The Lasso of Truth

Pinup Delayed

I've got a boat load of chores to do, so it will be a Monday morning pinup tomorrow.  For now, have another chuckle at the rapid depletion of all of Obama's political fortunes...

Courtesy of the Ottawa Sun

Like watching a chess match between Bobby Fischer and a retard

I don’t know much about Sarah Palin, but I do know that having John McCain – the old white guy with a record of experience longer than Moses – choose a fresh-faced, solidly decent young woman as a running mate, strikes me as a move of sheer brilliance on exactly the opposite pole of the Biden pick made by the Great White Hoper.

Just watch the Obama campaign hemorrhage Hillary voters now.

Women who act like spoiled little girls

Right Wing News propelled me down memory lane today, with this post on wives who scold their husbands in front of perfect strangers.  Each one of us has met at least one.  Some are blatant and some are a little more subtle, but all of them come from the same sense of hyper-feminized entitlement superiority-complexed class.  This is the same attitude that has led to the rise and prevalence of the dumb-daddy sitcoms that are verboten in my house.

I have met many women with various shades of this attitude, but one has always stuck out in my mind for the sheer audacity and mean-spiritedness of the perpetrator.

It was about 11 years ago and I was the fill-in date for my best friend, at a wedding for one of the girls he went to college with.  Another friend of theirs was also invited to attend with his wife and since the wedding was a fair hike away, the 2 gents decided it would be most economical to carpool together.  I had never met either one of them before but I am a sociable person and a wedding always tends to put people in good spirits, so I figured it would be a good time.

The trip started out fine.  The gentleman was the quiet type.  Clearly, his wife was used to being the social butterfly.  She and I had a few light common interests and didn’t have too much trouble finding things to talk about but it wasn’t too long in that I started to get an inkling of something getting under my skin.

At first, I didn’t know what it was but after an hour or so, I started to notice the condescending and derogatory tone that frequently entered the conversation whenever she mentioned her husband.  It was little things…a mention of their cat lead to a discussion about how one day, he’d left the back door open and let it out, and how stupid that meant he was.  That’s right.  She called him stupid.  Many times.  Each time he’d pipe in to add to the conversation, she would contradict his point and admonish him for whatever she thought was stupid, wrong or just plain inappropriate, about what he said.  No wonder he was the quiet type.  Why open your mouth when you get treated like a child or a dolt – or both – every time?

It was obnoxious.  Worse yet, it was rude and inexcusably ignorant.

That pattern continued throughout the day, only getting worse as the group got larger.  By the end of the evening, it was all I could do not to shove my dessert fork down the woman’s throat.

How could a woman so blatantly humiliate the one man in the room who has dedicated his life to her?  How could she treat him worse than she would treat a total stranger?  What leads a woman to believe – for a second – that this kind of abuse is acceptable?  If he had done the same to her, she would have the support of everyone else around her and at least a dozen support groups and government esteem programs to tell her how unacceptable it was.  For him, nothing but left in the cold to grin and bear it -- suck it up and suffer.

It’s pathetic.

For 12 years they stayed married and for 12 years, she got steadily worse until finally one day, he’d had enough of being treated like the maid, the nanny and the dog and sought a life without the oppressive, abusive foul treatment of a woman who never deserved anything better than a swift punch in the mouth.

To me, it is bad enough to treat a loving partner this way, at all.  But to do so in front of others – family, friends and virtual strangers – is simply unforgivable.  What woman would be expected to tolerate it?  But men are expected to, all the time.  We make TV shows about it and everybody laughs.

Well, I don’t laugh.  And the man I know, who suffered for so long under this kind of soul-crushing treatment…he doesn’t laugh, either.  It’s not funny.  It’s not acceptable.  It shouldn’t even be tolerated.

A real woman doesn’t find it challenging to offer her husband the same respect and dignity that she expects from him.

A real woman wouldn’t need to dish out humiliation and insult to the man who loves her, in order to make herself feel important.

A real woman doesn’t commit to spending her life with a man she clearly regards as inferior and useless, just so she can spend the rest of their lives reminding him –and everyone else -- how superior she is.

A real woman finds it just a wee bit pathetic that so many women bitch and moan to everyone who will listen, about how useless and idiotic their husbands are.  It makes a real woman want to ask…if the man you married is so useless, what does it say about you that you tethered yourself to this so-called millstone for the rest of your natural life?

Or maybe he’s not so bad after all and the useless dolt is you, but you’re just smart enough to realize that a little shell game of diversion and distraction just might hide your own personal failings from the rest of us.  There’s nothing like using a loving partner as cover for your own character flaws.

Too many women ask “where have all the good men gone?”  The answer is…NOWHERE.  Most women are just too nasty and self-centered to recognize and appreciate one when they’ve got him.  That’s all.

I wake up every single day, profoundly grateful that I get to share my life with a man that I like, respect and can depend on more than anyone else I know.  It would break my heart if I ever gave him reason to doubt he was valued, appreciated and recognized for the outstanding man he is.

Too many women take for granted that they are entitled to be treated like princesses, without realizing it requires them to first haul themselves out of the gutter and do a little something to deserve such treatment.

I know I'm not the only woman who thinks this way.  Rachel Lucas issued a fantastic takedown here.  It's examples like this, that make me embarrassed to be a woman some days.

Weekend Pinup

Mikey and I were pleased and privileged to be invited by the Mayor of Mitchieville, to take part in Blogfest 2008.  Our gracious hosts, the Mayor and his lovely wife, put on a fine spread of home cooking and entertainment in a magical place where tree limbs and fruit literally fall from the sky!

We were very fortunate to be invited to share a few hours, a few drinks and a few words with fellow bloggers from all over the wilds of southern Ontario...Lisa, Mapmaster and Basil of The London Fog were there, along with Larry (with lovely wife, Carolyn) and Fenris from Dust My Broom and of course, the Mayor.  We were also graced with an appearance by blogging Juggernaut Kathy Shaidle and her charming hubby, Arnie.

It was a great time.  Thanks to all, for making us feel welcome.  Now, on with the pinup!

~ Conrad Black shares a bit of insight into Strip searches and fellow inmates.  Grace and aplomb, even under these conditions.  This is why I love him.

~ Seven years later, construction continues at the World Trade Center site.  What could they ever build there, that would matter now?

~ Jay Tea reminisces on Jo Biden's *ahem* challenging past.  It's the new brand of "hope and change" politics, doncha know?!  With a cynical, multi-decade politico vulture riding shotgun.

~ Conspiracy theories abound on why we haven't met aliens, yet.  Is the Earth quarantined?  Of course it is, silly!  Didn't you hear?  It's got a FEVER!!

~ An 8-year-old Saudi girl files for divorce from her 50+ husband.  And here I  thought prostitution was illegal in Saudi Arabia...I guess it's ok when it's your pre-pubescent baby girl you're pimping.

~ Too lame to resist...Carry A Big Sticker offers buttons and bumper stickers with non-divisive political slogans such as "Barack Obama & Joe Biden: The choice is black & white"  which is a novel approach for the candidate of colour-blindness.  There's more!  Such as the profound progressive commentary "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." brought to you by the twisted stoner who died face-down in a steaming pile of his own vomit -- Jimi Hendrix.  But nothing beats the button that wittily declares "VOTE Democrat: The ass you save may be your own"...

What's been keeping me busy...

For those who have expressed an interest in my household projects, the bunk bed to castle conversion is complete.  My own 2 hands, a few power tools, some imagination and the help of a couple good men...

...and to top it all off...a mirror garden for the little princesses...

 

I guess that makes me the evil Queen...or the wicked stepmother.

VP Biden

His record really speaks for itself.

My fondest memory of Joe Biden was during the Alito confirmation hearings, and the impression I got was of a sanctimonious, condescending blowhard with an obsessive affection for the sound of his own voice.

This should be an entertaining little wrinkle.  When not giving Castro-length speeches of his own, old Joe might be seen trying to wrestle the mic from his boss, to lament the lack of government oversight and intervention in everything.

Top 10 Essential Places to Have Sex

According to Playboy.  Here is their list, with my take on their selections:

1. In the car: "Is that the emergency break, or you?"
2. In the pool: Water play is always a lot of fun, but as ladies who have indulged in this kind of activity know, you spend the next week drip-drying.
3. The cinema: A larger-than-life sized cockroach in the Eaton Center cinema, convinced me that this isn't as sexy as it sounds.
4. Back of a cab: With the nicotine-saturated vinyl and a hygienically challenged "I used to be a doctor in Calcutta" Habib in the front seat?  How do you  spell sexy?
5. On a train: This could be fun if you add in "bent over the handrail of the caboose!"
6. In the woods: Crackling fire and a wicked rainstorm on the horizon...that takes me back ;)
7. In a nightclub: See cab comment above, but add in vomit and the perilous presence of stir sticks.
8. On a boat: As long as you don't fall in...right Mikey?!
9. A mile high: I haven't flown a lot...but my work needs more space than an airplane washroom allows.
10. On the beach: Sand is used as a corrosive agent for removing industrial paint.  That's all I can say.

Personally, none of these suggestions are shaking any rattles for me.  It's not that I'm a stiff, but they all seem to be rather cliche in an era when I can have a sex swing and a stripper's pole installed in my bedroom.

I suggest that anyone looking to shake things up a little in (or out of, as this case may be) the bedroom, use some of these ideas with a little imagination thrown in.  Abandon the cramped spaces inside the car, for the open air and exotic surface of the hood.  Climb up on the kitchen table...etc.

Good sex is all in your head, anyway.  The rest is just geography.

*picture added post-publishing, at the behest of regular reader, Proof.

A different breed

An 8-year-old dog, in the middle of an Argentinian shanty town, manages to find the moral decency that still alludes most Liberals and pro-choicers...

An eight-year dog has touched the hearts of Argentines by saving the life of an abandoned baby, placing him safety alongside her own new puppies.

Conservatives eat kittens and murder babies

The opposition leader reveals his "toss it all and see what sticks" approach to blame and recrimination...

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion accused Conservative cabinet ministers yesterday of taking the same pro-industry approach to food safety that he says was ultimately responsible for the tainted-water deaths under their watch in Walkerton, Ont.

With the Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Toronto meat-processing plant closed in a nationwide outbreak of listeria infection, Mr. Dion accused the government of wanting to walk away from the "core" responsibility of food inspection in favour of privatization. He named former Ontario Progressive Conservative ministers Jim Flaherty, John Baird and Tony Clement as key supporters of privatization.

"It's unacceptable," Mr. Dion told reporters during a stop in Toronto. "These are the same people - Mr. Flaherty, Mr. Baird, Mr. Clement - who are responsible [for] what happened in Walkerton, who privatized [Ontario's] propane inspection, and they want to do something equivalent about food inspections, which is at the core of what the government should do.

While Maple Leaf is still investigating what the cause of the Listeria outbreak is, Dion is already quite certain the Conservatives are at fault.

After all, everybody knows that Conservatives poison people in their sleep and pad their mattresses with the cash payouts from big-bad corporations. 

And Walkerton may have occurred while the Conservatives were at the helm, but I never did understand why the government got saddled with the lion's share of the blame for the actions of a couple of drunks who falsified samples and documentation and jumped through many hoops to dupe the system, to cover up their own negligence.  It must be that odd bent I have toward assuming each person is responsible for his own actions, and such.

Damn Conservatives.  Damn them!

'Cause everybody knows that not a single soul ever died while a Liberal was in power.  They simply wouldn't allow it.

To which I can only offer a hearty "Hell, ya!"

Via Kathy, comes the first post this year that has inspired me to jump up in my cubicle and surprise my co-workers with a whoop of approval and camaraderie with a kindred spirit...

The country I was born and raised in, is not this place called Canada. I was born under a different flag than the red leaf and tampon. Where I grew up, criminals lived in fear. Wife beaters were beaten up by the police … that was their job. Being incompetent, lazy, stupid, or a creep was not a ticket to social housing, welfare, and free dental care. Being a bastard was not considered good. Anybody who worked hard and demonstrated effort was rewarded with respect and opportunity. Abortion was not birth control. Our murder rate was a fraction of the Americans. Our foreign enemies feared us. Our churches helped the few poor we had. Men spoke their minds. People who said stupid stuff, we considered stupid. Being a loser was not a way to generate jobs for people who enabled losers.

Outstanding.

Negligent Omnipotence

Finally, a call for some accountability from the bench…

Two weeks after Katelynn Sampson's tragic death, the NDP justice critic has filed a complaint against the judge who awarded custody of the girl to her accused killer.

Justice Debra Paulseth demonstrated a "cavalier and overly casual" attitude during all three custody hearings involving the 7-year-old, Peter Kormos said.

There were "signs, warning signals, alarm bells" the judge should have picked up on, he said, citing court transcripts from the hearings that transferred custody from Bernice Sampson to her friend Donna Irving, 29.

[..]

The judge "didn't follow the law as it's written," the MPP said, pointing to a section of the Children's Law Reform Act that compels judges to consider the best interests of a child.

When a judge is in a position where they are rarely called to account for their decisions and never held responsible for the ramifications of their rulings, what compels them to exercise any measure of due diligence?

Our most recent foray into the family justice system in this province, taught both Mikey and I a valuable lesson in the perversion of justice that is inherent in an overburdened system that relies on subjective reasoning and biased favoritism over law, reason, justice and sadly, the best interests of children.

When a demonstrably dishonest, abusive, manipulative wretch can retain custody of the children, despite hundreds of pages of documented evidence of lies, obfuscation, subversion and abuse; when a judge glosses over the clear and flagrant violation of a mediated divorce agreement and a ratified court order; when he openly suggests in a courtroom that though the law requires joint custody to be truly joint, he personally gives more weight to the wishes of the residential parent – even when that parent selfishly and callously disregards their children’s interests in favor of their own twisted wants and needs; when a perfectly loving, responsible parent who has never violated a single term in their agreement, who has never subverted the children’s interests and who has never neglected the responsibilities of caring for their children, loses what should have been an open and shut case, it becomes quite clear what the priorities really are in family court.

Katelynn Sampson is just the latest and most tragic victim of a system that cares not one whit for the best interests of children.  And when the only recourse in the wake of an unjust decision, is an extensive and costly appeals process, bad decisions stand and provide precedent for many more bad decisions, leaving good parents and long-suffering children out in the cold.

Frankly, until more judges are forced to account for their negligence, nothing will change.  It is a surprise to see a complaint of this sort, launched by an NDPer, but it is a movement that is a long time coming and should earn the support of every member of parliament who cares for more than lip service to justice for families, in this country.

Roseanne Barr - Class with an emphasis on the "ass"

Proving once again, that any stomach-stapled, class-deficient, mealy-mouthed has-been with a blog, can still offer insightful commentary on the socio-political world at large...

Jon Voight is a frightened little girl in a pink ballet tutu, who acts like Obama just wandered in from the rain forest with a bone thru his nose and a communist pamphlet in his loincloth. The neocons who own jon voight and make him dance on the chabad telethons are the worst most elitist people on earth. glen beck and jon voight are their bitches... both of them are used tampons who must be flushed down the toilet immediately! jon voight your evil spawn angelina jolie and her vacuous hubby brad pitt make about forty million dollars a year in violent psychopathic movies and give away three of it to starving children trying to look as if they give a crap about humanity as they spit out more dunces that will consume more than their fair share and wreck the earth even more. (just sayin').

But I just gotta ask, Rosie...what have you got against tutus?  I'd says yours was the definitive performance in that Disney movie...

Clearly holding tutus in the same contempt as proper grammar and oh, I dunno...sanity.

h/t

Words Fail

Xing, a 41-year old man, was wandering through LanTian park in Honk Kong late one night when he thought to himself, "I should stick my penis in a steel park bench, you know, for the Olympics." And that's what he did. Unfortunately, mid-coitus Xing realized he was stuck and called the police using his cell phone.

When police arrived, Xing was moaning in pain and stuck face down to the bench. They tried several penis-liberating options (including taking blood) before sawing the entire bench off and taking it to the hospital. 4 hours later Xing had his penis back, sans giant metal bench attachment. Good thing too, because doctors said one hour longer and they would have chopped his member off.

Seems to me most guys carry around the best tools for this job wherever they go, and shouldn't really need to resort to this kind of *ahem* creativity.

At the very least, I hope their Tetanus shots are up to date.

The home of great personalities!

It's a novel approach to the problem of how to attract new residents to your home(ly) town...

The mayor of a remote Australian mining town has come under fire after saying that female "ugly ducklings" might benefit from its shortage of women.

John Molony told a newspaper last week that "with five blokes to every girl, may I suggest that beauty-disadvantaged women should proceed to Mount Isa".

At least its a little more subtle than handing out paper bags at the town line.

Muslim Child Abuse

I'd give it its own category, but what else would I write about?

A 16-year-old Saudi girl drank a bottle of bleach in an attempt to commit suicide to escape a forced marriage to a 75-year-old man, press reports revealed Sunday.

The girl identified only as, Shaikha, said her father was forcing her to marry the old man so that he could marry his 13-year-old daughter in an exchange deal, Bahrain's Tribune reported.

Father as pedophilic pimp is a regular feature in most countries where Islam is in charge.

Weekend Pinup

I am sun-soaked (and burnt), from spending the day at the beach with the kids yesterday.  It was a nice break from the hectic pace of the last week, where it started to feel like work would never end!  It's hard to believe the summer is almost over and if that prick, Al Gore, gets his way it will be gone for good.

~ David Warren on the Untethered Russian Bear ..."Putin has generously removed all reasonable doubt about the kind of leadership he offers the "New Russia." It will be aggressive and intransigent, like the old, and spoiling for another massive historical disaster. (Recall: we went two rounds with Germany.)"

~ The geek in me goes for the astro-physics.  Occasionally, the right-wing hack in me gets rewarded, too.  A physicist relates the tale of a discussion of Theology with Robert Novak.

~ Behind the podiums and the medals, there is a side of China you won't see on your Olympic coverage...

"From street children, hawkers, the homeless and prostitutes, to the mentally ill, black migrants, drug dealers and gays caught in public bathhouses, the camps on the outskirts of the city started filling up with Beijing's 'undesirables' last year as part of the Chinese regime's determination to present what it sees as an acceptable face to the world.

It is all eerily reminiscent of the build-up to the 1936 Games in Berlin, when the government cleared similar 'undesirables' from the streets.

Under Hitler's regime many of the Nazi concentration camps bore the slogan Arbeit macht frei (Work makes you free) at their gates.

In China, the camps bear the slogan 'Re-education Through Labour'."

~ I started out in the Incomprehensible Intersections and ended up touring through the Nightmare Playgrounds.

North Korea in pictures

Even the pictures one is permitted to take, tell a story...

In the Grand People's Study House in Pyongyang, in the library, officials reckon there is room for 30 million books to be stored... but only a couple of thousand books are available. I asked for a book in french. The girl gave me a book called “Guide des stations thermales et climatiques de Roumanie” dating back from 1980, a guidebook about the spas in Rumania...
The North Korean people can access a CD library and hear the recordings on big ghetto blasters. The choice of CDs is not massive.
The man on the picture was listening to the latest Beatles record. You can also listen to the radio, but only the national one, because the tuner is blocked on the frequency...
You can listen to the radio, or watch TV too but only the national channel because the tuner is also blocked on the local frequency... On the left: you can watch TV. The local channels. Or some propaganda DVDs. !

A stunning gallery with insightful commentary.  A brief glimpse into a reclusive world.

Canadians are world class whiners

Colby Cosh lays it out...

Are we really that upset with China for descending to the moral level of The Tommy Hunter Show? It seems like an inappropriate occasion for giving brief, spastic rein to the real stirrings of our consciences --assuming our Socratic daimonia have even detected that we have all agreed to be professionally entertained on TV by the Chinese Communist Party, the greatest engine of mass murder ever devised by the human imagination. (At last, we have a plausible hint of what the world would have looked like in the long run if the Nazis had won the Second World War: the Eurovision Song Contest would be missing a few familiar entrants, like Poland and Austria, but the proles would still be watching it and arguing about it.)

The medal-count panic now spreading within Canada after a week of Games has also served to teach us something about ourselves, if we should bother to introspect. We tend to think of ourselves as very soft patriots by international standards -- relaxed and rational about our reputation, convinced that other nations are very impressed with us indeed...

The perfect gift

...for the friend who has everything...

..except Chlamydia.

Seriously.  Who are these people?

h/t

A Glaring Omission

In a news report on the latest Nazi-chic trend hitting Paris...

French prosecutors have opened an investigation after T-shirts carrying anti-Semitic slogans were seen on sale in a shop in Paris.

The tops carried slogans in German and Polish that translate as "Jews forbidden from entering the park".

They were reproduced from Nazi signs from 1940 that targeted the Jewish community in the Polish town of Lodz.

[..]

The sales assistant at the Parisian store, in the Belleville district, said one person had bought five of the grey, sleeveless garments for about 18 euros ($27) each.

She said she did not understand what the inscription meant.

The neighbourhood of Belleville in eastern Paris has been the site of ongoing scuffles between groups of Jewish youngsters and youths of North African origin.

Can you spot it?

Putting lipstick on the sow

Anyone who ever had any doubt that the original Olympic tradition of celebrating athletic achievement has been traded for the sham of a grotesque political sideshow, have only to refer to the fiasco that these most recent games have become...

A pretty girl who won national fame after singing at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was only miming.

Wearing a red dress and pigtails, Lin Miaoke charmed a worldwide audience with a rendition of "Ode to the Motherland".

But the singer was Yang Peiyi, who was not allowed to appear because she is not as "flawless" as nine-year-old Lin.

The show's musical director said Lin was used because it was in the best interests of the country.

The revelation follows news that a fireworks display used during the opening ceremony was apparently faked.

Speaking on Beijing Radio station, musical director Chen Qigang said the organisers needed a girl with both a good image and a good voice.  Yang Peiyi had the perfect voice but apparently not the perfect face.

They faced a dilemma because although Lin was prettier, seven-year-old Yang had the better voice, Mr Chen said.

So, along with media censorship, mass evictions and arrests, smog and the occasional random murder of a tourist, we can add to the list of notable Olympic events, the degradation of the opening ceremonies to the status of a Brittany Spears-style lip-sync debacle.

Tell me again, why anyone continues to give a rat's ass about this stoogefest, anymore?

***Ed. note -- Before I get any angry emails about calling this little girl a sow...the sow in the title is meant to refer to the wretched Motherland that exploited this little girl in such a calous way.

Old enemies and new war

More often than not, regional conflicts between old enemies involve so many menial complexities and subjective cultural influences that it makes them difficult to understand and follow.  For this reason, I'd rather defer the analysis to those who have more time and more interest than I, and that usually ends up being Rick Moran...

Russia has Georgia by the short hairs and can thumb its nose at the international community. Putin will prove the impotence of the United Nations once again (as if it matters to the legions of idiot enablers who still think the UN a place where grown ups solve the world’s problems) and, if he really wants to stick it to us, will engineer the overthrow of the pro western, pro-American Saakashvili and replace him with a toady. That would be as big a humiliation for the United States as was ever planned by the American left in Iraq.

Think of it; our closest and most valued ally in a region of the world that not only is strategically vital due to its oil and gas reserves but also serves as the backdoor to the Persian Gulf and Iran being summarily dismissed by Putin as if he were a grocery store clerk caught stealing a candy bar. What enormous satisfaction for Putin who has been chafing at the bit to assert Russian dominance in the region once again. Watching our impotent response to events in Georgia are other states in the Caucasus as well including the Ukraine which has its own issues with Moscow and could very well be next on Putin’s list.

...Who is not optimistic but I believe his assessment to be sound and reasonable by my amateur reasoning.

One thing is certain...Russia picked a good fight and a good time to wage it.  When -not if - they win, the decrepit old communist block and the hubristic KGB'er in charge will be licking their chops for more spoils, and they will have no reason to believe anyone will be willing or able to thwart them in those ambitions.

Toon tip to Townhall

PREPARE FOR EXTINCTION!

No, really.  He's serious...

Weekend Pinup

I am happy to report that thanks to a helpful suggestion from my good friend at the Proof Positive blog, I have been sleeping better these last 5 days, under the watchful eye of one tiny Melatonin caplet before bedtime.  Thank you, sir.  Both Mikey and my co-workers -- who were getting tired of my exhaustion-fueled crustiness -- are grateful for this tiny miracle.

~ Mikey brought my attention to this little gem from Rachel Lucas, highlighting a woman who, I think, can teach us all a little something about how to treat a man..."Yes, dear readers, it’s true: Maintaining some semblance of parity in your marriage requires you to deploy the same kinds of nasty tactics you swore you would never stoop to as a parent but nonetheless found yourself using the minute you actually had a kid. Bribery and punishment work; so do yelling and complaining. Threats are also effective, as long as everyone knows you mean business. With husbands, tender blandishments and nooky are particularly useful, as is the withholding of the aforementioned."  Hmmm...methinks Mikey might have caught a whiff of his former life when he read that.  Suffice to say that these helpful hints from an obvious harpy may work -- for a while -- but as at least one unfortunate harpy has learned, being a condescending, bossy, bitchy, miserable cunt to your husband really only gets you one thing in the end -- tossed, like last week's trash.

~ Japanese Love Hotels, for the horny little bugger who still lives with the folks but doesn't want to get up to nooky with his parents in the other room.  Mikey had a few shopping ideas from the Spider Room and was totally into the potential of the Subway Room...but Hello Kitty?!  As Kathy Shaidle frequently says...did we nuke 'em too much or not enough? 

~ Memo to breastfeeding shoppers:  Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  There is such a thing as discretion and wouldn't you prefer a quiet, bustle-free place to feed your baby, as opposed to the aisles of a retail store?  Last time I checked, the sign on the door said "no food or drink allowed".  Sheesh.  With an attitude like this prevailing, I guess Mikey's in luck the next time he gets the urge for a nibble, in line at Loblaws.

~ Mahmoud Darwish, apparently the world's most celebrated national Palestinian poet (whom I've never heard of), has died.  I'm sure it's unnecessary to comment on the irony of a man, who devoted his life's work to chronicling and advancing the often violent and virulently anti-American cause of Palestinian independence, passing away during a surgical procedure he was undergoing in Texas.

Exploring "gay genes"

The "wide stance" explained through an evolutionary perspective...

Biologists call it "sexually antagonistic selection," meaning a trait survives in one sex only because it is useful to the other. Nipples—useless to men, vital to women—are one example, and homosexuality may be another. By interfering with the masculinization of the brain, gay genes might promote feminine behavior traits, making men who carry them kinder, gentler, more nurturing—"less aggressive and psychopathic than the typical male," as Rahman and Wilson put it. Such men may be more likely to help raise children rather than kill them—or each other—and as a result, women may be more likely to choose them as mates.

In this way, over thousands of generations of sexual selection, feminizing genes may have spread through the male population. When the number of such genes exceeds a certain threshold in a man, they may flip the switch and make him want to have sex with other men. Evolutionarily speaking, that is bad for him. But for the women who are doing the selecting, the loss of a small number of potential mates may be a small price to pay for creating a much larger number of the kind of men they want.

What would Freud say about Mommy being the culprit in this little aberration, I wonder?

Camperio spent the next few years going to gay men and begging them to let him interview their mothers and aunts—a daunting task in deeply Catholic Italy. In the end, it took him three years to get 30 subjects. When he interviewed the women, though, he found they had fewer miscarriages, fewer infections, and used fewer contraceptives than the mothers and aunts of heterosexuals, though the differences were only slight. One difference, though, was not slight at all: The homosexuals' mothers and aunts had had between three and four times as many sexual partners. They seemed to really like having sex with men.

Hussies!  A little dash of this genetic promiscuity, mixed with a squirt or two of testosterone, and the rest of us are treated to gay bathhouses and group orgies in public parks.

Thanks Mom.

Now they've gone TOO FAR

Because a children's theme park and a beloved children's cartoon character are the perfect medium for inspiring a dialogue on torture...

Children's cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is being used as part of an art installation to protest against water-boarding as a form of torture.

The Water-boarding Thrill Ride by artist Steve Powers has been installed at Coney Island theme park in New York.

A sign on the outside shows SpongeBob saying "It don't Gitmo better!" - a reference to Guantanamo Bay - as another character pours water over him.

Aside from the pure stupidity of using a character who spends his life under water, to demonstrate the dangers and discomfort of using water as a torture method, what twisted freak decided this was an appropriate installation for a children's theme park?  What are these children to think, the next time they watch their favorite cartoon character filling his lungs with water and surfing on underwater waves?

And people wonder why kids seem to be getting more and more neurotic these days.

Welcome to the Lasso Lair

I currently have this sign on the front porch...

But I'm thinking of replacing it with this one, courtesy of engrish.com...

...For the kids across the street who don't think twice about playing a raucus pickup basketball game at 11:30 at night.

And the skinniness of the Cryptkeeper...

Rick Moran examines the multitude of creepiness factors, surrounding the slick charmster...

TOP TEN THINGS THAT CREEP ME OUT ABOUT OBAMA

10. It creeps me out that whenever Obama makes an appearance, the rain stops falling and the sun comes out. As a rationalist I am loathe to ascribe a direct cause and effect to this phenomenon except that it happens quite frequently and the rainbow created by the sun breaking through the clouds spells out “Yes We Can!”

Probably just a coincidence…

He puts the messiah's crack-pipe Stepford wife at #5 but based on the fact that every time she so much as mumbles, I get the urge to respond with "Yes Mistress" from around my ball gag, I would peg her closer to 2 or 3

...but that's just me.

With friends like these...

Charles Adler interviewed David Freddoso today, on his new book The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate and I was impressed enough to go on a hunt through Amazon to learn a little more.

Of course, already being an avid critic of The Great White Hoper, I have very little confidence this book would have any new revelations to offer, but my interest is certainly peaked when I see a customer review like this one...

do not waste your hard earned money, August 5, 2008 By M. HAMZA "worthless_war" garbage is the only thing I can compare with the book. It is stinky like hell. Wastage of money. Dump teh book and its author.

One is left to wonder how a demonstrable illiterate managed to read the novel he so crudely derides.

Thanks to M.(could it be Mohammed?) Hamza's eloquent and insightful comments, this book just might make the "next to read" list at the Lasso household.

I love stinky like hell...

Parenting Rule #1...

You're not first, anymore.  Your needs, wants and problems take a back seat to the needs of your children.  I shouldn't have to say it, anymore.

***

While Mommy was shirking her parental responsibilities to deal with "personal issues" -- which miraculously didn't prevent her from partying with friends at Caribana last weekend -- little Katelynn was being abused so badly by the long-term family friend charged with her care, that the autopsy took 6 1/2 hours "due to the "nature and severity of Katelynn's injuries".

Mommy wants to know "why my child?"  The answer is very simple...because absolutely NOBODY -- including her own mother -- made her a priority.

And now she's dead.  Like so many before her and still some people never learn.