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POPSForgiveness? For this? Horrible. Total nightmare...full story here: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=648885 I am puzzled as to why they embarked on such an adventure without medical insurance however!
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POPS"McCain being McCain" on rape joke "The spokesperson went on to dismiss other criticism of McCain’s humor, calling it “a good example of McCain being McCain.” Exactly my point. Can it really be that we would consider electing a president whose staff says a joke about women enjoying rape is "McCain being McCain"?
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POPSTorah Borntrager on "how I escaped the Amish" A young woman who was raised Amish, but who left the community at age 15, tells her story. This is an interview by Tim Ferris (the time-management guru) -- not what I expected to see at his blog at all, but I assume it's genuine.
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POPSThe Comedy Stylings of Shecky McCain At the time, McCain’s spokesperson (Torrie Clark, yes, that one) alleged that this was story was some manipulation by the Richard Kimball campaign. Yep, it’s always the other guy’s fault. I wonder if the reporter on that story, Norma Coile, was treated to the screaming phone call that McCain has treated so many local reporters to when they dare write a negative story about him. UPDATE - Because you demanded it, here is a PDF of the original article from 1986.
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POPSThe Faces Of Injustice "Shklar denies that felt acts of injustice can ever be entirely eliminated. Still, because the line between misfortune and injustice is so vague, we must always allow for the expression of felt injustices on the part of those who think they have been victimized and democracy, in contrast to other regimes, not only allows for such expressions but thrives on them. For only if we voice our sense of injustice can we keep politicians honest and ourselves actively involved in our own rule." It's difficult being a voice for social change especially at a time when this country; the country I love, is so divided, but it's my particular freedom from bondage and the shackles of what we are supposed to believe to be free.
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POPSObama's Supreme U-Turns The Supreme Court also looked at a Louisiana law extending the death penalty to the rape of a child. In another 5-to-4 decision, the Court ruled the Constitution doesn’t permit capital punishment for raping a child. The majority opinion argued the death penalty for that crime “poses risks of over-punishment.” Senator Obama criticized the decision: “I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution.” Like many Americans, I agree with that. The problem is that Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Souter don’t. All of them voted to overturn the death penalty for child rapists.
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POPSWomen With the horror of the recent "honor" killing in Georgia as the backdrop, I'm inspired to remind everyone that women die at the hands of male family members every day in the US. In fact, 4 times a day. I'm tired of the Right acting like they really care about women and gender equality. The only mention of women in the 2004 Republican platform is their insistence that if a woman gets pregnant, by law she'll stay that way until delivery. I went to a number of right wing websites and typed the words "violence against women" into their search engines. If any stories were listed at all, they were about honor killings in the Muslim world. The Right wrap their "concern" for women in the cloak of anti-Islamic rhetoric concerning honor killings and are dumb, deaf, and blind to all else. Enough. Islam is not the problem. Patriarchy is.
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POPSBoston Legal's Depiction of the Supreme Court... Was right on target. When I first saw this clip, I couldn't believe how wonderful it would be if this was not fiction. Well, it seems the Supreme Court may not be as politically polarized as I thought but just one more Republican justice and it will be. When that happens a case like this will only be a fairytale. I can't embed it any longer but you can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqlGoxfAkuU See John Stewart's hilarious view of Scalia and the Supreme Court. Click Here: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/30/daily-show%20-the-loveable-and-charming-antonin-scalia/
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POPSRape: 'They looted my body like I was dead' "They kicked my breasts, which are still badly swollen. They took me to a graveyard and raped me again. When I was trying to stop them, they took a hot wire and burned my hand. They looted my body like I was dead. They took my ID card and all my money."
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POPSLawyers accuse judge of lying, bungling Roman Polanski case The famous film director Roman Polanski fled the US in 1977 because he was charged for statutory rape. Twenty years later, Polanski's lawyer and prosecutors made a deal that would have allowed Polanski to return to the US. Polanski refused the deal because the judge wanted the proceedings televised. Fast forward to now, when HBO releases its Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired documentary which contains this little tidbit. The judge calls the story completely fabricated. Both the defense and prosecuting attorney go on the record calling the judge a liar.
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POPSDakota Fanning's Sundance Rape Scene Good for Dakota for defending this movie. I believe it is utterly absurd to say this a scene, a non-explicit scene in a movie is child pornography. On top of that to make the claim that A) Ms. Fanning was abused, and B) 12 year olds cant makes "these types of decisions" is ludicrous. The child star says it better than anyone when she points out its just a film, its just acting. No one is getting hurt here, If you don't like the film, don't watch it. This is a typical example of controversy for the sake of controversy.
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POPSWe Won't Need The Expense Of A Supreme Court If McCain wins in November, we won't need a Supreme Court any longer. When he throws in a few more conservative ideologues to further unbalance this court, we will all know their rulings on EVERYTHING even before they cast their vote. It's almost that way now except for the conservative Kennedy who in his declining years of life has turned into a philosopher, that is a person who seeks truth by thinking! But he is the exception, not the rule. The other justices vote along the lines of WHATEVER THE HELL THEIR KING TELLS THEM TO VOTE. Now is this fair to the people in a democracy... HELL NO! Believe me, not only will progressives suffer many conservatives will suffer too! Left or Right we all feel the pain of injustice!
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POPSKennedy's shame
The vaporous slogan posing as a standard is the spoon full of sugar that helps the Court’s enlightened medicine go down. The handiwork that results is not a reflection of our evolved values; it is five lawyers dragging the benighted masses kicking and screaming toward its Utopia — where brutalized eight-year-old girls, like murdered innocents and terrorized cities, are not flesh-and-blood but the props by which we measure how “maturely” we indulge their tormentors. And now, it turns out, so brazen was Kennedy’s power grab that the usual veneer — cloaking judicial tyranny in a self-celebration of societal “progress” — couldn’t even make it through two weeks. The evolving standards Justice Kennedy purported to find stemmed from what he took to be a national “consensus” against capital punishment for child rape. The furious public outcry after the ruling was a pretty good sign that something was amiss in the majority’s survey. Nevertheless, the Court observed that of the 36 states t
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POPSBill Clinton is a PUMA Referencing President Clinton's reluctance to campaign for Obama, The Telegraph reports he expects to have his ass kissed in exchange for support. At bare minimum.