They Stoned a Pregnant Woman in Pakistan

She wanted to marry a man of her choice. It was not the one picked by the family.  So on the way to court, the father, brother and other members of her immediate family lassoed her and stoned her to death.  There was world-wide outrage, condemnation and loads of press. That was yesterday.

Yesterday, the men in the family rejoiced in stepping up to the plate and hitting a Pakistani home run by getting revenge, an "honor killing" in the finest Pakistan Tribal tradition.   That also was yesterday.

Today, I read dozens of on-line news feeds, and scanned about a hundred news headlines. There were no arrests reported, almost zero coverage;  the father of the dead fetus did not rip the lungs out of the perps, the local townspeople did not march on the family holding torches and burn them and their house. The government of Pakistan May have elected to spend the day haggling over goat milk subsidies, and I heard not a single word from the 40 million a American Evangelists who have such abiding concerns about killing fetuses.

My cat sensing the despair, came on my lap to cuddle.

Eric Shinseki is not a scape goat

I don't understand the rush to oust Shinseki.  Certainly if he knew that there was cheating in reporting, he should resign or be fired. But this hasn't been proven or admitted. Of course, I understand Republicans demanding a pound of flesh.  The same Republican voted down adequate funding for the Veteran's Admin.bsame as they did for the safety of our ambassadors and their staff.   So with this brilliant strategy of denying adequate funding, then wait for problems, then scream that there are problems.  Some Dem Congress people want blood.  I get it. It is the fastest way to end the bad press in an election year.

Maybe Eric Shinseki will leave, but I'd like to see the results of the investigations.  One of my fav newsmen is Chris Matthews is screaming for resignation. How sad. How premature. How immature.

Joe The Plumber, The Constitutional Scholar

Joe the Plumber, in my view, my not be an attention whore, telling that his constitutional rights trump the rights of the father of his dead son murdered in Santa Barbara.  I think it, I'd bet on it, I believe it, and would like to say I know it as a fact, but I may be wrong.  I believe the statement is so absurd, so outrageously asocial, so infantile, that even the wannabe plumber cannot be so vile and unlearned; so misinformed, so twisted..... so I guess he is an attention whore.

MS. FLUKE AND FUNDING BIRTH CONTROL

In my opinion, this is not an issue about Ms. Fluke. Nor is it an issue about sex and abstinence. It is a social issue unlike many other social issues. For most social issues, such as helping poor people, giving food stamps, providing low cost housing, providing medical treatment, we ask ourselves if we are our brother's keeper? We have seen the Republican candidates all take the position that they conclude that we are not our brother's keeper and they would like to do away with or minimize the help to the disadvantaged. I am from the other side and believe that we are our brother's keeper and would like to see all of these programs flourish, but monitored to remove abuse.

Still, the concept of paying for birth control falls outside of the normal social issue of helping the disadvantaged. There is no question that unwanted births in this country cost hundreds of times more than would be the cost of free contraception. The Republicans want to make this a moral issue, however, it is a social and economic one. For every birth that could have been prevented with free birth control, we save on pre-natal care, doctors and hospital costs for giving birth, and all of the years the mother will probably be on welfare and funding pediatric care. The cost of free birth control is peanuts compared to the savings.

The savings are greater if you add to it having less abortions, the extra cost of the foster parent program, the lower productivity of the single parent, the lower productivity potential of the married parent, the overpopulation cost to the planet, the higher propensity of being high school dropouts fostering even more people on welfare in the next generation. I don't know if there has been quantification, but I assume the savings are enormous.

Politicians have to couch this program as being a medical issue because it is not politically correct to discuss it from the view that people should be more responsible, avoid outside of marriage child birth and avoiding children one can ill afford. It is necessary that there be birth control, a sort of social engineering, to the economic and social well being of the country.

The Cheerleaders of LeRoy, N.Y.

I am sure I’m not the only one who caught the news about mass hysteria befalling the Cheerleaders in this small town. For those of you who are news challenged, the darlings all developed a tic or twitch that seemed involuntary. It was well documented on T.V.

There was a number of environmentalists who were blaming poisons in the school food, poisons in other places in LeRoy, and other possibilities, but none of these would render the hysteria limited to only the cheerleaders. Notably, there was no neurological damage after exhaustive tests and both Dr. Freud and his mentor’s body-of-work were cited as documenting “a neurological condition without neurological damage”.

What is personally surprising is why they did not solicit my thinking on this subject?

I believe that the Cheerleaders were previously given a lecture on the benefits of “faking It” as a precursor in preparing themselves for their inevitable marriages. Then, they started Emailing each other and texting with such a frenzy going well beyond carpal tunnel syndrome into a hissy fit stage and hence the physical manifestations.

It is simply The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection going awry.

PROP 8 UNCONSTITUTIONAL

I never thought gloating over an opponents loss was laudatory, but in this case, my message to all of the anti-gay marriage organized religions, in particular the Mormon Church, the ministers, everywhere, who poison the minds of their flocks with bigotry and hatred, the homophobic throngs who have bastardized straight marriage and left an army of single parents and high school drop-outs, and the double digit I.Q. minions who just hate anyone not like themselves.... I take the rest of my life to watch you squirm.

To all LGBT folks in California who felt the pain of Prop. 8, may you set the example of love for all who follow. And, to protect the youth from bullies, the gays from assault, and any semblance of LGBT bashing be it physical or just discriminatory, fight with an iron fist.

THE ECONOMY.....I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY

AND IT IS US.............................

America was at its strongest when we manufactured the products we used and when we all paid our fair share of taxes, when everyone served in the armed forces, when laws controlled the abuses of business and the Supreme Court was more balanced .

We blame the Chinese, the Russians, Middle Easterners, Wall Street, Insurance Companies, Oil Companies, Big Pharma, Illegal immigrants and everyone except ourselves.

But the enemy is us. We allowed our great manufacturing base to go overseas, we have a voluntary armed force stretched to the limit, we have less and weaker controls on business abuses, our businesses are not hiring when we need them to, the government is deadlocked, and everyone wants their rewards now caring less, or not at all, about our fellow brethren. We sing songs like a flock of sheep about loving America, and we feel nothing for or fellow Americans. The i phone, I pod, in my opinion, panders to our myopic culture.

One can argue that I'm wrong, but I point out simply that a group of citizens occupied streets and parks, and the police broke them up and abused many, and we the people stood by and did nothing. Our fellow Americans were dragged, beaten, sprayed, and arrested and we watch it on TV like dummies. Many of us vote based on religious and ideological premises making me believe that we are not simply our own enemy, we are also borderline morons.