Christian Convert Said Freed From Afghani Prison

ABC News: Christian Convert Said Freed From Prison - after he was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Now, I'm happy they released him, and maybe he'll even stay alive, if some Islamic fundamentalists don't decide to execute him on their own, while he is still in Afghanistan or once he returns home to Germany. I'm guessing this pretty much quashes any chance he'll be able to see his kids again, which is why he went back to Afghanistan to begin with, once the Taliban were removed from power.

Silly man. He forgot: Islamic law still runs the country.

You know, the same Islamic law that kills women who have been caught in adulterous affairs or accused of having an affair. No, the men aren't executed - after all, it was the woman's fault.

You know, the same Islamic law that throws raped women in prison and forces them to prove they weren't raped. No CSI or trained nurses to collect evidence with a rape kit, either. Oh, the women are allowed to try to find four men to vouch for her, but if she can't, bye bye! Most can't,of course, since even the suspicion of having been sexually assaulted is enough to dishonor her in the eyes of her "honorable" menfolk, so they'll kill her anyway.

But what does the declaration that the Christian Mr. Rahman is mentally unfit--that no one in their right mind would chose to follow any god but Allah--mean to the rest of us? That we're all crazy, too?

We must be, given who we proclaim to be our allies...

We must be, given that our auto companies continue to produce gas hogs at will, doing so little to produce vehicles that do not primarily rely on gasoline...

We must be, given that those empowered to push ahead research and development of alternative energy do so little, state of the union speeches and photo ops notwithstanding...

We must be crazy, given that we still are not acting like a significant number of real crazies are still out to get us...

Job Openings in South Dakota

With South Dakota's insane decision to ban all abortions, even if the mother's life is at risk (a sentiment not, unfortunately, unique to SD), there is going to be an increase in certain types of jobs, assuming the brains behind the abortion ban have also voted to fund:

Child Protective Services will need more social workers and clerical staff to deal with all the kids being damaged by abusive and neglecting parents who didn't want them to begin with, and follow those removed from such homes and placed in foster care;

Foster Parents will be needed in greater numbers, as will group homes and warehouses that store unwanted and abused kids until they can be placed in foster homes;

Emergency Room physicians and staff will be needed in greater numbers to try to save those women who attempt to end their unwanted pregnancies the old fashioned way, with hangers, knitting needles, chemical substances, and back-alley abortion docs.

I am one of those odd people who believe that no one should be allowed to breed dogs or cats until every single animal shelter is empty of animals needing new homes. I also believe that no anti-abortion laws should be passed until every person who is against abortion for whatever reason is required to adopt, after passing certification examination of course, as many children as possible, with the goal of emptying the system of all children needing new homes where they will be properly cared for and raised with loving kindness. And, if they are not certifiable (well, foster parent-wise, as I can pretty much guarantee some of them are certifiable in other ways), then they have no say in the decision making about abortions, period.

Let me say this about that...

I'm too headachey and tired to write at length about anything, so let me say this about a few things.

1. If men were regularly afraid to be alone with a woman on an elevator in an office building, during or after business hours, then people can talk about women like Imette and Natalie being responsible for what happened to them. If men were the ones being drugged with GHB in order to make them pliable for forced sex, then people can talk about women like Imette and Natalie being responsible for what happened to them. If men were regularly afraid to walk to their car in an office building or shopping center parking lot, during or after business hours, then people can talk about women like Imette and Natalie being responsible for what happened to them. Until such time as sexual predators, be they the boy next door or the psycho down the street, are punished in a way that is commensurate with the physical and lasting mental damage they inflicted on their victims, then we can talk about responsibility.

As it stands now, the only ones responsible are the perpetrators and the legal system that has let these scum back on the street.

1.5 I missed seeing the Dan Abrams' program on MSNBC today. One of his guests was a lawmaker in Okalahoma who is pushing for the death penalty for two-time child molesters. Frankly, I think that's great. Not as poetically just as my own idea, but a good alternative, so long as these monsters don't get to hang around on death row for the next 20+ years or so as they do here in California. But I'd like to see the death penalty extend to those who attack people who are not children, be the victims men, women, or male or female adolescents. But I still like my idea the best (Closing the Gap in the Sex Offender Registry System).


2. This is to the aunt of Darryl Littlejohn, and to the family members of all rapists and murderers, and murdering rapists: maybe if y'all were honest about your brothers and sons and husbands and cousins and nephews, fewer women and children, not to speak of a few men, would be permanently harmed and killed every year. By refusing to see the signs, by keeping yourself willfully blind to the way they are, you are accessories to their violent acts.

2.5 And for the woman who lives across the street from Littlejohn, honey, Nazi uniforms are not cool, not fashionable (unless you are a Nazi or neo-Nazi or someone of that ilk yourself, which I think you are not), and definitely not a way to show support for our troops.


3. I am still dead set against Dubai/DPW/UAE having anything to do with our ports. Surely there is a company out there that does have the capability to manage the ports that recognizes Israel, hasn't abetted anti-US terrorists (and hasn't harbored one of the most (in)famous child molesters)? I don't care if DPW has worked out a way to work with ZIM, Israel's oldest and biggest shipper of goods world-wide. Israel has learned to play the games needed so that they can trade with countries that do not officially recognize them and whose citizens officially and unofficially set about training to kill Israelis and whomever else is in range.

Frankly, it looks like Dubai and the UAE may be keeping the U.S. and Israel around because it is so small and probably hopes that if any of its Arab neighbors starts putting the squeeze on them, as Saddam did to Kuwait, for example, the US and Israel (the latter surreptitiously, of course) will come to their aid.