Here we go again

Found on www.dependablerenegade.com. Copyright to the owner, whomever that may be.

Note: First round of updates in blue.
Second round in brown
Third round in green
Fourth round in purple
Fifth round in red
Sixth round in black again (because I'm out of colors)
Seventh in black too

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So, in that picture up there breastless, bellyless Sarah Palin, (on the right) the presumptive GOP VP nominee, is six months pregnant.

UPDATE #6 - This is apparently her late in one of her previous pregnancies.

(link)

Uh-huh.

There are a lot of people not buying it today. The rumors, and I must clearly say rumors, are flying.

The two different scenarios go like this:

Option one - The official story

1) Gov. Palin and her husband find out that baby #5 has Down's syndrome. Being Good Christians they decide not to abort. (which I find admirable)

2) After telling all her immediate family, Gov. Palin formally announces in her seventh month. Her staff is shocked since she had shown no sign of pregnancy. Apparently she didn't show, didn't have morning sickness, was never tired, and made no doctor's appointments for the first seven months. (You would think her secretary would know about those) (link)

3) Upon going into premature labor with #5, a known high-risk baby, Gov. Palin proceeded to...give a speech and then fly 8 hours from Texas to Anchorage before going to the hospital, commercial, changing planes at least once. (link) She and her husband then drove another hour to the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center in Wasilla - a hospital that doesn't have a NICU. This knowing that she was having a high-risk baby. (link)

"The stage of her pregnancy was not apparent by observation. She did not show any signs of distress," - Caroline Boren, Alaska Airlines spokeswoman, speaking for the flight crew

According to her doctor, Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, even though her water had already broken and she was 10+ hours into labor, she had to induce.(link)

4) Three days after this high-risk birth, when most mothers are barely able to make the bathroom and kitchen, she was back to work with a full schedule.

According to my husband who works in an ER, when called for a mother past baby #3 most Paramedics joke about bringing a catcher's mitt. It happens just that fast.



Option two - the rumor

1) Gov. Palin's daughter, like so many Good Christian girls, found herself in the family way. She didn't tell her family until well after the chance to procure a quiet little abortion had passed. (I am not saying she would have had an abortion, I am just pointing out the timing.)

2) Out of the blue her mother tells everyone she's pregnant, while her daughter is pulled out of school for the last five months of her mother's pregnancy for "prolonged mono"

3) Upon hearing that her daughter had gone into labor she consulted with the doctor, who said that "Things were already settling down when she talked to me," and flew home from Texas.

4) Three days later with her daughter comfortably settled at home with her grandchild, she went back to work.



Now, it's a rumor. No one knows for certain. On the one hand, the chance of having a DS baby shoots skyward when a woman passes 40. On the other, according to some of her high school friends her daughter was having issues with diet pills. She wouldn't be the first girl to try to diet to hide the baby weight, which just can't be healthy. No, that wouldn't cause DS, but I could see it causing something similar.

Anyway, these pictures were taken through out Gov. Palin's last pregnancy.

UPDATE #3: Apparently earlier this morning there was a picture on the official State of Alaska page showing an obviously not-pregnant Gov. Palin. It was linked through this page here, it was the thumbnail on the top right under the find box. I didn't see it, by the time I got there that thumbnail was a dead link. Now all the photos show her sitting or hidden behind things. The original thumbail is here.

Right.

UPDATE #4: I do believe in admitting when you're wrong. Here's the picture in question, and it looks like her husband is holding the baby all the way on the left.

UPDATE#5: Even if the official story is true, to me it calls her judgement into question. Your water is broken, you're a month premature, you're having a high-risk baby and you then fly 9 hours and drive another, past a NICU, to give birth at a small, regional hospital because, according to her husband, "You can't have a fish picker from Texas".

If the rumor is true she wouldn't be the first mother to pass of her grandchild as her own. And I doubt she'd be the last, considering the habit, noted here over and over again, of Good Christian girls being unable to keep their legs together.

I do know three things.

1) If it's true, Gov. Palin owes her daughter an apology for putting her in the spotlight by accepting the nod for VP. If it's not she needs to jump on this with both feet and pony up some pregnant pictures. I feel bad for making this post, but I firmly believe the GOP has hurt this country, almost to the point of ruin, and I personally know handfuls of Good Christian woman who are saying they will vote McCain/Palin simply because she didn't abort a DS baby.

If she comes up with the pictures, I will post a retraction.

2) McCain didn't exactly vet his choice for VP well, now, did he? Because apparently these rumors have been floating around Alaska for a while now, and should have been dealt with before hand. (There's also something called Troopergate floating out there, but I have no details on it at all). This does not bode well for an efficient, responsible presidency on his part.

And if the rumors are true, if they are true

3) It's another example of how Good Christian = sexually irresponsible. And do we want that back in the White House?

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Let me make this quite clear, this is all internet rumor and my opinion. Take it all with a grain of salt. As I dig up confirming links, I'll add them.

Zimbo
Daily Kos
......

UPDATE #6 - Here's a video showing her walking down an icy road, in high heels, drinking coffee, with no baby bump, at 8 months. Thirteen days before the baby was born.




Update #7 - Aparently McCain didn't vett his choice at all, really.

"The campaign of John McCain has sent a staff of eight people into Alaska to conduct background checks and vetting on Governor Sarah Palin.

Word is they have have eight rooms reserved at a Wasilla hotel." (link. Note Republican source)

Note#2: I've had at least one person ask my why I published this rumor. I did so, even though it left a bad taste in my mouth, for a couple of reasons.

1) A number of conservative homemaker types have instantly jumped behind Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain simply because of her pro-life stance and her not aborting her DS son. If that is truly the case, I find it admirable. If that is not the case, and that is actually her grandson, I think she needs to tell the truth at this point. Granted, that they kept the baby, rather than encouraging her to abort, is also admirable, but I also think it speaks volumes to the "Mommy" candidate if your daughter is having an illegitimate baby at 16. For me the issue speaks to hypocrisies and honesty.

2) If this is the case, she does deserve to be called out for putting her career ahead of her daughter. Period. Either having the baby herself or adopting it from her daughter is admirable. Putting her under the spotlight and not clearing this up in advance is exactly the opposite. Yes, I know I'm not helping, but someone has to point that out. And I have yet to see anyone in the blogosphere point out that she just threw her daughter to the sharks.

3) I find that the party that calls itself "Conservative" , "Christian", and "for family values" tends to be the one that promotes sexual irresponsibility and tends to produce illegitimate children. In my experience and based on my research, those tend to be the children most at risk of abuse of all kinds. Where as the party that calls itself "Liberal", bears no religious affiliation, and is highly inclusive tends to promote sexual responsibility and encourages wanted children. And in my experience and based on my research, tends to produce better parents and happier children. So in supporting the Democrats, I firmly believe I am supporting family values and making a better place for children. At this point in time that means exposing the hypocrisies and mendacity of the GOP, period.

More on that in another post on another day.

Finally, someone gets it

photo © Adrian van Leen for openphoto.net CC:PublicDomain

And that someone is the New York Times. Specifically Well columnist Tara Parker-Pope.

Better to be fat and fit than skinny and unfit

A few choice quotes

Last week a report in The Archives of Internal Medicine compared weight and cardiovascular risk factors among a representative sample of more than 5,400 adults. The data suggest that half of overweight people and one-third of obese people are “metabolically healthy.” That means that despite their excess pounds, many overweight and obese adults have healthy levels of “good” cholesterol, blood pressure, blood glucose and other risks for heart disease.

At the same time, about one out of four slim people — those who fall into the “healthy” weight range — actually have at least two cardiovascular risk factors typically associated with obesity, the study showed.

See, fat =/= sick, skinny =/= healthy

The data follow a report last fall from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute showing that overweight people appear to have longer life expectancies than so-called normal weight adults.

But many people resist the notion that people who are overweight or obese can be healthy. Several prominent health researchers have criticized the findings from the C.D.C. researchers as misleading, noting that mortality statistics don’t reflect the poor quality of life and suffering obesity can cause.

That poor quality of life couldn't have anything to do with size discrimination, now could it?

“Why is it such a stretch of the imagination,” he said, “to consider that someone overweight or obese might actually be healthy and fit?”

A very, very, very good question.

Go read that article. This fat lady is going for her daily bike ride now.

On perverts

Boldly slurped from www.gymbox.net.
All credit is theirs, copyright to them or the owner of the picture.

This picture is of Oksana Chusovitina winning World Champion on vault in 2003

I just watched her win silver on vault in Bejing.

She's a 33 year old wife and mother, with a 9 year old son.

Let me try that again...She's 33 years old.

There is no reason why older gymnasts, older any kind of athlete, can't compete.

There is no reason why we can't groom our best college gymnasts for world competition, rather than our high school athletes.

There is no reason why girls have to starve themselves to the point of losing their periods to compete.

There is no reason except that the Baby Boomer perverts who are still in charge of this culture want to watch prepubescent children in skimpy outfits on television.

And by insisting that only the prepubescent body type is attractive, by only selling clothing to fit that type, by swearing against all medical science that only that body type is healthy and that any woman who allows her body to mature to full womanhood is going to die any minute of heart disease or cancer they are making one half of this country sick and miserable. All because of their perverse thing for children.

This is proof. Let all Gen X and Y take note. Look at the women in these Olympics, look at Dana Torres and Cheryl Haworth and Oksana Chusovitina and know, know, that beauty and health are possible at any age and any size and that it is so possible to be sexy past the age of 21. And as soon as those bastards finally retire, take control and start putting that message out there. Don't let our daughters suffer the way we have.


For more on the athletes:
Dana Torres
Cheryl Haworth
Oksana Chusovitina

For more on the medical science: JunkFood Science. I can't push it often enough.

And on the other hand

12 years old
Size 4
Runway model

First off, if you're on the other side of puberty, you're already fat an ugly by today's standards.

Second, when she hit a size 4, they started calling her obese.

Yea

Just keep telling yourself it's the world's problem, not yours.

Oh, BTW, the Olympics.

Gymnastics, diving, and every single beach volleyball match, prime time.

Woman's weightlifting, online only.

Again, yea...

A role model

Photo: David Harry Stewart

This is Cheryl Haworth. According to the NY Times:

Age: 25
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 300 lbs.
Resting Heart Rate: 75 beats per minute
Waist: 50"
Thighs: 32"
Biceps: 17"
Bench Press: 160 lbs.
Squat: 495 lbs.
Vertical Leap: 30"
Body Fat: 28-30 percent
Daily Calorie Consumption: 3,000-4,000
Flexibility: Can do splits both ways

"I started training when I was 13, so almost everything about my body is completely different now. I’m taller and a lot heavier than I was. When I say that my thighs are 32 inches, they’re really hard all of the way around, and my butt is huge from squatting all the time."

According to the Banana Republic website:


According to BR, their largest dresses will only go over this woman's thighs. And their size chart is uncommon only because it goes down to a size XX small.

She's been shut out of polite society. In fact, she's been effectively neutered by society, unable to meet their standards of femininity. Odds are the only clothing she can buy in the marketplace is sweats and t-shirts, if that, and her choices in colors will be white, heather gray, and navy blue. Clothing we consider so indicative of lower status in this society we routinely give it to prisoners to wear.

She's also supposed to be about ready to keel over from heart disease, cancer, and every other ill known to man, according to common wisdom. Although, if you go over to JunkFood Science and actually look at the studies, being heavier actually gives you a better chance of surviving those ills, especially as you age. But why believe actual science when it's soooo obvious she's not healthy.

She's also the #1 weightlifter on the US Olympic team, counting men AND women. She's ranked #3 or 4 in women's weightlifting overall, and stands a good chance of bringing home the gold this year.

I think my friend K is right, I think it has more to do with society still believing that strong =/= feminine, and that body mass = strong.

Go to the NY times slideshow, here, and look at all the different shapes and sizes top athletes come in. Then ask yourself why, as a society, we only consider gymnasts and ice skaters "healthy" and "pretty"

You can learn more about Cheryl here.

Here we go again

I'm going to have to find more clip art of babies.

Over at another blog, which I will leave nameless because having to admit to getting knocked up before marriage and thus breaking the Christians most loudly chanted rule is embarrassing enough, another potential confession has been posted. And this one is a doozy. I say potential because she doesn't come right out and say it, but...

Well, here

Dear Lady L,

I don’t know how you would have treated me had you met me when I was 19 and pregnant without benefit of marriage. At the same time, I have never felt that you, or others in the patriarchy/LAD crowd would have had much sympathy for someone in my situation.

And Lady L replies

A___, I don’t know how you assume that I did not always have “the benefit of marriage” or that I was not 19 and not pregnant myself. You have no clue about my life experience. You know nothing about me and your perceptions could be quite faulty

And no, A___ is not me. I kept my legs together until I was married. Not that I didn't have sex, but I knew better than to take the risk of full penetration. And besides, I was well out of my teens. But then I was brought up in an only nominally Catholic, truly secular world where we were taught to take responsibility for our own bodies and sexuality, and not give it up to the fantasy of a mythic deity.

But I digress.

Lady L, I believe that had you not gotten knocked up in your teens and before marriage you would have said something like "Even though I never had to face this issue..." or "Despite the fact that I had the benefit of marriage when my children were born.." or words to that effect. The way you phrased this makes me believe that you understand the issue on a personal level. Now I have not named or called out any of the other ladies here and I don't plan to do so to you. But you know who you are, you hold yourself up as a shining paragon of Christian Womanhood and Virtue, a perfect example for all the ladies around you. Based on your words here, I think you're more of a hypocrite.

Now I don't know you personally, so I could be quite wrong, and if I am I will apologize. My comments are open, as always, and I invite you to correct me. If you truly have lived up to the Christian ideal, if your deity actually did come through for you, please let us know. I would like to see one Christian lady who actually lived up to her ideals.

Positive Secular encouragement

Unlike the religious world, which tends to put women into a specific small box (You're a homeschooling homemaker, preferably with no college education, and you have a perfect house, family, menu, car, marriage, health and figure. If you're not, we don't want to hear it. And if you don't hide it well enough we will call you apostate and kick you out of our perfect church.) the secular world tends toward practical encouragement for all of a woman's choices. I've found women who don't put their mythology first and foremost to be far more understanding of the trickier times in life, like when you have to work and raise kids, or take care of elders as well as try to homeschool kids, or have health problems. Or just feel tired or burned out or confused. See, we don't consider bad times a sign of sin, or being non-elect, or being on the wrong side of a mythic deity. We just see them as part of life, things that can happen to any of us at any time, and that it makes the world a better place if we help each other along the way.

To that end, and to counter the negative vibe this place tends to take on at times, I'd like to present from time to time, some of my favorite, secular, homemaking information sources. And here are two:

1) The Vicky & Jen show. Talk about a positive, encouraging hour of listening. Recent topics include :

• #91 Kids and Drugs: Addiction Proof Your Child
• #89 Simple Self-Care
• #85 Elder Care Made Easier
• #73 Simple Safety Series: Girls Fight Back
• #66 Making Peace With Your Body
• #57 Kids and Sex: Covering the Bases with Logan Levkoff

They also feature The Big O series, with organizing expert Monica Ricci and the Ask-A-Chef series with Chef Devin Alexander. Fabulous, wonderful stuff, all of it. It does come with commercials, but no one ever crumbled from a ten second commercial for paper towels or breakfast cereal. And their theme music is a bit depressing, although not offensive and she does have a lovely voice. You can even subscribe in iTunes and listen while you do your chores. Highly recommended.

2) OrganizedHome.com. Tips and articles on how to clean your house, organize your kitchen, deal with clutter and the kids and even how to set up a household notebook. Without bible quotes no less! And their sister site, OrganizedChristmas, is the best thing ever to help you survive the holidays.

For example, ever notice how some years it seems like there's no time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and sometimes Christmas runs awfully late? That's because Thanksgiving is a floating holiday, the last Thursday in November. So depending on how the weeks fall you can have anywhere from three to five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. How big of a pain is that to organize? Either you have to cram everything in, or it all drags on and you don't have enough to keep the kids happy. Well, here's a tip I learned from that site: Christmas is a fixed holiday, it's always on the 25th. What's the first fixed holiday before it? Yep, Halloween, on October 31st. Starting your organizing on the 1st of November gives you exactly 8 weeks to work with every time. For more great tips, and a Christmas binder too, check the site.

3) Doc's Secular Homeschool Resources - A set of homeschool plans and resources set in the reality based community. Excellent resources for those who want to explore different cultures, find evolutionary theory to be true, recognize that the world existed before the bible, and want their children to function in all of modern society. She unschooled her four, now happy, functional adult children, which isn't something the husband and I plan to do, but I can't deny the results. Fantastic stuff for all kinds of homeschoolers.

Hope this helps. I'll keep adding stuff as I find it.

Another reason to reject organized Christianity

photo © Daniel Steger for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike

Talk to sex abuse counselors and you will be shocked. Church is one of the safest places for predators. Pedophiles are known to even go to the pastor of a church and tell them their history. Of course the pastor has to keep the confidence (he thinks) because the guy says he is repentent. Over time, the pedophile abuses, leaves and seeks another church to do the same thing. Some pastors think they can’t even warn the other churches!

As to pastors and staff abusing…think about it…all we hear these days is about their ‘authority’, “office” and their special ‘anointing’ as men of God. The kid sees how the parents respect and honor the special ‘authorities’…so what kid is going to talk under those conditions? It is a perfect environment for a predator.

- Screen name Lynn

She makes a good point. After all, if you're repentant, or if you've confessed, or if you've given your sin over to God, or whatever you want to call it, the priest or pastor can't say a thing to warn anyone. And the rule of "touch not my anointed" protects priests and pastors and deacons and everyone else in a church leadership.But she's also forgetting the rule of "Once saved, always saves." Which means it doesn't matter to God if you rape little kids, you're saved. You're going to heaven anyway.

But the people who turn to the secular world, to CPS and the courts and the media, well, they're not following Matthew whatever the verse is They're not applying good biblical methodology. They might even be apostate, or whatever it's called, and not even be truly saved. They're just not Christian.

Now, I will grant you I have met some truly good and responsible Christian people, mostly through the forum where I found that quote. But nearly all of them have been good and responsible at one time or another by going against their church. And if you read their stories, all of them were told that their actions were unbiblical and unchristian, whether it was to leave an abusive husband or to stop a child predator or to have surgery to save their own lives so they could live to raise their surviving children. And all of them have stores about how remarkably good and kind the secular world has been to them at those difficult times. And yet their church, their faith, is still so wonderful, better than anything secular. It's a huge blind spot from what I can see.

Let's face it folks, all Christianity, and all organized religion is, is a giant Get Out Of Jail Free card, an excuse to do whatever you want to whoever you want, and your great mythological deity in the sky will forgive and forget every time. And when those of us out here in the secular world, who actually expect you to behave like am adult and a decent citizen call you on your actions, either by actually expecting you to take that bundle of joy home and be responsible for it or moving your children to a safe home or by sending you to prison, then we're persecuting you and you'll just be that much more rewarded in heaven.

Why is it that the secular world can't stand you? Because you use your deity like a crutch to keep from growing up and taking responsibility for your own lives, let alone trying to make the world a better place. And you end up leaving a wake of ruined lives behind you. We're the ones who have to pay for your poor after they send all their money to the preacher. We're the one who have to look after your kids after you abuse them for ruining your lives when you gave the responsibility to that mythic deity and he didn't come through. We're the victims when you decide to steal or rape or go shooting up a liberal, secular church.

And then you say you're a Christian, and you're forgiven and you're saved?

And you wonder why we're sick of you?

For more, go here.

http://stopbaptistpredators.org/index.htm
http://www.snapnetwork.org/

Another good Christian

Independent, Bible-believing, God- fearing, Saved by the blood of Jesus, and so on and so on....

When I was 17 I got pregnant with my daughter...., when I was 18 I married her father.

...and sexually irresponsible, can't keep her legs together.

I'm telling you the two go together.