30 Senators Support Rapist Rights: Epic FAIL

This sounds like a sick joke, but it's true ...

Jamie Leigh Jones is an American woman who tried to serve our great nation in Baghdad as a contractor for Halliburton/KBR. There, she was gangraped by her fellow Halliburton employees, and then imprisoned against her will in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed. She escaped only because a guard let her call her father who contacted he authorities. Halliburton lost or destroyed Jones' rape kit.

You think that's sick? Don't worry ... there's more.

In a nation ruled by Law, Jones would be able to present charges against her attackers, and against the corporation that ordered her imprisoned, destroyed evidence, and generally contributed to he situation. At the very least, she would get a day in court for civil damages.

But in the small print of Jones' employment contract was an agreement that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration. You really have to wonder why Halliburton felt it necessary to try to immunize itself against the consequences of its employee rape.

Jones' is only one of many such cases, but the Federal Government has been slow to act, preferring to shield rapists and keep the federal dollars flowing to them. Today, however, the rule of law is bring reasserted, as the United State Senate voted 68-30 to deny Federal funds to contractors who do this.

No less that thirty Senators sided with the rapists and their enablers; these men (all four Republican women voted FOR the amendment and AGAINST the rapists as did 6 male Republicans and all the Democrats present) need to be called out for what they are: pro-rape.

Pro Rape Senators
NAYs
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

To be fair, maybe those men are not so much pro-rape, as willing to allow the rapes to continue so long as they get their payoff.

Read the Roll Call details"

And enjoy the bitchslapping of the pro-rape Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Rape) by the new Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken --- the guy who stepped forward and said "STOP IT!"


Jones is a survivor; her new foundation is dedicated to holding criminals accountable. See http://www.jamiesfoundation.com/

UPDATED
And it will be a surprise to no-one that Jones' is not an isolated case. Other survivors are coming forward: http://www.alternet.org/world/81266/

Jon Stewart takes on the "Anti-Government Rape Liability Amendment": "It's not the government's business to decide who the government does business with."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

clips show that Sessions(R) is truly one of the most disgusting persons in the world in the world; to him, gang rape is just one of "these kinds of disputes"
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AND NOW: 
They have their own website: http://www.republicansforrape.org/legislators/

Student-Veterans: Good News!

Emergency Payments for Veterans Awaiting VA Educational Benefits
https://advancepay.gibill.va.gov/

"Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki has authorized advance payments up to $3,000 for Veterans who have applied for VA educational benefits and who have not yet received their monthly education payments.

If you are a Veteran who has applied for one of VA’s education programs and have not yet received your monthly benefit payment for the Fall 2009 term, you can submit a request for an advance payment on this website.

Advance payments will be issued by the U. S. Treasury within 3 workdays (Monday through Friday) following submission of this request. Payments will be in the form of a check sent through the U.S. mail. You should therefore anticipate an additional 3 days (excluding Sundays) for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver your check.

You can also visit one of VA’s 57 regional offices across the country to immediately receive an advance payment. You will need to bring a photo ID and your course schedule when you visit the regional office. A list of VA’s regional offices is available at www.vba.va.gov/VBA/benefits/offices.asp.

The advance payments will be reconciled with future education payments owed to you."

MORE INFO: https://advancepay.gibill.va.gov/

It would be better to have no problems, but the VA deserves credit for dealing with this one instead of sweeping it under the rug. It's gonna take a while to fix the mess.

#ConservativeBible: Twitter vs Conservapedia

SHORT STORY: see http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ConservativeBible

LONG STORY: Twitter "hashtags" are short phrases preceded by a hash mark, that facilitate searching for topical twitters. For example, if you're interested in widgets, search for "#widget"; if you're twittering about widgets and want like-minded people to notices, include the hash tag. There are popular made-up hash tags usefully gain currency as well, such as #p2 for "Progressive".

So .... when conservapedia ( a wiki that decided wikipedia was overly dominated by liberals ... cuz you know, reality has a pronounced liberal bias!) decided that all existing bible translations had a liberal bias (kinda like wikipedia....) and announced it was launching an effort to PURGE THE BIBLE of its LIBERAL BIAS (...I shit you not!) naturally the web reacted.

With mockery.

On Twitter, someone started posting with a helpful #ConservativeBible and within minutes there were hundreds of contributions. Most were pretty funny. You can see what's current (but there is not gaurantee WHAT is there at this instant): http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ConservativeBible

UPDATED:

• Salon joins the fun: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/feature/2009/10/06/conservative_bible/index.html
• Update from SouthernBeale: http://sobeale.blogspot.com/2009/10/and-they-wonder-why-we-laugh-at-them.html 
  

Michelle and Les Got Married

Our cousin Michelle married a real nice guy (smart too!) last Saturday.

Kris & I carpooled with Larry and Ginger. Since we were early, we stopped for a snack at the Tin Fish.

The reception was in the basement of my old grade school, St. Mary Magdalen. Some things have changed but much remained the same.

Much happiness!

Sagan/Hawking Duet: A Glorious Dawn

This work by melodysheep is delightful ... give it a minute, you'll like it.... the singing effect was ADDED to Sagan's spoken text by software...

Lyrics

[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has its own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

[chorus]

[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

[Sagan]

How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

[chorus]

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we've waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting

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• More of melodysheep's work at http://www.colorpulsemusic.com/
• Mega-Kudos to Randy Cassingham for pointing to this at: A Glorious Dawn

Grayson FTW!

First, Grayson (D-FL) calls out the Republicans...


...and then he talks to four Republican media types....

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Love him or hate him, this guy's got big brass clankers!
http://www.graysonforcongress.com/

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As reported by John Nichols:

Congressman Grayson Has Just Begun to Fight

Washington Republicans are horrified, horrified, horrified by the bluntness of Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson.

The tough kid from the Bronx (and Harvard Law School) who represents an until recently Republican Orlando-area district pulled no punches Tuesday, when he declared on the House floor:

"The Republican health care plan is this: Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly."

After his GOP colleagues recovered from the shock of a Democrat actually calling them out, they demanded an apology.

Grayson returned to the House floor to announce that:

"I would like to apologize, I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America."

So unfamiliar with the notion that a Democrat might actually take the healthcare debate seriously enough to try and win it, the Republicans presumed that Grayson had gone off the deep end. The National Republican Congressional Committee screeched:

"This is an unstable man who has come unhinged. The depths to which Alan Grayson will sink to defend his indefensible comments know no bounds."

NRCC spokesman Ken Spain claimed in an interview with the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill that: "This is an individual who has established a pathological pattern of unstable behavior."

Grayson hasn't cracked.

The former assistant (on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to current U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, and conservative judicial icon Robert Bork) is dealing in facts.

Indeed, the Harvard grad has seized on a study produced by researchers at his old school that details how 44,000 Americans die annually because they lack health insurance. And he is laughing off a Republican attempt to formally condemn his choice of words.

Georgia GOP Congressman Tom Price does not think it is fair for a Democrat to counter months of Republican hyperbole with actual statistics. So the Georgian has drafted a resolution that accuses Grayson of committing "a breach of decorum and (degrading) the integrity and proceedings of the House."

Grayson's response:

"A resolution like that doesn't save one human being's life."

The resolution has yet to be introduced and is unlikely to get far in the overwhelmingly Democratic House. Like the silly Democratic resolution seeking objecting to South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson's boorish behavior during President Obama's address to the Joint Session of Congress, Price's proposal is a meaningless exercise.

Yet, Grayson's more cautious colleagues in the Democratic caucus (notably caucus chair John Larson of Connecticut) say they'll urge their Jewish colleague to back away from some of his remarks -- especially a Holocaust reference that, while on-point to the view of those who see the denial of healthcare to the sick as an act of brutality, seemed gratuitous and unnecessary to politicians who are ill at ease with such passionate language.

Grayson, whose official biography begins with a telling quotation from the Torah ("Justice, justice, ye shall seek..."), shows no signs of backing down.

The congressman, who beat an entrenched Republican incumbent in 2008 and is confident he'll win again in 2010 (perhaps with some support from libertarian Republicans who appreciate his loose alliance with 2008 GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul on issues of holding Federal Reserve bankers to account) says he is hearing a lot more praise than criticism

"People are calling us from all over the country to congratulate us for telling the truth," says Grayson. "People are happy to see a Democrat with guts."

In fact, Grayson has a lot to teach a Democratic caucus that has not begun to fight for health care reform.

While Republicans have been waging a war against reform, Democrats have been in duck-and-cover mode -- until now.

Grayson may sound a little over-the-top to some Capitol insiders.

Some of his language may unsettle even his allies.

But to Americans who this week witnessed the revolting rejection by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee of even mild reforms like the proposed "public option," the Florida congressman's words will sound like the sanest message coming not just from his side of the aisle but from all of official Washington."

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In times like these, we must ask:

What Would Johnny Cash Do?