Another Reason to Be Happy

Obama can start fixing things immediately:

When Barack Obama is sworn in on Tuesday one of his first tasks will be filling 54 vacancies in federal courts.
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During his two terms, President Bush appointed 326 judges to the federal bench.

“It is no secret that the Bush Administration’s goal was to pack the federal courts at all levels with arch-conservative judges who would be unfriendly to the vigorous protection of civil rights — not only for gay people, but for everyone,” said Cathcart.

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Clowns Are, in Fact, Scary

And you're paying for clowns to scare your kids:

Clowns who teach middle schoolers sex education!

The good folks at the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland were kind enough to send this info to me touting the work of one Derek Dye, the latest in the long, funny and sad line of abstinence-only sex education heroes. Dye uses his juggling clown schtick to draw the middle school kids’ attention, and then… Wham!

“Having sex before you are married is just like juggling machetes!”

“Sex before marriage will destroy all of your life’s dreams!”
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As clownish as Dye’s words may sound to you, they are unfortunately not rare ones for young people to hear in classrooms all over the country. Thanks to George W. Bush and a complicit Congress, we currently spend $1.5 billion a year to fund abstinence-only until marriage sex education in our public schools. And yes, that money goes to people like Derek Dye, as he is employed by the Elizabeth New Life Center that received a $800,000 CBAE grant in 2007 to promote abstinence until marriage. His qualifications? A “Bachelor of Fun Arts” from Barnum Bailey Clown College, and an abstinence educator certification that can be purchased for $50.

Yeah. Clowns, sex, and large knives.

That's a recipe for great mental health, I say.

They Protect Their Own

The criminals prepare to cover their asses:

US LAWYERS battling against torture and other abuses at Guantanamo Bay are braced for George Bush issuing last-minute pardons to protect those in his Administration most closely implicated.

The lawyers' warning came after a senior member of the Bush Administration, Susan Crawford, admitted for the first time that torture had been carried out.

Such pardons could prevent US courts from prosecuting people involved in torture on the Bush Administration's watch, in much the same way that then president Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon in 1974 for crimes he may have committed during his presidency, even though no specific charge had been made against him.

It's Four Below in Oshkosh

And Wisconsin is going a little crazy:

Three Waupaca County men have been arrested in connection with the killing of deer last weekend near Waupaca.
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Each is being held on a felony charge of mistreatment of animals. Hermes will make his initial appearance today in Waupaca County Circuit Court.

The deer were found dead Saturday, apparently run down by a group of snowmobilers who herded the animals from an alfalfa field five miles south of Waupaca where a herd of 30 to 40 deer are known to feed.
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Three deer were found dead in the field.

Byron Goetsch, a DNR regional warden who is involved in the investigation, said the case is "pretty much the worst" he has seen in his 24 years with the DNR.

Yeah.

A little crazy:

A man claiming to be involved in the killing of 57 mallard ducks has come forward.

"A Grave Mistake"

Yeah. Oops.

The Israeli military punched deeper into Gaza City on Thursday with a series of strikes that hit the United Nations' headquarters, a major hospital and the offices of international media groups.

As Israeli leaders weighed an evolving Egyptian initiative that's considered the best hope for ending the 20-day-old conflict, Israeli forces delivered another blow to the Hamas -led Gaza Strip .

For the first time in the offensive, Israel killed a top Hamas political leader in the Gaza Strip . Late Thursday, an Israeli air strike hit Said Siam, who served as interior minister after Hamas won control of the territory in democratic elections in 2006.

The most spectacular strike Thursday came when Israeli forces opened fire on the U.N. compound in Gaza City and set off an uncontrollable blaze that sent a pillar of charcoal-black smoke hundreds of feet into the sky.

Israeli forces hit the compound as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon was preparing to meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Tel Aviv .

Ban said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had apologized for the attack.

"The defense minister said to me it was a grave mistake, and he took it very seriously," Ban said before meeting with Livni to discuss U.N. efforts to bring the fighting to an immediate end.

Where to F@$%ing Begin?

More expletives here:

A Vatican office that evaluated U.S. Roman Catholic seminaries says the schools have made improvements in halting what they call “homosexual behavior” among students.

The Vatican also says seminaries are doing well in teaching about celibacy and are generally effective in screening candidates for the priesthood.

The Vatican ordered the seminary review in response to the clergy sex abuse crisis to see whether the schools had contributed to the problem.

The Vatican also directed evaluators to look for “evidence of homosexuality” in the schools.

Some Catholics blame gay clergy for the abuse scandal. Experts on sex offenders say gays are no more likely than others to molest children.

The Importance of Hobbies

Well, at least high unemployment rates free up more time for disturbing pastimes:

An estimated 3.4 million Americans identified themselves as victims of stalking during a one-year span, according to federal crime experts who on Tuesday released the largest-ever survey of the aggravating and often terrifying phenomenon.

About half of the victims experienced at least one unwanted contact per week from a stalker, and 11 percent had been stalked for five or more years, according to the report by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. It covered a 12-month period in 2005-06.

Shout Out

Very good:

Gene Robinson, the Episcopal church’s first gay bishop, will deliver the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, January 18 - the formal kickoff leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Obama.

Thousands of people are expected to attend the service, including the President-elect.

“It will be an enormous honor to offer prayers for the country and the new president, standing on the holy ground where the ‘I have a dream speech’ was delivered by Dr. King, surrounded by the inspiring and reconciling words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,” Robinson wrote in a weekend e-mail to supporters.

“I am humbled and overjoyed at this invitation, and it will be my great honor to be there representing the Episcopal Church, the people of New Hampshire, and all of us in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community,” he said in the e-mail.

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Robinson has been a strong supporter of Obama and was vocal about his anger over the naming of Rev Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration on January 20 at the Capitol.

Another Growth Industry

Suicide hotlines:

Many mental-health crisis and suicide hotlines are reporting a surge in calls from Americans feeling despair over financial losses.

Surreal

Nothing like a combination of video games and abject poverty to entice people into signing their lives away:

The U.S. Army, struggling to ensure it has enough manpower as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is wooing young Americans with video games, Google maps and simulated attacks on enemy positions from an Apache helicopter.

Departing from the recruiting environment of metal tables and uniformed soldiers in a drab military building, the Army has invested $12 million in a facility that looks like a cross between a hotel lobby and a video arcade.

The U.S. Army Experience Center at the Franklin Mills shopping mall in northeast Philadelphia has 60 personal computers loaded with military video games, 19 Xbox 360 video game controllers and a series of interactive screens describing military bases and career options in great detail.

Potential recruits can hang out on couches and listen to rock music that fills the space.

The center is the first of its kind and opened in August as part of a two-year experiment. So far, it has signed up 33 full-time soldiers and five reservists -- roughly matching the performance of five traditional recruiting centers it replaced.

The U.S. military says it has been meeting or exceeding its recruiting and retention goals, with 185,000 men and women entering active-duty military service in the fiscal year that ended on September 30 -- the highest number since 2003.

Defense officials say the recession and rising unemployment were likely to boost recruiting.

Common Sense

Yes, this makes perfect sense. Because we all know that the only thing stopping rapists and child molesters is a strict men's room/women's room divide:

A blond girl heads from a playground into a women's restroom. A scruffy man, lurking outside, darts in behind her. "Your City Commission Made This Legal," the words on the TV screen read.

The dark ad came from opponents of a gender identity provision added last year to the city's anti-discrimination ordinance, which now allows the city's roughly 100 transgender residents to use whichever restroom they're most comfortable using.
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Cain Davis, chairman of Citizens for Good Public Policy, said the issue is about regulating a "government gone wild" and ensuring public safety, charging that sexual predators could now simply enter a women's restroom claiming to be a transgender individual.

"We know when men go into women's restrooms, bad things can happen," Davis said.