Kelly Sans Culotte

Angry Black Bitch on Health Care Bill Passage

2009-11-09T04:35:00.002-06:00

Celebrating? Hardly.

Over the weekend, at 11:15 p.m. Saturday night, the House of Representatives voted to fuck women when they passed a health insurance reform bill with an anti-choice amendment that includes a ban on private abortion coverage and would prohibit it in the public option. Despite countless attempts to lobby the House, enough members caved to anti-choice freaks ‘cause some Dems managed to convince themselves that passing a health care reform bill that leaves women flattened by a bus is a legislative victory.

Let me once again denounce the American "left's" reliance on the Democratic Party that trembles at defending civil rights. How they turned their backs on queers in Maine! How they traded away a woman's rights to control her body and health!

Health Care Reform Bill Passed House

2009-11-08T04:12:00.003-06:00

Now, does anybody know what exactly's in there? See The Field Negro's concerns.

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1] - - - - - - - - - -
“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2] - - - - - - - - - -
“Criminal penalties Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual: • Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

Umm...

And just how royally did women get screwed? Pretty thoroughly. Thanks, Nancy. What a difference it makes having a female running things.

One for the girls

2009-11-07T03:12:00.001-06:00

Sgt. Kimberly Denise Munley was the hero at Fort Hood, bringing down the gunman after he went on a shooting rampage.

On Wine

2009-11-05T08:30:00.002-06:00

Most American bottles are little more than grape-based processed food products. Uh huh. Shocker.

The article should also have mentioned how common it is for "winemakers" to add a bunch of sugar to their juice to ratchet up the alcohol when the grapes weren't ripe enough or the year was bad, or put it in centrifuges when on the contrary they want to get rid of excess alcohol because they picked the grapes at the wrong moment of ripeness, or clear the must. Sometimes they actually add flavorings. I'll have wine-flavored wine please.

Marie NDiaye Takes the Goncourt

2009-11-03T07:15:00.003-06:00

UPDATED.

One of the best writers anywhere takes France's top literary prize, the Goncourt.
(Here's a much better article in the Guardian.)

What's the world coming to? First Herta Muller then Marie NDiaye. What will I have left to complain about?

Previous post.

Generation Y

2009-10-30T07:52:00.001-05:00

One of the best blogs out there, from Cuba.

Looking at the FBI's Powers

2009-10-29T04:37:00.004-05:00

Worth checking out this NY Times article looking at how much additional leeway agents have been given in the post-Sept. 11 era, and how

even if agents find nothing, the personal information they collect during assessments can be retained in F.B.I. databases, the manual says.

When selecting targets, agents are permitted to consider political speech or religion as one criterion. The manual tells agents not to engage in racial profiling, but it authorizes them to take into account “specific and relevant ethnic behavior” and to “identify locations of concentrated ethnic communities.”

Add that to the Obama administration's continuation of Bush's Homeland Security policies eroding civil liberties, plus their cover-up of Bush admin war crimes, and voila, a perfect example of why we should all read Herta Müller.

Nobel Prize In Literature

2009-10-26T06:40:00.006-05:00

Updated

A bit late posting this, but worth noting Herta Müller won the Nobel prize for literature.

In her essay, Securitate in all but name she describes what it was like to be a writer under Ceausescu in Romania, and how even after his execution decades ago his secret service is still active.

There's a pretty good bio of Müller by Verena Auffermann in SignandSight.

Chronic Problems with CDC

2009-10-21T03:18:00.004-05:00

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways. In "A Case of Chronic Denial" about the news that once again, research shows that a retrovirus is responsible for the lamely named Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Hillary Johnson reminds us that

Congress has appropriated money for research on chronic fatigue syndrome, too, though in far smaller amounts, but the C.D.C. has seemed unwilling to spend it productively. A decade ago, investigations by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services and what was then called the General Accounting Office revealed that for years government scientists had been funneling millions meant for research on this disease into other pet projects.

Furthermore

Hints that a retroviral infection might play a role in chronic fatigue syndrome have been present from the beginning. In 1991, Dr. Elaine DeFreitas, a virologist at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, found retroviral DNA in 80 percent of 30 chronic fatigue patients. The C.D.C. went so far as to try to replicate her effort, but refused to follow her exacting methods for finding the virus. In addition, the centers’ blood samples became contaminated, and some people at the agency said that administrators ended the research prematurely. Rather than admit any such failure, the C.D.C. publicly criticized Dr. DeFreitas’s findings.

That episode had a chilling effect on other researchers in the field, and the search for the cause was largely abandoned for 20 years.

Fuckers.

Ontological Confusion in New York

2009-10-16T03:33:00.002-05:00

A Secret Paris

2009-10-16T03:28:00.002-05:00

Beehives near the small apple and pear orchard at the Luxembourg Gardens where there are a few grape vines and a persimmon tree as well.

Comité de la jupe

2009-10-13T06:01:00.006-05:00

On October 11th, the "Comité de la jupe" (Skirt Committee) met in real life for lunch and inspiration before taking to the Paris streets. These women-led "citizen Catholics," largely organized on the internet, have the ambitious goal of making the Catholic Church more democratic. They also have the odd idea Christians should focus more on the values of Christ.

While I'd like to sneer, I actually found the speech and manifesto really moving. What's not to like about equality and kindness?

On Guns

2009-10-12T03:52:00.003-05:00

Field Negro on the pistol-packing woman who toted her gun to her five-year old's soccer games and got shot by her husband. WTF

Some of you might -or might not remember Maleanie Hain. She is the soccer mom who liked to pack heat while attending her kids soccer games. She became a celebrity among the NRA folks and gun lovers here in A-merry-ca, and they defended her with her law suit in her fight to be able to bear arms at her five year old child's soccer games. Well they can withdraw the suit now, because Meleanie Hain is dead. She was shot by her husband in the kitchen of their Lebanon home while her trusty pistol sat in her backpack.

"Meleanie Hain always carried her holstered 9mm Glock pistol, even to the grocery store, and was holding a rifle while she talked to someone outside her house last week..."

According to some of the comments on the FN post, Maleanie was shot by her parole officer husband while webcamming with her boyfriend. They did not live in a trailer.

Let's Hear It For the Blogs

2009-10-10T04:12:00.003-05:00

The BBC reports on the growing phenomenon of Cuban bloggers, by and large born after the Soviet fall. Not allied to the dissident movement or independent press, they offer descriptions of daily life, complete with economic disasters, social disintegration, and personal humiliations.

So far, they haven't been harassed as much as the usual independent journalists, partly because they rarely go as far as demanding changes in governmental policy or politicians. Daniel Erikson believes its because the government doesn't understand the power of blogs.

"I suspect there is a generational disconnection between the activities of Raul Castro and Yoani Sanchez," Mr Erikson says.

Killling Queers

2009-10-06T06:52:00.006-05:00

New York Magazine's featuring a piece How a Few New Yorkers Are Trying to Save the Hunted Gay Men of Iraq. Murders of queers also increasing in Honduras. Both a reminder that in most countries LGBT rights can't be addressed alone. Pre-existing conditions: a certain amount of democracy, secularism, peace.

Go France

2009-09-28T07:53:00.001-05:00

A new film reveals that when a KGB colonel decided to pass on secrets that would devastate the Soviet Union he turned to Paris, hastening the end of the Cold War.

Due credit is given to the French, the once-reviled "surrender monkeys", by, of all sources, the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA's official website still carries a compelling essay, written soon after the affair was declassified in 1996, by Gus Weiss, the American official who ran the Washington end of the case. He concludes: "[The] Farewell dossier... led to the collapse of a crucial [KGB spying] programme at just the time the Soviet military needed it... Along with the US defence build-up and an already floundering Soviet economy, the USSR could no longer compete."

Required Reading

2009-09-27T20:11:00.005-05:00

All columnists, and essayists, too, for that matter, should read this 1995 piece by William Safire, A Columnist's Farewell: How to Read a Column. Didn't always agree with the man but he sure could write. And because he took the time to write well, with reasoned arguments and wit, instead of rants and ravings, he managed to do that rare thing, provoke thought among his thoughtful opposition.

Getting Ugly

2009-09-27T07:58:00.002-05:00

Killing census workers -- in Kentucky.

Couldn't really bring myself to write about this.

Progress on AIDS vaccine

2009-09-26T06:02:00.003-05:00

It doesn't protect even a majority of people but scientists consider it progress that a trial combining two vaccines protected 30% of those tested. Which certainly beats none.

The questions, according to the New York Times: "why it worked in some people but not in others, and why those infected despite vaccination got no benefit at all."

The science is actually really interesting.

One puzzling result — those who became infected had as much virus in their blood whether they got the vaccine or a placebo — suggests that RV 144 does not produce neutralizing antibodies, as most vaccines do, Dr. Fauci said. Antibodies are Y-shaped proteins formed by the body that clump onto invading viruses, blocking the surface spikes with which they attach to cells and flagging them for destruction.

Instead, he theorized, it might produce “binding antibodies,” which latch onto and empower effector cells, a type of white blood cell attacking the virus. Therefore, he said, it might make sense to screen all the stored Thai blood samples for binding antibodies.

“The humbling prospect of this,” he said, “is that we may not even be measuring the critical parameter. It may be something you don’t normally associate with protection.”

Sex and Gender

2009-09-23T07:49:00.004-05:00

Not just a problem for human athletes like Caster Semenya, settling the gender question's also a problem in horse racing, too. Though with less serious consequences.

How untidy.

h/t Pam's House Blend

SELLING OUT

2009-09-21T07:56:00.003-05:00

Again, if you care about revolution, why on earth would you wear a Che tee shirt? Seriously. Listen to Yoani.

The faces that you see in this small shop are for many people—outside of Cuba—part of a counterculture to confront the status quo. They are the emblems which some call on in an attempt to change what they dislike about their respective societies. But on this Island it is just the opposite, those who look out at us from the posters and T-shirts are, for us, those who created the present order of things, the promoters of the system in which we have lived for fifty years. How could you wear any of these symbols without feeling that you are assuming the culture of power, the emblems of the masters?

Nope, It Ain't Race

2009-09-21T07:45:00.002-05:00

Not about race at all -- this little political lovefest with Obama -- in post-racial America.

The picture here's worth at least a word or two.

H/T Field Negro

Snowflakes in Hell?

2009-09-21T03:09:00.004-05:00

Jets win two whole times in a row!!! This victory against the rival Patriots of Bill Belichick. Yes, I'm talkin' football.

On the Way Home the Other Night

2009-09-18T06:24:00.002-05:00

How to Do a Demo

2009-09-17T10:36:00.001-05:00

A perfect case study from thefword.org.uk.