On August 12, 1851, Isaac Singer was granted a patent for his improved sewing machine design. This is somewhat relevant to me–I’m an avid crafter and I just finished up a quilt, and thank goodness I didn’t have to sew it by hand!
- ‘Gift from God’ or ratings ploy? Abandoned babies are handed out live on Pakistani TV – ” ‘We find eight to ten bodies a month in the garbage, mostly girls,’ said Chhipa, who runs the Chhipa Welfare Association. ‘This is the reason we are going on the show, to give the awareness, to give the information to the public.’ “
- Take Back Your Pregnancy – “Modern pregnancy comes with a long list of strict rules, but does it have to? An economist examines the data and finds room for choice amid the familiar limits.” I definitely recommend this article, even just to forward to your pregnant friends. From Jamie.
- This Mennonite Colony Has a Crazy-Horrible ‘Ghost Rape’ Problem – You may have figured out that there is no “ghost” at work here.
- Atheism is maturing, and it will leave Richard Dawkins behind – From Amy.
- Many Americans have no friends of another race: poll – What about you?
- Leah Remini deals Scientology new blow – But the LAPD just closed the missing persons case about Shelly Miscavige. From Amy.
BONUS: The Swedish word for “fluffy” is “fluffig” and “poofy” is “puffig.” I just found that out (from Felicia at our awesome Swedish site).
So Gabriel “FluffY” Iglesias is FLIFFIG! Heehee :D :D He would really like that.
Really? I can’t type this morning? FLUFFIG!
Taking pregnancy advice from an economist? Writing in the WSJ?
What is worse than cocaine exposure in utero, is poverty.
http://articles.philly.com/2013-07-22/news/40709969_1_hallam-hurt-so-called-crack-babies-funded-study
If you really want to help the next generation of children, you would end the war on drugs and use that money for prenatal health care, nutritional support and poverty reduction. If you don’t want to help future generations of children you would maintain the status quo and increase income inequality and blame the poor because the “job creators” haven’t created enough jobs.
Hmmm…. I’m a Native American in Connecticut. ALL of my friends are of different races.
Shelly Miscavige is holed up in the California mountains at Lake Arrowgead, at the secret CST headquarters–where she’s probably been for around 5 years. She’s transcribing L Ron Hubbard’s audio tapes, to be archived forever. Ron had a lot to say about everything, so most if not all of it is garbage. And the Sea Org cadets have to listen to all of it.
Word is (from Tony Ortega’s blog) that they might trot her out to show everyone she’s still breathing. She’d most likely say she’s happy and doing important work, unless she’s like Leah and gets out of this mess.
Manitoba Colony in Bolivia (the Mennonite colony) definitely has problems; however, I’m not sure that all those convicted of rape a few years ago were guilty of all they were found guilty of (confessions were apparently extracted under threat of lynching and recanted later [one man was killed in the Colony before trial (hung by his arms from a pole for 9 hours) so the threat seems real]; I’m not sure how many were identified by their victims [two were apparently caught breaking into a house]); was there the equivalent of a witch hunt? And the rapes go on. And the women are isolated (no political voice, education only until age 12, little contact with the outside world and then only through translators [except with other Mennonites] since they speak a dialect of Low German unique to Mennonites [men can learn Spanish and standard High German]). The colony itself is self-governing and self-policing by agreement with the Bolivian government (except for murder cases and if the colony government itself chooses to involve outsiders as it did in the earlier rape case).
I really hope we can leave the old white guy behind.
That story about abandoned babies reminds me of a recent Supreme Court case. Dusten Brown had a daughter by Christina Maldonado. The basic issue is, Maldonado was given $40k to put her child up for adoption. (You may note, as ICTMN did, that the maximum payment for a birth couple in adoption cases in Oklahoma is $1000.) When Brown came back from deployment in Iraq, he wanted to take care of his daughter. The South Carolina Supreme Court agreed to give the child to Brown. So that should be the end of it? Hell, no! The Capobiancos (the adoptive couple) took it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court gutted the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was put into place because previous adoptions of Indian children had been to parents who abused them, rented them out as cheap labor while living off government benefits for having a foster child, or were simply religious fanatics who wanted to “save the Indian”. (Could fundies just stop with this? Especially since the Cherokee have been officially Christian since before there was a USA.) Said religious fanatics, and adoption agencies who have been cut off from their normal supply of children as other countries ban foreign adoptions, have been backing the Capobiancos throughout this. These religious fanatics even want to scrap the reservation system and tribal sovereignty.
The weirdest part is, Maldonado recently has been going to social media defaming Brown.
Meanwhile, the Men’s Rights movement was too busy sending obscene tweets about some woman who rejected an offer of a romantic nature from a coworker to notice./cynicism