I can't recall when I've seen so many unhappy reps. And he bashed the
press too. He salted the earth after scorching it. Colbert rocks and has
Giant Brass Balls.
WASHINGTONA blistering comedy "tribute" to
President Bush by Comedy Central's faux talk show host Stephen Colbert
at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and
Laura Bush unsmiling at its close.
Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the
2700 attendees, including many celebrities and top officials, with the
help of a Bush impersonator.
Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show
character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the
Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on
reality, "and reality has a well-known liberal bias."
He attacked those in the press who claim that the
shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on
the Titanic. "This administration is soaring, not sinking," he said. "They are re-arranging the deck chairs--on the Hindenburg."
Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests
by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to
Rocky Balboa in the "Rocky" movies, always getting punched in the
face -- "and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world."
Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the
government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by
these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."
He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd,
as well as " Valerie Plame." Then, pretending to be worried that he had
named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, "Uh, I mean...
Joseph Wilson's wife." He asserted that it might be okay, as prosecutor
Patrick Fitzgerald was probably not there.
Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, "photo ops" on aircraft carriers and at hurricane disasters, and Vice
President Cheney shooting people in the face. Observing
that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president
decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no
matter what happened Tuesday."
Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he
was "surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country,
except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides - "the
president's side and the vice president's side." He also reflected on
the good old days, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story.
Addressing the reporters, he said, "You should spend
more time with your families, write that novel you've always wanted to
write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to
the administration. You know - fiction."
He claimed that the Secret Service name for Bush's new
press secretary is "Snow Job." Colbert closed his routine with a video
fantasy where he gets to be White House Press Secretary, complete with
a special "Gannon" button on his podium. By the end, he had to run from
Helen Thomas and her questions about why the U.S. really invaded Iraq
and killed all those people.
As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over,
the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and left
immediately.
E&P's Joe Strupp, in the crowd, observed that
quite a few sitting near him looked a little uncomfortable at times,
perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting--or too much
speaking "truthiness" to power.
Asked by E&P after it was over if he thought he'd
been too harsh, Colbert said, "Not at all." Was he trying to make a
point politically or just get laughs? "Just for laughs," he said. He
said he did not pull any material for being too strong, just for time
reasons.
Helen Thomas told Strupp her segment with Colbert was "just for fun."
Perhaps the best part was when they panned the audience and you could
see the stone-faced repubs. Bunnypants has never had someone punk him
like that in public. This one goes in the vault.
The Smothers Brothers must be giggling - at last justice for the
bravery of comic geniuses. You might recall that the Brothers were
cancelled after Pete Seeger sang "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy". I remember being very angry at the injustice of it all,
but tonight - justice has been served.
The silence was priceless. And Stephen just marched on, driving the
nails in further. A must-see! My favorite: "The President stands for
things. He stands on aircraft carriers. He stands on rubble. He stands
in abandoned, flooded city squares. There's no place he won't stand for
a photo op."
CIA Chief Drawn Into Hill Sex Probe? Sweeney Puts "Party" In Grand Old Party and since Cunningham swung both ways, were the prostitutes male or female? Inquiring minds want to know. Finally! Hookers and sex. Impeach Porter Goss!!
The wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham
may not have limited his good times to partying on a rented yacht. It
turns out the FBI is currently investigating two defense contractors
who allegedly provided Cunningham with free limousine service, free
stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free
prostitutes.
The two defense contractors who allegedly paid most of the bills, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from
their connections with Cunningham. The Journal
also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I've learned
from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the
FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence
comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence
post. I've also been able to learn the name of the limousine service
that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties:
Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia.
Wilkes, I've learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine
service.
It gets
even more interesting: the man who has been identified as the CEO of
Shirlington has a 62-page rap sheet (I recently obtained a copy) that
runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petty
larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more.
Curiously—or perhaps not so curiously given the company's
connections—Shirlington Limousine is also a Department of Homeland
Security contractor; according to the Washington Post, last fall it won a $21.2 million contract for shuttle services and transportation support. (I tried to contact Shirlington
but was unable to get past their answering service.)
As
to the festivities themselves, I hear that party nights began early
with poker games and degenerated into what the source described as a
"frat party" scene - real bacchanals.Apparently photographs were taken,
and investigators are anxiously procuring copies. My heart beats faster
in fevered anticipation.
Expect further details to emerge . . .
Scarborough tonight leads with the Wilkes/prostitution scandal. One of the
issues the Republican used against Clinton was the threat of blackmail,
not just from Monica, but from anyone who knew about it. The perception
is that once a Lobbyist has "something" on you, it's cheaper to
blackmail you than to bribe you.
MZM bought Goss and Cunningham prostitutes and Katherine Harris must have stole their makeup.
Once upon a time we had a great wartime president who told Americans
they had nothing to fear but fear itself. Now we have George W. Bush,
who uses fear as a tool of executive power and as a political weapon
against his opponents.
Franklin
D. Roosevelt tried his best to allay his nation's fears in the midst of
an epic struggle against fascism. Bush, as he leads the country in a
war whose nature he is constantly redefining, keeps fear alive because
it has been so useful. His political grand wizard, Karl Rove, was
perfectly transparent the other day when he emerged from wherever he's
been hiding the past few months --
and gave the Republican National Committee its positioning statement
for the fall elections:Vote for us or die.
Why can't American women have the emergency contraceptive Plan B over-the-counter? Three words: "Teen sex cults." Actually, four words: "Mythical teen sex cults." Alas, I am too old to join a teen sex cult. Why didn't they have those when I was young? Oh wait, they don't have them now.
We've discussed the strange phenomenon of wingnut fascination with bestiality, specifically sex with dogs. And recently we've been treated to the ick inducing sight of seven year old girls dressing up in ball gowns and pledging to their fathers to remain "sexually pure" until daddy turns them over to their husbands.
Via
Septic Tank at Kos, here's another peek into the strange, disturbed
world of rightwing moralist sexual imagination: teen sex cults. It has
even infiltrated the hallowed halls of science at the FDA:
The FDA is only supposed to consider the safety and efficacy of drugs.
In the memo released by the FDA, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: "As
an example, she [Woodcock] stated that we could not anticipate, or
prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on
an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based
cults centered around the use of Plan B."
"This was the level of scientific discourse," Heller said
in an interview, referring to concerns attributed to Woodcock. "I find
it very odd that these people who are supposed to be responsible
scientists and doctors are making up wacky reasons."
They believe that the morning after pill is an abortion. But they would
be against it even if it weren't because it encourages promiscuity. Or
it allows men to exploit women. Or it's unsafe. Or it will give women
emotional problems. Or physical problems because women who have
abortions are more likely to die than women who don't. Except they
aren't. But no matter, even if that isn't true, there are always a
thousand reasons why women should not be allowed to have sex. Pick one and run with it.
"The
morning-after pill is a pedophile's best friend," Wendy Wright, senior
policy director for Concerned Women of America, a public policy
organization, said in a statement after learning of Galson's decision.
"Morning-after pill proponents treat women like sex machines."
Pedophiles
and sex-machines. Hoo baby. But hey, if it's fantasies of teen sex
cults that rev these gruesome, obsessive imaginations, have at it. It
would be nice if the scientists at the FDA got their jollies elsewhere,
however. This is important.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute reported: "The younger women are when
they first have intercourse the more likely they are to have had
unwanted or nonvoluntary first sex, seven in 10 of those who had sex
before age 13, for example."
This is given as a reason to avoid making Plan B available? That girls
are being forced into sex at a young age? Are they totally nuts? Let me go through that again.
The younger a girl is when she first has sex, the more likely that she
is to have not wanted it. Therefore we should make it easier for those
younger girls to get pregnant from those unwanted encounters?
Where do they come up with this stuff? [Scratches head] That's difficult to believe - when you enter "teenage sex cult" into Google, the hits are in seven figures...
OK then, Oppose Plan B[ackseat]! Coupes only!
Indeed. Certainly, SUVs encourage teen promiscuity too.
Tell The GOP To QUIT Messing With Al Gore's & My Internet
Phone
companies must treat all calls equally, regardless of where they come
from, where they're going, or what the callers are saying.
Historically, the same non-discrimination policy also covered Internet
communications.
Now, a handful of giant telecom companies and their allies in Congress are on the verge of abolishing net neutrality for broadband internet. (Video)
The telephone companies, which carried all of the Web
traffic until relatively recently, had to treat all of their calls
alike without giving any Web site or service favored treatment over
another. The result was today’s Internet, which developed as a
result of billions of dollars of investments, from the largest Internet
company that spent millions on software and networking, to the one
person with a blog who spent a few hundred dollars on a laptop. The
Internet grew into a universal public resource because the telephone
and cable companies simply transported the bits.
Last fall,
however, the Federal Communications Commission, backed by the U.S.
Supreme Court, decided that the high-speed Internet services offered by
the cable and telephone companies didn’t fall under that law, the
Communications Act. Out the window went the law that treated everyone
equally. Now, with broadband, we are in a new game without rules.
[TPMCafe]
How would the gutting of Network Neutrality affect you?
Google users—Another search engine could pay
dominant Internet providers like AT&T to guarantee the competing
search engine opens faster than Google on your computer.
Innovators with the "next big idea"—Startups and entrepreneurs
will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay
Internet providers for dominant placing on the Web. The little guy will
be left in the "slow lane" with inferior Internet service, unable to
compete.
Ipod listeners—A company like Comcast could slow access to iTunes, steering you to a higher-priced music service that it owned.
Political groups—Political
organizing could be slowed by a handful of dominant Internet providers
who ask advocacy groups to pay "protection money" for their websites
and online features to work correctly.
Nonprofits—A charity's website could open at snail-speed,
and online contributions could grind to a halt, if nonprofits can't pay
dominant Internet providers for access to "the fast lane" of Internet
service.
Online purchasers—Companies could pay Internet providers to
guarantee their online sales process faster than competitors with lower
prices—distorting your choice as a consumer.
Small businesses and tele-commuters—When Internet companies like
AT&T favor their own services, you won't be able to choose more
affordable providers for online video, teleconferencing, Internet phone
calls, and software that connects your home computer to your office.
Parents and retirees—Your choices as a consumer could be
controlled by your Internet provider, steering you to their preferred
services for online banking, health care information, sending photos,
planning vacations, etc.
Bloggers—Costs will skyrocket to post and share video and audio
clips—silencing citizen journalists and putting more power in the hands
of a few corporate-owned media outlets.
Blocking Innovation
Corporate control of the Web would reduce your choices and stifle the
spread of innovative and independent ideas that we've come to expect
online. It would throw the digital revolution into reverse. Internet
gatekeepers are already discriminating against Web sites and services
they don't like:
In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.
Shaw, a major Canadian cable TV company, is charging an extra $10 a month to subscribers who want to use a competing Internet telephone service.
In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
This is just the beginning. Cable and telco giants want to eliminate
the Internet's open road in favor of a tollway that protects their
status quo while stifling new ideas and innovation. If they get their
way, they'll shut down the free flow of information and dictate how you
use the Internet
This is an example of why we need to talk about common carriers. As
soon as we use that term, we hook into a legislator's existing body of
knowledge on the subject. We shift the ground from:
Having
the government tell a cable or phone company how to manage the pipes
that offer their clients Internet service would fare no better than
having the government tell Wal-Mart how to stock its lawn and garden
department.
... to: "Having the government tell
Internet carriers that they must treat all their clients neutrally
would fare as well as when the government said the same thing to the
railroads and then to the phone companies."
At that point, we're no longer in a debate on the merits. Most of them know that worked quite well. With them, we win, presumptively, and the burden is on the other side to open up a debate.
It is a globally known symbol: the golden arches can be seen in many
countries around the world. But whatever the fast food giant wants you
to believe the golden arches stand for, McDonald's today stands for
rainforest destruction. And that is one very 'Unhappy Meal' for the
planet.
Greenpeace said McDonald's Corp. was fueling the destruction of the
Amazon rainforest by using soybeans grown in the region as feed for
chickens that end up served in the fast-food chain's European
restaurants.
In a reported entitled, "Eating up the Amazon," the environmental
group said it has traced soy beans grown in illegally deforested areas
of the rainforest to McDonald's restaurants, as well as other
restaurant chains and supermarkets across Europe.
"Fast Food giants like McDonald's are trashing the Amazon for cheap
meat. Every time you buy a Chicken McNugget you could be taking a bite
out of the Amazon," Greenpeace forests campaign coordinator Gavin
Edwards said by telephone from London.
The
journey from rainforest to restaurant might sound simple enough but it
has taken a year-long investigation using satellite images, aerial
surveillance, previously unreleased government documents and
on-the-ground monitoring to expose. What we found was a global
trade in soya from rainforest destruction in the Amazon to McDonald's
fast food outlets and supermarkets across Europe.
"This crime
stretches from the heart of the Amazon across the entire European food
industry. Supermarkets and fast food giants, like McDonald's, must make
sure their food is free from the links to the Amazon destruction,
slavery and human rights abuses" Greenpeace forests campaign co-ordinator, Gavin Edwards.
Most of the global trade in
soya is controlled by a small number of massive traders: Cargill, Bunge
and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). In Brazil, this cartel plays the role
of bank to the farmers. Instead of providing loans they give farmers
seed, fertiliser and herbicides in return for soya at harvest: Bunge
alone provided the equivalent of nearly US$1 billion worth of seed,
fertiliser and herbicides to Brazilian farmers in 2004.
This
gives the companies indirect control over huge areas of land that used
to be rainforest. Together, these three companies are responsible for
around 60 percent of the total financing of soya production in Brazil.
Banks too have been caught up in the
destruction of the Amazon. The International Finance Corporation (IFC),
the private lending arm of the World Bank, wrongly assessed a loan to
Grupo Andre Maggi as being of 'low environmental risk,' despite
evidence to the contrary. Other banks have also lent huge sums of money
to the company without conducting their own environmental or social
impact audits.
So far, Rabobank, the Netherlands' biggest
agricultural bank has lent over US$330 million to Grupo Andre Maggi.
Rabobank admitted that it didn't do its own assessment of the risk of
the loans, simply accepting the (flawed) assessment of the IFC.
So fast food and supermarkets, soya traders and big banks are all trashing the Amazon rainforest. SHAME ON THEM!!!
The victims families, parents and a concerned public feels very strongly that sex offenses against our
nations youth are reaching an epidemic level. It is up to each citizen
to work together to bring about changes in our legal system that will
keep these predators far away from our children.
Missing since April 12, 2006, 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin was found
dead the evening of April 14, 2006 in neighbor Kevin Underwood's
apartment, within ten feet of her father's apartment - much closer to
home than anyone would have thought. The case of the red-haired, blue
eyed and freckled girl with glasses, wearing a blue sleeveless shirt
and pink shorts, and riding her purple bicycle was initially treated as
a possible runaway, then as a possible abduction by a man she met
online. She vanished after a trip to the library.
Police are not yet
certain whether Jamie and Underwood had chatted online, but are still
investigating and believe there is a strong possibility, due to a
statement from one of Jamie's friends. The FBI and OSBI are working on
the case along with local and state law enforcement, and have removed
two computers from the library that Jamie visited for inspection. An
Amber Alert was issued April 13, 2006 in Purcell, Oklahoma for Jamie
Bolin.
It has been reported that Kevin Underwood, after aiding in the search
for Jamie Rose Bolin, told authorities at a checkpoint near his
apartment that the media was wrong in the description of what Jamie had
been wearing when last seen. It is also reported that the night before
Jamie went missing, Kevin Underwood offered the use of the telephone in
his apartment for her to order a pizza, and on the day of her abduction
he allegedly lured her into his apartment with his pet rat and a Sponge
Bob Square Pants video.
Kevin confessed Friday to killing his 10-year-old neighbor,
Jamie Rose Bolin, telling FBI agents searching a container in his
apartment: "Go ahead and arrest me. She is in there. I chopped her up,"
police wrote in an affidavit. Kevin Ray Underwood, 26, intended to eat Jamie's body and had targeted other potential victims, police said.
Investigators
alleged Saturday that Underwood hit Jamie on the head three times with
a wooden cutting board, smothered her with his hand and duct tape,
tried to cut off her head and sexually molested her after she was dead.
Today is the day I refuse to allow the name of Jamie Rose Bolin
to be overshadowed by the evil of the perpetrator who viciously ripped
her from our midst.
Jamie loved Barbie dolls and her bicycle, puppies and kittens and all
of the other things 10-year-old girls like, according to her
grandmother, Rose Fox. The shine of her startling blue eyes were not
dimmed by the glasses she wore, and her impish grin will not be
forgotten. Rose said that she loved pillow fights with her sisters, and her infectious giggle and personality "could just light up a room."
It is a shame what the world is coming to when you cant trust your
neighbors. What the comunity is doing in her memory is great , but she
deserves much more.... she deserves to be alive with her family... i
dont know her but i will always remember .. god bless The important part is that her family has set up a memorial fund "The
Jamie Rose Bolin Memorial Fund", which can be contributed to at any Bank of Oklahoma.
Steve Huff writes about this case on his crimebloghere. Jules Hammer of the Duncan Crime Blog found Mr. Underwood's rather expansive web presence and posted the information to Steve's discussion forum. Optymyst of Look Who's Tattling Now took the baton, so to speak, and cached Mr. Underwood's (presently inaccessible) MySpace pages and also wrote a corresponding article here.
Within minutes of Jules' posting, visitors, both anonymous and named
were posting invectives under the comments sections of Mr. Underwood's
blogs. Understandably so. After all, a 26 year-old man had not only
kidnapped and murdered Jamie, but from news reports,
may have tortured her as well. For up-to-date details of this most
horrible crime, please refer to the aforementioned blogs, consider reading Mr. Underwood's primary blog.
Citizens
for a One Strike Law (CFAOSL) has filed Dylan's Law in honor of Dylan
Groene who was "allegedly" sexually brutalized and violently murdered
by Joseph Duncan III.Dylan's Law is a mandatory life sentence without
the possibility of parole for violent and predatory sexual crimes such
as kidnapping, to the vicious rapes and molestations of our young and
defenseless children.
Noonan inherently knows that the Bush ship is going down. She is vainly
trying to separate the conservative movement from Bush's sinking
ship. As November election approaches, I expect to see more rancor in the
ranks - and afterwards, lots of finger-pointing.
In
her column today, Noonan offered some commentary on the staff changes
at the White House and explained, with surprising candor, why moving a
few deckchairs around won't make a substantive difference.
George W. Bush, on the other hand,
does not tolerate dissent, argument, bitter internal battles. He is the
decider. He decides, and the White House carries through. He is loyal
to his aides, who carry out his wishes. (It is unclear whether this is
a loyalty born of emotional connection or one born of calculation: Do
it my way and the tong protects you.) His loyalty means they will most
likely not be fired or leaked against, no matter what heat they take
from the outside. And so his aides move forward with the sharpness and
edge of those who know their livelihoods and status are secure. Bruce
Bartlett has written of how, as a conservative economist, he was
treated with courtesy by the Clinton White House, which occasionally
sought out his views. But once he'd offered mild criticisms of the Bush
White House he was shut out, and rudely, by Bush staffers. Why would
they be like that? Because they believe that as a conservative, Mr.
Bartlett owes his loyalty to the president. He thought his loyalty was
to principles.
There are many stories like this,
from many others. It leaves friends on the outside having to
self-censor or accept designation as The Enemy. It leaves a
distinguished former government official and prominent Republican
saying, in conversation, "Those people aren't drinking the Kool-Aid,
they're sucking it from a spigot!"
The president has taken, those
around him say, great comfort in biographies of previous presidents.
All presidents do this. They all take comfort in the fact that former
presidents now seen as great were, in their time, derided,
misunderstood, underestimated. No one took the measure of their
greatness until later. This is all very moving, but: Message to all
biography-reading presidents, past present and future: Just because
they call you a jackass doesn't mean you're Lincoln.
Noonan explained her belief that the
staff "shake-up" is of little consequence because the president, as she
put it, "does not tolerate dissent, argument, bitter internal battles"
the way an informed president should. Noonan
concludes that it's less important for the staff to change and more
important for Bush to broaden his base of information by tolerating
"dissent, argument, ambiguity." This, she argues, would be more
meaningful progress for the Bush White House, as opposed to shuffling
around a few staffers, which is, as Noonan put it, is merely the
"appearance of change."
My only point would be is that the conservatives (at least, the
libertarian, small-government, fiscal conservative ones) have a right
to cut Bush et al loose. Rove and Addington have not governed this
country as conservatives, they have just used the Republicanite party
and the residual conservative leanings of the American people from the
Reagon era to seize power and enrich their friends while trying to
recreate the imperial presidency of Richard Nixon.
First, I'm not at all comfortable
agreeing so much with Noonan, but today I'll make an exception. Second,
I think Noonan may soon be taken off the White House Christmas-card
list and won't be invited down to the ranch.
Ok, this is just creepy. I find it ironic that many
conserviative christians look down their nose at Muslims for
subjugating women, and then participate in ceremonies affirming that a
woman is a wedding gift to her husband! It seems to me that the only
difference between this and a burkha is a matter of degree.
Responding to the odd, disturbing nature of the Father-Daughter Purity Ball, about which I posted below, PZ Myers says:
"Daddies
of the world, keep your hands off your daughter's sexuality, OK? Raise
them to be independent and thoughtful and informed and able to make
their own decisions, and then just trust them."
That
sounds like common sense to me. Girls pledging to their dads to stay
virginal in ritualistic ceremonies just doesn't seem like a healthy
thing to do. It's striking how young many of these girls are, some look to be no more than seven.
Apparently, this is common. Here's a testimonial from Generations of Light magazine:
"How
can you measure the value of your eleven year old looking up into your
eyes (as you clumsily learn the fox-trot together) with innocent,
uncontainable joy, saying, 'Daddy, I'm so excited!' wrote Wesley Tullis
in a letter describing his grateful participation. 'I have been
involved with the Father-Daughter Ball for two years with my daughters,
Sarah and Anna. It is impossible to convey what I have seen in their
sweet spirits, their delicate, forming souls, as their daddy takes them
out for their first, big dance. Their whole being absorbs my loving
attention, resulting in a radiant sense of self-worth and identity.
Think of it from their perspective: My daddy thinks I'm beautiful in my
own unique way. My daddy is treating me with respect and honor. My
daddy has taken time to be silly, and even made a fool of himself,
learning how to dance. My daddy really loves me!"
I
can understand why the little girls would want to do this. It's a
chance to dress up and spend time with their father. If it were for
another purpose, it might be sweet. But this is what that little girl
is reading to her father from that card:
I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give
myself as a wedding gift to my husband. ... I know that God requires
this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my
faithfulness.
And this is what Daddy says in turn:
I,
(daughter’s name)’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as
her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in
my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity
and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as
the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to
influence generations to come.
He's the "high priest" in his home. Are we getting the picture?
What about the sons and the lack of mother-son purity
pledges. Commenter Llamajockey hits the nail on the head with this:
The
truth is is that in most Red-State/Fundy households the Dad is just as
obsessed if not more so with the possiblity of his young son being gay
as with his daughter's virginity. Therefore teenage males feel an acute
pressure beyond their already out of control hormones to prove their
heterosexuality. That is why athletic over anything resembling academic
or intellectual, acheivement is so highly prized. It improves the young
man's standing in the eyes of the young females and reassures Dad his
son can not be gay. However, with it comes a double edge, for the young
man is now supposed to act the role of stud.
Virgin girls and studly boys. Can we all see the problem with this?
"Virgin girls and studly boys" means there is going to be a class of
girls for those boys who are by definition not virgin; my prediction is
they won't be white and they won't be middle-class, and the family
values creeps will go out of their way to be sure they won't be
protected or respected. I wonder what the sisters of the Duke lacrosse
players are like.
Aside from the creepiness, these little girls can't possibly have any
idea what they're promising. What does any 7-year-old girl know about
either virginity or sexuality?
And, what happens when an 18-year-old girl regrets her decision made at 11 and gets herself laid?
Are we like, one step away from honor killings? Because, here we are
seeing girls treated as though they are family property. I would assume
they are trained to grow up and be property of the husband?
Looks like we are a heartbeat away from chastity belts. This is unbelievable.
What a wonderful thing for a girl to feel secure in her father's love.
The time
will come in the lives of these girls when this intrusion will cause
confusion and sexual tension. But of course the purity ball is not about that. It's about Daddy as
controlling and judgemental. It is also about Daddy having an unhealthy
fixation and idealization of his daughter as a sexual object.A healthy reaction to this may be a
rejection of the father and his proscribed behaviors.She might then
find herself looking for love in all the wrong places.
If
a girl is to truly be celebrated, let it be for her spirit, mind and
accomplishments. If she is valued by her family for her humanity, she
will value herself. Let her sexuality blossom unconciously in the
context of full personhood, rather than the defining characteristic of
what she offers in theway of gifts to the world. Please!
WASHINGTON 
The wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman 
We've discussed the strange phenomenon of wingnut fascination with 
Art Brodsky explains:
In
her column today, Noonan offered some commentary on the staff changes
at the White House and explained, with surprising candor, why moving a
few deckchairs around 
Responding to the odd, disturbing nature of the 