...depending on how long that civil war in Iraq lasts.
"I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot better than people would assume." — President Bush, in a new interview with People magazine.
Quote of, oh I don't know, probably the next century or so...
In Which I Give Too Much Time and Effort to Responding to a Colossal Idiot
Bill O'Reilly wants to know, if same-sex couples can parent as well as opposite-sex couples, why "wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake?" In other (less moronic) words: If two dads or two moms can parent as competently as a mom and a dad, then why didn't nature make it possible for two dads or two moms to create and birth a baby?
I figure there are four possibilities…
1. Perhaps the answer is evolutionary. Way before the human experience was cluttered with arbitrary regulations governing the sexual behavior of consenting adults, and way, way before human reproduction could be limited with birth control, human females conceivably could have typically had more children than they and their male partners could secure enough resources for. It would have made sense to have some additional adults (it takes a village) to provide childcare and secure resources and who would never have children of their own—guaranteed by same-sex copulation not resulting in pregnancy. Some recent research on the increasing odds of a gay son after a series of straight sons certainly suggests this is a possibility.
2. Perhaps we were intelligently designed that way. Maybe the intelligent designer saw that the world he had provided would quickly overpopulate if humans were left to their dirty devices unchecked, and noticed that sometimes the diseases and natural disasters and droughts and famines he designed to cull our numbers occasionally sometimes just left a bunch of kids without parents. So maybe he figured it would be best to design some folks who could forge loving, lifelong bonds, but couldn't have kids of their own—so they'd want to take in the kids who had lost their parents, or the kids that no one else wanted. That older children, children of color, and/or children with special needs are now most likely to be adopted by LGBT parents certainly suggests this is a possibility.
3. Perhaps it really is just one of those times when we are, as O'Reilly claims, "taking Mother Nature and … throwing it right out the window." O'Reilly calls this crazy, but is it? Seems to me, we throw "Mother Nature" out the window all the time, whenever it suits us. Like, when straight couples don't want to have any more kids, and Mom gets her tubes tied or Dad gets a vasectomy. Or when Little Johnny steps on a rusty nail and he's given a tetanus shot instead of letting Mother Nature grace him with lockjaw. One might even argue that, say, cancer is one of Mother Nature's ways of telling us the gig is up, but most of us happily shove Mother Nature out the way as we rush to the nearest oncologist. Maybe, just like people often decide to duke it out with her over when, precisely, they'll shuffle off this mortal coil, or just like straight couples often decide that they disagree with Mother Nature's determination that they shouldn't have children, or should have more children, gay couples disagree with Mother Nature's decision that they're not meant to be parents. And maybe we should respect that just like we'd respect someone's decision to get treatment against a disease that would otherwise certainly be terminal, left up to Mother Nature's whims.
4. Perhaps Bill O'Reilly is just a dumb shit and should shut his fat fucking mouth and mind his own goddamned business—and be thankful that women don't get pregnant by dirty perverts talking about falafels, or he'd have child support payments to make in addition to his out-of-court hush money. Prick.
War on Christmas Cookies
For oddjob, the cookie lover! My sister made these this year for Christmas, and they're fantastic. They're very almond-y, so if you're not a fan, you know, you might want to skip these.
Almond Squares II
Yields: 12 servings
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup almond paste
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 ounces sliced almonds
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cream butter in a large mixing bowl; gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg yolk (reserve egg white), almond paste, and flavoring; beat until well blended. Stir in flour.
3. Spread mixture in a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan. Beat egg white (at room temperature) until foamy; brush over entire surface of dough, and sprinkle with almonds. Bake for 35 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool thoroughly, and cut into 2 inch squares. Store in airtight containers.
For additional almond goodness, serve with marzipan!
Question of the Day
What are your must-read blogs?
(This is not an exercise in ego-stroking, so feel free to leave Shakes off your list, if it's even on it to begin with. I'm just curious to see what other blogs people love and find out if I'm missing something lots of Shakers are reading regularly.)
I have about 150 blogs on my Bloglines, which I read constantly throughout the day. About 100 of them are fixed, and the other 50 or so I rotate in and out from the very long Shakes drop-down blogroll. Most of them are political blogs, but there are a couple pop culture blogs on there (like Monkeys for Helping and FourFour, which are my non-political faves).
New Jersey Legalizes Civil Unions
Stupidly, not called marriage but conferring "all the rights and privileges available under state law to married people" upon same-sex couples.
Gay rights advocates welcomed the legislation as a step forward but said they would continue to push for the right to marry.Go get 'em, Steven.
...Steven Goldstein, director of the gay rights advocacy organization Garden State Equality, said he expects gay couples to be able to get married in New Jersey within two years.
Come on, Shakers
Libby Spencer's blog, The Impolitic, is the only progressive finalist in the Weblog Awards Best of the Top 2501 - 3500 Blogs. She's in a distant third at the moment, but not so distant that we can't make up most of the ground she needs to cover. So head on over and help her pull out a progressive victory!
And Shaker Deborah Lipp (Property of a Lady) is only 150 votes out of the lead. Surely we can move her into first, no?!
Also, Daily Kos is losing to Little Green Footballs by like 120 votes at the moment for Best Blog. Seriously—that's heinous. Even if you don't love Kos, you can't let LGF fricking win.
In another dead heat, don't forget to cast a vote for Michael Berube for Best Educational Blog.
And remember to vote for Kona, The Moderate Voice, Pam, Tom Watson, Crooks and Liars, and Geeky Mom or Blue Gal. Lots of categories with multiple blogs for whom to vote, too, like the Top 250—Feministe v. Orcinus! Oy. I'm doing lots o' vote splitting…
And while you're there, don't forget to vote for Shakes, even though we have no chance of winning!
(If I forgot to mention anyone, let me know in comments...)
No matter what happens, be afraid
So if we let terrorists run around loose, we can expect attacks against our lives, property, and interests.
And if we capture terrorists and they become ill while rotting in our jails, we can expect...well, much the same thing.
How about if we just kill them instead of capturing them? Would that endear us to their survivors? Probably not.
So I guess the message behind the FBI's Omar Abdel-Rahman warning - well in advance of any actual intelligence - is "be afraid no matter what the hell happens."
Useful. Okay. Got it.
(Fearfully cross-posted.)
The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny
Passed on by Angelos, who calls it a "phenomenally geeky YouTube masterpiece," which doesn't even begin to describe how totally fucking awesome this shit is.
Just a Thought...
Seed Magazine: "A U.S. study has found that neural stem cells repair damaged brain tissue in laboratory mice far better than previously believed, a finding that could translate into treatment for stroke and other trauma."
It occurs to me that with Traumatic Brain Injury outpacing amputations almost two to one and 28% of patients at Walter Reed suffering from a brain injury, perhaps the best way to support our returning troops is to also support stem cell research.
Yet, I think you'll find that there's a lot of overlap between people who support the war and people who don't support stem cell research. Like our president, for a start.
Immigrant Hysteria: Update
I've been trying to find some information on the story about which Spudsy posted yesterday, and it's hard to come by, let me tell you.
Redd Turtle pointed to this story which includes the ominous passage: "Lawyers for the United Food and Commercial Workers filed papers in federal court in Denver yesterday saying that the arrests of the Greeley workers violated their constitutional rights. The filing says that those arrested are being denied access to lawyers and that their whereabouts are unknown."
I also found this story out of Dallas which begins with a scarily honest lede: "Stymied by Congress and a divided public, federal authorities are launching a new assault on illegal immigration: accusing workers of hijacking the identities of unwitting U.S. citizens." Who needs immigration laws and public support when you've got stormtroopers and secret detention centers?
Tuesday's raid, which was "the government's single-largest worksite-enforcement operation ever" and has completely torn apart families and towns, seems to be in large part a way of blackmailing Congress into passing legislation the administration wants.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff used Tuesday's action to call once again for congressional action to overhaul immigration-enforcement tools. At the same time, he said, Operation Wagon Train – as the 10-month investigation was known – should serve as a deterrent to illegal immigrants.It's a very dangerous game the administration is playing. Swift & Co., whose plants in six states were raided Tuesday, is the US' #3 beef processor. Like our produce industry, America's meat industry is heavily dependent on exploiting illegal workers. That's the deal with the devil we made to keep our food costs so low, and now the administration wants to undo that deal to satiate its hysterically anti-immigrant base—but they don't seem to realize or care that you can't break that sort of bargain without the devil getting his due. Rid the American food industries of illegal workers and food costs skyrocket. And then so do the poverty levels.
"I'm pretty much going to guarantee you we're going to keep bringing these cases," Mr. Chertoff told reporters. "We're going to try to make it inhospitable to break the law here."
Which is maybe the whole idea—creating a class of Americans willing to work for slave wages to replace the Mexican and Central- and South American workers we're disappearing from our workforce.
Shorties
Michael Crichton is a revengeful shithead, the Fox News Douches are heartless, Bush has created a comprehensive catastrophe across the Middle East, and the Pope is gay.
It's my money, more or less
Worth more as scrap metal than as currency
I can put my money in a savings account. Preferably one that accrues interest.
I can put it in a traditional IRA account, or perhaps a Roth IRA account. For the return, you know.
I can invest it in penny stocks or government bonds...and would hope to make a little something.
I can lend it to friends and ask for interest back (bad idea, though).
I can give it to the poor and claim it as a tax deduction.
I can blow it at the track in hopes of a big payoff.
I can do anything I want with my own money - earned by dint of labor, a recognized and valid commodity - with the intent of making some kind of profit on the activity...
...except, apparently, to melt and sell it.
(Cross-posted for just pennies a word...)
God's Word Up, Yo
One of the things I find most hilarious about the "War on Christmas" is that its warriors seem to think that secular progressives present the biggest threat—but it seems to me that suggesting "Happy Holidays" is a nice way to acknowledge not everyone in America is Christian could never be as devastating to "the reason for the season" as, uh, this, for instance:
CANTON, Georgia — Yo! Christmas Eve will be Christmas morning at the Ridge Stone Church.
The Canton church is turning to rap music and the internet to get out the word about the unusual time for its Christmas Eve services. … The church meets in a movie theater and it will be unavailable on Christmas Eve. So Pastor Gary Lamb donned a pimped out Santa outfit, started rapping and put the whole thing on video. He’s joined by a crew of elves you wouldn’t see in any other rap video.
Alarming. Personally, I'm just offended by how much it sucks.
Not to get all "technical" and shit, but I'm pretty sure Santa isn't in the Bible. And, it's been awhile since I attended a Christmas church service, but I'm also fairly certain that there were no elves at the manger. Anyway…
[N]ot all the response has been positive.Yeah, maybe not so much "less harsh" than "more sarcastic." Happy Holidays, Hos!
Some internet viewers think the video is racist. Others say it just isn’t in the holiday spirit.
"This is for a church? How is Santa shaking his arse at the camera an appropriate advertisement for a church, exactly?" wrote one critic on the web site.
Others are less harsh.
One viewer wrote, "This video is off da hook."
(Thanks to Misty for passing that along.)
World's Tallest Man Saves Two Dolphins
from Inner Mongolia with 41.7-inch arms...
...reaches into dolphins' stomachs...
...to remove life-threatening pieces of plastic the dolphins
nibbled off the edge of their pool at an aquarium.
Cool.
Common Sense Ruuuulz
ATLANTA - The Georgia Board of Education voted Thursday to uphold a local school board's decision to leave Harry Potter books on library shelves despite a mother's objections.Countdown to Mallory's next attempt: 10, 9, 8...
The board members voted without discussion to back the Gwinnett County school board's decision to deny Laura Mallory's request to remove the best-selling books.
Mallory, who has three children in elementary school, has worked for more than a year to ban the books from Gwinnett schools, claiming the popular fiction series is an attempt to indoctrinate children in witchcraft.
"It's mainstreaming witchcraft in a subtle and deceptive manner, in a children-friendly format," said Mallory, who is considering a legal challenge of the board's ruling. "The kind of stuff in these books — murder and greed and violence. Why do they have to read them in school?"
Gwinnett school officials have argued that the books are good tools to encourage children to read and to spark creativity and imagination. Banning all books with references to witchcraft would mean classics like "MacBeth" and "Cinderella" would have to go, they said.
Rapture Ready and Super Smart
Shaker David found this delightful screed about "sexual perversions" on the Rapture Ready message board and passed it along for our collective amusement. Says David: "One of the words there...doesn't mean what she thinks it means."
I do not believe that homosexuality, bi-sexuality, transexuality, transgender, etc. is anything other than sin. It's not some "mistake" that God made in their creation, it isn't genetic. If it was genetic, other sexual perversions would be also, including pedophilia, beastiality, necromancy, etc. If it was genetic, why would God damn those who suffered from this to hell and call it an abomination? Why damn those who never had a chance anyway?I have a confession to make, Shakers. I was once…touched…by a necromancer when I was a child. He…he…turned me into a toad!
I think the word for which our dear author was fumbling is "necrophiliac," and the distinction she's missing is "consent."
Lettuce Poison You
Like Bill Stickers, green onions are innocent! Lettuce is the dirty E. coli culprit:
Lettuce was the most likely source of an outbreak of E. coli linked to Taco Bell, federal health officials said Wednesday.This is my favorite part of the article:
…Investigators do not know if the suspect Taco Bell lettuce was distributed to other parts of the country. The lack of further cases suggests it was not, Acheson said.
Investigators had considered cheddar cheese and ground beef as well. They said Taco Bell’s menu, which offers various combinations of the same ingredients, made it difficult to pinpoint the source of the contamination.No way, man! Taco Bell is all about the variety! Some of their shit has shredded cheddar cheese, and some has melted nacho cheese! The same ingredients. Puh-lease!
In all seriousness, this makes me fairly nervous. I mean, no one cooks lettuce. If you eat it, you're eating it raw. I don't like that consuming anything uncooked seems increasingly to be a dodgy proposition.
