What He Said

I love you, B. I really do. But Michael Moore has got a point (or several):

Dear President Obama,

How outstanding that you've been recognized today as a man of peace. Your swift, early pronouncements -- you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you've eliminated that useless term "The War on Terror," you've put an end to torture -- these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane direction.

But...

The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of what is quickly becoming your War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush's Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now. That's what a true man of peace would do.

There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do -- capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve -- just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free -- they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else's Humvee.

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Your opposition has spent the morning attacking you for bringing such good will to this country. Why do they hate America so much? I get the feeling that if you found the cure for cancer this afternoon they'd be denouncing you for destroying free enterprise because cancer centers would have to close. There are those who say you've done nothing yet to deserve this award. As far as I'm concerned, the very fact that you've offered to walk into the minefield of hate and try to undo the irreparable damage the last president did is not only appreciated by me and millions of others, it is also an act of true bravery. That's why you got the prize. The whole world is depending on the U.S. -- and you -- to literally save this planet. Let's not let them down.

This Week in Dog Poo

Breitbart:

A German lawmaker proposed on Monday a novel and high-tech way of dealing with the menace of dog poo on the streets: DNA testing to identify the canine culprit and fine its owner.

Peter Stein, a conservative politician in eastern Germany, told AFP that under his proposal, officials would test the excrement and then match it up to the offending dog using a DNA database of all pooches.

German dog owners are fined 30-40 euros (40-50 dollars) if they fail to clean up after their pets, but very few are caught, with only four fines given out in Stein's hometown of Rostock -- human population 200,000 -- last year.

"Just saying 'it wasn't my dog' will not wash any more," Stein said.

via Slog

Anti-Gay, Anti-Family

Dan Savage's 11.11.8 NYT OpEd:

Countless Americans, gay and otherwise, are still mourning — and social conservatives are still celebrating — the approval last Tuesday of anti-gay-marriage amendments in Florida, Arizona and, most heartbreaking, California, where Proposition 8 stripped same-sex couples of their right to wed. Eighteen thousand same-sex couples were legally married in California this past summer and fall; their marriages are now in limbo.

But while Californians march and gay activists contemplate a national boycott of Utah — the Mormon Church largely bankrolled Proposition 8 — an even more ominous new law in Arkansas has drawn little notice.

That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

Even before the law passed, the state estimated that it had only about a quarter of the foster parents it needed. Beginning on Jan. 1, a grandmother in Arkansas cohabitating with her opposite-sex partner because marrying might reduce their pension benefits is barred from taking in her own grandchild; a gay man living with his male partner cannot adopt his deceased sister’s children.

Social conservatives are threatening to roll out Arkansas-style adoption bans in other states. And the timing couldn’t be worse: in tough economic times, the numbers of abused and neglected children in need of foster care rises. But good times or bad, no movement that would turn away qualified parents and condemn children to a broken foster care system should be considered “pro-family.”

Most ominous, once “pro-family” groups start arguing that gay couples are unfit to raise children we might adopt, how long before they argue that we’re unfit to raise those we’ve already adopted? If lesbian couples are unfit to care for foster children, are they fit to care for their own biological children?

The loss in California last week was heartbreaking. But what may be coming next is terrifying.

Guns Don't Kill People

Parents who buy their 8-year-old son a .22 and teach them not to fear the weapon kill people.

From CNN:

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona (AP) -- A man who police believe was shot and killed by his 8-year-old son had consulted a Roman Catholic priest about whether the boy should have a gun and had taught him how to use firearms, the clergyman said.

Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, were found fatally shot in Romero's home Wednesday. The Very Rev. John Paul Sauter said the man, Vincent Romero, 29, wanted his son to learn how to hunt, but the boy's stepmother, Tiffany, suggested that he have a BB gun.
Police say the boy used a 22.-caliber rifle Wednesday to kill his father and another man, Timothy Romans, 39, of San Carlos.
Romero was an avid hunter who taught his son how to use a rifle to kill prairie dogs, said Sauter, of St. Johns Catholic Church.
"He wanted to make sure the kid wasn't afraid of guns, knew how to handle it," the priest said. "He was just too young. ... That child, I don't think he knows what he did, and it was brutal."
The boy, who faces two counts of premeditated murder, did not act on the spur of the moment, St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick said.

Utah Boycott Urged After Calif. Vote

From the Washington Post:

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 7 -- Utah's growing tourism industry and the star-studded Sundance Film Festival are being targeted for a boycott by bloggers, gay rights activists and others seeking to punish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its aggressive promotion of California's ban on gay marriage.

It could be a heavy price to pay. Tourism brings in $6 billion a year to Utah, with world-class skiing, spectacular red-rock country and the film festival founded by Robert Redford among popular tourist draws.

Gay rights activist John Aravosis, whose well-trafficked AmericaBlog.com is urging the boycott, is unapologetic about targeting Utah rather than California, where voters defined marriage in the state Constitution as a heterosexual act.

Utah, Aravosis said, "is a hate state," and on this issue, "at a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line. . . . They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards. You don't do that and get away with it."

cartoon via Slog

This Week in Facebook News

From BBC:

CROYDON, South London-

A man has been jailed for life for stabbing his wife to death over a posting she made on the social networking site Facebook.

Wayne Forrester, 34, told police he was devastated that his wife Emma, also 34, had changed her online profile to "single" days after he had moved out.

The Old Bailey heard Forrester drove to her home in Croydon, south London, and attacked the mother-of-two.

He stabbed her with a kitchen knife and a meat cleaver on 18 February.

I wonder what Forrester would have done if she was interested in "networking."


via Slog

The "Libertarian Conservative" has Successfully Reserved a Special Place in Hell for Himself

From Dan Savage, Slog:

Conservative blogger “”The Libertarian Conservative” created the above ad ..., and he says he’s only “doing exactly what the left is doing to Sarah Palin.” Yeah—remember how we lynched Sarah Palin? Good times. The bigoted blogger adds…

We’re at war folks, and I intend to fight this war until my dying breath. We’re at war against terrorists that want to destroy this country and everything it stands for and we are war against godless liberals who hate the very values and freedoms that this Nation was founded upon.

Well, the bigot blogger showed some restraint—he called lynching Obama “The Fucking Solution,” and not “The Final Solution.” Wouldn’t want to alienate those Jewish voters that McCain is gonna need in Florida.

Sure, McCain doesn't directly have anything to do with this hateful, disgusting, racist shit; but he sure isn't doing much to discourage it. This is utterly distressing.

image via Slog

Guns Don't Kill People: The Update

The 14-year-old boy who shot and killed a 54-year-old hiker he mistook for a bear has been charged with manslaughter.


via Slog

You, Holly Highfield, Are All Class

From News4Jax:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. --

Police recently arrested a woman they said deliberately hit a bike rider and crashed two separate cars, and then ran off naked.Holly Highfield faces DUI and several other charges after witnesses said she intentionally struck a bicyclist, took off her clothes and ran around the crash scene, then drove off the road while attempting to leave the scene in someone else's vehicle.Police said the incident occurred Sunday evening while Highfield, 34, was driving three children, ages 10 to 14.

Just after 8 p.m., officers were called to a report of an accident involving a pedestrian and a naked woman at the intersection of San Pablo Road and Pirate Court.The children in Highfield's car told police that she was driving north when she turned to them and said: "Do you think this biker is going to get hit? Do you have faith? Are you afraid?" They said she then steered her SUV across San Pablo and struck 55-year-old Cathy Giury riding a bicycle.

When a couple in a van stopped to see if the bicyclist needed help, Highfield allegedly got out of her vehicle, jumped into the van yelling that she was going to jail, ordering the man behind the wheel to drive her away. Police were told than when the driver refused, she got out, took off her clothes and began running around.

According to the police report, when the bystander got out to help the bicyclist, Highfield yelled at the passenger in the van to get out, then attempted to drive off, but left the road and struck a fence.When police arrived, Highfield was placed in the back of the patrol car. Officers said she became increasingly violent. When a female officer attempted to cover Highfield with a sheet, she was kicked.The arrest report indicates Highfield "appeared to be under the influence of some type of drug." It said she also urinated in the back of the patrol car.

Ack. The crazies, they are everywhere.


via Slog

Guns Don't Kill People

Guns fired by teenagers aiming at hikers mistaken for bears kill people.

OSO, Snohomish County — Troy Almli gave his mother a warning just before she headed off to Sauk Mountain on Saturday for a much-anticipated hike with a longtime friend.

"Be careful," he said. It was opening weekend of bear season, and "There'll be a lot of [people] with guns out there."

Pamela Almli, 54, brushed away his concerns.

An avid and accomplished hiker, she felt as safe and at home on the trails as just about anywhere.

But her son's fears were justified.

About 10:30 a.m., while Almli was bent over on a marked hiking trail, she was fatally shot by a 14-year-old boy who mistook her for a bear.

"How could anybody think a 5-foot-2 Swede was a bear?" Troy Almli said. "We just can't see it."

He said the family is not anti-gun or anti-hunting, but the shooting was befuddling. So his aunt and grandfather on Monday retraced his mother's last steps to see if they could make sense of the tragedy.

Police said the 14-year-old and his 16-year-old brother, both from Concrete, were dropped off in the Sauk Mountain area near Rockport, Skagit County, on Saturday morning by their grandfather, but he was not with them when the shooting occurred....

Wow. I guess grandpa thought leaving the firearm-wielding boys alone seemed like a good idea at the time. Yikes!

via Slog

Ride Your Bike to Work...

Get shot in the face.

From Columbia Dispatch:

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Toledo police say a man was shot and killed while bicycling to work for the first time to save on gas.

Police Capt. Ray Carroll says 46-year-old David Babcock was seen on a street having a heated argument with another man before he was shot around 5:30 Tuesday morning. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The coroner says Babcock took a bullet to the face that caused massive bleeding and hampered his breathing.

No arrests have been made. Authorities don't know the motive for the shooting.

Babcock survived surgery to remove a brain tumor 13 years ago. His fiance, Rene Long, says Babcock had put lights on his bike and wore a reflective vest so he would be safe on his inaugural, 8-mile ride to his job at Fresh Products Inc., a maker of air fresheners.

via Slog

Tsk Tsk, AshleyMadison

Is this what we're doing now? Seriously?


via Feministing

Random Police Violence at July 25 NYC Critical Mass

New York's finest. Word is that:

the cyclist in this video was arrested, held for 26 hours, and charged with attempted assault and resisting arrest. One other cyclist was ticketed Friday night for riding outside the bike lane, which is not actually illegal and often necessary, considering how popular bike lanes are for double parking.

via Slog

July 25 Critical Mass Melee: What He Said

In the interest of providing access to both sides of the story, the full account of the incident from the driver's point of view is available here. And now an excerpt:

While a some cyclists I’ve spoken with have written Mark off as another indignant road-hog, Mark says he actually used to be a bike commuter when he lived in Seattle a few years ago. “I sympathize with [cyclists’] cause. I ride bikes too. I’m a liberal hippie democrat,” he says, adding “I’m gay, the person with me was a lesbian and we were a attacked by eco-terrorists. It’s the most Seattle thing that could have happened.

Do you have any thoughts or experience with Critical Mass? What opinions do you have?

My consideration on this issue continues.

July 25 Critical Mass Melee

Critical Mass is a simple gathering of bike lovers who organize a regular monthly ride through city streets to assert their right to the roads. Critical Mass is not a formal organization or group although groups within individual cities decide to be as formal or as informal about their particular city's endeavor; instead, it is more of a concept meant to bring bike lovers together to celebrate their common interest in both their past time and their desire for safety and road space.

I'm certainly not exhaustively familiar with Critical Mass; you know any Critical Mass rides in my future will be many hours of bike riding down the road, literally and figuratively. I do know that I am upset about the melee during Seattle's most recent ride.

From KING 5:

A demonstration turned violent Friday night after a group of cyclists taking part in the Critical Mass demonstration got into an argument with a driver on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.

Critical Mass is a group of cyclists that takes to the streets the last Friday of every month to promote cyclists’ right to the road.

It’s wasn’t clear what sparked the confrontation at 15th and Aloha, but witnesses say they saw about a dozen cyclists surround a white Subaru, blocking in the driver.

Apparently, the driver felt intimidated and tried to back up to get away, but he backed into at least two cyclists.

He then tried to take off, but cyclists chased after him, bashed in his car window and assaulted the driver. The driver was taken to an area hospital.

From an actual eyewitness (a bystander):

I was just looking up news information about an event that I witnessed tonight and found a frighteningly misinformed article on the event on the King 5 news website. Their “Bicycle demonstration turns violent” article paints a picture of cyclist brutality committed on a vehicle, injuring the driver and scaring the passenger, who they describe as a pregnant woman. While there is no denying that the cyclists circled the car and trashed it, this was all an attempt to stop the car and driver from possibly hurting anyone else, as the scene they describe in their newscast takes place about 200 ft from the scene where the motorist accelerated from 0 to 40 THROUGH a standing line of cyclists at Aloha and 14th, luckily only injuring two of them as his car was pointed at a group of six.

I was standing about 20 feet from the scene and saw the entire altercation. I honestly cannot believe what I saw. Originally, the vehicle was trying to inch (westward on Aloha) into an oncoming mass of cyclists on a narrow road, where he had to pull into the oncoming traffic lane in order to get around the cars parked in his lane. About 6 cyclists peeled off to park themselves in front of the vehicle, explaining that he needed to wait and they would all be out of his way in a minute. The driver, however, remained agitated and expressed that they were “in a rush” and “would be late”. When the cyclists asked what they were going to be late for, the driver responded, “We have reservations!”, which left the group largely speechless until one of the cyclists again explained that he would save a lot of time and trouble if he just waited another 30 seconds for the rest of the cyclists to pass. At that moment, the driver suddenly put his car in reverse and backed up—5 feet into the sidewalk (now the car is parallel to Aloha—thank goodness there were no pedestrians behind him!)—and stopped. This strange behavior panicked everyone and no one moved except to shout “Stop.” This is when his passenger started yelling for him to “Calm down and stop” as well. After staying put for about 10 seconds, the driver then said “fuck this” and accelerated into the line of standing cyclists. When he hit the first ones, he continued to accelerate, but steered into the larger mass of cyclists before turning the wheel and tearing off in the opposite direction (east on Aloha) with one of the hit cyclists still on the roof of his car.

The driver sped down Aloha with a mess of bicycles and cyclists in his wake, a cyclist on his roof, and everyone, including his pregnant passenger, yelling for him to “Just stop!” At the bottom of the hill, the driver stopped at a stop sign and the cyclists swarmed the car, slashing his tires and breaking the windows in order to make sure that he did not continue operating his vehicle through the city like a madman. His door was opened, the driver got out of the car in tears and walked, unmolested back up to where the cyclists were splayed out in the street apologizing to everyone. His passenger was relatively calm, also walked up the street unmolested, and explained that her friend had made a mistake and that she had been yelling for him to calm down and stop the car. While there was a little hysterical yelling by the freightened (sic) bicyclists, there was absolutely no physical confrontation.

The reason that I am writing you is that it seems alarmingly irresponsible that such a biased story would be printed and broadcast when King 5 admits that “It’s wasn’t clear what sparked the confrontation”. Not that this is surprising by any means, which is unfortunate. I guess I just want to make sure that the real story is put out there before this damning misinterpretation gains any steam.

I am very distressed about this, both as a new bike rider (if you can call my current ability "riding") and as someone who absolutely acquiesces with this celebration and expression. I certainly plan to incorporate Critical Mass rides into my bike-riding (and hopefully bike-loving) future.


image from actual incident via Slog
via Slog

Cultivating Girls with Precarious Ideas about Sex One Purity Ball at a Time

Every year, the Purity Ball makes the news and I lose my mind a little bit. The Ball is a formal, primarily Evangelical event attended by girls as young as four and their fathers. The girls pledge to remain pure and virginal until marriage; the fathers pledge to protect their daughters' virginity.

Let's begin with a creepy excerpt from Nancy Gibbs' July 17th article (The Pursuit of Teen Girl Purity) in TIME magazine:

Kylie Miraldi has come from California to celebrate her 18th birthday tonight. She'll be going to San Jose State on a volleyball scholarship next year. Her father, who looks a little like Superman, is on the dance floor with one of her sisters; he turns out to be Dean Miraldi, a former offensive lineman with the Philadelphia Eagles. When Kylie was 13, her parents took her on a hike in Lake Tahoe, Calif. "We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today's world," she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet--a lock in the shape of a heart. Her father has the key. "On my wedding day, he'll give it to my husband," she explains. "It's a symbol of my father giving up the covering of my heart, protecting me, since it means my husband is now the protector. He becomes like the shield to my heart, to love me as I'm supposed to be loved."

Kylie talks with an unblinking confidence about a promise that she says is spiritual, mental and physical. "It's something I'm very proud of. I plan to keep pure until marriage. It's a promise I made to myself--not pressure from my parents," she says. She speaks plainly about what she wants in her life, what she thinks she has the power to control and what she doesn't. "I'm very much at peace about this," she says, and looks out across the twirling room. "I don't feel like I need to seek a man. I will be found."

These messages provided by these events and the parents who encourage their daughters participation are incredibly complicated. The messages insinuate that girls' worth is dependent only on their sexual activity or inactivity. And aren't these parents getting a little too involved in what's going on between their daughters' legs?

Perhaps providing a thorough sex education (including issues about emotions and self-esteem, peer pressure and hormones, STIs and contraception, pregnancy and responsibility), empowering girls to make their own decisions and being prepared to love and respect them after they've made their own decision, good or "bad," is the way to cultivate a sense of worth and strength in these maturing girls. In a time where abstinence-only sex education is a widespread and Congress-endorsed, albeit irresponsible, means of "teaching" students throughout the country, it is imperative for kids to be given as much information as possible and to be allowed to make decisions without fearing repercussions and crushing guilt.

From Feministing:

Flowery language and valorizing these days doesn't change what purity balls are about: the ownership and fetishizing of young girls' sexuality. Perhaps someone should remind Time of that fact.

via Feministing

McCain, The Incoherent Mysogynist

From ThinkProgress:

Earlier this week, one of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) top advisers, Carly Fiorina, argued for McCain’s free-market approach to health care by noting that “there are many health insurance plans that will cover Viagra but won’t cover birth-control medication” and that many “women would like a choice.” But, as ThinkProgress noted, Fiorina’s argument was undermined by McCain’s 2003 vote against legislation that would have required insurance coverage of prescription birth control. When asked about the disconnect on his campaign bus today, McCain nervously replied, “I certainly do not want to discuss that issue“:

Q: Earlier this week Carly Fiorina was meeting with a bunch of reporters and talked about it being unfair that insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control. And -

McCain: I certainly do not want to discuss that issue. (uneasy laughter)

Q: But apparently you’ve voted against (McCain laughter continues)

McCain: I don’t know what I voted -

Q: Voted against coverage of birth control, forcing health insurance companies to cover birth control in the past. Is that still your position?

McCain: I’ll look at my voting record on it, but I have, uh, (5 second pause) , I don’t recall the vote right now. But I’ll be glad to look at it and get back to you as to why, I don’t -

Q: I guess her statement was that it was unfair that health insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control. Do you have an opinion on that?

McCain: (after 8 second pause) I don’t know enough about it to give you an informed answer because I don’t recall the vote, I’ve cast thousands of votes in the Senate. I will respond to - it’s a, it’s a (nervous)

McCain’s stumbling answer is reminiscent of when he was asked in March 2007 about public funding for contraceptives and he could only reply, “whether I support government funding for them or not, I don’t know.”

Wow. McCain's floundering for a response to minimal pressure on this issue is so unbelievably inauspicious that its frightening. Yikes!

via Feministing