And Everyone Laughs

at "slippery slope" arguments. But there is now a political party for Dutch pedophiles, called the Charity, Freedom, and Diversity (NVD) party. The NVD is looking to lower the age of consent to 12, with an eye towards eliminating it altogether, and legalizing child pornography and beastiality. To place this in perspective, the Dutch legalized gay marriage in 2001. Polygamous marriages are not allowed, but a 3-person civil union is.

May 30, 8:55 AM (ET)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals.

The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!"

The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

"A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper.

"We want to make pedophilia the subject of discussion," he said, adding that the subject had been a taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighboring Belgium. "We have been hushed up. The only way is through parliament."

The Netherlands already has liberal policies on soft drugs, prostitution, and gay marriage, but the NVD is unlikely to win much support, the AD quoted experts as saying.

"They make out as if they want more rights for children. But their position that children should be allowed sexual contact from age 12 is of course just in their own interest," anti-pedophile campaigner Ireen van Engelen told the daily.

The party said private possession of child pornography should be allowed although it favors banning the trade of such materials. The broadcast of pornography should be allowed on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening, according to the party.

Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves. Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal, the NVD said.

The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public.

The party's program also includes ideas for other areas of public policy including legalizing all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all.

America: From Freedom To Fascism

Here is the trailer for the upcoming movie. Release date is Jul 28th.

Why Am I Working?

Just what was I thinking? Here I am at work on a holiday. I should be at home with my Beloved! The extra pay will be nice and is needed and usually the work load is non-existant, but I still want to be home with her.

GRRR

Timeless Wisdom From Al

Put down your chainsaw and listen to me
It's time for us to join the fight
It's time to let your babies grow up to be cowboys
It's time to let the bedbugs bite

You better put all your eggs in one basket
You better count your chickens before they hatch
You better sell some wine before its time
You better find yourself an itch to scratch

You better squeeze all the Charmin you can while Mr. Wimpole's not around
Stick your head in the microwave and get yourself a tan

Talk with your mouth full
Bite the hand that feeds you
Bite on more than you chew
What can you do
Dare to be stupid

Take some wooden nickles
Look for Mr. Goodbar
Get your mojo working now
I'll show you how
You can dare to be stupid

You can turn the other cheek
You can just give up the ship
You can eat a bunch of sushi and forget to leave a tip

Dare to be stupid
Come on and dare to be stupid
It's so easy to do
Dare to be stupid
We're all waiting for you
Let's go

It's time to make a mountain out of a molehill
So can I have a volunteer
There's no more time for crying over spilled milk
Now it's time for crying in your beer

Settle down, raise a family, join the PTA
Buy some sensible shoes and a Chevyrolet
And party 'till you're broke and they drive you away
It's OK, you can dare to be stupid

It's like spitting on a fish
It's like barking up a tree
It's like I said you gotta buy one if you wanna get one free

Dare to be stupid (yes)
Why don't you dare to be stupid
It's so easy to do
Dare to be stupid
We're all waiting for you
Dare to be stupid

Burn your candle at both ends
Look a gift horse in the mouth
Mashed potatoes can be your friends

You can be a coffee achiever
You can sit around the house and watch Leave It To Beaver
The future's up to you
So what you gonna do
(Dare to be stupid)
(Dare to be stupid)
What did I say
(Dare to be stupid)
Tell me, what did I say
(Dare to be stupid)
It's alright
(Dare to be stupid)
We can be stupid all night
(Dare to be stupid)
Come on, join the crowd
(Dare to be stupid)
Shout it out loud
(Dare to be stupid)
I can't hear you
(Dare to be stupid)
OK, I can hear you now
(Dare to be stupid)
Let's go, Dare to be stupid
Dare to be stupid

And that, boys and girls, was Timesless Wisdom from Al. Tune in next time for more timeless wisdom!

Interesting Feminist Quotes

"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." -- Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor.

"To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo." -- Valerie Solanas

"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig." -- Andrea Dworkin

"When a woman reaches orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression." -- Sheila Jeffrys

"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman." -- Catherine MacKinnon

"The more famous and powerful I get the more power I have to hurt men." -- Sharon Stone

"The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race." -- Sally Miller Gearhart

"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." -- Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001.

"Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience." - Catherine Comins

"All men are rapists and that's all they are" -- Marilyn French

"Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release." -- Germaine Greer

"Men's sexuality is mean and violent, and men so powerful that they can 'reach WITHIN women to fuck/construct us from the inside out.' Satan-like, men possess women, making their wicked fantasies and desires women's own. A woman who has sex with a man, therefore, does so against her will, 'even if she does not feel forced." -- Judith Levine

"All men are good for is fucking, and running over with a truck". Statement made by A University of Maine Feminist Administrator, quoted by Richard Dinsmore, who brought a successful civil suit against the University in the amount of $600,000. Richard had protested the quote; was dismissed thereafter on the grounds of harassment; and responded by bringing suit against the University. 1995 settlement.

"Women have their faults / men have only two: / everything they say / everything they do." -- Popular Feminist Graffiti

"I've reached the point where I'm no longer afraid of or irritated with men who are proud of their masculinity." -- Trille Nielsen

“Men are from another planet, sent here by spaceships to copulate with female earthlings and propagate the species—a task for which science has rendered them all but redundant. We need keep only a handful of donors on a sperm farm for that purpose, where they can subsist on pizza and beer” -- Columnist Rosie DiManno

“Only when manhood is dead--and it will perish when ravaged femininity no longer sustains it” -- Andrea Dworkin

"Perhaps the most compelling question these texts raise and leave unanswered is whether male violence can be eliminated without eliminating men..." -- Susan Stone-Blackburn

“We must startle them (flush them out) again and again and destroy them as a power, until even their last voice falls silent... when we have destroyed the cell of family, the heterosexual norm ... as our contribution to world events (world history)” -- Françoise d'Eaubonne

"I do want to be able to explain to a 9-year-old boy in terms he will understand why I think it's OK for girls to wear shirts that revel in their superiority over boys." -- Treena Shapiro

"In general, I support a girl's right to offend any member of the opposite sex who happens to cross her path. In fact, I'd much rather see a little girl wearing a shirt that mocks boys than one that turns them on." -- Treena Shapiro

What Famous Leader Are You?

I dont think I am going to say thanks to the Pebblechaser for this...

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Perhaps this will teach me not to take the short test!

Bear Eats Monkey

And a good time is had by all...

Actually, the visitors to the Dutch zoo, where the merciless devouring of an innocent monkey occured, were reportedly "horrified." But then, isnt part of the fun of going to a zoo seeing the animals act like animals? Guess not.

No word yet on if the monkey was a registered Republican. If he was we may well be invading Amsterdam soon.

Thanks to CrazyJo for the story.

Update: Bausch & Lomb ReNu MoistureLoc Contact Solution

From the AP we learn that Bausch & Lomb is permanently pulling their ReNu MoistureLoc which has been implicated in the fungal infections. No wrongdoing has been found on the part of the company. At this time it seems that the use of the product with it's "unique disinfecting and moisturizing agents" could have simply allowed the fungus to grow.

Bausch & Lomb Pulls Contact-Lens Solution
Product Linked to Fungal(sic) That Causes Blindness
By BEN DOBBIN
AP
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (May 15) - Bausch & Lomb Inc. said Monday it has permanently removed from markets worldwide a contact-lens solution that has been linked by health authorities to an outbreak of rare fungal infections that can cause blindness.

"Bausch & Lomb's top priority is the safety of our customers, and we want them to have complete confidence in our products," said the eye-care product maker's chief executive, Ronald Zarrella.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that the number of confirmed cases of Fusarium keratitis in the United States has climbed to 122, most of them contact-lens wearers who reported using Bausch & Lomb's newest cleaner, ReNu with MoistureLoc MultiPurpose Solution.

The company halted U.S. sales of MoistureLoc on April 13 after the CDC said it was investigating an unusual spike in infections in Americans using the product. The outbreak first surfaced in the Far East in the fall and infections have showed up most recently among contact-lens wearers in Europe.

The fungus is commonly found in plant material and soil in tropical and subtropical areas. Without eye-drop treatment, which can last two to three months, the infection can scar the cornea and blind its victims. At least eight U.S. patients have required cornea transplants.

Extensive federal inspections of its factory in Greenville, S.C., where MoistureLoc was made for U.S. and several Asian markets, have not turned up evidence of "contamination, tampering, counterfeiting or sterility failure," Zarrella said in a statement.

"That leads us to conclude that some aspect of the MoistureLoc formula may be increasing the relative risk of Fusarium infection in unusual circumstances," he said. "We are continuing to investigate this link, but in the meantime, we're taking the most responsible action in the interests of our customers by discontinuing the MoistureLoc formula.

"We are taking this action even in countries where we have seen no unusual trends in Fusarium infections, for example in China and the markets in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa," he added.

The recall is limited to MoistureLoc and does not involve other solutions in its ReNu line, including the older and more widely used MultiPlus brand _ which some victims reported using.

Of the more than 30 million Americans who wear contact lenses, about 2.3 million use MoistureLoc, which was introduced in late 2004 and accounted for $100 million in global sales last year. Another 11 million people use the MultiPlus solution.

While the CDC reiterated that the origin remains a mystery, some eye specialists theorized that MoistureLoc's unique disinfecting and moisturizing agents could have played a role in the outbreak.

AP Business Writer Wallace Witkowski in New York contributed to this report.

Why?

"Why" is the question. I dont have the answer.

Land Of The Free?

Hard to believe, but government is spying on you. I know I know. With Echelon and Carnivore they have been spying on us for years. But now we have one more layer of "protection".

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

So in other words, they are checking your behavior so that if you suddenly change it they can flag you and actively spy upon you. Change jobs? You might qualify. Move? you might qualify.

Isnt it great living in the land of the free?

Smoking Crack at the USDA

According to a recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it costs a middle-income family $250,000 to raise a child from birth to age 17. In the first year alone, the costs of a baby can reach between $9,000 and $11,000, and most new and expectant parents don't realize the size of the financial burden they are taking on.

Using typical government efficiency they figure that wet wipes cost an extra $100 a month. Being vastly more efficient, and even using name brand wipes (Huggies), we spend about $15. Not to be outdone by their own stupidity, they also include maternity-leave in the cost and child care of $5,000-20,000.

The only useful/interesting bit of data is that babies consume approx 2.5 ounces per pound per day of formula (and by extension one would assume breastmilk.) IIRC one large can of formula makes 96 ounces. That means a 15 pound little one (like Little Bear) would go through one every 2.5 days. $21 at Walmart X 3 a week = $63. Now THAT is expensive.

Blogagerie

Some recent tidbits from some of the blogs out there.
Astrosmith writes on economics (always a favorite subject of mine.)

Our current system, while it allows great economic freedom in most things, has a support system that takes away the pain felt by people as prices rise or they make bad choices in how they spend their money. ... So, to best match human nature, stupid people must be allowed the freedom to do stupid things, and they must be allowed to experience the pain/loss from the consequences of their stupid actions! This is how people grow up. They will not be stupid forever.

Res Ispa enlightens us on the "benefits" of illegal immigration.

What exactly have the Mexicans done for us that we should celebrate their minor accomplishment?

1. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
2. 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
3. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
4. 36% of illegal aliens are on welfare. The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was a NET (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) $70 BILLION a year.
5. The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE.

CrazyJo wonders if it is just her that is bothered by the commercialized Church.

I guess my problem is with the overall "slickness" of the package. And the fact that it's packaged at all.
It seems like all churches I've been to lately are getting more and more the same. What can we do for you? What program can we create to suit your needs? How can we be more current and "hip"?

And finally, Pink Kitty shows herself to be a heretic with her outrageous, spurious, and libelous claim that the beloved William "Captain Kirk" Shatner can't act!

Ben Affleck rumored to play Kirk in new Star Trek movie

OK... I know. It is actually kind of funny to think about it. Ben Affleck [who needs acting lessons (see Team America for the song)] would play Capt. Kirk, originally played by William Shatner... who can't act his way out of a paper sack.

One Big Happy

This one was just too good to not repost. One Big Happy has always been a favorite of mine as it depicts some of the cute things kids say. Just yesterday a 4 year old girl asked about our little boy "Is he going to turn into a girl?"

Grand Canyon Pic

This is a really poor stitching of 3 pics I took last summer at the Grand Canyon. The camera rather sucked and I did not yet know the technique for taking pics that you will later stitch together. (Basically you need a piece of equipment that will hold the camera in proper position.)

**Update**
Part of the reason for the color shift from left to right is there was a fire off to the right.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge

The original Tacoma Narrows Bridge was completed in July of 1940. At the time is was the third largest suspension bridge in the world. It was a marvel at the time, spanning 5,939 feet across Pugeot Sound and was popular with the locals. The reason it was popular with the locals was its ability to cut off a large drive time and its motion which earned it the nickname "Galloping Gertie." Galloping Gertie lasted for 4 months. On November 7th, 1940 Gertie was destroyed after it encountered a 42MPH wind which created a 30-hertz transverse vibration (or flutter) on the bridge. Flutter is an interesting thing which I may post on when I know more about it.

On the above video you will see a car was on the bridge. The car belonged to a reporter who abandoned it and crawled back to safety. To see just how much the bridge was moving check out this video which has stabilized the towers. Or you can see what it looked like from the point of view of the dog that was left in that car (a rescue of the dog was attempted but it was too frightened to leave the car and bit the would-be rescuer.)

Thought Menagerie

Thieves in Maryland are stealing gas without paying by using keys to open up the control panel of the pump.

From the Denver area (as is the items in the two posts below) a 14yo girl knocked out a grown man who "grabbed" her. Martial arts may have spared her a horrific ordeal (she is a brown belt.)

My sister-in-law has recently been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She could use your prayers (for salvation first and foremost.) As part of a fund raiser I am going to be doing the 150-mile Go For The Gorge ride. Last year this event raised over $2 million. Other fundraisers such as walks can be found at the home page for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society

Blogroll Additions
Morgan of the Lake Consistently interesting opinion even if you don't agree with her.
Res Ispa Dont forget to check out this post dogging on Bernanke. Priceless.

Teacher Fired For Protecting Student

A Denver area charter school fired a teacher (Polica James Houston) after he intervened when a cop was being "overzealous" in his interrogation of a 14 year old student.

Students from KIPP Cole College Prep in Denver protest the firing of a teacher who allegedly interfered with a police officer's questioning of a student. (Post/Brian Brainerd)

About 60 Denver middle school students walked out of class Thursday to protest the firing of a teacher who they say stuck up for a seventh-grader interrogated by police in a school hallway.

The principal called a Denver police officer to the school after a father "threatened physical violence" against him, Harrison said.

The officer talked to the principal, then tried to question the man's daughter - Nichelle Keys.

Keys, 14, said she ran down the hallway when the officer called to her. She says he grabbed her by the straps on her backpack, slammed her into a locker, pulled her hands behind her back and spread her legs.

The officer pointed his finger in her face and demanded to know where her father lived, Keys said. She doesn't live with her father and didn't know the answers to the officer's questions, she said.

"It was just scary," Keys said.

She said the principal called her father to talk about her behavior.

The girl was wearing a wrist brace and said the officer sprained her wrist when he grabbed her hands.

Denver police said Keys has not filed a complaint. Police spokesman Sonny Jackson said that the girl ran away from police and that the officer did not touch her. Houston, who intervened in the police investigation after students ran to him and told him what happened, said he was fired through voice mail Wednesday night.

Houston said Keys was "sobbing and could barely breathe."

The teacher said that he asked the officer for his badge number and that they had a heated verbal exchange.

So much for standing up for your students. This is a huge tragedy for the students at KIPP as this was no doubt a teacher the students trusted to stand up for them. Now this teacher is gone and there is little chance of him getting his job back.

Polica James Houston, I salute you for having done the right thing. You took the high and honorable road and unfortunately you have suffered for it. In the end you will be rewarded but lets hope and pray that you will be rewarded here and now. The world needs more men like you!

Catholics

Are a funny lot.
Just what is it that makes them think their idol worship is okay? And why do they flock in such large groups to see their idols? I mean, with wiccans and whatnot they simply buy/find/make theirs and bring it home to quietly worship, but Catholics go hundreds or even thousands of miles out of their way to worship an idol. Now I am sure that they dont call it worship, but in all honesty it is.

Take this latest example of the "Virgin Mary" appearing in a tree stump. This was just discovered so it will take a bit for the big crowd to come, but the local crowd is already coming. They are claiming miracles, they are bringing of flowers and candles and they are tying "holy cards" of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the tree.

Statements include "Now I am going back to North Platte and I have pictures of the Virgin and the tree. I am going to put one on my husband's grave so he will know what happened here," and "It's amazing that people don't believe in God's world," she said. "This is truly a miracle. People cry when they see it, they are so moved."

Perhaps the reason more people don't believe is because of the idol worship and abject silliness of these people.