Daily Blend: Monday, May 09, 2011 [updated]

Chris Wallace

• Glenn Greenwald: Al-Qaeda breathes the word “trains”, US Government immediately jumps in with proposed “No-Ride” list.

• Seven days and seventeen examples of why priests should be held to a higher standard.

• Fox News’s Chris Wallace [pictured] doesn’t understand why killing bin Laden is okay but torturing detainees is wrong.
  (via @ggreenwald)

• Man gets life in prison for fourth marijuana conviction.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper allegedly edits out two top-ranking women from now-famous Situation Room bin-Laden-raid-viewing photo. (Daily Mail warning) | UPDATE: (05/09/11 4:05 PM) – Newspaper apologizes, assures us removing the women “in no way relegates them to a lower status”. Uh-huh.

• WND freaks out over nomination of a lesbian judge to the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Supplemental tags: Bigotry • LGBT • Courts/Lawsuits

xkcd on the subject of lady scientists*

Today’s xkcd strip takes on the troubling lack of female role models that aspiring scientists have to aspire to:

Words we can all live by.

* Originally wanted to phrase it “xkcd does lady scientists”, but that just sounds wrong, somehow.

Daily Blend: Sunday, May 08, 2011

William Melchert-Dinkel

• I’m all for assisted suicide, but this monstrous asshole [pictured] deserves far worse than just a year in prison.
  (via Uzza)

• More efforts to corrupt the teaching of Evolutionary Theory in Texas classrooms.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• South African “exorcist” “prophet” who molests women and his bodyguards arrested … for carrying unlicensed firearms.

• Delta Airlines pilot refuses to fly until two Muslim men in traditional Indian and Arabic garbs are removed from the plane.
  (via @todayspolitics)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Supplemental tags: Mohamed Zaghloul

Teen arrested for recording and asking cop about unwarranted raids

Every now and then, we see some video pop up showing an illegal arrest by some fascist cop who doesn’t like that people have the right to videotape on-duty officers. But rarely do we get to find out what happens next – and even rarer is the victim who not only fully knows his own legal rights, but is able to share the news around and raise awareness about the growing Police State of America. Oh, and this one’s 17, which is just awesome:

From the YouTube page:

Canadian court refuses to extradite alleged terrorist to US due to fears of human rights abuses

Abdullah Khadr

This is one of those stories that make me proud to be a Canadian, and that should hopefully make Americans look up to their snowy geographical hat and see how justice is properly handled. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has freed an alleged al-Qaeda collaborator in order to prevent him from being extradited back to the US, where he has already suffered numerous human rights abuses over the past decade and where the Canadian court fears he would be thrown back into the same extrajudicial hell. The court plans to have the suspect tried for his suspected terroristic ties independently.

From the Toronto Star:

Its 3-0 ruling upholds a decision last August by Justice Christopher Speyer of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice to stay extradition proceedings involving Abdullah Khadr, 30, who is wanted in Boston on charges of procuring munitions for use by Al Qaeda against U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The Toronto man is the older brother of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr and son of Ahmed Khadr, who was suspected of having close ties with Osama bin Laden and killed in a shootout with Pakistan’s security forces on the Afghanistan border in 2003.

“We must adhere to our democratic and legal values, even if that adherence serves in the short term to benefit those who oppose and seek to destroy those values,” said Justice Robert Sharpe, writing on behalf of Justices John Laskin and Eleanore Cronk.

“For if we do not, in the longer term, the enemies of democracy and the rule of law will have succeeded,” he said. “They will have demonstrated that our faith in our legal order is unable to withstand their threats.”

And here’s the (illegal) mistreatment that spurred the Canadian court to deny Khadr’s rendition back to the United States:

The U.S. paid Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) $500,000 to abduct Khadr, a Canadian citizen, in Islamabad on Oct. 15, 2004.

He was denied access to courts and consular officials, beaten until he cooperated with the ISI and detained at a secret location for 14 months.

Daily Blend: Saturday, May 07, 2011

Claude Choules (110)

• Note to “Deathers”: Al-Qaeda confirms Osama bin Laden’s death in Internet statement at jihadist forums.
  (via Joe. My. God.)

• Pseudonymous US Military interrogator asserts that torture only harms anti-terrorism efforts.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Florida Legislature passes bills banning bestiality and baggy pants, proves they have absolutely nothing better to do.
  (via The Agitator)

• Professional bluenosing group American Family Association throws a fit over Sears selling porn DVDs “to children” – because the site lacked age verification, so obviously, they’re pro-porn-for-kids – and then gloats as their pearl-clutching followers force Sears to pull the “extremely offensive!” listings.

• It’s getting increasingly difficult to tell whenever Vox Day is trying to be either serious or sarcastic with his lame anti-atheistic arguments.

• Last surviving WWI veteran [pictured] dies at 110.

• FCKH8: You can fucking say ‘gay’.

• This anti-evolution church sign does have a point.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Supplemental tags: Churches • Humor • Evolution • Claude Choules

Texas legislature passes sonograms-before-abortions bill

At this point in the flood of anti-choice legislation from various GOP-dominated states, all I feel like doing is grumbling in exasperation:

HOUSTON — In a victory for anti-abortion advocates, Texas will join the ranks of states that require doctors to perform a sonogram before conducting an abortion.

Gov. Rick Perry, a conservative Republican, made the bill, which the Legislature passed on Thursday, a priority and is expected to sign it. The bill requires a doctor to conduct a sonogram at least 24 hours before an abortion and to give the woman the opportunity to see the results and hear the heartbeat of the fetus. Though the woman can choose not to view the images and hear the heartbeat, the doctor must describe what the sonogram shows, including the existence of legs, arms and internal organs.

[…]

Because the measures passed both houses of the Legislature with a two-thirds majority, it will go into effect as soon as the governor signs it.

Of course, anti-choicers like to claim that bills like this one, which have been cropping up in various other states over the past few months, are really all about “informed consent” and giving abortion-seeking women “more information”. As if a woman who learns she is pregnant, realizes she is unable to take care of the future child, and then accepts that she must terminate her pregnancy, didn’t fucking know everything she could possibly know about her situation before making such a monumental decision.

But what’s even more galling than this condescending attitude is their blatant dishonesty. It’s beyond clear that none of these bills have anything to do with providing “more information” to these poor women. All they are is weapons fashioned by the Republican Party in its ongoing ideological war against women’s freedom of choice over their own bodies. It’s absolutely nothing more or less. And it’s only doubly insulting to rational people that they think we could fall for their transparent lies.

As PersonalFailure put it well, anti-abortionists really do think that pregnant women – and, I’ll add, pro-choicers in general – are fucking idiots.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Elderly woman sells suicide kits online, reveals interesting new angle in Right-to-Die debate [updated]

Anyone who’s been following my writings for a long time will probably know that I’m a strong advocate of people’s right to die, if it’s a choice they make deliberately and rationally. The argument is not only empathetic (there’s no reason to cling to a life of unbearable agony if you have the ability to end it on your own terms), but also logical; if people have a right to live, then it naturally follows that they have the right to end their lives as well (though the devil is certainly in the details).

However, there’s an interesting case in the news that brings up a number of questions pertaining to the moral/ethical limits of providing assisted suicide services, especially in a manner where just anyone could potentially take advantage of them. An elderly woman in La Mesa, California, is currently the center of a media storm over her selling “suicide kits” online, one of which has already been used by at least one person. KGTV San Diego reports:

LA MESA, Calif. -- A 91-year-old East County grandmother is getting national attention for making suicide kits. The woman, who we're calling 'Charlotte,' started making the kits after watching her husband die a slow, painful death from colon cancer.

"I'm doing what I can to improve the world," she told 10News. "There's a lot of heartache and difficulty here."

Charlotte makes the kits -- which cost buyers $60 -- by taking large plastic bags and sewing soft elastic bands around the opening. There is a slot in the bag for a plastic tube carrying helium gas to be inserted. Helium -- when inhaled in its pure form -- is deadly. Kit users are responsible for securing their own helium gas.

The only reason “Charlotte” isn’t telling her story from behind bars is because of a loophole in California law. So, naturally, there’s a motion afoot to plug it:

[…] an Oregon lawmaker has put forward a bill to make selling the kits a felony in the state.

[…]

A representative for local Rep. Duncan Hunter told 10News: "It's the responsibility of the state to limit the sale of certain items for the purpose of assisted suicides … The reality is that most states, including California, have not enacted the relevant laws to deal with this problem …"

I don’t have sex, but I plan to (someday …)

The sane answer to the Tea Party, the sadly much quieter Coffee Party, has come out with a video in defense of the far-Right attack against Planned Parenthood:

I still have reasonable expectations that Planned Parenthood will come out of this bullshit campaign against them victorious, given the number of equally deranged far-Right bills that have been proposed and passed by the GOP-dominated House, only to meet a swift and merited death in the Democratically controlled Senate. Let’s hope this is another one of those cases.

(via @todayspolitics)

Daily Blend: Friday, May 06, 2011

Alan Chambers

• Former President Bill Clinton, under whom passed both DOMA and DADT, now supports marriage equality in New York State.

• Alan Chambers [pictured] of “ex-gay” group Exodus International attacks Google Chrome “It Gets Better” ad, saying he doesn’t want to talk to his young kids about teh ghey and that the best way to curb anti-gay bullying is for LGBT youths to become “ex-gays”.

• Schadenfreudelicious: Antivaxxer Mark Geier, who misdiagnosed children with autism and prescribed obscenely expensive drugs, gets license revoked in Maryland.

• Iranian whackjob President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered to resign by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• I am apparently a “solid liberal”. (I chose “Independent”.)
  (via Political Irony)

• To be fair, I could never quite put my finger on Uranus, either.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Supplemental tags: Ayatollah Khameini • Politics • Iran • Personal • Pew Research Center • Uranus • Humor

Friday Canine: Sad wuffie is cute

[source | full size (800×563)]

Brazilian Supreme Court approves civil unions

¡Viva Brazilia!^*:

SAO PAULO — Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday night that civil unions between same-sex couples must be allowed in this nation with more Roman Catholics than any other.

In a 10-0 vote, with one abstention, the justices said gay couples deserve the same legal rights as heterosexual pairs when it comes to alimony, retirement benefits of a partner who dies, and inheritances, among other issues.

It’s not quite same-sex marriage, but as always, a little progress is better than none at all. Equality is always attained through increments.

(via @BreakingNews)

* Yeah, I know, wrong language, wrong words … buzzkill.