we are WAY ahead where it counts

the surface!



(ht: feministe)

sure they DO all agree with him

they just won't say it aloud. they know what happened to the evil soul-less holier than thou judgemental rabid homophobe buttars will happen to THEM too. well nothing much happened actually. he was just booted from a couple o' committees.

i don't give a shite whether you like someone or not. i DO give a shite if you deny someone rights based on YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS (which CANNOT be scientifically proven)

Buttars: 'I don't have anything to apologize for'
Senate » He remains defiant after anti-gay remarks bring discipline at Capitol

Buttars: 'I don't have anything to apologize for'
Senate » He remains defiant after anti-gay remarks bring discipline at Capitol

By Robert Gehrke

The Salt Lake Tribune
Despite being stripped of his membership and chairmanship of two Senate committees for his anti-gay rant, Sen. Chris Buttars was defiant Friday.

He strongly disagreed with the decision by Senate leaders from his own party to reprimand him and refused to apologize to those who said they were hurt by his comments.

"I don't have anything to apologize for," the West Jordan Republican said.

In a statement posted on the Senate GOP's Web site, he went further.

"When it comes right down to it, I would rather be censured for doing what I think is right, than be honored by my colleagues for bowing to the pressure of a special-interest group that has been allowed to act with impunity," Buttars said.

The Senate reprimand came after Buttars said to a documentary filmmaker that homosexuals were the "greatest threat to America," compared them to radical Muslims, said they lack morals and want special rights.

"It's the beginning of the end," Buttars said. "Oh, it's worse than that. Sure. Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide." ...........

courageous

Erase my grandfather's name at Yad Vashem

by Jean-Moïse Braitberg

Mr. President of the State of Israel, I am writing to you to intervene with the appropriate authorities to withdraw, from the Yad Vashem memorial dedicated to the memory of Jewish victims of Nazism, the name of my grandfather, Moshe Brajtberg, gassed at Treblinka in 1943, and those of other members of my who family died during deportation to various Nazi camps during World War II. I ask you to honor my request, Mr. Chairman, because what took place in Gaza, and more generally, the injustices to the Arab people of Palestine for sixty years, disqualifies Israel to be the center of the memory of the harm done to Jews, and thus to all humanity.

You see, since my childhood, I lived in amongst survivors of the death camps. I saw the numbers tattooed on their arms, I heard the story of torture; I knew the impossible grief and I shared their nightmares. I was taught that these crimes must never happen again, that never again must man, because of ethnicity or religion despise other man, mock his Human Rights of living a safe, dignified life, without barriers, and hope, so remote be it, of a future of peace and prosperity.

Yet Mr. President, I note that despite dozens of resolutions adopted by the international community, despite the glaring evidence of the injustices done to the Palestinian people since 1948, despite the hopes raised in Oslo, and despite the recognition of the right of Israeli Jews to live in peace and security, repeatedly reaffirmed by the Palestinian Authority, the only answers given by successive governments of your country have been violence, bloodshed, confinement, incessant controls, colonization, deprivations..............................

VERY apt worse ones of the week i must say!

success!

my friends and i did OUR part to help!
(pictures taken at the half door)


Indian pub attacks prompt pink knickers protest
Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
It was a protest that spawned a movement. Fed up with moral policing by radical Hindu groups who had attacked women in pubs and targeted unmarried couples celebrating Valentine's Day, a group of women decided to fight back – with pink knickers.

The result was a remarkably successful dirty dissent. Not only did 40,000 items of rose-tinted underwear, much of it apparently unwashed, end up flooding the offices of the Sri Ram Sena (Lord Ram's Army), the non-violent act defused much of the tension surrounding the acts of vigilantism by self-appointed guardians of "Indian culture".

Spearheading the new movement is "A Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women", a group of young female journalists, lawyers and academics, who began with a Facebook group protesting at the attacks on several young women last month in a pub in Mangalore, a university town in the southern state of Karnataka. Yesterday it had nearly 50,000 members.

The debate comes at a time of tumultuous social change in India, where a new generation of Indian women are experiencing new freedoms such as dating and drinking while navigating ingrained conservative values about what is acceptable behaviour............

hmmmmmmmm i sit corrected

there IS a governor out there who DID turn down some (and i do mean SOME) of the stimulus money. who does he think he's helping here? surely not the citizens of louisiana

this is downright scary

Jindal Rejects $90 Million In Recovery Funding That Would Have Benefited 25,000 Louisiana Residents»

When President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act last week, it included three different provisions to benefit unemployed workers. The first provided funding to states that allowed for a $25 per week increase in benefits. The second extended the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program which gives 20 weeks of federally-funded unemployment benefits to individuals “who had already collected all regular state benefits,” while the third provision widened the pool of people eligible to receive unemployment benefits.

Today, however, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced his intention to oppose changing state law to allow his Lousiana citizens to qualify for the second two unemployment provisions. Jindal said the state would only be accepting money to increase the unemployment insurance payments for those who currently qualify for unemployment insurance.

In all, Jindal turned away nearly $100 million in federal aid for his state’s unemployed residents...........

is every one of them (republicans)

a lunatic? off their rockers? a liar? an idiot? who GOT us into this mess to begin with (i'm not saying the democrats are blameless. they're complicit in everything here. they didn't open their mouths when they should have. they didn't stop things when they should have).

the cost of the war in iraq (at this moment) is; $765,549,483,984. how many mortgages could that have saved?



Keyes: Stop Obama or U.S. 'will cease to exist'
David Edwards and Rachel Oswald
Alan Keyes, a three-time presidential candidate, called President Obama a "radical communist" and a "usurper" and said with him in charge, America "is going to cease to exist" at a pro-life fundraiser Thursday.

"Obama is a radical communist and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it is coming true," said Keyes who ran unsuccessfully against Obama for the Senate in 2004. "He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist," said Keyes.

In an interview in Hastings, Neb. with a KHAS reporter at the fundraiser, Keyes called Obama an "abomination" for some of his pro-choice views.

"The man is an abomination," Keyes said, going on to accuse Obama of being supportive of infanticide. ".............

at first i thought it was one pissed off goose

but perhaps it's one crazy-in-love goose. something to consider



(ht: boing boing who got it from tywkiwdbi which is a GREAT site as well)

friday surreal humor

only it's real and NOT funny

Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence

By Dana Milbank
Listening to neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle at the Nixon Center yesterday, there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole. In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday's forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:

1. Perle is not a neoconservative.

2. Neoconservatives do not exist.

3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn't be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.

"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy," Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. "It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy." ................

the honor (from buzzflash) this week goes to.............

i talked about this very thing (repubs voting AGAINST the stimulus package yet SNATCHING THAT MONEY RIGHT UP) a few postings ago

For eagerly taking stimulus money after denouncing it, Lindsey Graham is the GOP Hypocrite of the Week

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Welcome back to the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Talk about foreclosing on a bakery and then demanding a free cake. That's what most Republicans who voted against the "Main Street Job Creation Act" -- denouncing it as just short of Satanic -- are doing for the most part. They are now crowing about what all that "wasted" money will do to benefit their home states or districts.

Take Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The Neo-Confederate U.S. Senator is wasting no time in boasting about bringing home the bacon when just a few short days ago, he was denouncing a jobs creation bill as pork.

As ThinkProgress.org observes:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been one of Congress's most vocal opponents of the economic recovery package. In fact, he and several other Republicans -- including John McCain -- introduced an alternative bill, which focuses mostly on massive tax breaks for corporations....

However, when [Wolf] Blitzer asked him whether South Carolina should "take the money," Graham replied: "I think that, yes, from my point of view, I -- you don't want to be crazy here. I mean, if there's going to be money on the table that will help my state, but I've got a job to do up here, and that is to try to help people and not damn the next generation."

In essence, Graham is saying he opposed the "Main Street Job Creation Act" even though it would be political suicide not to distribute the money to the voters of his state. He was joined in rabid obstruction of the bill by his fellow Republican, Senator Jim "Stonewall Jackson" DeMint.

As BuzzFlash Editor Mark Karlin proposed a couple of weeks back, the state of any senator who opposed the "Main Street Job Creation Act" should only receive half their allotted funds. If both senators opposed the bill, the state should receive no federal allotment from the legislation. ..........

'they're living in the tropics

loons are some of my favorite birds

i don't like them being my congressional representation (she isn't but i'm just sayin'.............)

yes, it really IS

オバマさんの肌はアミ(小さなエビ)のつくだ煮を使用。髪は黒ゴマで、歯はかまぼこ。

obama sushi! (ht: to whatever the heck this site is called

wow

this is NOT a person is right!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>




from feministing


North Dakota abortion ban passes House
North Dakota's House of Representatives has passed a fetal personhood bill, HB 1572, that declares fertilized eggs have the same rights as human beings. Like the recently defeated ballot measure in Colorado, this is designed to pose a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade. It wouldn't just ban abortion, but also contraception.

From a press release from Planned Parenthood:

"HB 1572 is dangerous, far reaching and allows the government, not women and families, to make critical decisions about health care," said Sarah Stoesz, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota (PPMNS).

"Women and families, not politicians, should decide what's best for their unique circumstances. Whether the issue is abortion, birth control, or in vitro fertilization, women, in consultation with doctors should make these personal medical decisions," said Stoesz..........

tell me

how could it hurt to actually KNOW where our food comes from? (hint: the answer is it would NOT hurt at all. it would be BENEFICIAL)

Vilsack Calls for Stricter Food Labels



by Mary Clare Jalonick

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is throwing out food labeling rules proposed by the Agriculture Department just before George W. Bush left office, saying it wants labels for fresh meat and other foods that would show more clearly where an animal or food came from, according to consumer groups who've been briefed on the issue.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told several consumer groups Tuesday in a conference call that he will ask the meat industry to voluntarily follow stricter guidelines for new package labels designed to specify a food's country of origin, according to three people who were on the call. If the industry does not comply, the administration will write new rules, according to those who spoke with Vilsack.

The labeling requirements, which would apply to fresh meats and some perishable fruits and vegetables, long have been debated in Congress and were enacted as part of a wide-ranging farm bill last year. While the meat industry and retailers responsible for the labels have protested the changes - saying they are burdensome and could lead to higher prices - consumer groups and northern states ranchers who compete with the Canadian beef industry favor them.

All sides worked out a compromise during debate over the farm bill last year, but much of the law was left open to interpretation by the Agriculture Department. Supporters of the law were not happy with the Bush administration's version of the rules, which they said allowed meat companies to be vague about where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered.........

i liked this a great deal

and of course agree with him


Hollywood's New Censors

by John Pilger

When I returned from the war in Vietnam, I wrote a film script as an antidote to the myth that the war had been an ill-fated noble cause. The producer David Puttnam took the draft to Hollywood and offered it to the major studios, whose responses were favorable – well, almost. Each issued a report card in which the final category, "politics," included comments such as: "This is real, but are the American people ready for it? Maybe they'll never be."

By the late 1970s, Hollywood judged Americans ready for a different kind of Vietnam movie. The first was The Deer Hunter which, according to Time, "articulates the new patriotism." The film celebrated immigrant America, with Robert de Niro as a working class hero ("liberal by instinct") and the Vietnamese as sub-human Oriental barbarians and idiots, or "gooks." The dramatic peak was reached during recurring orgiastic scenes in which GIs were forced to play Russian roulette by their Vietnamese captors. This was made up by the director Michael Cimino, who also made up a story that he had served in Vietnam. "I have this insane feeling that I was there," he said. "Somehow... the line between reality and fiction has become blurred." ..........

the headline of this article was offputting

until i actually read the article itself. of COURSE it makes sense.

men are studs if they fuck. women are sluts (even if they just flirt)

If Women Do Have Lower Libidos, It Would Make Sense
By Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check.
Another Valentine's Day, another round of features on sex and love, and another bout of studiously ignoring the role sexism might play in diminishing women's sexual desire. Consumer Reports published a sex poll, and once again women's on-average lower sexual desire is treated as an unfortunate but largely inexplicable phenomenon. In this, they stuck to the mainstream media trend of talking about women's desire -- the lack of it, really -- without addressing any social causes for why that might occur. Most media outlets treat women's desire as a free-standing, unchangeable misfortune brought on by fate or biology, but certainly not worth exploring in depth.

Journalists refuse to explore polling data demonstrating a reported gap in men and women's sexual desires for the same reason people refuse to really tackle the issue in their own relationships. Even in the polling data citing the top six reasons people don't feel desire, two of the reasons given, constituting 59% of respondents, were just a restatement of the problem, and not really a reason. (Forty percent of respondents said they just weren't in the mood, and 19% were too busy watching TV, which is a polite way of saying they aren't in the mood, since people in the mood use Tivo.) But really addressing the reason men and women feel this gap in desire means asking hard questions about how our society treats men and women differently, and doing that means signing up for defensive responses. No wonder journalists writing pieces on the issue avoid the question strenuously. .........

i want to know where the hell

all of these people (as in the republican governors mentioned in this story) were when king george was shoving OUR MONEY down the throats (and directly into the pockets of) the leaders of pakistan? where were they when king george was tossing our money into that burning inferno that is known as iraq? where were they when some of the banks and mortgage company's lending practices started to stink? huh? where the fuck were they then? did they say anything THEN?

i'll bet they may put up one hell of a giant stink because a democrat is in the white house now and they need to play like 7 year olds. i'll also bet THEY'LL TAKE THE MONEY

so stfu you bunch of sniveling idiots (and i'm NOT in any way shape or form saying democrats are innocent)


GOP governors consider turning down stimulus money

By MELINDA DESLATTE, Associated Press Writer Melinda Deslatte, Associated Press Writer

BATON ROUGE, La. – A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.

Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.

"My concern is there's going to be commitments attached to it that are a mile long," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who considered rejecting some of the money but decided Wednesday to accept it. "We need the freedom to pick and choose. And we need the freedom to say 'No thanks.'"

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the No. 3 House Democrat, said the governors — some of whom are said to be eyeing White House bids in 2012 — are putting their own interests first.....

what's wrong with THIS picture?

the head of the epa actually LISTENING to scientists? why king george must have been dethroned.........and a new administration (one with morals and a conscience AND a brain) must have been installed. is it too late to save our planet? i don't know. i hope not
E.P.A. Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide

By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.

The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen.

The environmental agency is under order from the Supreme Court to make a determination whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers public health and welfare, an order that the Bush administration essentially ignored despite near-unanimous belief among agency experts that research points inexorably to such a finding...........

mother blood

(ht: matriarchy exists from feministing)