee has been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco on a mail-fraud charge for allegedly using a company card for personal expenses ranging from a down payment on a luxury car to purchases at stores.
Nicole Buchan, 29, charged nearly $179,000 on an American Express corporate card that Benefit Cosmetics had obtained for her use, according to a grand jury indictment issued Thursday.
The personal expenses charged on the card included high-end electronics, designer clothes and accessories from stores such as Gucci, Coach, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, J. Crew, Nordstrom and Victoria's Secret, the indictment said...
This gives a whole new meaning to the term "beautiful people," doesn't it?
What do you think your daughter is learning from Seventeen magazine? Self-esteem? Hopefully. Body hatred? Perhaps. How to buy a flattering winter coat or strike up a conversation with that hottie from homeroom? Most likely. I'll forgive you for not guessing "transphobia." But that may be exactly what teen and tween girls are getting out of a troubling Seventeen article called "My boyfriend turned out to be a girl!"
The piece, posted as a PDF at Pam's House Blend, begins innocently enough. Narrator "Sheri" (who told her story to Senior Editor Jessica Press) recounts the beginnings of her relationship with "Derek" ...
...As Autumn Sandeen at Pam's House Blend points out, there are positive points to the story: Press does, for instance, use the pronoun "he" to refer to Derek throughout the body of the piece. But the headline is nothing short of heinous. To say "My boyfriend turned out to be a girl!" is to deny a transman's male identity and imply that to suggest otherwise is to lie. And a blurred-out photo of the couple, captioned with the scrawled words "He was actually a she!," is even more offensive. Sandeen writes:
The point is that the Seventeen editor for this story chose to portray female-to-male trans youth as really girls -- and by extension male-to-female trans youth are really boys. In the way the story was presented, it portrayed all trans people as being deceptive liars -- and "lie" is their word, not mine. Trans people, and many others in and out of LGBT community, know that genitalia and the gender markers on identification documents don't always tell the full gender story of an individual.
She quotes the GLAAD Media Guide's Transgender Glossary, which warns journalists that "Gender identity is an integral part of a person's identity. Please do not characterize transgender people as 'deceptive,' as 'fooling' other people, or as 'pretending' to be, 'posing' or 'masquerading' as a man or a woman. Such descriptions are extremely insulting." ...
I'm pretty glad the Judy Berman "got it," and followed up on the Pam's House Blend piece. The issues aren't "Sheri" and "Derek," the former couple found in the article, or about the take "Sheri" had regarding the experience or what a cad "Derek" was described as being, but about the editorial decisions that were made in how Seventeen framed Sheri's story.
And too, it was the lack of context regarding the broader life experiences of trans youth, and that trans youth aren't all "deceptive" by really being the gender tied to the shape of their genitalia at birth.
• Lookin' for a sugar daddy?
• Head to Palm Beach with Ken!
• Silkstone Barbie Doll body and part of the elite Gold Label Collection.
• Made with the adult collector in mind!
• Includes accessories and a certificate of authenticity.
Join the cool sophistication in breezy Palm Beach! Sporting a dashing jacquard-patterned jacket with a light pink polo shirt and crisp white pants, this Ken Doll is ready for the Palm Beach social season, sunning by the pool, and a stroll with his furry little companion. Fashion designed exclusively for the Silkstone Barbie Doll body, he's made with the adult collector in mind. This item includes a Ken doll, jacket, pink polo shirt, white shoes, dog with leash, swim trunks, accessories, doll stand, and certificate of authenticity. Look no further for your sugar daddy!
People from all across South Alabama showed up to Brundidge's Peanut Butter Festival today, despite early morning showers.
Brundidge Mayor Jimmy Ramage said he thought the turnout was good considering the weather.
"It was flooding this morning," Ramage said. "And the weather people said all week it was going to rain all weekend."
The wiener part of this story:
The Pike County Cattlewomen were feeding the crowd, selling hamburgers and beef hot dogs.
Pike County Cattleman James O. Johnson said he and Wayne Davis and Mike Wilson had been cooking for the Cattlewomen all morning and that the organization donated the beef for the booth.
The proceeds from the hot dog and hamburger sales went to Relay for Life.
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
It's an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread...
So, my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob & I had a real hard time with the graphics and links for our top story, so we're giving our Thursday This And That: Open Thread diary for yesterday a real late shove off! So we renamed Early Friday Morning This And That: Open Thread.
So anywho, here's what sockpuppet Bookworm Bob & I have been looking at into this Halloween weekend.
• Kimberly Daniels gives us a take on Halloween on the Christian Broadcasting Networks's (jpeg/cache) and Charisma Magazine's (here): The Danger of Celebrating Halloween:
Halloween --October 31 -- is considered a holiday in the United States. In fact, it rivals Christmas with regard to how widely celebrated it is. Stores that sell only Halloween-related paraphernalia open up a few months before the day and close shortly after it ends. But is Halloween a holiday that Christians should be observing?
The word "holiday" means "holy day." But there is nothing holy about Halloween. The root word of Halloween is "hallow," which means "holy, consecrated and set apart for service." If this holiday is hallowed, whose service is it set apart for? The answer to that question is very easy -- Lucifer's!
The article gets better. Here's just one gem that's included in all versions of the article (emphasis added):
During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.
I'd just love to know what the reference is for that assertion! (I smell a factoid!) A follow-on paragraph for that on wasn't in the CBN version of the article, but is in the Charisma version (emphasis added!):
I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.
Egads! Teh Demons are EVERYWHERE!
Hey, Kimberly Daniels even makes Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber look sane!
The homosexual movement gained a barrier-breaking victory Oct. 28 when President Obama signed into law a measure extending hate-crimes protections to homosexuals and transgender people.
The president's signature on the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act put into effect not only an annual bill for the U.S. military but enshrined into federal law the most significant legislative advance to date for homosexual activists.
...The hate-crimes language in the new law adds "sexual orientation" and "gender identity," as well as disability, to the current categories -- such as race, religion and gender -- protected from hate crimes. "Sexual orientation" includes homosexuality and bisexuality, while "gender identity," or transgendered status, takes in transsexuals and cross-dressers.
Advocates of freedom of religion and of speech, as well as of the biblical view of sexuality, expressed dismay at the development, even though they oppose violence against homosexuals. They fear the measure, combined with existing law, could expose to prosecution Christians and others who proclaim the Bible's teaching that homosexual behavior is sinful. For example, if a person commits a violent act based on a victim's "sexual orientation" after hearing biblical teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual behavior, the preacher or teacher could be open to a charge of inducing the person to commit the crime, some foes say.
Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, added this quote:
"I am disappointed that President Obama has signed the hate-crimes bill into law, but I am not surprised. The President has been clear, even before he was elected, that he intends to champion the homosexual agenda. This is merely one of a number of steps he will take in fulfilling that commitment."
Mr. Duke apparently has more faith in the President following though with promised LGBT legislative agenda than the grassroots of the LGBT community does!
When it comes to beauty products, sometimes ignorance is bliss. Snake venom, bird droppings, snail serum, cow dung and whale vomit are but a few of the industry's extreme and off-putting ingredients that one might be shocked to know can be slathered about your body.
Hair products are no exception to this somewhat creepy phenomenon. Consumers hoping for a hair miracle are willing to pay extra for deep conditioners and conditioning "treatments" that promise an enviable crowning glory -- even when they contain rather odd-seeming ingredients such as placenta, caviar and hemp. Pushing the limits, Hari's, a well-known "celebrity" salon in London that claims clients including the Rolling Stones and Margaret Trudeau, had the beauty world abuzz earlier this year with owner Hari Salem's Aberdeen Organic bull sperm treatment. The promise was that the protein in the treatment (called "Viagra for Hair" on Hari's website) would repair, restore and brighten hair.
But is there really any reason to go for such exotic treatments?
Go read the rest of the article if you're curious.
Thursday, October 29 iz National Kitteh Day! We know that everyday is Caturday, but on National Cat Day we git to show our kittehs sum extra speshul lurv and give them the much deserved attention they demand.
I always treat Kitty Bon-Bon and Maggie like royalty!
Inspired by last weekend's famous sideline "hot dog incident," Hebrew National would like to show its appreciation by offering football fans free hot dogs the next time a uniformed professional U.S. football player snacks on a hot dog, anytime during a game this season. The company hopes that a player out there answers its call and boldly takes a bite that could satiate the hunger of thousands of football fans.
"For us here at Hebrew National, it's always thrilling to see a quarterback sneak executed flawlessly -- especially when a hot dog is involved," said Angela Joyner, Vice President and General Manager, Hebrew National. "The next time a player tries this, we hope they'll go for one of our 100 percent kosher beef franks. At least one thing's for sure...if this happens again, every fan in attendance will certainly 'relish' the moment."
To kick things off, Hebrew National will immediately reward all fans who attended last weekend's Oakland game and bore witness to "hot dog-gate" in person...
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
Mike Elk couldn't have been more right in his thinking about what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have thought of the Teabaggers, Birthers, etc. He would have seen that those faces that at first glance seem twisted in anger are really twisted in pain. He would recognize those faces as well as the source of the fear and anger distorting them.
It's not about adopting their politics, compromising our own, or even tolerating their tactics. It's about reclaiming "We" - The same "We" that Dr. King and civil rights workers sang about, and that I remember singing about myself in church, on the occasions when we sang "We Shall Overcome."
"Breast cancer doesn't have to go on to another generation. We can be the generation that stops it," says Dr. Susan Love.
The renowned breast cancer surgeon and awareness advocate is recruiting a 1 million strong "Army of Women" (and some men) to do just that. Love, an out lesbian, is also committed to making the LGBT community an integral part of the effort.
...Some modules of the HOW study will ask about sexual orientation and gender identity. Love is working with Fenway Health, a Boston-based LGBT health organization, to develop appropriate questions. Looking at breast cancer in lesbians is one obvious avenue for research, but Love also wants to investigate the almost entirely unexplored area of breast cancer in transgender people. "I think there's a wealth of information in studying that community," she says.
"That's a community where you've taken different types of hormones that do affect breast cancer [in non-transgender women] at different times in life, and nobody's really studied what does that do to the breast tissue [of transgender people]. Are they at risk? Aren't they at risk? We have no idea."
Love wants to study the risks for both male-to-female transgender people as well as female-to-male people who have not had their breast tissue removed. Additionally, she would like to find funding to study the breast tissue of those who have had it removed after taking testosterone for some time...
The Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the pilot licenses of the two Northwest pilots who have admitted to being distracted in the cockpit by their laptop computers and letting their plane fly 150 miles past their intended destination of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.
The Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the licenses of two Northwest Airlines pilots who overflew their destination airport on October 21, 2009 while operating Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis.
The pilots were out of contact with air traffic controllers for an extended period of time and told federal investigators that they were distracted by a conversation. Air traffic controllers and airline officials repeatedly tried to reach them through radio and data contact, without success.
The emergency revocations cite violations of a number of Federal Aviation Regulations. Those include failing to comply with air traffic control instructions and clearances and operating carelessly and recklessly.
The revocations are effective immediately. The pilots have 10 days to appeal the emergency revocations to the National Transportation Safety Board.
...[H]ere's the larger question: what should we call a marriage between a man and a woman? If we call a marriage between two men or two women a "same-sex marriage," then why not call a marriage between a man and a woman an "opposite-sex marriage"?
The dilemma for journalists is that you have to differentiate between the two types of marriage when discussion political challenges or advocacy. Can you really have "marriage" on one hand, and "same-sex marriage" on the other when you are making comparisons?
For awhile, it seemed "traditional marriage" was the preferred comparison, but there are even bigger problems there. "Traditional marriage" is now a political slogan, used by opponents of same-sex marriage as a piece of rhetoric. So no journalist should really be using the term "traditional marriage" unless it is a direct quote from an activist.
So where does that leave journalists asked to tell stories where both kinds of marriage are being discussed? Suggestions?
The people of Maine will soon have the chance to decide the definition of marriage in their state. And that decision could impact what kids are taught in public schools.
...Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said gay marriage gives teachers the cover they need to incorporate homosexual topics into their lessons.
"Consider the parents in Massachusetts who complained that their kindergarten and second-grade age kids were exposed to storybooks introducing them to the idea of homosexuality and same-sex marriage," she said. "Is there really any serious question that legalizing gay marriage will tangibly and concretely affect our public schools?
The CEO of the Nathan's Hot Dog company is set to introduce Sanchez Tuesday morning as there spokesperson for the 2010 year. "We saw an opportunity here with a young quarterback who is having a very successful year. It will put our product out there in a way it has not been yet," the CEO said.
Put it out there it sure will. Not only do they plan on producing three commercials, any game where Sanchez is replaced by a back up due to a Jets fourth quarter league, he will sport a Nathans hot dog in his hand...
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
(Full disclosure: The group that organized the protest is one I work with on my job.)
This is something I wish I'd been a part of, and I hope they call me if they need an extra baritone next time. (It's rare that my vocal training and my politics intersect.) Plus, the guy who got "punk'd" was none other than Bill McInturff, the guy who gave us Harry and Louise. (Not to mention killing health care reform and giving us another decade of pre-existing conditions, recissions, etc.)
Republican pollster Bill McInturff was the keynote speaker on the final day of the America's Health Insurance Plans's state issues conference on Friday morning.
But his speech on how the health care reform debate was playing among the public was interrupted before it even began. A group of protesters began aggressively cheering McInturff for the work he has done for AHIP (he's a hired pollster for the private insurance lobby and, most infamously, was the force behind the 'Harry and Louise' ads in 1994)
McInturff, initially thinking that the cheering was legitimate, thanked the "AHIP officials" in the back of the room for giving him mental encouragement for his speech. He was not being paid for his appearance, he noted.
And then, the protesters -- dressed in business attire to fit into the crowd -- began singing. A relatively lengthy and harmonious rendition of "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie ensued, only with the chorus focused on government-run insurance. "The option, the option, we must have, the option... " went the rendition, in reference to the public plan.
The lyrics are available after the jump, if you want to sing along.
Rosa Frias was working the evening shift at Bimbo Bakeries in South San Francisco when she reached into her bread-making machine to remove a hunk of dried dough.
She screamed as her left hand, and then her lower arm, were sucked into the gears of the Winkler stringline proofer. That night, the limb had to be amputated above the elbow.
The incident drew a $21,750 fine from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. But Bimbo paid nothing. It appealed to the Cal-OSHA Appeals Board, which dismissed the case on a technicality...
..."That is mind-boggling," said Linda Delp, director of UCLA's Labor Occupational Safety and Health program.
It is not, however, unusual for companies to fare well on appeals. A Times review found that the board has repeatedly reduced or dismissed penalties levied by Cal-OSHA over the last few years, even in situations in which workers have died or been seriously injured. The board's actions have done more than save companies money. They have undermined Cal-OSHA's efforts to prevent future accidents, according to labor advocates, inspectors and state documents...
Government of the corporate interests, for the corporations, and by the corporate interests. This attitude needs to change, but I have little faith that it actually will.
Gutter politics rides again. We're two weeks out from Election Day in Kalamazoo, and the Anti-Gay Boogeymen are resorting to the oldest, most disgusting trick in the book, the Transgender Bathroom Panic. They've released a new flyer featuring pictures of some famous (and not-so-famous) transgendered folks, accompanied by OMGSCARY blurbs about their alleged transgendered transgressions...stuff like wanting to go to the bathroom. The insinuation, of course, is that if there's a transgendered person using a restroom, that person must be on the prowl looking for helpless pretty young women to rape.
Before we go any further, it's worth noting that the Kalamazoo nondiscrimination ordinance doesn't mention restroom access even once. It's aimed at stopping employers from firing employees because of their sexual orientation and ensuring fair and equitable access to city employment and services...but I digress.
I'm not transgendered and I wouldn't dare dream of speaking for the transgendered community in most cases, but in this case I think it's pretty fair to assume that if a transgendered person is fighting for access to a bathroom, all they want to do is pee...
On that point, writer PerfectStormer has my personal permission to speak for me.
On Oct. 8, the House approved its version of the Matthew Shepard Act, and it awaits Senate approval. The Matthew Shepard Act will broaden the targets of hate crimes to crimes motivated by gender, gender identity, and disability.
In California, such categories of victims are covered but in other states, such as Wyoming, they are not. The federal law would lend consistency across states. There is no logical reason why a gay person could be a victim of a hate crime in one state and not in another.
...I have had personal experience with hate crimes that went unpunished. A gay person close to me was threatened and hurt in a hate crime, enough to go to the hospital, and yet the police who were called to the scene did not arrest the perpetrators. After that, I kept a gun under my bed for several months until I reconsidered the consequences of using it.
I took another gay man to the hospital after he was attacked on the streets of Riverside. For many years, I did not know this friend had been raped as well as brutalized in other ways. His suffering was beyond description.
Hate crimes have more serious effects on the victim than other crimes...
...As well as on people in the same identity community as a hate crime's victim.
DULUTH, Minn. - A northern Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized lounge chair while drunk.
A criminal complaint says 62-year-old Dennis LeRoy Anderson told police he left the Keyboard Lounge in Proctor on his customized La-Z-Boy after drinking eight or nine beers.
Prosecutors say Anderson's blood alcohol content was 0.29, more than three times the legal limit, when he crashed the lounge chair into a parked vehicle in August 2008.
So the lesson for me here is...Well, since I don't own a motorized La-Z-Boy, I don't think there is a lesson for me here!
• A special salute to California's disabled veteran small businesspeople in our Wiener Story Of The Day. From the Los Angeles Times' Carpinteria hot dog vendor relishes his sales-tax victory; After 16 years, the owner of the Surf Dog stand, a disabled veteran, has won an exemption for peddlers such as himself. On Thursday, the dogs are on him...
As light on his feet as the prizefighter he once was, Bill Connell moves quickly around his Carpinteria hot dog stand, jabbing hot sausages, whipping Monster Dogs into buns, and boasting about the recent knockout he scored against state tax officials.
"They told me the law didn't mean what it said in plain language, and I told them: 'Are you kidding me? I was educated in Catholic schools! I know what the law says!' "
For 16 years, Connell sparred with the state Board of Equalization over the interpretation of an 1872 statute exempting street peddlers who are disabled veterans from paying various taxes. This morning, he'll celebrate his victory by giving away hot dogs and carving up sheet cakes decorated with the Stars and Stripes. Politicians who supported Connell's cause will speechify on a platform set up at his Surf Dog stand, a cart commanding an ocean view that would be the envy of any five-star hotel.
...[California state Sen. Jeff Denham (R-Atwater)] sponsored a bill, inspired by Connell, allowing veterans with service-related disabilities not to pay sales taxes when peddling things such as T-shirts, tacos and incense on the street. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it into law earlier this month.
At the heart of the new law is the notion of the state giving a boost to self-employed veterans. Connell, a former toxic-waste disposal specialist who knows his way around a law book, contended that's exactly what the state wanted to do when it passed laws to that effect in the 1800s. State attorneys disagreed, pointing out that state sales-tax laws weren't imposed until 1933, didn't mention veterans and superseded rules from the previous century.
Horary for this disabled veteran! Good to know too that If I, as a disabled veteran, opened up a hot dog or taco cart anywhere here in my home state, I won't have to charge sales taxes to my customers!
Of course, I'm not thinking about selling hot dogs or tacos from a cart anytime soon...
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
We caught a commercial on TV for/from the Mormons about their website. In the spot are average everyday people just chatting about their faith. When who would pop up on the screen but comedian, banjo player, magician and cult favorite, Phil Vantee.
Church was the original show business. So of course the Latter Day Saints could possibly end up in a fabulous crossover with the Comedy Central improv show Reno 911.
Did they know they were using the man who played a Jewish, 7-foot tall, hooker, "man with teats," who's capture won the scavenger hunt for the officer and secured him two tickets to watch the execution? ...
Interesting that the Mormons are using actors to have "candid" talks on camera, and are using an actor who played a drag queen on Reno 911.
A calendar released by an LGBT rights organization in Spain is raising some eyebrows for its use of religious imagery in what is a predominately Catholic country.
The 2010 calendar, which had an initial pressing of 10,000 copies, shows settings that mimic religious paintings and features transgender models dressed like the Virgin Mary.
Copies were distributed at July's pride march in Madrid but it's receiving widespread attention now after El Mundo published this story [from Saturday, October 17, 2009]...
If passed, a new bill could restrict federal funding for states with anti-LGBT adoption and foster policies.
The 'Every Child Deserves a Family Act,' which was introduced by U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) on Oct. 15, would penalize states with outdated adoption policies that restrict access based on marital status, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
"We got 25,000 kids a year maturing out of the welfare system without permanent foster care or adoptive care, and the prospects of those children having a successful adult life are diminished greatly," Stark told the Washington Blade. "These are kids who end up in the criminal justice system, or end up homeless."
The legislation would directly affect states with explicit adoption restrictions, including Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Nebraska, and Mississippi...
Good news, I guess. But, is this another LGBT bill that goes nowhere?
Some Mexico City cops are taking a bite out of more than crime. The Mexican capital is putting its 1,300 of its heaviest police officers on a diet, concerned about rapidly expanding waistlines in the force.
At least 70 percent of the 70,000-member force is overweight, said Nora Frias, the city's Public Safety deputy secretary for citizen participation. The diet program will start with the officers with the most serious weight-related health problems...
Well this segues nicely into the wiener story of the day!
Ketchup may actually be the perfect icon of all the things that are wrong with North American food culture. Every package sold is symbolic of the distance between the production of raw materials from the earth and what people consume. At most points in history, diet has been dictated by what foods were available in the neighbouring environment. Now there is such a huge range of items available for people of all income levels that no one can blame poverty for their choice to eat non-foods like ketchup.
Personally I hate the stuff. When I worked as a server I had to clean bottles of oozing tomato-like fluid off of tables. I'd get queasy staring down at the rags stained red as a bandage over a war wound, seeing in it the coagulated arteries of North America. But the Anti-Ketchup Manifesto is not about my personal vendetta against the stuff. Even if you happen to love the edible red gunk, please consider embracing my anti-ketchup manifesto. Sign below to declare that you are radically against all food which has any or all of the following qualities: ...
...10. It is used with other poor food choices. Chances are pretty good that you probably last ate ketchup with one of the following foods: hot dogs, French fries, Kraft Dinner or the hash browns and rubbery eggs of a diner breakfast. All of these are foods that are also guilty of perpetuating the practice of eating as a mechanical act of "fuelling" your body without nurturing it. Nor are any of these items necessarily any cheaper than buying, you know, real food.
So don't eat catsup when eating unhealthy foods? But, I just bought low sugar ketchup at the grocery store yesterday! D'oh!
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
It's an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread...
My cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob has been under the weather a bit at the end of the week -- although it's probably surprisingly that he hasn't had a cold or flu. Something about some chronic condition flaring up. But anywho, thanks to friends sending me articles, we still could put out a post of what Bookworm Bob and I have been looking at the end of the week.
• Los Angeles Times' NASA moon crash did kick up debris plume as hoped; Images are released showing that the lunar mission may be more successful than it first appeared. Scientists are 'are blown away by the data returned.:
NASA's recent lunar-punch mission apparently was not the high-profile flop it first appeared.
Officials at Ames Research Center in Northern California, which managed the mission, released images Friday that clearly show a plume of debris from the Cabeus crater shortly after the space agency's rocket plowed into it.
The plume reached an estimated mile above the lunar surface.
Creating a plume was key to the mission's success because the goal was to measure dust kicked up by the Centaur rocket to find out whether ice might lie hidden in polar craters that haven't seen sunlight in billions of years. To do that, the accompanying $79-million Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite was to fly through the debris cloud so its spectrometers and cameras could sample the lunar dust...
I was prescribed Androcur just before the diagnosis was changed to "severe androgenisation of a non-pregnant woman". There are quite a number of IS women on this list of male sex offenders. I'm one of them.
Mr. Sub has fired its agency BOS after the sandwich chain was accused of promoting homophobia in its latest advertising campaign.
The "not everyone likes surprises" advertising broke in late September with three humorous spots, two for TV and one online, based on the insight that customers know what to expect when they dine at Mr. Sub.
It was the online execution, originally scheduled for a TV run next year, that became the subject of a letter/e-mail writing campaign by the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers). The ad showed a family sitting around the dining room table when the father cheerfully announces that he's gay. Upon questioning by a grimacing young girl who is presumably his daughter: "You mean like gay, gay?" he responds, patting her on the head affectionately: "Like super, super gay."
After hearing complaints from some of the CAW's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members, the union began contacting other members last weekend advising them of the spot and recommending they contact Mr. Sub to express their displeasure, said Shannon Devine, a CAW communications director...
I am sympathetic to the story told by Joseph Rocha, who claims in a Washington Post opinion column that he was discharged from the Navy because he is gay, though he says he never told anyone. Rocha says his male colleagues concluded he was gay when he wouldn't laugh at their dirty jokes about women or visit prostitutes with them.
Gay service members have a point when they claim a double standard exists for heterosexuals and homosexuals regarding sexual behavior. Rocha also alleges cover-ups by higher-ups about male sexual assaults on lesbians and the pressure he says lesbians feel to keep quiet because by "telling" they could face discharge.
But we are beginning in the wrong place. The place to start is whether citizens of this country, through their elected representatives and the military leaders named by them, have a right to determine what type of service members best serve the interests, safety and security of the United States. I contend we do. The military should not be a test lab. Pressure is building to put female sailors on submarines, along with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people presumably. That many heterosexuals find homosexual behavior immoral and not conducive to unit cohesion is of no concern to the social wrecking crew...
There is no national lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) organization I know of that's actively working on allowing transgender people to serve openly in the U.S. military services.
That our of the way, the U.S. Military has frequently been a test lab. Racial integration of the military services occurred quite a few years before we had federal antidiscrimination laws regarding ethnicity, and women are serving in battle within war zones now -- although technically women are disallowed from many military combat roles. America has historically used the military as a test lab for social change.
A bill that would have allowed up to six outdoor cart vendors on North and South Main streets in St. Charles fizzled out Tuesday in an 8-2 vote of the City Council.
Several council members said in a previous meeting they opposed the bill because they considered it unfair to business owners who invested much more money in their establishments...
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.
'My main concern is for the children,' said Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
...Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist.
"I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house," Bardwell said. "My main concern is for the children." ...
E-f*cking-gads! Has this justice of the peace never heard of Loving V. Virginia?
The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to allow the Obama administration to bring foreign terrorism suspects from the Guantanamo Bay prison to the United States to face trial.
The 307 to 114 vote removes one of many roadblocks the administration faces as it tries to empty the internationally condemned prison by January...
Well. That's actually surprising, given how nobody seems to want to bring the Gitmo prisoners in to prisons in their districts.
Sexual identity development is a complex, multidimensional, and often fluid process. One must consider cognitive, social, emotional, cultural, and familial complexities among other aspects of the individual's experience to contextualize a narrative concerning sexual identity development.
Sexual minority youth is a term used to describe adolescents who are not exclusively heterosexual. Definitions and labels ascribed to sexual minority youth may not describe their sexual attractions, relationships, fantasies, or behaviors. It is important to understand an individual's personal experience as well as his or her self-identification without making assumptions.
The Internet, public discourse about "gay rights," Gay-Straight Alliances in the schools, and a growing visibility of gay and lesbian role models in the media have helped challenge mainstream notions of what is considered "normal" sexual development. The fluidity of adolescent sexual identity development is as complicated as any aspect of identity development. Adolescents in the 21st century are, in many parts of the world, growing up in a culture that embraces diversity in sexual expression in a manner foreign to their parents' generation. Despite the fact that sexual minority youth have greater access to resources that provide support than did previous generations, there continue to be schools, communities, and homes in which adolescents still experience rejection, bullying, ostracism, and violence because of their differences from mainstream society...
This is my recommended reading pick for this This & That diary.
Many students take the ability to use the bathroom for granted, but for some it is a daily battle.
The University of Minnesota Transgender Commission is attempting to raise awareness about restroom access on campus, not only for members of the transgender community, but for the disabled, chronically ill and anyone who is made uncomfortable by gender-specific public restrooms.
"There are so many reasons someone might just want to have a private space to use the restroom, and I don't think that's limited to trans-identified folks or gender-nonconforming folks, but really is a right that is for all of us," said Remy Corso, University of Minnesota Transgender Commission co-coordinator and transgender student.
The group has consulted disabled people who work with opposite sex caregivers, the chronically ill and diabetics who need to inject insulin that would prefer single-stall, gender-neutral restrooms.
...Shawyn Lee, the assistant director of the University of Minnesota GLBTA Programs Office, prefers gender-neutral restrooms...
Further in the article, Shawyn Lee indicates ze identifies as genderqueer.
Can I just say here I love my diverse community, and the work many folk like Shawyn Lee is doing?
Forgive our tactless pun, but it's time to think outside the box. Check one, male or female. While easy for some, it's painful for others - when the choice between one extreme and the other doesn't fit a person's personal identity, or their body.
Some folks are born with the dilemma of indistinctness. Intersexuality is a medical reference applied to people who cannot be narrowly, biologically classified as male or female because they contain atypical combinations of physical features that relate to both male and female traits. Classifications of intersexuality include analysis of chromosomal differences, gonadal anomalies, genital ambiguity and more. These characteristics are congenital.
The most recent publicized case of defining an individual as more male or female when both traits are present is with the young South African championship runner, Caster Semenya. She may be a hermaphrodite, despite being raised as a woman and competing as a woman. Her case may cause the International Association of Athletics Federations to devise a definition of what determines male or female for the sake of classifying whether an athlete competes as male or female.
Classifications are no easy feat, within the United States, even our local and federal governments cannot agree. To date, there is no uniform, legal definition of what makes a person female or male, or more one than the other...
Some doctors tell their patients not to eat cheese when they're pregnant, and women want to know why. It's because of the danger of contracting listeriosis, that's found in some cheeses.
Listeriosis is caused by a bacteria called "listeria monocytogenes." Most people don't even know they've contracted diarrhea from something they ate, but can't recall what it might be. It could be the cheese. The problem is when you're pregnant your immune system is really compromised. It's just one more way your body prepares you not to fight off the foreign invader, your embryo -- you your baby can develop to full term.
When you're immune system is low, you can easily catch the flu when pregnant. That's one reason why pregnant women are first in line to get the novel flu vaccination. But another nasty symptom for pregnant women is a listeria infection. You don't want the runs because the contractions from your colon can stimulate your uterus to go into labor. That's why in the 1960s, most women arriving in a hospital to give birth not yet in labor were given enemas not only to clean them out before they get on the delivery table, but to induce labor contractions. So you don't want to contract listeria.
When you're pregnant, you're 20 times more likely to catch a bacteria or virus infection...
Okay then!
• On a twitter related note, today was #thridpersonthurs, so many of us were having fun sounding like Bob Dole and James Harline today. Twitter can be a fun distraction some days, for sure.
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
It's an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread...
So, my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob & I mised a weekend post due to being like, y'know, really busy! However, "we" do have a post for today; This is what "we" have been looking at so far this week...
...Elder Dallin H. Oaks refers to gay marriage as an "alleged civil right" in remarks prepared for delivery at Brigham Young University-Idaho, a speech church officials describe as a significant commentary on current threats to religious freedom.
In an advance copy provided to The Associated Press, Oaks suggests that atheists and others are seeking to intimidate people of faith and silence their voices in the public square.
"The extent and nature of religious devotion in this nation is changing," said Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a church governing body. "The tide of public opinion in favor of religion is receding, and this probably portends public pressures for laws that will impinge on religious freedom."
...In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election's aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy.
"It may be offensive to some -- maybe because it hadn't occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era," he said...
If the comparison were made instead compare the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints (Mormon Church) leadership to the oppressors instead of to the oppressed, I believe the comparison would have been more apt.
But, to say the least, if this is actually inspired teaching from the Mormons, it's fascinating -- in the crazy bad way of being fascinating!
Thanks to Chino Blanco for finding the video!
• Los Angeles Times' Politics as religion in AmericaConservatism has been converted into a religious belief, and now compromise doesn't have a prayer:
For decades now, liberals have been agonizing because conservatives seem to win even when polls show that the public generally disagrees with them. In their postmortems, liberals have placed blame on the way they frame their message, or on the right-wing media drumbeat that drowns out everything else, or on the right's co-opting of the flag, Mom and apple pie, which is designed to make liberals seem like effete, hostile foreign agents.
It's understandable that liberals prefer to think of their subordination as a matter of their own inadequacies or of conservative wiles. Theoretically, you can learn how to improve your message or how to match wits with adversaries, and a lot of liberal hand-wringing has been dedicated to doing just that. But it is becoming increasingly clear that liberals haven't just been succumbing to superior message control, or even to a superior political narrative (conservatives' frontier individualism versus liberals' communitarianism). They are up against something far more intractable and far more difficult to defeat. They are up against religion.
Perhaps the single most profound change in our political culture over the last 30 years has been the transformation of conservatism from a political movement, with all the limitations, hedges and forbearances of politics, into a kind of fundamentalist religious movement, with the absolute certainty of religious belief...
It goes without saying that the rest of this article is recommended reading.
The Obama administration is cranking out a slew of regulations affecting businesses. Political appointees are in control at most Cabinet departments and regulatory agencies, and they're having an influence. Congress is also getting into the act, albeit more slowly. Most of the changes will boost labor protections against workplace hazards, discrimination, unfair pay policies and in other personnel disputes. For employers, it means more costs and red tape as they're forced to show they're in compliance.
"It's hard to believe that a widget maker will have any time to make widgets in this hyper-enforcement environment," says Rae T. Vann, general counsel at the Equal Employment Advisory Council, an employer group.
...Congress will OK several pro-labor bills next year over the objections of business groups...
...Employer groups are not opposing a bill to ban employer discrimination based on sexual orientation, and it is a good bet for passage. The legislation probably will not cover transgender individuals and won't apply to small business with fewer than 15 workers, the military or religious organizations.
What do they know that we don't know? -- Or are they just guessing based on 2007? I don't know.
Folks, we at The Blend are highlighting what Law Professor Jillian Todd Weiss is spearheading over at Bilerico because the work she's doing to have us speak out to our Senators and Representatives for a fully inclusive ENDA is extremely important for our broad community.
When the U.S. bishops meet next month in Baltimore they should scrap the entire text of the proposed pastoral letter on marriage and start fresh.
The primary problem with the draft, obtained by NCR and available for viewing on our Web site (read the draft pastoral here), is that it is not, as advertised, pastoral.
In fact, it reads as if it was written by someone who has never once engaged in a marriage preparation program, let alone actually ever been married.
The bishops should demand a text that is specifically useful in helping young people prepare for marriage. Young couples come to the church for their marriage ceremonies not only because churches make good backdrops for the wedding photographs. And even if they do come for that reason, marriage preparation presents an opportunity to evangelize, an opportunity to teach about the vocation of marriage and the way that it is tied to our Catholic sacramental understanding of salvation. The document should be something a pastoral minister or parish priest can hand to a couple during their first meeting for marriage preparation, a sort of guide to what they are actually asking of the church and the mystery the church is about to celebrate with them. Instead, the first section of the draft spends too much time talking about the threats to modern marriage, such as high divorce rates, cohabitation, same-sex unions and, of course, contraception (an "intrinsic evil")...
Pages 21 through 23 of the letter talk about Same Sex Marriage. The conclusion of the section:
While basic human rights must be afforded to all people, this can and should be done without sacrificing the bedrock of society that is marriage and the family and without violating the religious liberty of persons and institutions.
The legal recognition of same-sex unions poses a multifaceted threat to the very fabric of society, striking at the source from which society and culture come and which they are meant to serve. Such recognition affects all people, married and non-married: not only at the fundamental levels of the good of the spouses, the good of children, the intrinsic dignity of every human person, and the common good, but also at the levels of education, cultural imagination and influence, and religious freedom.
• Our Wiener Story Of The Day is from my hometown of San Diego! SanDiego.com's Dogs And More:
Sometimes you just want a hot dog. Not necessarily the finest cuisine you've ever tasted but it just sounds right. Where to go to indulge yourself, especially if you're trying to take it up a notch from the usual fast-food joints? First clue...not Costco. Look around, there are not many places promoting hot dogs on their marquee or menus. We have recently discovered a fun little hole-in-the-wall called HotDogs at 428 in the Gaslamp.
HotDogs at 428 is one of those "blink-and-you-will-miss-it" locations, especially when you're surrounded by restaurants of every genre and price point...
...Seventeen different types of dogs comprise the menu, if you also include the veggie and turkey dogs. Signature dogs sport the shmaltzy names hot dog joints have used for ages. Naked dog on bun (period!), Diego dog (salsa, jalapeno, avocado), Charger dog (mustard, sauerkraut), Padre dog (mustard, cheese, sauerkraut, jalapenos), Texas dog (BQ sauce, cheese, coleslaw), sushi dog (wasabi, ginger, soy sauce) and bacon dog (jalapenos, salsa) to name a few...
...We ravaged the chili cheese and bacon concoctions. How can you not love big ole messy hot dogs? Waistlines cause most to rarely partake due to the evil scale every morning, so these better be good. We were told the chili was homemade by "world famous chef Miko". Don't quite know who gave him the title but the chili, while good, was nothing close to being "the best"...
Hmm. I a good Chili Cheese Mustard dog...but oh that fat content!
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
Something happened in Detroit on Wednesday this week that flew beneath the radar of many Americans. Nearly 35,000 Detroiters converged on Cobo Hall to get one of the 5,000 applications for federal aid to people in poverty.
They came by foot, wheelchair, bicycle and car. About six left by ambulance after tensions rose and people were trampled, according to a paramedic on the scene. One unfortunate soul got his car booted.
Detroiters were trying to pick up 5,000 federal assistance applications from the city at Cobo because Detroit received nearly $15.2 million in federal dollars under the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which is for temporary financial assistance and housing services to individuals and families who are homeless, or who would be homeless without this help.
People in wheelchairs and others using canes were being leaned on by people too weak to stand. Emergency medical technicians on the scene said they treated applicants who were injured during the rush to get inside the venue.
The compromise version of the $681 billion 2010 defense policy bill announced Wednesday by House and Senate negotiators may face an uphill battle becoming law.
The bill, containing an all-ranks 3.4 percent military raise, a 30,000 increase in the size of the Army and a repeal of Tricare fee increases that took effect last week, is HR 2647, the 2010 defense authorization act.
...Sen. John McCain of Arizona, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate's chief Republican negotiator on the bill, said many Republican participants in the negotiations are refusing to sign the final conference report because of the hate crimes legislation, although he signed the report because he believes the bill includes important provisions to support troops and their families and improvements in national security.
The Hate Crimes Prevention Act included in the bill prohibits crimes "based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person," according to a Senate Armed Services Committee summary. It also provides federal support for the criminal investigation and prosecution by state and local law enforcement. To give the hate crimes provisions military relevance, it would prohibit attacks on U.S. service members based on the fact they are in the military...
More background on the hate crime legislation that passed the House today.
An organization for people who have left homosexuality is asking the American Library Association (ALA) to include "ex-gay" books in its annual Banned Books Week.
The Chicago-based Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) said in a press release that it has tried to secure a statement from the ALA opposing "the censorship of ex-gay books."
"According to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, ALA policy recommends diversity in book collection development by libraries, regardless of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. However, Caldwell-Stone refuses to state whether that diversity policy includes ex-gay books," PFOX executive director Regina Griggs said in a Tuesday statement.
"Books about leaving homosexuality are censored in most high school libraries, although gay affirming books for youth are readily available," she continued...
Wow. My sockpuppet Bookworm Bob thinks PFOX is crazy.
• In Crosswalk's Walking a Mile in Their Shoes, commentator Peter Beck comments about how Christians encounter people in their daily lives who are unlike them. Excerpt:
...What we need to do is put ourselves in their shoes.
No, I'm not advocating going to their bars or casinos or living a lifestyle antithetical to the Christian walk. I'm not suggesting that we adopt their methods of entertainment and sanctify them for church use. There's a difference between contextualization and capitulation.
I am saying that we need to come out of our Christian ghettoes occasionally and try looking at life through the eyes of the lost. We need to appreciate their lives, understand their predicaments, and address their very real concerns. And, we need to do it in a way that communicates the gospel clearly and effectively.
My proposal is nothing new. Jesus went to Samaria. He met with the woman by the well (in public, by the way, to dispel ancient prejudices and potential rumors). He addressed her needs. He acknowledged her concerns. He showed her the eternal relevance of the gospel.
Paul did the same thing in Athens...
In my life, I've discovered building bridges to others usually works much better than getting on soapboxes and speaking -- in a looking-downward direction -- to people who don't have a stake in your belief system.
Pentagon statistics obtained by University of California researchers show that lesbians were discharged under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy at a much higher rate than gay men.
Every military branch dismissed a disproportionate number of women in 2008 under the policy banning openly gay servicemembers. But the discrepancy was particularly marked in the Air Force, where women were a majority of those let go under the policy, even though they made up only 20 percent of personnel.
Across the military, women represented about one-third of the 619 people discharged based on sexual orientation. They account for just 15 percent of servicemembers...
So is it bias against women? Probably. But, the solution -- the tool -- to end this disparity is the tool to allow all lesbian, gay, and bisexual people to serve in the military openly. We need to just repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
• Our Wiener Story Of The Day is, umm, somewhat devoid of "wieners!" From columnist Violet Blue, in the San Francisco Chronicle's In The U.K., Female Ejaculation Is Not ObsceneWoman porn maker Anna Span challenged the British Board of Film Classification over a controversial sex act, and won:
If you don't want to read about female orgasms with visual results, I suggest you grab your raincoat and move on.
However, if you want to read the latest news about a significant victory for the validation of female ejaculation, the gleeful normalizing of female pleasure in pornographic depictions, and one woman's victory over the U.K.'s film ratings board for woman-made porn, then welcome in out of the downpour. Female ejaculation may be a topic that's as valid, politically charged and debated as hotly as male circumcision -- but now the BBFC says it's real, it matters, and the squirt stays in the film.
This change is thanks to Britain's first female, porn filmmaker, ten-year pioneer and pro-porn activist Anna Span (see also: annaspansdiary.com, NSFW.)
Span has been making explicit porn for several years that typically features hot young lads and ladies doing what comes naturally for her lens, with the females (and female fantasy, and female viewers) in the forefront of what she does...
An added fact for you from Violet Blue in this article:
According to Nielsen Net Ratings, one of every three porn viewers online is female.
Okey-dokey!
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
On Sunday, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans - and their allies - will travel from nearly every corner of the country to converge on Capitol Hill and call on lawmakers to support full equality for the LGBT community. The event, named the National Equality March, comes on the heels of growing calls for the federal government to pick up the pace on civil rights legislation, such as recognition for LGBT couples, repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and finally passing an inclusive employment non-discrimination act. Organizers say they are expecting tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of participants for the event.
Steve and Joe, however, will be notably absent.
The couple, who recently married in Connecticut and bought a home in Washington, D.C., will not be in the capital on Sunday. Instead, they will be packing Joe's belongings. Under federal law, Steve and Joe are no longer allowed to live together in the country they call home...
Good reading, I think, so this whole piece comes with my strong recommend.
It's officially known as "Southern Decadence" and informally as "Gay Mardi Gras" in New Orleans' French Quarter. It's difficult to ignore, drawing tens of thousands of people in a homosexual or lesbian lifestyle and pumping millions of dollars into the city's economy.
At Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, 100 local pastors and church members gathered just days before the Labor Day weekend festival to broach a subject some felt has been too long ignored: how to minister to those in same-sex attraction without compromising biblical principles.
Fred Luter Jr., pastor of Franklin Avenue, said the "Embracing Restoration" summit was "an attempt to educate people about the lifestyle that is here."
The conference, a first for the church, hosted leaders of ministries to people in same-sex attraction: Bob Stith, the Southern Baptist Convention's national strategist for gender issues; Paulette Lawrence, executive director and board president of A Good Thing Out of Nazareth; Terri Brown, membership director for Exodus International; and Greg Hand, pastor of Vieux Carre Baptist Church in the French Quarter...
As thousands of gays and lesbians prepare to march on the nation's capital to push for equal rights, leaders from a range of faiths say it's time to stop using religion as a weapon to oppose same-sex marriage.
What's more, advocates for gay rights say their faith and a sacred belief in justice are what actually form the foundation of their support for gay and lesbian unions.
Brent Childers, an evangelical Christian, said he once used religious tenets to support prejudice toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, but "I realized those attitudes were not in keeping with my religious values by causing harm using religious teaching."
...Childers is among the more than 100 religious leaders who have endorsed the Oct. 11 National Equality March on behalf of gay rights.
Several faith groups are planning religious events in the Washington area Oct. 9-11, including an interfaith service before the march...
Faith: An interesting thing. Practitioners of the same faith, but not approaching their faith the same way at all.
The donut burger - a bacon cheeseburger with a buttered Krispy Kreme glazed donut standing in for a bun - is becoming a hit on the fair circuit and among some far-out foodies.
Amusingly, the heart-stopping sandwich was sold just outside the West Springfield agricultural fair's "Better Living Center."
Pioneered in the South and popularized by Food Network host Paula Deen, it was a big hit at this year's Big E fair in Massachusetts. Fairgoers bought about 1,000 "Craz-E Burgers" each day of the fair's 17-day run, which ended Sunday, organizers said.
At 1,500 calories per, that adds up to 2.5 million calories worth of sugary, cheesy, bacon-dressed beef - or the creation of an additional 730 pounds of waistline jiggle...
ZOMG! That's a heck of a lot of calories for one damn sandwich!
A federal judge has ordered sponsors of California's Proposition 8 to release campaign strategy documents that opponents believe could show that backers of the same-sex marriage ban were motivated by prejudice against gays.
Plaintiffs in a federal suit seeking to overturn Prop. 8 - two same-sex couples, a gay-rights organization and the city of San Francisco - contend that the measure's real purpose was to strip a historically persecuted minority group of rights held by the majority.
If the courts find that the ballot measure was motivated by discrimination, they could strike it down without having to decide whether gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry.
"The intent or purpose of Prop. 8 is central to this litigation," Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker declared Thursday in requiring backers of the November 2008 measure to give the opposing side their internal campaign communications...
This article, in all seriousness, is very, very worth the read. Please use the link at the top of this This & That item to read the entire piece on the SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle) website.
• A Contributing Editor for FamilySecurityMatters.org, Robert Weissberg, is emeritus professor of political science, University of Illinois-Urbana and currently an adjunct instructor at New York University Department of Politics (graduate). He has a lot to say about women professors in colleges and universities in his Family Security Matters piece The Feminization of American Education - Destroying Western Civilization? From the last three paragraphs of his piece:
...[T]he male exodus from education, whether higher high school drop outs or shunning college altogether, is deadly serious. The loss of human talent is catastrophic enough but even worse, American schools are offering up an approach that is long on feelings and emotions and short on generating real knowledge. By shielding egos and sustaining self-esteem it is destroying western civilization on the installment plan.
This trend has yet to enter the sciences and engineering, but relentless government pressure for "gender equity" may soon alter that. Don't laugh - one world-class physicist over a decade ago personally told me that his prestigious department was coerced into hiring a woman who took a "feminine" approach to physics! It also has the allure of making teaching hard subjects easy - soliciting everyone's opinion certainly requires less class preparation than precisely explicating a tough-nut topic. Woe to America when classroom discussion of how to build rockets come to resemble free-wheeling, everybody's opinion is worth hearing, ruminations on whether Jane Austin's voice reflected her bourgeois gender identity.
America's economic competitors undoubtedly love every minute of it.
Not a word from me. I'll let wiser feminists look at this piece and respond with depth.
• ALos Angeles Times' Lodi defends its public prayers; City Council, one of several threatened with suits, votes after hours of debate to continue the practice:
Reporting from Lodi, Calif. - Small cities in California are facing high unemployment, drained treasuries and now what some residents see as an assault on the only sacred moment in municipal affairs: the invocation at the start of city council meetings.
Turlock, Tracy, Tehachapi, Lancaster -- all have been threatened in the last few months with lawsuits claiming that prayer at meetings breaches the wall between church and state.
Nowhere has the ensuing debate played out more dramatically than in Lodi, where, after a tumultuous five-hour meeting this week, the City Council voted not only to continue invocations but also to allow phrases such as "in Jesus' name."
"For whatever reason, Lodi seems to have become ground zero for deciding this issue," City Atty. Steve Schwabauer said at Wednesday's meeting, which drew a passionate crowd of more than 700...
Jeebus! So, defending against these lawsuits is a good use of taxpayer dollars? I wonder how many potholes this California city won't be filled because the Lodi City Council is spending tax dollars on defending these lawsuits.
Given this economy, it's just crazy to see what the spending priorities of this Lodi City Council actually are.
A Welsh transwoman who was raped by an attacker who was jailed for eight years this week, says she was forced to move house after her identity was made public.
Kiron Singh Chand beat her up, then forced her to perform oral sex on him.
She was then subjected to a harassment campaign including vilification on Facebook, being taunted in the street, and even humiliated in a poster campaign...
...Gay Days Anaheim began in 1998 with about 2,500 going to Disneyland and the group was soon greeted with protests and boycotts, saying the event was not family friendly. But Shapiro said he hasn't seen protesters picketing the area in recent years. Major groups, including the Southern Baptists and the American Family Association, ended official boycotts against Disney, partly because of Gay Days, in 2005.
Some conservative groups and individuals continue to boycott the event and Disney as a whole, said James Hartline, who runs the San Diego-based California Christian News and has an electronic newsletter with 60,000 readers. Hartline has written blog posts and stories against Disney, but Hartline avoids organizing protests because of the extremists they sometimes attract.
"I believe this is going to spread rapidly and quickly. For one, Disney is clearly going out of its way to violate what we believe in," Hartline said....
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
Sometimes, it's hard to resist the relentless pressure of bloggers.
They make jokes about you. They spawn commenters who make even more jokes about you. Until you finally decide that your are the serf and the bloggerati and commenterati are your whip-wielding masters.
So it has proved for the dedicated and passionately committed staff of the Wisconsin Tourism Federation. Since this Web thing has spread around the world like swine flu, more and more witty folks have made japes about the WTF being, well, you know, I mean, WTF!!!!
So, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the organization sat down around a table--who knows, perhaps in the company of a psychiatrist--and decided to stop being the bloggers' straight man. At the meeting, the group decided it will henceforth be known as the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin.
I know you expect to hear about national policy from me, but today I need to bring your attention to an important local fight for transgender equality.
Kalamazoo, MI passed a wonderful non-discrimination ordinance that some people want to take away. And, of course, they are using the most mean-spirited anti-transgender tactics in their attempt to overrule the fair people of Kalamazoo who stand with us.
But the good news is, we can win this fight. Local community leaders have banded together and formed a strong campaign to defeat the bigotry and preserve their town's values. They are advised by an incredibly talented campaign manager, Jon Hoadley, and bolstered by scores of hard-working volunteers who are going door-to-door, and talking with their neighbors.
Unfortunately, their opposition is bringing in outside resources and so OneKalamazoo needs our help now. You can support the OneKalamazoo Campaign by giving through this link...
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and (especially) transgender people need more financial resources to throw at our issues. The battles even for basic rights can be pretty frequent and harsh.
A treasure trove of 4.4-million-year-old fossils from the Ethiopian desert is dramatically overturning widely held ideas about the early evolution of humans and how they came to walk upright, even as it paints a remarkably detailed picture of early life in Africa, researchers reported today.
The centerpiece of the diverse collection of primate, animal and plant fossils is the near-complete skeleton of a human ancestor that demonstrates our earliest forebears looked nothing like a chimpanzee or other large primate, as is now commonly believed. Instead, the findings suggest that the last common ancestor of humans and primates, which existed nearly 2 million years earlier, was a primitive creature that shared few traits with modern-day members of either group.
...The discovery of the specimen called Ardipithecus ramidus "is one of the most important discoveries for the study of human evolution," said paleoanthropologist David Pilbeam of Harvard University, who was not involved in the research. "The find itself is extraordinary, as were the enormous labors that went into the reconstruction of a skeleton shattered almost beyond repair," he said in an e-mailed statement...
I wonder if these apes were on Noah's Ark, or if they died out before then.
Bangladesh on Wednesday awarded a farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats and launched a monthlong campaign nationwide to kill millions more, to protect crops and reduce the need for food imports. Mokhairul Islam, 40, won a first prize of a color television for killing some 83,450 rats in the past nine months in Gazipur district near the South Asian country's capital, Dhaka. He collected their tails for proof.
"I am so happy to get this honor," Islam told The Associated Press after receiving a 14-inch television and a certificate amid cheers at an official ceremony packed with 500 farmers and officials. "I had no idea that the government gives prizes for this." ...
Do we give prizes for stuff like this in America? I need to know.
Eighteen months in prison, that's the price a man is paying for stealing a hot dog.
Police reports don't list the brand of hot dog stolen in August by Antonio J. Judd, but one thing is clear -- the tasty treat was slathered in mustard.
Mr. Judd, 35, who last lived at ________, pleaded guilty to larceny from a person and disorderly conduct charges yesterday in Central District Court.
Judge Austin T. Philbin sentenced Mr. Judd to serve 18 months in prison for the larceny charge with another 30 days for disorderly conduct. The sentences will be served concurrently. Mr. Judd received 47 days' credit...
Eep!
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
A state lawmaker who described homosexuality as a greater threat to the United States than terrorism will face a transgendered attorney in her next race for the state House.
Democrat Brittany Novotny announced Sunday she will try to unseat Republican Rep. Sally Kern from the House District 84 seat in northwest Oklahoma City.
...Novotny says she wants the campaign to be about issues and not her personal decision to become a woman...
Yeah, but it makes for a rockin' subplot to the candidacy.
The Disney theme parks will finally join the blogosphere today in an attempt to bring some of the rabid faithful currently chatting at unofficial fan websites under the corporate umbrella.
The blog will be the official source for information about new rides and attractions, exclusive videos and photographs as well as in-depth coverage of events at Disney theme parks in the United States...
They just now got a corporate blog to post the Disney theme park magic? Wow. Would have thought they would have been officially blogging on Disney theme parks (and the theme park princesses!) for years before this.
Signs of jumbled hormones that trouble creatures from turtles to alligators have now turned up in a superstar of sportfishing - the largemouth bass.
Almost one in five male largemouths from rivers around the country had microscopic egg cells inside their testes, said Jo Ellen Hinck, a biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey who worked on a nine-year project to test fish from more than 100 locations.
Bass were among just a few kinds of fish where the study found those characteristics, which researchers labeled as intersex features.
And though she doesn't know why, Hinck said bass in the Southeast were especially affected.
Scientists don't know whether intersex fish pose any problems for people eating fish or for sustaining the bass population - but the findings are triggering a lot of questions...
My guess is the fish will give the fishermen teh homosexual.
Q: Recently, I received a series of Time Life magazine photos of World War II, including Nazi parades. They were interesting, but after viewing them I deleted the file and the e-mail it was attached to. Subsequently, I discovered that the photos are still on my Windows XP computer in a screen saver. How can I delete it and completely get rid of the photos?
A: ...banishing digital Nazis from your PC is simply a matter of deleting the screen saver. The screen savers that come with Windows XP are in the System32 folder inside the WINDOWS folder, but screen savers that you install are stored in WINDOWS.
Open My Computer on your desktop or in the Start menu. In the right-side pane, double-click the C: drive, then double-click the WINDOWS folder. Click the Search icon in the toolbar and search for *.scr. In the list of screen savers that appears, right-click the Time Life entry and choose Delete.
Westport - People were up to their ankles in dachshunds in the town's Central Village section Saturday. And it was all for a great cause.
The occasion was the third annual Dachshund Day, hosted by Partners Village Store & Kitchen, 865 Main Road.
More than 40 of the low-to-the-ground canines and their masters were on hand for the informative and social event. They participated in training and agility demonstrations, the Dachshund Day parade, raffle, social time and a group photo...
I like to pepper up certain diaries, like these This & That short take diaries, with lots of smilies/emoticons. So, I've collected a bunch of 'em off of teh interwebs, created a few of 'em, and posted many of the ones I see as potentially useful to me to my PhotoBucket account.
Currently, I have over two-hundred emoticons loaded to PhotoBucket account (the one linked to above).
Some examples of my most recently loaded -- as well as filed-but-infrequently used -- smilies/emoticons:
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
Wow!
*Sigh*
During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.
I'd just love to know what the reference is for that assertion! (I smell a factoid!) A follow-on paragraph for that on wasn't in the CBN version of the article, but is in the Charisma version (emphasis added!):
I always treat Kitty Bon-Bon and Maggie like royalty! 
This attitude needs to change, but I have little faith that it actually will.
On that point, writer PerfectStormer has my personal permission to speak for me.
to California's disabled veteran small businesspeople in our Wiener Story Of The Day. From the Los Angeles Times' 
For 16 years, Connell sparred with the state Board of Equalization over the interpretation of an 1872 statute exempting street peddlers who are disabled veterans from paying various taxes. This morning, he'll celebrate his victory by giving away hot dogs and carving up sheet cakes decorated with the Stars and Stripes. Politicians who supported Connell's cause will speechify on a platform set up at his Surf Dog stand, a cart commanding an ocean view that would be the envy of any five-star hotel.
Good to know too that If I, as a disabled veteran, opened up a hot dog or taco cart anywhere here in my home state, I won't have to charge sales taxes to my customers!
I want one of these calendars! 
If the comparison were made instead compare the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints (Mormon Church) leadership to the oppressors instead of to the oppressed, I believe the comparison would have been more apt.
Folks, we at The Blend are 
a good Chili Cheese Mustard dog...but oh that fat content! 
The bill, containing an all-ranks 3.4 percent military raise, a 30,000 increase in the size of the Army and a repeal of Tricare fee increases that took effect last week, is HR 2647, the 2010 defense authorization act.
Paul did the same thing in Athens...
I'll let wiser feminists look at this piece and respond with depth.
So, defending against these lawsuits is a good use of taxpayer dollars? 
I wonder if these apes were on Noah's Ark, or if they died out before then. 
Wow. Would have thought they would have been officially blogging on Disney theme parks (and the theme park princesses!) for years before this. 
The event proceeds went to the Humane Society. 
