Wedding is off.

Few may be surprised by this turn of events, but it appears as though the Bristol Palin / Levi Johnston engagement is over.

Mercede Johnston claims the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska's governor dumped her brother, Levi, an out-of-work high school drop out. The sister claims Bristol Palin, who took her beau to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., has made it tough for her brother to spend time with his 2-month-old son, Tripp.

"Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible," ... "She [Bristol] tells him he can't take the baby to our house because she doesn't him around 'white trash'!" she said.

In December, Levi Johnston's mother, Sherry, was arrested in an undercover drug sting and charged with six felonies involving the pain killer oxycontin.

It always seemed to me that the announcement of their plans to marry, which coincided with the news shortly after Sarah Palin was named McCain's running mate that her daughter was pregnant and unwed, was merely a tactic to silence critics.

If those teenagers had been madly in love and wanting to spend the rest of their lives together, the wedding would have been scheduled to take place before the birth of Palin's grandchild, preferably during the presidential election campaign to take advantage of MASSIVE media coverage.

In fact, it reflects well on Sarah that she didn't pressure the young couple to tie the knot ASAP and let them wait it out to see if their marriage would actually happen.

Well, if we've gotta. . .

. . . 'debate', I'm glad these young pro-choicers are involved. In fact, this Chatelaine article mostly about them is pretty inspiring.

Among them, F-Word award-winning Pedgehog is featured.

Go, read, be inspired.

Good on all of you younguns!

h/t The Hippie.

Bill Killed

News update from Kentucky:

The Kentucky House Health and Welfare Committee shot down a bill Tuesday to limit abortions. The vote on Senate Bill 79 was 8-8, effectively stopping the proposal for this legislative session. Still, advocates of the bill declined to declare it dead, saying they might consider various parliamentary moves to revive the measure.

The bill would require a woman seeking an abortion to have a face-to-face consultation with a physician and be presented with an ultrasound of the fetus.
Rep. Reginald Meeks, D-Louisville, said he was torn by the vote, noting that another lawmaker had threatened to hold one of his bills hostage in another committee if he didn’t support the proposal. Meeks said he was not going to be held hostage and voted against SB 79.

Similar legislation has been advanced in other US states by zygote zealots and abortion criminalizers for the purpose of delaying, obstructing and limiting women's reproductive choices.

RCMP = Lying Liars

According to a just-released poll.

The death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver's airport has eroded public confidence in the RCMP among Canadians who feel police used too much force when they shocked him with a Taser.

A poll by The Canadian Press-Harris Decima found 61 per cent of those surveyed felt the officers used excessive force when they confronted Dziekanski and stunned him several times.

Thirty-six per cent said Dziekanski's death and an ongoing public inquiry has decreased their confidence in Mounties, while about half said it's had no effect.*

The inquiry has heard from three of the four RCMP officers who were involved in Dziekanski's death, saying they felt the man was about to attack them with a stapler.

But 60 per cent of those polled said they didn't find that story credible.

Looks like a majority of us Canucks are not nearly as gullible as the Mounties think.


*I confess to being part of the 'no affect' group. I doubt my opinion of them could get any lower.

Vatican Rag

Wow. When the Stun Media Group and the Notional Pest geddit, what next?

First, Mindelle Jacobs:

Another International Women's Day has passed and the Roman Catholic Church has started the year badly, predictably, by condemning an abortion for a nine-year-old Brazilian rape victim.

The Vatican is having a difficult time forcing women to have unwanted children, particularly in developing countries.

In Brazil, for example, there are an estimated 1.4 million illegal abortions a year.(The procedure is only allowed in cases of rape or to save the life of the mother). One in four pregnancy-related deaths in the heavily Catholic country is due to complications from an unsafe abortion.

But that hasn't stopped the Catholic church from continuing to place the fetus above the health and economic needs of women.

. . .

It's almost like the church gets off on female suffering.

And the Notional Pest on the importance of the washing machine to women's rights:

The article provoked an angry response from some commentators and politicians.

"Instead of entering into an abstract debate on gender, it would be better if L'Osservatore Romano discussed reality, such as the fear in which many women still live when they are in the streets and between the walls of their own homes," Paola Concia, an MP from the opposition Democratic party, told La Stampa newspaper.

The Roman Catholic Church has come under attack in recent days for what has been perceived as a callous approach to women's issues.

Last week, Brazil's health minister accused the Church of an "extreme" and "inadequate" position for opposing an abortion for a nine-year-old girl who became pregnant with twins after she was allegedly raped by her stepfather.

Seems like even the NP and Sun Media are getting on the anti-Catlick bigot bus.

Men In Fur, Again.

In the comments to fern hill's blogpost, "Anonymous" suggests that criticizing and ridiculizing the Vatican is the same as spreading hatred against blacks, Hispanics or Jews.

"Anonymous" conveniently overlooks the historical facts about the men in fur. The Vatican's clerics choose to elevate themselves above the rest of humanity, with their ritual, their pomp, and their arcane rationalizations for establishing themselves as religious royalty. They are the ones who exclude, judge, condemn others from their gilded palaces.

It is revealing that their ecclesiastical rule is rooted in principles that, century after century, conveniently dismiss the real harm and destruction that pedophile priests have caused to girls and boys.

Hold on to your delusions, "Anonymous". But if you - or the Vatican - can't stand a little heat now, just imagine what it'll be like when you arrive in the hell of your own vision and making.

Is that a gun in your pocket or

did you just catch a whiff of past-their-freshness-date eggs?

A malodorous gas behind the smell of rotting eggs has been found to play a key role in giving men erections. ...

A study has shown that, prior to sexual intercourse, minute quantities of hydrogen sulphide are released within the key nerve cells of the penis which control the engorgement of the male organ with blood to stiffen it.

Scientists believe that the discovery could lead to the development of a new class of drugs to combat erectile dysfunction by affecting a different biochemical pathway to the one targeted by Viagra.

So, the smell of sulphur makes some men hawt. That goes a long way towards explaining the the .... ah, fervour that many priests and male preachers in fundamentalist religions exhibit when launching into rants about the torments of Hell.

BREAKING! Vatican Discovers Washing Machine, Misunderstands Its Significance

As if we needed any further evidence of the Vatican's complete cluelessness, after it endorsed the excommunication of the Brazilian mother and doctors involved in the abortion performed on a 9-year-old girl impregnated by her rapist step-father, today, on International Woman's Day, there's this:

Washing machine brought rights to women: Vatican

VATICAN CITY -- The washing machine has had a greater liberating role for women than the pill, the official Vatican daily said in an International Women's Day commentary Sunday.

"The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put in the powder, close the lid and relax," said the headline on the article in Osservatore Romano.

"In the 20th century, what contributed most to the emancipation of western women?" questioned the article.

"The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalisation of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine," it added.

Yes, indeedy, the Vatican goes even further. Into absolute and total irrelevancy.

I stole that delightful photo of Ratso from Antonia Z.

UPPITY-DATE: In the comments, Anonymous provides a link to the article in Italian and says that it is written tongue in cheek. Who among us reads Italian well enough to call bullshit say? Paging LuLu perhaps?

FURTHER UPPITY-DATE: Anonymous provides a working link to the original article in Italian. It's at Free Republic (big surprise).

We are living in a tabloid world and ....

I'm a tabloid girl. (Sung to the tune of Madonna's Material Girl tune.)

In today's Globe and Mail as well as in other media with no delusions of propriety this gossipy little 'news' item appeared.

Six love letters written by Prince Charles to a woman living in Canada, revealing a long-term romance between the pair, are attracting potential buyers after being put on sale for $30,000 on eBay this week.

The letters, addressed only to a Janet, are thought to have been sent by the Prince in 1976 and 1980 to Janet Jenkins, a British-born woman living in Montreal at the time. ...

The letters are suggestive of a long-running affair. In one dated June 8, 1980, Charles laments that on a recent visit to Canada that his staff wouldn't have approved of Ms. Jenkins visiting his hotel room.

"I can see that I shall just have to get married as soon as possible and then all these people might relax a little ...!" the letter, written on Windsor Castle letterhead, reads. "Don't worry, whatever happens I will make sure you are given early warning ..."

I googled Janet Jenkins; I've pretty much eliminated the deacon photographed with her husband and the lesbian mom as possibilities for the ex-paramour of Chowls.