News & Current Events

[fritzkep]

Convenient.

[michaelflanagansf]

It's actually pretty horrifying Fritz.  We could have people deciding they're not going to sell condoms because they don't believe in extramarital sex, as well as people who refuse to sell AIDS medications because they don't believe treating the illness is god's will.

Just hope you don't have a Christian Science pharmacist....

[michaelflanagansf]

Recount: 'You Don't Know There's Not Someone Named Lizard People'
Coleman withdraws ballot challenges, about 800 remain

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) -- The Minnesota state Canvassing Board inched closer to its goal of reviewing the roughly 800 remaining ballot challenges by the end of the week, with the Norm Coleman campaign withdrawing another 400 challenges Thursday.

Coleman spokesman Mark Drake predicted Al Franken would take the lead Thursday for the first time in the recount as many of Coleman's withdrawals go into Franken's column. Drake said it would be a "temporary flip" that Coleman would overcome later as other withdrawn challenges are awarded to the candidates.

Coleman entered the week phase with a 188-vote lead in the recount, which increased to 360 votes after the Canvassing Board burned its first tow days reviewing, and mostly rejecting, Franken challenges. As Coleman's challenges came before the board, Franken was benefiting from the board's high rate of rejection.

The Canvassing Board also dealt with the infamous "Lizard People" ballot, so dubbed because a voter who chose Franken also wrote in "Lizard People" in the same section of the ballot. The ballot was challenged as an overvote.

Marc Elias, Franken's attorney, argued that Lizard People was not a genuine write-in.

Eric Magnuson, the state Supreme Court chief justice serving on the board, responded: "You don't know there's not someone named Lizard People."

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=8100809&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

[fritzkep]

It's actually pretty horrifying Fritz.  We could have people deciding they're not going to sell condoms because they don't believe in extramarital sex, as well as people who refuse to sell AIDS medications because they don't believe treating the illness is god's will.

Just hope you don't have a Christian Science pharmacist....

Yes, when a person of fundamentalist persuasion is denied some sort of medical treatment because it conflicts with a caregiver's conscience, or even mood, there will be a howl of outrage, probably in the form of accusation of religious persecution and bigotry.

[michaelflanagansf]

Yes, when a person of fundamentalist persuasion is denied some sort of medical treatment because it conflicts with a caregiver's conscience, or even mood, there will be a howl of outrage, probably in the form of accusation of religious persecution and bigotry.

This sort of thing was already used for political capital in the Terry Schiavo case:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002213728_memo20.html

[fritzkep]

Yes, I remember that one. One of the Newsweek commentators described that as the beginning of the end of the reign of the religious right. I wish it were, but I don't think I'd go that far, at least not yet.

[Rosewood]

Oh, it is too delicious.
Sarah Palin's daughter's fiance's mother (phew!) has been arrested
for felony drug possession in Alaska. CNN just had some one of their
bulletins.

Talk about redneck hijinks up in the land of mooseshooting. Ah, the mind boggles.
Can you just imagine these people skulking about the White House?

[fritzkep]

Remember how brave the daughter and her fiancé were depicted during the election?

If the Obama children were older and were to have acted in that manner, the conservatives, especially the religious right would have made all sorts of undisguised class and racial comments.

[graylockV]

Wasilla is said to be the meth capital of Alaska.  And Bristol's mother-in-law-to-be was arrested, not just for possession, but also for manufacture of drugs.

I guess Bristol and Levi would have gotten married already but someone set the church on fire.  (Any bets on that wedding ever coming to pass?)

Damn.  If Sarah had been elected at least we would have had some good soap opera to watch while waiting in the soup lines of the new Great Depression.

Bread and circuses.  Well at least the circuses.

[fritzkep]

I also wonder if the wedding will ever take place, now that the election's over.

Since even if she should try running for President in 2012, her adoring public would have a very short-term memory in that regard.

[CellarDweller115]

Join the Impact and Amy Balliett Urge Gay Marriage Supporters to 'Light up the Night'

By Maggie Taylor | Article Date: 12/19/2008 11:56 AM


Amy Balliett, the mastermind behind the nationwide Join the Impact rallies that occurred just a week after the election during which Prop. 8 passed and gay marriage was overturned in California, is urging people to join Light up the Night for Equal Rights, Dec. 20.

“Just like on November 15th, we have cities from all around the country and the world joining together to spread the message of equal rights,” Balliett wrote on the Join the Impact website. “Light up the Night is an amazing opportunity to build allies and bridge the gap of understanding for those that oppose us.”

http://www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?Section=66&ID=21203

[michaelflanagansf]

Here's an interesting perspective....

Many in Serbia amused, even proud, as Blagojevich defiant in corruption case
Associated Press
Sunday, December 14, 2008

Belgrade, Serbia —- The case of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is not just making headlines in America. It is also top news in Serbia, the land of his ancestors.

Pictures of Blagojevich have dotted the main pages of Serbian newspapers since the FBI accused him of trying to sell the Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama.

“The Governor Defying Entire America,” announced a headline Friday in the daily newspaper Blic after Blagojevich refused to step down amid mounting pressure.

Illinois has the largest Serbian community in the United States. Serb newspapers say the Blagojevich family originated in Serbia and moved to the United States after World War II. Reports about Blagojevich appear prominently on local television stations. State TV’s prime-time news Wednesday evening had live coverage from Chicago.

Blic reported this week that the villagers in Velike Krcmare, which it called the home village of the family, refuse to believe that Blagojevich could be guilty.

“We watched the news and could not sleep all night. He must have been framed, it’s all politics,” Dragan Blagovic, described as a cousin of the governor, was quoted as saying.

Cousin Dragan appeared again in Friday’s Blic, saying his famous relative still owns some land in the village so “he can come to Serbia if he cannot take it any more in America. He can have a cow or a pig or two, a chicken. … He is always welcome.”

Some Serbs referred jokingly to their own country’s record of corruption following decades of communism and the rule of autocrat Slobodan Milosevic. A Blic headline read “American Corruption the Serbian Way.”

continues:

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/12/14/blagojevich.html

[brokebacktom]

The Pope said it is just as important to save the gays from themselves as it is to save the Rainforest.

Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKTRE4BL2FE20081222

[michaelflanagansf]

The Pope said it is just as important to save the gays from themselves as it is to save the Rainforest.

Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKTRE4BL2FE20081222

Well...at least he didn't compare us to whales....

[brokebacktom]

My thoughts are with those in CA. Your state is in a mess. Well, so is mine with a $5 Billion Deficit. WE haven't had a balanced budget in about 12 years here in MN. We can't raise taxes, so we raise Fees. Make sense to me.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/23/california-broke-state-co_n_153022.html