Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Welcome everyone

I don't remember where I got this picture. It's vintage, I know that much.

If you're coming over from Fighting Liberals, curious about the whole fundy pregnancy thing, let me save you some time digging through the archives

This says something

Another good Christian
Here we go again
Here we go again, part 2
Here we go again, part 3
The sum of the hypocrisy
Things to think about
And finally, just so you know how far the fringe has gone
Why Patriocentrics scare me

Monday, September 29, 2008

A rare cross post


Image slurped from projectfairplay.org



For what to do about it:

Project Fair Play


The Great Law-Breaking Holiday
by Sara Robinson

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Awwww, an Autumn wedding

Cake picture from The Cook Duke

From the UK Sunday Times
In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

The Conservative Christian base would shut down watching, from what I have learned from my readings around the housefrou blogosphere. Mostly from fond memories of their God-ordained weddings. The rest of us would just be cringing, either from watching two young people forced to give up their futures and educations so young (yes, they could carry them on, we were just raised to see it this way) or from the sight of to kids getting rewarded for getting knocked up with a big, state wedding. And more than likely an apartment, money to live on, and a job for Levi. Then they will wonder why we see them as being rewarded.

And they accuse gays of ruining the institution. $5 says Bristol wears white.

This is just more proof, Christians reward sex, at any age and for any reason, as long as no birth control is used. That way it's in the service of God, so he can bring new life into the world.

Besides, education makes you an elitist snob anyway.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

And why didn't someone else do this?

I'm no graphic artist. I'm sure someone can come up with a better one, or clean up this one.

And how about one for Homemakers for Obama? Any ideas?

Yes, I have to go there

photo © Christof Wittwer for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial

Now normally I wouldn't use the National Enquirer for litterbox liner, for fear one of my cats would catch the clap. But, as Jonah Goldburg points out:

Whatever the merits of the whole Edwards love child story, are we really supposed to believe that one of America's most famous trial lawyers wouldn't sue a publication that printed defamatory and slanderous lies about him?

Also, it's worth pointing out that while the Enquirer may or may not be scrupulous in its choice of stories — that's in the eye of the beholder — it is pretty scrupulous about its facts. They win lawsuits. They've broken a host of stories the MSM guys couldn't.

They did get Edwards right. They got OJ on the shoes. And is it really all the much worse that the Drudge Report and Bill Clinton?

Yea, I have to go there.
In a world exclusive The NATIONAL ENQUIRER names GOP VP Candidate Sarah Palin's secret lover!

No less than three members of the man’s family including one by sworn affidavit have claimed that Sarah Palin engaged in an extramarital affair with hus­band Todd’s former business partner, Brad Hanson.

These sources have named Hanson as Palin’s secret love, and say their affair nearly wrecked both their marriages.

So, it's looking like St. Sarah may be about as "holy" as the rest of us. Go read the rest here. I am an admitted muckraker, at least on this blog at times, but even I suggest taking this with a grain of salt until it's confirmed by another source.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Keeping It Real

Heather over at Want What You Have has started the Keeping It Real carnival. Even though a lot of us homemakers blog about schedules and organization and whatnot, we're all real people, with real lives, and our homes reflect that.

So here's what a liberal, agnostic home looks like at 5 pm on the last day of our work week. Up there we have the kitchen, that's hamburger defrosting on the left, right in front of the dirty bread pan/coffee pot/water pitcher. I have to point out that the dishwasher there was running at the time I took this, none of it fit. All the way over on the left is a clean frying pan, waiting for the hamburger, and my lifeline, the kettle.



Edging to the left we have the baking center, complete with bicycle maintenance book and Post-it notes of favorite baking recipes. Beyond that we have the "dining room", with the graphed out beginning of the holiday gift for my Grandmother-in-law covering most of the surface. Beyond that is the living room



It's remarkably clean, but then no kids yet. And it's also "Friday" for us. Wait until "Sunday"/Wednesday when we've been living in it all week-end. Then it's a completely different story. The big green thing is the climbing tower the husband built for our seriously spoiled cats.

Turning around in place...



...we have my desk. Complete with water bottle, giant tea mug, even larger bottle of Advil, and knitting everywhere. That thing behind the blue spray bottle used to make the cats stop that is called a Sherpa. It's our family information center. It's currently opened to the most important page - what's for dinner.

Coming back around to almost where I started



Hallway. With laundry. The rooms off it are a bathroom/storage room, the husband's office at the end, and the sewing/exercise/someday kids room.



Which is only this clean because I'm starting a new project. I swear.

Finally, the bedroom



The only reason why that bed is made is because I got lucky and managed to get a cat-free moment. Otherwise I'm out of luck.

Well, if you ever wondered what a non-religious home looks like on an average day, now you know. This also proves that you can still have clutter, even without kids. Hopefully someday I'll be able to add kid clutter to it.

This just in

photo © patrick hysell for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike

With much gratitude and hat tipping to DarkSyde over at DailyKos. I just had to share his list.

What we've learned this week:

  • The best way to help the people who need it the most is by giving trillions in tax cuts and tax deductions to the richest who need it the least. The fact that this hasn't worked for eight years is justification to make it permanent.
  • Republicans are willing to blow a trillion or more in Iraq and call anyone who doesn't go along unpatriotic, but we can't afford healthcare for Americans and must instead rely on deregulating insurance companies (No, I'm not making that up) and taxing healthcare benefits; anyone who argues otherwise is anti-American.
  • This Just In: John McCain Invented the Blackberry!
  • When CEOs drive century old Wall Street investment banks and multinational insurance firms into the ground with sheer greed and incompetence it's the responsibility of taxpayers to bail them out. When those taxpayers lose their jobs, homes, and healthcare because of corporate greed and incompetence, they're on their own.
  • First dudes don't have to bother answering state investigators or responding to bipartisan subpoenas, as long as they're married to a Republican politician.
  • John McCain was really all for regulation all along, after he and his party deregulated everything in sight, and hired the same dereg fundamentalists that flew the economy into the side of a mountain to run his campaign.
  • The incoherent rantings of a African witch-hunting dominionist lunatic who sees demons hovering in the air are a respectable endorsement for being elected Vice-President.
  • This Just In: Sarah Palin is a Young Earth Creationist End-O-the-World-Nutter.
  • Republicans refer to pointing out any of the above as 'finger pointing' and 'lecturing,' while lecturing and pointing their fat sweating guilty sausage-like fingers at anyone who wanders into sight for the colossal failures of their own warped ideology.
I learned this from my wanderings around the housefrau blogosphere:
  • What the Conservatives reject is the Liberal mindset that attempts to place restrictions on others rather than on themselves in the guise of protecting the environment. There are differences of opinion about what should be done to protect the environment and forcing your own views on others is not a Christian way of doing things, so the Conservative Christians don’t do that.
    That only applies to environmental laws. If someone is gay, then in the Conservative Christian view, they shouldn't be allowed to marry or raise children, and they will put constitutional amendments on the ballot to force that view on others. (Link provided on request, it's in comment #561 on that page)
  • Christians are against sex outside of marriage. But every child is a gift from God and is never a mistake. Following the logic there, saying no to sex would be saying no to God bringing a child into the world. After all, God must have put that boy and that girl in that place for that reason. So Christians are all for sex, at any age or marital status, they are only against birth control and abortion.
  • Conservatives, with the help of the single issue Christians who keep putting them in office, are robbing the country dry. (From Glen Greenwald)
Here is the current draft for the latest plan. It's elegantly simple. The three key provisions: (1) The Treasury Secretary is authorized to buy up to $700 billion of any mortgage-related assets (so he can just transfer that amount to any corporations in exchange for their worthless or severely crippled "assets") [Sec. 6]; (2) The ceiling on the national debt is raised to $11.3 trillion to accommodate this scheme [Sec. 10]; and (3) best of all: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency" [Sec. 8].

Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.

  • A single rumor can drain an American city dry of most if not all fuel in 24 hours.
Amazing what you learn.

On the economy

Image credit to Paul Krugman. But I'm talking about his column and need the example.

I think I'm getting it. I might be getting it in teeny, tiny bits, not even bites, but I'm getting it.

On his blog today, Paul Krugman writes about doubts on the latest bailout.
I think of a hypothetical institution, which tradition says we should call Capital Decimation Partners. CDP’s balance sheet looks like (the above image)

Now, obviously CDP is in trouble if it can’t sell the toxic waste at all. But suppose that Hank Paulson does his reverse auction, and it turns out that the Treasury’s price for toxic waste is 40 cents on the dollar. Even so, CDP is still underwater. So what does Treasury do then?
Apparently, if I have this right, assets does not always equal money in the bank, or a building, or the cars and computers owned by the company. I can also include IOU's other people have given you, in exchange for something like money to buy a house.

An IOU is an asset. Got it.

So what this image is saying is that the company in the example, CDP, is claiming $515 in assets, and has given IOU's to other people for $500. On paper they should be able to pay off the IOU's they wrote, and still have $15 left over.

But they never had at least $50 of that on hand. Maybe even more than $50. It was just an IOU from someone else, someone else's good name.

Now, in the current economy $50 in those IOU's are not going to be paid back, and so even if the government says they'll take those IOU's. But they're not going to pay you $50 for a pile of worthless promises. The example says $0.40 on the dollar. Which means they would now have

OK stuff = $465
Money for
bad stuff
from the
govt. = $20
--------------
$ 485

And they are still short $15, just to pay back all their promises, let alone keep going.

Now, the elephant in the room no one is talking about...is it just me or is calling an IOU from someone else an "asset" kinda dumb. If I have $100 in my checking account, loan $50 to my sister, then write a check for the whole $100, that check is going to bounce, regardless if I tell the bank I have an asset in the form of my sister's IOU or not.

I humbly suggest to the financial community that they stop calling IOU's assets, stop using them to figure up how much you have. Assets are what you have, be it stocks or land or cash or goods. Debits are what you owe other people. And IOU's get their own column. Call it profit if you like, when it gets paid back. Pocket it. But don't use it to figure what you're worth.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Secular homemaking links



Something positive after a lot of negative

50 Home tips on Lifehack.org. Really all of Lifehack. Much of it is geared toward the business community, but a lot of those ideas can be applied to home management

Hurricane/emergency tips from MileHiMama (Not a secular blog, but this post is excellent. Good luck lady!)

AllRecipes - you will never need to buy a recipe book again

Bev's Country Cottage - *tons* of free patterns for gifts and charities for all kinds of crafts. Her site has an LDS bend, but it's an amazingly thorough resource.

Librivox.org. - Free classic audiobooks to listen to while you work.

Why Patriocentrics scare me

photo © The Jared Wilcurt for openphoto.net CC:PublicDomain

A quote I found from a commenter on one of the boards.
I remember a discussion where the women were talking about how they wouldn’t allow their daughters to go to the bathroom any time they felt they needed to go because it gave them an independent spirit. They spoke of how they would require their daughters (not sons) to ask for permission to use the bathroom first so that they wouldn’t become independent.
No, I don't have an original link. But knowing the Patriocentrics this does not surprise me one bit. This has nothing to do with mainstream Christianity (yet, I hope) but it is a common practice among the BDSM community. Having to ask to go, and in the correct, polite manner, is a way of exerting your will over your slaves.

Pardon me while I go get ill.

About the one good thing I see coming from this election is that most Evangelicals are in the Palin camp (most of them could give a toss about McCain), but the Patriocentricts are very firmly against any woman in any office. So perhaps this will shake off some of the growing influence of the Patriocentric movement in mainstream Christianity.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

New blog going

The Progressive Homemakers Blog.

If this is a place for my personal yowlings, that is a place for discussion. Come on over for tea and cookies.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Disconnect v.1.0

photo © Adrian van Leen for openphoto.net CC:PublicDomain
Like a ripple in a pond, the troopergate scandal gave birth to the sexual harassment scandal, which was just a blip on the megamedia radar screen. Troopergate looks at whether Palin fired a state commissioner for not firing a state trooper, who coincidentally was divorcing her sister. Palin replaced the fired state commissioner with a fellow fundie who was officially reprimanded for sexual harassment. While the national media went on vacation, Alaska media wanted to know why she appointed a known sexual harasser.
(snip)
On July 25th, Kopp announced his resignation at a press conference with Palin and both indicated that he had been smeared. Kopp stated that while he has been "portrayed in a negative light," his "personal worth was found in the person of Jesus Christ."
"I'm A Christian, I've been Saved! I know I've been Saved, I've been saying it for years now! God gave me a pass on any and every sin I commit and law I break when I was Saved. Once Saved, Always Saved. Why are you acting like I've done something wrong, I've been forgiven!

It's not like I have to be a good person or follow any rules or anything, that's works and we're not supposed to do works, we're supposed to let God take care of it all. I gave God the responsibility when He Saved me, he's responsible for all my actions, I'm not. Taking responsibility is works! I'm just a sinner, after all. Just go look at Him, he's covering me, I'm as worthy as He is!"

Ahem.

Yes, those of us out here in the secular, reality based community hold individuals responsible for their actions, not mythic deities. Sorry if this came as a shock.

Read the compendium these quotes came from, and more about Troopergate and Harrassergate here on The DailyKos.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Evil

Photo taken from www.locationworks.com

Remember what I said about Liberals considering intelligence a virtue and not a sign of elitism?

According to the New York Times:

“Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

(Note: Ms. Kilkenny's identity and opinion have been confirmed by Snopes)

Now that is evil.

So, with no further ado, here are a list of the most popular banned books in the US. No, we don't know that this is the list Gov. Palin wanted banned from the library, but the best odds say that the ones she wanted out are on this list somewhere.

I know the husband and I will be hitting the bookshops in town over the next few months, to make sure the ones we choose to make available to our children are in our home library, just in case.

(Note: List courtesy of Adler & Robin Books)

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Saturday, September 06, 2008

The sum of the hypocrisy

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

While many pundits have wondered whether social conservatives will recoil from the news that Palin's 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant, they're clearly not grasping the mores of that community. If Bristol Palin were the daughter of Democratic parents, she would undoubtedly be held up as an example of the failures of a liberal, permissive culture. Instead, she is viewed — as are the majority of teenage mothers in Evangelical churches — as a Christian who sinned, is forgiven, and needs to be embraced and supported.

- Amy Sullivan for Time Magazine, Are Evangelicals Really Sold on Palin

Viewing a teen mother as someone who is forgiven, and needs to be embraced and supported is sending the message that teen sex is acceptable, and that teen sex pregnancy will earn you many rewards, like being able to get out of school, all those gifts, job offers, the chance to move away from your parents, and of course, being able to get married and have more sex. All the while Grandma and the other church ladies will take care of that little bundle of annoyance for you. And of course, God doesn't mind, you're forgiven.

Saying that you are against teen sex, and for abstinence, while publicly embracing and supporting teen mothers is hypocrisy, plan and simple.

Liberals view teen pregnancy as a horribly stupid mistake. That sends the message that teen sex is a choice that must be made with care and responsibility. Because having to leave school ruins your future, and YOU are responsible for taking care of that baby and getting that job. YOU were stupid and didn't use birth control, or didn't try something else. And YOU will have to live with the consequences for a long, long time.

Because of that, liberal parents tend to give their children ALL the information they need to make careful, responsible choices. Because we don't want them making mistakes based on ignorance. We expect them to be intelligent (we do not consider intelligence to be elitist) and so we give them knowledge.

Which is the way it used to work in this country. Back in those good ol' days.

Hypocrisy. Plain and simple.

Now if y'all want to continue to encourage your daughters to be sluts and your boys to act like rutting bulls, go right ahead. Tell them God has the responsibility for the sexuality, show them that they will get rewarded for their bastard offspring, and then step back and allow the heat cycles to begin, just like any other dumb animal. Do what you want, I won't even look.

But don't you cut off the choices for me and my family, don't you dare. You do not have that right. Even if you believe that God sees birth control as murder it is not up to you to answer to God for me.

Back off.

Friday, September 05, 2008

To sum up

Your oxymoron is showing

The Republican party keeps harping on Senator Obama and the Democratic party as the party of celebrities and elites.

Ahem

From www.m-w.com
oxymoron

Main Entry:
ox·y·mo·ron Listen to the pronunciation of oxymoron
Pronunciation:
\ˌäk-sē-ˈmr-ˌän\
Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural ox·y·mo·rons also ox·y·mo·ra Listen to the pronunciation of oxymora \-ˈmr-ə\
Etymology:
Late Greek oxymōron, from neuter of oxymōros pointedly foolish, from Greek oxys sharp, keen + mōros foolish
Date:
1657
: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly : something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements

All of the following taken from www.wikipedia.com and www.youtube.com

Fred Gandy
Republican
US House of Representatives

January 3, 1987January 3, 1995


"If there were no Gopher, there would be no Fred Grandy for Congress."

-----

Sonny Bono
Republican
US House of Representatives
January 3, 1995January 5, 1998




-----

Fred Thompson
Republican
US Senator
December 2, 1994 – January 3, 2003



This is the closest he ever came to being in the military BTW

----

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Republican
Governor of California
Incumbent



----

Ronald Regan
Republican
President
January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1989



----

Did I miss anyone?

I couldn't find an actor who ran on the Democratic ticket. I may have missed one, but I don't think so.

Morality

photo © Simone Cortesi for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike
Boston Globe

The death of a taboo
Posted by Sasha Issenberg September 4, 2008 08:41 PM

ST. PAUL -- One of the most enduring taboos in American politics, the airing of graphic images from the September 11 attacks in a partisan context, died today. It was nearly seven years old.

The informal prohibition, which had been occasionally threatened by political ads in recent years, was pronounced dead at approximately 7:40 CST, when a video aired before delegates at the Republican National Convention included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center, the towers' subsequent collapse, and smoke emerging from the Pentagon.

The September 11 precedent was one of the few surviving campaign-season taboos. It is survived by direct comparisons of one's opponents to Hitler.

Words fail. Words just fail.

Exploiting death for political gain. From the party of morally and family values.

I thought I would be more surprised.

Oh, and don't forget the fake military funeral. $5k at Getty Images.
A veteran’s advocate said that with soldiers still deployed and in harm’s way, there is an obligation not to sugar coat reality.

“What it does reveal is a serious lack of understanding and a lack of personal connection to the military,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Rieckhoff, who is at the convention with a contingent of veterans added that a video tribute to Medal of Honor winner Michael Monsoor, a Navy Seal killed in Iraq, shown on Tuesday night, used combat video that appeared to him and several other veterans of the Iraq war to have been staged.

After a Web search of videos played at the Democratic National Convention last week, CBS News found no obvious use of stock footage.

The RNC did not respond to CBS News’ request for a comment.

Seems they like to exploit the death of others all around.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Things to think about

A young girl reading by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
The ironies continue to roll on. Feminists question how a VP can balance work and family while conservatives shut their eyes and continue to cheer for what they've opposed for generations. We can only sit here and shake our heads....
- Jeannie Chancey

And it's the feminist/liberal/progressives who are saying that you shouldn't air your children's dirty linen in public.

And it's the
feminist/liberal/progressives who are saying that young people should be taught how to not get knocked up in high school.

And it's the feminist/liberal/progressives who are saying that maybe the baby should come before the mother's career.

And it's the feminist/liberal/progressives who are saying that the decisions on how to best deal with issues like these should be made by the family, not by the government.

You might want to think on all that....

This makes no sense


If you didn't want the pregnancy to be the center of attention, why oh why oh why oh why oh why did you invite the baby daddy to the convention?

Bristol's Boyfriend to Join Palins at RNC

By RACHEL D'OROItalic
AP
posted: 10 HOURS 33 MINUTES AGO

WASILLA, Alaska (Sept. 2) - The boyfriend of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's unwed, pregnant daughter will join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Levi Johnston's mother said her 18-year-old son left Alaska on Tuesday morning to join the Palin family at the convention where Sen. John McCain will officially receive the Republican nomination for president.

(snip)

The young man's presence could set off a media frenzy around the young couple as photographers and cameramen scramble for pictures of the two teenagers.

This is why, if you wanted them left alone, you leave them out of the spotlight. Actions have consequences. You get knocked up, you don't get to go to Mommy's convention. Simple
On Monday, Palin and her husband, Todd, said their 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, planned to have the baby and wed a young man identified only as Levi. The family asked the media to respect the young couple's privacy as has been the tradition with children of candidates.

Sarah Palin is scheduled to address the convention Wednesday night and traditionally her family would join her at the conclusion of her speech.

(snip)

He's not family yet. He's not family until after the wedding.
Levi Johnston, a high school hockey player for Wasilla High School, is not listed on the team roster for 2008-2009, and his mother wouldn't say if he graduated. She said simply he's no longer a student and any further information would have to come from him.

You know, once upon a time getting knocked up and having to marry the high school dropout daddy was considered shameful in this country. What happened?

And don't blame the Democrats. Republicans have affairs too. But at least Democrats raise their children right.


(found on AOL news)

Monday, September 01, 2008

Here we go again - part 3

photo © Anindya Chowdhury for openphoto.net CC:NonCommercial

I wasn't going to say any more. I really wasn't going to say any more. I was just going to spend the day doing my laundry in peace.

And then this:

( Taken from The AmericaBlog)
1. Sarah Palin's first son, Track Palin, was born in April 1989 (we don't have the exact day). Actually now we do, courtesy of FOX News' Alan Colmes. He was born on April 20. For the purposes of this analysis, we will give Sarah Palin the benefit of the doubt and assume that her son was born on April 30, 1989, the longest possible April date from her marriage.

2. Sarah Palin was married on August 29, 1988. She eloped.

3. 38 weeks is the typical human pregnancy.

4. 38 weeks before her son's birthday, April 20, 1989, is July 28, 1988 - i.e., that would be the hypothetical day of conception.

5. If this data is correct, that would mean that Sarah Palin eloped four weeks after her son's conception.

6. Sarah Palin's son could still be legitimate if he was born four weeks premature, AND if he was conceived on the night his parents eloped.

Sigh. Someone please start teaching these people about the birds and the bees. They're making us all look bad.

Here we go again - Part 2

photo © MIROSLAV VAJDIĆ for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike

Well, regardless of whether or not that baby is Sarah Palin's child or grandchild, her family once again proves that Good Christian girls simply cannot keep their legs together.

From Reuters via MSNBC:
Reuters: "The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.

Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin's five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Please, Christians, spare us all the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou bull any longer. Being "saved" is just an excuse to get away with anything. Truly responsible parents teach their children to take control of their sexuality, not give that up to some mythic deity. Think about it, that deity made man in his image, to take control of the animal, starting with himself. There's a reason why humans don't have a heat cycle.

I suggest that from now on all liberals view any criticism of their openness to all forms of sexuality and their willingness to teach their children about sex from a scientific point of view as mere jealousy on the part of the conservative christians. They envy us our good families and our daughters who make it through college without getting knocked up.

Remember folks -

Family values = sexual irresponsibility
Abstinence = Getting pregnant ASAP

NOTE: I do applaud her for keeping the baby. We're all human and we all make mistakes. It's not a decision I ever had to face, but I imagine it must have been a tough one. I also applaud her for planning to marry the father. I hope their families help both of these young people to finish their educations while starting their family. It looks like they have a tough road ahead and I wish them all the best. At this time I don't plan on saying any more about this particular family.