More Rape-Related Word Parsing

I was going to post something a little more fun today, recommendation of a few good short films – maybe I’ll get to it later – but instead I’m taking on Ron Paul for fiddling around with the definition of rape.

 

Yes, we have been over this before. Not with Representative Paul in particular, but with his party as a whole about a year ago when the House tried (and failed) to pass legislation (H.R. 3) restricting federal funding of abortions for low-income women beyond the exceptions in the Hyde Amendment (rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother) to cover only forcible rape, incest involving a minor, and protecting the life of the mother.  I wrote three separate posts on the topic and also wrote to my congresswoman. Now we’re on the same topic a year later because once again rape alone is not enough of a reason to allow a woman to decide what goes on within her own body. Here’s the clip.

Ron Paul’s position on abortion itself, as expressed here, is actually more about biological facts – that within a few hours or a few days conception may very well not have taken place and that there is no way to tell that early on – is a very reasonable one for a pro-lifer and something I would expect since he is an obstetrician. So what is this bit about “honest rape” then? Is there such a thing? Rape in general is regarded as pretty dishonest and dishonorable. Frankly, this sounds like bit of pandering to me. There is apparently some theory floating around on the right that merely being raped is not enough to warrant a woman not being mandated by the government to bear the resulting child. First  the rape had to be “forcible”,but that didn’t pass. Now with Rep. Paul the rape has to be “honest”. It’s as if they’d like to parse it out of existence. There is also more than a little implied victim blaming here too. The whole idea of women “asking for it” in any number of ways and thus making a senseless act of violence seem more like a deserved punishment for not being a “good girl” was one of those baseless, archaic notions I though we had finally excised from our cultural thought process. I had hoped it was locked away in the same place our society has exiled beliefs that a woman could not sign a contract without a male co-signer and should be discouraged at every turn from pursuing a career because  her place was to be in the home tending to the needs of her children and the whims of her husband. Oh how silly of me.

The real problem I have with The Congressman’s statement isn’t the fact that he’s talking about limiting a woman’s right to choose. He’s an anti-abortion candidate and I’m pro-choice – we’re going to disagree on that. That’s why we have different political parties. My problem is with the this pattern we are seeing more of now in which someone whose sole dominion over her own body has already been violated once has the personal autonomy violated again by the government telling her that her attack did not meet the criteria necessary for the powers that be to just leave her alone and let her make her medical decisions for herself. If it wasn’t an “honest rape”, whatever that is,  the woman (Would they even call her a victim? I don’t know.) should just accept what has befallen her and begin blissfully preparing for her forced motherhood like a “good girl”. When  the argument can be made that some sexual assaults do not qualify the victim to terminate a very much unwanted pregnancy, would that then have an effect on the sentencing of the rapist? If we can begin to dissect the crime of rape into degrees, what stops someone from insisting that some domestic violence cases should also be treated as less of a crime because the victim or victims somehow had it coming? What about hate crimes? Given some of the statements and incidents on the campaign trail I would wonder if crimes against groups that some find it acceptable, even patriotic, to disparage would be treated the same as those  against other segments of the population which it is more taboo to voice a prejudice against? In short it isn’t Congressman Paul’s views on abortion that compelled me to write about his comment, but this idea that not all rape victims deserve to make decision about their bodies.

The Debt Ceiling Debate Summed Up in One Photo

In case you and no idea, I’m a geek – specifically, a political geek. And not just a Daily Show/Colbert Report fan political geek either, but a Politico-reading, Rachel Maddow Show-watching one. Did I mention my job is covering town meetings for Government Access TV? Yeah that much of a geek. The results of my geekiness is that I’ve learned a lot about the debate going on in DC about whether or not to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. I could get into the issue, but I’m not sure anyone would be interested in the opinion of someone who gets no say in the matter. Honestly, I really think this about sums it up.

Nancy Pelosi looks appalled, John Boehner seems on the verge of tears, and the President is pouting. We do not have a deal, folks! Back to the drawing board!

And the Dumbass Award Goes to… The Naked WikiLeaker Guy

I’ll get back to posting about admirable women later today, but I need to indulge my bruised self-esteem for a moment. Anyone who’s been reading this blog for any length of time knows that things don’t tend to go my way. For those of you who are new I’m overweight, unemployed, living at home, and am extremely pessimistic about much of that changing in the foreseeable future. That kind of outlook can make anyone depressed, but occasionally something happens to reminds me that I am, in fact smarter than some people. When it’s on the comic side, I share it. Such was the case today as I, feeling rather nauseous and “blue” (which, as a synesthete, is actually a warm-tone grey for me, but if I say “I feel grey,” no one knows what I’m talking about), I came across this article from Politico. apparently, Bradley Manning, the Marine Pfc. that is facing preliminary charges in the case of that massive load of State Dept. cables which found their way to WikiLeaks several months ago, decided that a military prison was a good place to have an attitude. The article cites a blog post made by Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, as saying that, in response to being told that his being held in isolation stemmed from that possibility that he would harm himself, Pfc. Manning sarcastically stated that, if he wanted to hurt himself, he could do so with the elastic from his underwear or his flip-flops or just about anything. Well, those in charge took him at his word and now he has to seven hours (overnight) naked for his own safety.

Now, I don’t condone any inhumane treatment of anyone. There will be a trial and a verdict because that is how we dispense justice in this country. I’m not bothered by this though, because what he did is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of. Saying “I could kill myself with with my underoos if I wanted to,” while in prison and after having been deemed a risk to your safety is right up there on the Idiot Meter with saying “Pardon me, sir, but could you be more gentle? I have an explosive in my rectum at the moment,” to a TSA screener. You will regret that statement in a big, bad, possibly painful way. Those with a duty to protect people have to take these things seriously no matter how asinine they may seem because that’s their job. If he had meant what he said and had made a suicide attempt or hurt himself in some other way there would be an outcry over why this statement wasn’t dealt with seriously. You just don’t make jokes about that kind of stuff in those places unless you want to cause a problem for yourself. This is self-inflicted indignity. This guy decided he’d show those dumb jailers the supreme intellect with which they are dealing… and he got owned because they did their job and took him at his word. He was literally asking for it.

I confer upon Pfc. Bradley Manning the title of World-Class Dumbass for thinking that sarcasm and a feeling of superiority were the way to improve his time in Quantico. Thank you for making my life seem a little better today and for making me laugh.

Because Glenn Beck Makes Me Think of Impending Doom

I really don’t like Glenn Beck. That probably comes as no surprise seeing as the things he says are destroying the country – namely secularism, cosmopolitanism, liberalism, not feeling bad – even feeling proud – about being smarter than a jar of mayonnaise, and a healthy wariness of unbridled, unregulated corporate power – are things which I tend to support. My issue is not that he thinks that people who think the way I do hate their country (not true) and desperately what to turn the country communist (I do not), fascist (nope), or simply reduce it to a lawless, fiery hub of despair (Not even close) or the fact that he spouts this stuff on TV every day while simultaneously insisting that all other news sources are in on the plot and are therefore not to be trusted. My issue is that he’s mainstreaming ideas that, five years ago, would have been considered tinfoil-hat-level crazy. It reached its zenith for me when he started insisting that these popular uprisings for democracy and freedom – ideas I thought the US supported – was actually a signal that the end of the world as described in the Bible is near because those asking for freedom and greater say in the government pray facing Mecca. Yes, ready your survival rations, convert all your money to gold, build a bunker, and pray (in an all-American, judeo-christian way, of course) like your afterlife depends on it because the end of the world is coming! That used to get TV people fired, now it’s all good. A little doomsday theory with your dinner, Ma’am?

So I started to think about what I would need to sustain myself in case of a tea-people revolt, or a ninja attack, or the coming of judeo-christian God into my happy secular world with the intention of kicking my heathen hiney. (Because obviously the thing to do when dealing with something this “out there” is to make a list.) It’s sort of the whole “what would you take with you to a deserted island’ thing on steroids. I’m assuming I have to be alone. Stranger still are the answers I came up with:

• Astronaut ice cream. Remember that? The stuff you used to get at the Science Museum? Seems like good survival food.
• Cheese curls.
• Chocolate. Specifically Cadbury Dairy Milk and Flake bars and Ghirardelli dark chocolate – the darker the better.
• A wide variety of fruits.
• The ability to get tri-state area, “good” pizza, and other food delivered.
• Dunkin’ Donuts coffee on tap.
• Peach Ramune.
• Apple cider.
• Patrón. 😀 (Olé!)
• As for non-edibles, I’d need a well equipped iPad 2. That’s my books, video games, music, and just about everything else. I’ll assume there’s internet access wherever I’m hiding – hiding while getting pizza and wings delivered and drinking tequila. Sounds like college.

So, in the event the four horsemen of the apocalypse show up, I’m apparently going to spend that last scraps of my life getting in touch with my geekdom. Yes, it’s completely random and makes little sense. That is how I process this nonsense that is taken as granite hard fact by many in this country. A dozen years ago when people started squawking about the world ending in the year 2000, everyone recognized that as a bit nutty and moved on. This guy says it now and people store food reserves. And if you say “Hmm, I think I smell some bullfunky here, then you’re one of ‘them’ – one of those country-destroyers.” The mainstreaming of fear and ideas that used to be the fringiest of the fringe and making people frightened not only of the future, but of a significant portion of the country’s population day in and day out is why I don’t like Glenn Beck.

And the moral of this story? Don’t over-analyze things which every brain cell you have is telling you are bat shit crazy. You’ll come up with something annoying and asinine.

Oh, come on, this post was begging for a picture of someone in a tinfoil hat.

The Third Piece of the H.R. 3 Trilogy

I figured I should let you know the latest on the case of Republicans vs the English language regarding the word rape. Parts 1 and 2 of the saga are here. According to a Politico article written on Thursday, The GOP has dropped the “forcible rape” language from the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. The same is true for putting an age limit on funding abortions for victims of incest. The following is a quote from that article.

The bill’s authors, including Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), say it’s not their intent to change the way the exemption is applied.

“The language of H.R. 3 was not intended to change existing law regarding taxpayer funding for abortion in cases of rape, nor is it expected that it would do so,” Lipinski told Talking Points Memo in a statement.

Call me cynical, but if this particular section of the bill wasn’t supposed to change the our current law, then why was it even added and why was there an obvious attempt to alter the current standard created and upheld by the Hyde Amendment by coining the term “forcible rape”. Regardless of what the purpose of that section of the bill was, it isn’t there now and I’m glad. I don’t like a lot of other parts of this bill and I don’t like that pursuing a social conservative’s dream agenda has taken priority over improving the economic situation for millions in this country, but maintaining our current definition of rape is a start. Hopefully, it’s a reality check for the House Republicans at the very least.

Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show ran a really good segment on the redefinition of rape the night before Politico reported that it was no longer in the bill and it summed things up pretty well. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with that section being cut, but tit was a good segment. Since it refuses to embed properly, this is a link to the clip. Hopefully, this is the last we hear of the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act”. I’m hoping it falls apart before becoming law because, technically, taxpayer money doesn’t go to funding abortions except in the extreme cases dictated in the Hyde Amendment which aren’t being affected and – according to one of people who wrote the bill -never were going to be affected (an explanation I still think is bullfunky) by this new bill. One can only conclude, if they are willing to cut through the sanctimony surrounding the issue of abortion, this whole bill is either a massive waste of time when there are far, far bigger things our congress needs to focus on, or an attempt to limit funds from going to institutions which not only provide abortions – the vast majority of which are not taxpayer-funded and therefore none of the government’s business or anyone less’ for that matter – but also birth control, prenatal care, testing for STD’s, OB/GYN visits, and mammograms. Last time I checked there weren’t large-scale protests about the immorality of low-cost, subsidized STD testing and obstetrical services. I leave you with this picture of silly protest signs because it just seems appropriate.

The GOP’s Choice – Jobs or Redefine Rape

I woke up to shoveling-induced back pain and the melodious tones of the snoring shiba inu at the end of my bed, so I grabbed my eReader and got on the internet – because why have the ability to go on the internet without having to walk to the computer if you aren’t going to use it, right – and found that somebody had tweeted this article from motherjones.com – House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape. It has to do with changing the current rules about allowing taxpayer money to go toward abortions in extreme cases – when the life of the mother is at stake, incest, and rape. It seems that Republicans feel being impregnated by having had sex against her will is no longer a good enough reason for a woman not to be made to birth her rapist’s baby if she would require federally allotted funds in order to obtain an abortion. In short rape doesn’t really mean rape when you’re on Medicaid. What?! I read it and had to vent about it somewhere. Aren’t you all lucky?

First of all, I would be remiss if I didn’t do a little research. The article linked to the full text of the bill available on opencongress.org and so did I, just so you know I’m not making this stuff up. The bill is not very long and surprisingly easy to understand. This is not a misinterpretation of legalese by a woman with a BA in theater and media arts. Section 309 reads as follows, though the underlining was added by me –

‘SEC. 309. TREATMENT OF ABORTIONS RELATED TO RAPE, INCEST, OR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER.

‘The limitations established in sections 301, 302, 303, and 304 shall not apply to an abortion-

‘(1) If the pregnancy occurred because the pregnant female was the subject of and act of forcible rape, or, if a minor, an act of incest; or

‘(2) in the case where the pregnant female suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the pregnant female in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.

See, I told you it’s pretty clear, except for one thing – what is forcible rape? I looked up the definition of rape and this is it, according to dictionary.com. Again, the underlining and italics were all my idea.

rape¹  [reyp] noun, verb, raped, rap·ing.

–NOUN 

1. an act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.

2. the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse.

3. statutory rape.

4. an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation;violation: the rape of the countryside.

5. Archaic . the act of seizing and carrying off by force.

–VERB (used with object)

6. to force to have sexual intercourse.

7. to plunder (a place); despoil.

8. to seize, take, or carry off by force.

–VERB (used without object)

9. to commit rape.

With force being part of what defines rape in general, what kind of conditions are being set here? After years of preaching that “no means no”, might we be undercutting that message now. If you don’t think that a savvy attorney would try their best to use the denial of federal funding to terminate the victim’s pregnancy as a tool in their defense, I think you are sorely mistaken. And what constitutes forcible anyway? A physical struggle? How much? Do those who were drugged and raped have to have the baby unless they can afford to pay for an abortion out-of-pocket? What about someone who is mentally impaired? What about a statutory rape? If a 13-year-old is impregnated by a 22-year-old should she be made to bear the child if she or her parents don’t have the money? What if the rape victim was threatened or otherwise coerced into not fighting back? Is that forcible enough or do there have to be physical scars? I think this type of hair-splitting could set us on a course back to the days when there was a type of woman who could be raped – the “good girls” who didn’t party hard, dressed modestly, etc… – and those who could never possibly be raped because they behaved and dressed in a manner that was “asking for it”. News flash – nobody ever asks to be raped. If a woman drinks and/or takes some drugs, it means they’re using drugs or drinking. They aren’t asking to be raped. If a woman has a sexual history, it means they’re not a virgin. They aren’t asking to be raped. If a woman wears something provocative, it means they want to look sexy. They aren’t asking to be raped. After all the time and energy we have devoted to the message of not blaming the victim, whoever she is and whatever her lifestyle, for the actions of her attacker, we may be headed right back there. As if this wasn’t disgusting enough, there’s the other thing in the bill that I underlined. A victim of incest – yes, incest – is only eligible for a federally funded abortion if she is under the legal age of consent. Do we really want to put the victim seeking an abortion on the grounds of incest through anything more than she’s already been through. How the hell was she “asking for it”? Whoever thought we needed alter the definitions of rape and incest as part of our healthcare policy is a really particular kind of ideologue – the creepy kind. In both situations, this proposal would punish individuals who are victims of a crime – a point that is never disputed – for not being victimized enough. That’s just twisted. By the way, this bill has 173 cosponsors. If they get a few more supporters, this could pass the House of Representatives.

The issue also has a socioeconomic angle to it. The bill itself has been proposed not to stop all abortions in these cases, but those in which taxpayer money would be used. Taxpayer money as it stands now is mainly Medicaid, which pays for medical care for those who otherwise can’t afford it. Our tax dollars will also be used for the soon-to-be-created insurance exchange where a person can purchase coverage at a reduced rate. So even if a victim purchased insurance with her own money through this healthcare exchange, her policy would not be allowed to cover an abortion because the rate she paid was subsidized by the government unless she met these new guidelines. If not she would have to pay for the procedure out-of-pocket and the poorer the victim, the less likely she would be to have the money.

Speaking of money, this is supposed to be the congress that was elected to get America’s economy rolling again and get jobs creation up. That was the message that many of these conservative Republicans got in there on. Fine. Whatever. Elections have consequences, but this is what happens when people vote against a politician or administration rather than for a candidate’s platform. Well, surprise! This was an extremely successful bait-and-switch by social conservatives. Their third item of business has not a bit to do with jobs or fiscal responsibility and everything to do with the social conservative vision of what everyone’s morals and life should be. It is not what they campaigned on and there is something disingenuous about trying to start pricing women out of their right to choose (which is still protected by the Supreme Court) before tackling a budget, or the national debt, or most of the other stuff they promised to work on as soon as they got to DC. Furthermore, The Hyde Amendment, the “rider” attached to annual appropriations bills since 1976 which limits the use of federal money for abortion funding to instances of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother, while not a permanent law has worked pretty well as a compromise thus far. Many, including myself, have issues with it, but compared to this mess, it’s definitely the lesser of two evils. At least it doesn’t get all nit-picky about incest. While I am all but certain the Senate will vote down HR 3 (that’s what this bill is called – House Resolution 3) if they go near it at all, it is clearly a sign of things to come.

There’s a follow-up post here and a follow-up to the follow-up here.

Twenty People Were Shot and Some Fools are Still at it With the Demonizing.

I’ve been following this on CNN.
That’s Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Three days ago she was sworn into her third term in Congress. Yesterday she read the first amendment on the floor of the House of Representatives. Today she was shot in the head by a nut. That nut apparently shot nineteen other people as well and six of them, including a federal judge and a nine-year old girl, are reported dead. It goes without saying that my thoughts are with the victims and their families. You’d think we as a nation would step back, take a deep breath and say “Dude, what the hell are we doing? Demonizing public officials only creates an atmosphere that sets volatile crazies off and then people get hurt. We need too calm down.”

Nope!

People are already trying to sniff out his political affiliation so they can add that to the long list of why everyone on the left or the right – wherever he happens to fall – should be despised, written off, imprisoned, stripped of citizenship, charged with treason, etc. They see this as the perfect time to ratchet up the vitriol to deliver the knockout punch. Yes, please, by all means, let’s make the country so polarized that every individual with an iffy grasp of their sanity goes off and shoots an elected official because that’s obviously what civilized societies do when everyone doesn’t agree. How much more wrong can they be and how much longer are they going to stay that way?

It isn’t a conservative/liberal thing. It’s the tainted nature of the discourse that’s the problem. Pundits on the left and right, I’m taking about you. I don’t care if this guy was a “Takin’ my country back,” or a “They’re trying to take my country away and turn back the clock to 1776,” person. The result was tragic, why make it worse. There is no dishonor in not calling someone evil. Since when does name-calling equal strength anyway?  I hope we learn how to disagree politically without disparaging each other to no end, but I’m hardly optimistic. We’ve had this conversation before and, if nothing changes regarding the way we treat each other and our elected officials, I feel we will be having this conversation again as more people will be hurt .

The Case Against What I Refer To As “Good Christian Driving”

First of all, this isn’t me railing on Christianity less than two weeks before the Big, Divine, Birthday Party. No, this is about bad driving habits, particularly those of people who feel it necessary to immediately slam on the brakes and allow any vehicle that wishes to cross the road or merge into traffic no manner what is going on around them in an effort to be a nice, good, sweet person. (Incidentally, I’ve included directions so that my explanations make more sense. It might sound a little like algebra, but I promise it’s not.) I happen call this process “good Christian driving” because it reminds me of all of those small, selfless actions that the teachers of the religious instruction classes I took as a child would ask us to do around Advent and Lent. See, it’s nothing derogatory, just me reminiscing of my angelic, child-self. Ok, I’m stretching the term “angelic”, but you get my point.

The image to the left is what can, and often does, result from “good Christian driving”. Even if you’ve never been in an accident because of someone in front of you trying to get one random act of kindness closer to a spot on Heaven’s reservation list, I’m sure you can think of time that this has almost happened. Up until today, the closest I’d come to being an unintended consequence of someone’s goodwill toward others came when I was helping one of my aunts move and someone who had been given a chance to cut across into my lane of traffic drove out and nearly t-boned me because at this particular point on the road, if there is heavy traffic in the lane in front of you (northbound), you can’t see the lane you’re trying to merge into(southbound). Essentially you trust the person letting you cross in front of them and drive blindly into the southbound lane. Not good! The only thing that saved my butt, both from the car suddenly appearing in front of me and from my aunt who was following couple cars behind me was that my chronic “leadfoot-itis” had been tempered by the fact that I had all of my aunt’s glassware rather shoddily packed in the back of my car. The sound of it rattling around back there and knowing that if anything got broken in transit there would be no escape from my aunt once we got to my house for dinner clipped a good 5-10 mph off my average speed.

Today I officially became a “good Christian driving” victim. There was I nice fellow in front of me in a large pickup truck. How do I know he was nice? Well, he let several people (going east) cut through rush hour traffic on a main road (westbound) to get to a side street (northbound). He did so even after the light turned green. How kind! The issue came when, with two cars stacked up behind me now, someone missed the memo that everyone was still stopping even though the light was green and hit the gas instead of the brake. That SUV hit a car, that hit a car, that hit my car. At least one car was towed and at least one person went to the hospital. My mother, my dog, and I are all ok. My pink chariot is too, aside from a messed up back bumper which I’m not too phased by. The car drove home fine and, since I was in no way at fault, I got no ticket. On an unfortunate note, as a result of the traffic backing up from our accident, at least one more collision was caused by a similar chain of events. That’s a minimum of six cars messed up in one way or another and at least one hospitalization all because somebody thought holding up everyone on a busy road when they’re impatient to get home was a good idea.

And what happened to Saint Pickup Truck? Once I got hit – I’m certain he got to watch my mother and me whip forward and my 25 lbs dog bounce off the back of the seats – he was gone. Hell of a good Samaritan, right?

This is for you, Saint Pickup Truck, wherever you are. I have another symbolic gesture for you, but I’ll leave that to your imagination.

News Flash – Tights Are NOT Pants!

I have never been what anyone would call trendy or stylish. I have always had far too imperfect a figure to try to emulate the “perfect” specimens in Vogue – specimens that magazine editors still feel the need to Photoshop nearly to the point of being unrecognizable. My mission when buying clothes is to simply find something that fits right and that’s hard enough. I’m sure there are some of you who know how I feel. It is my chronic lack of personal style that keeps me mute on the topic of fashion… usually. I have, however, reached the point at which even I feel the need to speak out for I have seen one too many nylon-encased buttocks being openly displayed. Women of the world take note –

TIGHTS ARE NOT PANTS!!!!!

They are similar to pants. Almost pants. The ghost of pants, if you will, but they are not to the bum-covering or bum-supporting caliber of pants. Yes, I said bum-supporting and, unless you are as fit as is humanly possible, and cellulite-free, and are under thirty, and have never even thought of birthing children, your butt benefits from the shape-assisting support of proper pants. The never-ending quest for the perfect pair of jeans stems from the fact that a good-looking butt is generally a well-supported butt.

The issue of bum coverage is two-fold. The first has to do with opacity. You cannot see through pants. This is not always true with tights. We all have those people who we are or have been close enough to that they know what kind of underwear we prefer – friends we shop with, obviously significant others past and present have a clue, roommates, ect… – but everyone in the mall/grocery store/city doesn’t know you like that, so it’s just awkward.
The second issue is one public vs. private interest. Almost no one wants to know every topographical detail of your ass, especially if they don’t know your name. Your doctor doesn’t want to know that much about your ass. Please, keep the dimples and jiggle to yourself. If you’re wearing underwear, I don’t want to see it. If you’re not wearing underwear, I don’t want to know and I really don’t want to see it. Believe it or not, I’m not alone in feeling this way. There are plenty of people who have no desire to have advanced knowledge of the muscle tone you have (or have not) achieved in your gluteal region and those that are interested aren’t going to want to have that information shared with the rest of the world. They want to feel special.
Tights are great when worn properly – i.e. not as pants. They’re great under dresses, skirts, and oversized shirts as long as they cover your butt as opposed to making it a billboard for Victoria’s Secret… or your local gym… or a strip club… or McDonald’s.

One final note for those of you who think I’m totally off-base here. Remember, it’s not just svelte twenty-somethings and college sorority girls who have adopted this pants-less look. I saw a woman who had to be pushing sixty walking around like this as well as gaggle of girls who were maybe – maybe – fourteen. It’s gross.

:Rant Complete:

“Great” Moments In Modern Politics – the Good, the Bad, and the WTF of Political Photos – Part 2 The Bad – Bad Behavior Edition

I’ve given the politicians a break these last few weeks, but I’m now back once again for a chuckle at their expense. These time we’re looking at those moments when they forgot cameras exist.

Hand Gestures
Because sometimes we all just feel like flipping somebody off.

Dubya

Karl Rove

Rahm Emanuel

Pickin’ Fights
You try to behave but then somebody starts trouble…

“Say what?”

and it gets to you. You start to get angry.

“Grrrrr!”

They keep talking. They’re ruining your image with the ladies…

*whisper, whisper…*

and you’re getting even angrier.

“GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

They get in your way…

and you’re ready to fight.

“Put ’em up!”

All hell breaks loose.

And then…

you’re butt gets kicked.

Who thought giving her a bat was a good idea anyway?!

Lovin’ the Ladies
These guys have no shame!

And while we’re on this subject, what is the deal with Hillary Clinton and all these men recently? Am I the only one who remembers when the very mention of her name supposedly sent men the world over running for the hills protectively clutching their “gentleman berries”? How times do change.

This is actually a bigger deal than it looks since the Secretaries of State and Defense traditionally can’t stand being in the same room with each other.

To be fair, she does tend to make a face that resembles one that would usually accompany a pinch to the derriere, but this one with Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell just seems a little to suspect to me.

Where’s the Secret Service or is there some sort of diplomatic immunity for patting the US Secretary of State on the behind? Haven’t wars been started over less? I have to be honest, I think this picture is quite funny as illustrated here and here.

😯 Wh, wh, what?! 😯

I don’t get it. Ever since I was small, this woman has been called everything but attractive. She hits her sixties, runs for president, loses, and now this?! I don’t know whether to feel nauseous or optimistic.

This is more like the coverage of her that I’ve become used to.

Well, that does it for shots that are merely bad.

Next, stop the magical land of WTFs. (By the way, that’s Dubya and Vladimir Putin in the little car.)