This Week

I am on vacation this week, and I cannot blog poolside, but here is a list of good reads in the meantime:

Valerie-gate

Factual, Documented Timeline of events from factcheck.org

Bio-Feminism

The Politics of the Embryo...how the anti-abortion is trying to compare its cause to the battle for racial civil rights


Iranian Ayatollahs

Two Boys Hanged in Iran for "Crimes of Homosexuality"... I have to comment on this one. The boys were 17 and 18. They were put to death for homosexual acts. Prior to their execution, the teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes. I am finally grasping the idea of "radical Ayatollahs." Under their rule, children can be hanged for homosexuality and for behavior that is "incompatible with chastity." HANGED. I do not even think that America's most conservative citizens would advocate putting homosexuals to death. Wow. I found another interesting fact hidden in this story. Apparently, under the Iranian penal code, girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15 can be hanged. This is astonishing... (!) the girls' threshhold is lower than the boys' in a country that claims that males have intellectual and moral superiority, and (!) a girl can be hanged prior to puberty and a boy prior to adulthood. It is a sad thing that we are pouring so many resources into Iraq for "Iraqi rights" while this is going on next door unchecked.

Indy Scene

Letter to the Editor about My Man Mitch's Defense

In the category of bizarre criminal charges