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The Stranger | Slog | Today in Traditional Marriage.

Drew Peterson, the former Chicago police sergeant who is a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy, and the homicide of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, is engaged again.

Drew Peterson, 54, recently proposed to his 23-year-old girlfriend of four months, his publicist confirmed to ABCNews.com, but he will not reveal her identity in an attempt to shield her from the media.

Well, on the bright side, this girl is pretty young, so she’s probably got a few good years before she disappears too.

Miller v. Jenkins: One Gay Couple’s Custody Battle | Newsweek Culture | Newsweek.com.

This is absolutely disgusting. This is no different from those old Lifetime movies where the father would kidnap the child and remove her to some foreign country where women (and therefore mothers) have no custodial (or any) rights. It’s absolute bullshit. When you and another person bring a child into this world, you are both parents to that child, and it is absolutely abhorrent to cut one parent out of the child’s life like that, and then try to brainwash her into hating her other mother, which you KNOW this lady is doing. Family values, my ASS. It makes me want to scream.

Hajj makes Muslims more tolerant, study suggests – CNN.com.

They killed their neighbors: genocide’s foot soldiers – CNN.com.

The picture makes me sick. They truly look like they haven’t a care in the world. And frankly, they probably don’t. Bastards.

Israeli Web site advises using wisdom of Quran – CNN.com.

Commentary: Pregnant woman asks for help, gets ticket – CNN.com.

OY. That’s all I have to say. It must be idiot-cop season.

Injured boy doesn’t know attacks in India killed relatives – CNN.com.

Another child orphaned by these horrible attacks. 🙁

Read Sandra Samuel’s account of the targeting of the Chabad House in Mumbai and the way she saved the life of the Holtzbergs’ baby. Amazing. People are just… amazing sometimes. In a good way.

How awful that the child saw his parents killed, though. I didn’t know that before, though it explains the news accounts of his blood-soaked pants. This poor baby. 🙁 At least he has this wonderful woman looking out for him.

Things just keep getting worse for his family, though. Not only is the Mumbai police commissioner now stating that evidence shows the people killed in the Chabad house were tortured first, but it turns out that Rivkah Holtzberg was five months pregnant.

What the fuck, man?

Anaheim officer mistakenly kills man on his front lawn.

But on the bright side, he was innocent. Wait – what?!?!

I’m sure it came as SUUUUUCH a relief to Julian Alexander’s family that the police have proclaimed that he was “was innocent of anything that the officer suspected was going on in the neighborhood.”

No, really – it’s precious:

“Anaheim Police Chief John Welter met with about 30 members of Alexander’s family Tuesday afternoon at a news conference. While not coming out and saying it was the department’s fault, Chief Welter wanted Alexander’s family to know that the 20-year-old, in the department’s eyes, was an innocent bystander in this incident.”

Fantastic. I’m sure that line went over great at the FUNERAL. “Well, we’ve lost our beloved son, grandson, husband, soon-to-be father because he looked like the suspects (in that he was black, and that’s pretty much it)… but on the bright side, the police say he didn’t do anything to deserve this! What a relief!”

To be somewhat fair to the police, I think the family had asked them to specify in their news release that he was an innocent bystander – but still! This reminds me of the way they used to test women for witchcraft by weighting them down with stones and putting them in the water. If the women survived, they were guilty and sent to be hanged. If they drowned, well, at least their families could take consolation in the fact that they were innocent…

So sad – the kid was only 20 years old – and his wife was 7 months pregnant at the time. She’s due this month.

Terrorism That’s Personal – NYTimes.com.

“Since 1994, Ms. Bukhari has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.”

This NY Times article highlights the prevalence of acid and burning attacks against women in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries where women are viewed as inferior to men. It’s disgusting that these men are getting away with these acts 98% of the time. Absolutely disgusting.

Watch the video. You need to watch the video.

Israel buries victims of Mumbai terror attacks – CNN.com.

That poor little boy. He’s already lost a brother. His other brother is going to die. And his parents are gone. The poor kid’s second birthday was the day after the attacks, so he’ll never even get the chance to enjoy his birthdays without a dark cloud of memory cast over them.

It’s official: We’ve been in a recession for a full year now.

This, from the National Institute of DUH!

Of course, it’s good to know that this isn’t all in our heads… you know, like some sort of mental recession by a nation of whiners…

Armed Teams Sowed Chaos With Precision – NYTimes.com.

Utter insanity. How easily could this happen here in the States?

Wal-Mart death preventable, union says – CNN.com.

Well, yeah. A lot of the bad things that happen at (and because of) Wal-Mart are preventable. The problem is that they never bother to make the effort to prevent them. They have so much money that they simply do not care. So they pay $1 or $2 million to the family who lost a loved one. It might have cost them $3 or $4 million to hire extra people and arrange for crowd control and barriers in all of their stores. Hey, in their eyes, they probably see this death as a bargain. A rolled-back price, if you will…

An idea lost on fanatics – Los Angeles Times.

The brittle, fanatic minds that could countenance something like the Mumbai massacre are well armored against real-world complexities, like irony and paradox. If they were not, they might have realized that they could not have found a more confounding target for their hatred of Jews than one of the thousands of houses around the world operated by the Chabad Lubavitch movement for which Holtzberg and his wife served as emissaries. The facility they ran is really an observant Jewish version of the old-fashioned settlement houses, a place that simply was there to educate and to help.

Worker dies in Black Friday store rush – 11/29/08 – New York News and Tri-State News – 7online.com.

"This incident was avoidable," said Bruce Both, President of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500. "Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner?" asked President Both. "This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart. UFCW Local 1500 will demand a full investigation by all levels of Government to ensure both justice for the surviving family members and to ensure the safety of current employees and the general public. This can never be allowed to happen again and those responsible must be held accountable," Both concluded.

Amen!

Oh, and here’s another fun detail from this article – remember how I said Wal-Mart finally did something right by closing the store for the day after the employee was killed?

They re-opened around 1PM that same day. They re-opened hours later, after making the announcement to all the newsmedia that they were closing for the day because of what happened.

Reminds me of the time Wal-Mart got a huge amount of flak for selling The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion categorized as a Social Sciences book on their website, with a caption about how if this book is true, it sure sheds some light on current world situations. “If this book is true”???? It’s a known forgery! This is common knowledge! FUCKING BASTARDS. Can you imagine? It’s like selling Mein Kampf and marketing it as “one man’s heroic struggle.” I was one of the people who sent them a nasty letter.

So anyway, after they got called out on this ridiculous situation, they issued a press release apologizing for the mistake and announced that they would no longer be selling this book.

In English.

Well, no. The press release certainly didn’t make that little stipulation. But a week after they removed the book from their website, I searched their website and discovered that the book was still being sold in Spanish! Oops.

So yeah. They reopened the store a few hours later. Disgusting, but no surprises there. That’s Wal-Mart.

This story just makes me sick. A Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death as the store opened and the crowd literally broke down the stores surging into the store.

I heard about this while waiting in line at Kohl’s earlier today with a friend and some relatives. People were griping about the long wait, and talking about how crazy it was that the line was sooooo long. One lady mentioned something about a stampede at another store, and a bunch of other people chimed in, adding that an employee at that other store was killed and a pregnant lady was injured and might be having a miscarriage. (Thankfully the pregnant woman who was injured did not have a miscarriage; the news article says her baby will be fine). I remarked that that at the very least, hearing this story made waiting 1.5 hours in line to check out seem pretty darned nice.

When one guy mentioned that the store in question was Wal-Mart, I quietly muttered, “Well. That’s Wal-Mart.” One of my relatives overheard this and was like, “Oh, I know you don’t like Wal-Mart, but you can’t blame this on them too!!” I pointed out that it was their responsibility to manage crowds and hire extra security, because crowds certainly can’t manage themselves – and the people around us in line started chipping in about how dangerous Wal-Mart parking lots are, and how they don’t really invest in security anyway, and how they understaff their stores, and all the stuff that I am always wishing more people knew about. I was impressed.

Seriously, people – the story makes me sick. What really kills me is that when the store finally did something RIGHT by shutting down for the day, after the employee had been murdered by careless and selfish shoppers, this same crowd actually got angry at the store for closing. They were indignant, insisting that they deserved their discounts after waiting in line since 5AM.

These people KILLED a man, and simply did not seem to care.

Meanwhile, wouldn’t it have been worth a little extra money for Wal-Mart to fucking hire some crowd management staff, when they know damned well that they’re going to have a crowd like this? Rabid shoppers are not exactly a new phenomenon, especially on major “shopping holidays.” But God forbid a Wal-Mart should be adequately staffed… Oh no. Their feigning surprise at this incident is like John McCain going, “Good heavens! Who knew sub-prime lending would lead to economic collapse??? If only we had known, we could have prevented this crisis…”

Honestly. I wish they could be held accountable for what they did. The store, the crowd, the decision-makers. I wish every person whose foot touched this man, or who deliberately jostled somebody into somebody else into somebody else whose foot touched this man, could share a little bit in the punishment for his completely unnecessary death. I wish the store could be held accountable for failing to provide adequate crowd control mechanisms.

But of course, nobody will be held accountable. Oh, people will be criticized, but nobody will really be punished for this. Ah, America and its consumer-driven mob mentality.

UPDATE: Mumbai-Based Rabbi and Wife Killed in Terrorist Attacks – Stories – Chabad-Lubavitch News.

Wow. They were so young. I was so relieved to hear that their child made it out safely – but this is so sad. I mean, I’m sad for everybody who lost their lives these past few days (including that poor Walmart employee who got trampled by a mob of overeager shoppers) – but somehow it hits home when it’s people you could easily know, even if you don’t. You know?

Okay, so like… this story is really disturbing and a little bit suspicious (she really didn’t know him?) and kinda gross (okay, a lot gross)… but even MORE disturbing is this comment left on the article by a reader:

As for females talking about a double-standard. There sure is. It’s called biology.

If this woman gets knocked up, the guy would unknowingly raise the child. It’s called cuckholding and is one of the most horrific shames a man can endure. She is dishonoring his family, forcing him to raise someone else’s children. Absolutely disgusting. As for the other cheater, he’s getting some high fives because some sucker is raising his kid now. His DNA gets to go on.

That the husband blames himself is awful. That’s a product of this overly feminized society. To be honest, if my partner did this to me, I would be hard-pressed not to kill her. In other countries, where the concept of HONOR exists, this might be justifiable.

Also, in this overpopulated world, mamabear should not be allowed to have six kids. From her comments, she sounds like a very selfish person.

Wow. That’s even more sick than the story itself. This guy actually believes that “honor killings” are about honor and not the male ego, and he almost seems sorry that he couldn’t get away with that here.

Disgusting.

Standoffs continue in Mumbai as soldiers storm Jewish center – CNN.com.

I somehow found myself on the mailing list of the local Chabad and never removed myself… so I’ve been getting emails about this situation ever since it started. I guess the Israelis lost touch with the rabbi a few hours after this whole catastrophe started, and they haven’t heard from him since. Thankfully the baby escaped with somebody who works at the house – I can only hope his parents are safe as well. But given how much terrorists love Jews… I don’t have much hope.

Interestingly, the Indian government is refusing aid from the Israelis – including humanitarian, ingelligence, and military aid – in dealing with this crisis. Not really sure what to make of that.

ABC News: Going-Out-of-Business Sales Not Such a Bargain.

Fascinating. I mean, I figured liquidation sales were probably not such a great deal because this is their last big shot at actually selling their merch – but I didn’t realize that the stuff was actually being sold by third party liquidators. An interesting read!

Video – Breaking News Videos from CNN.com: Turn that noise down! 3:55

PRECIOUS. These kids look totally miserable. This judge found the right punishment!!!

I’ll warn you now… my post today contains profanity. Deal with it.

D O G P O E T » Drag Queens and a Few Bricks:

Last Friday a couple hundred gays and their friends chased a small group of young Christian preachers out of the Castro, calling them “bigots” and chanting “Don’t come back!”

I wish I’d been there.

Read More.

I know people are going to be pissed about this story and complain that gay people are soooo intolerant, and not really “helping our cause.” But this guy is right. We’ve been “helping our cause” by being calm and rational for years, and we’re still being treated like shit. Just how much more of this are we expected to take?

How would they expect a crowd of Jews or black people to react if a bunch of white-robed Klansmen or swastika-clad neo-Nazis showed up to demonstrate on the street corner in Fairfax, or Brooklyn, or Compton, especially on Yom ha Shoah or the anniversary of MLK Jr’s assassination? We would demand that they get the HELL out of our neighborhood, and we’d be right. We would CHASE THEM OUT, and somehow I doubt people would have much sympathy for them, even though they’re just “expressing an opinion.”

Historically speaking, members of a civil rights movement being “calm and rational” works best when there is a contingent of people who are fucking pissed off and ready to do what they need to do. Martin Luther King Jr. looked awfully good to white people, compared to Malcolm X. You think radical women didn’t riot in the streets and take over buildings to demand their right to vote at the turn of the last century? And damned if we wouldn’t still be hiding in the bushes and fearing imprisonment for congregating if a bunch of trannies and drag queens hadn’t gotten fucking pissed off at Stonewall. I’m not saying I’m ready to go out in the streets and riot – and I’m certainly not advocating violence. That’s not me. I’m more inclined to be calm and rational. But I’m most definitely not going to tell people they should sit back and let these people trample all over them, especially when they came into the Castro to do it. I am sick to death of gay people having to be super-duper perfect in order to gain “sympathy” from people, and I’m sick of being held to standards that no other groups are expected to meet.

We got FUCKED on November 4. We literally had our rights torn away from us by a simple majority. We were reduced to second-class citizens – again. Six million people voted for bigotry and hatred. I know that’s not how some people see it, but it’s God’s honest truth. Frankly I think people should be relieved that the reaction isn’t stronger than it has been. This state certainly deserves a stronger reaction than it has seen thus far. I know people don’t think they’re being hateful by supporting Prop 8. I know they don’t see it that way. But hate is hate, and bigotry is bigotry, no matter how hard you try to couch it in love and prayer. “Love the sinner and hate the sin” is the biggest cop-out in the WORLD. And I know they say “Oh, you guys aren’t really helping your cause by protesting. We gave you domestic partnership rights – be happy with that.” Yeah. These are the same people who told us to keep our mouths shut when Jews got pissed off over Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. They’re the same people who told us, “We support Israel, so shut up and let us have our anti-Semitic movie… or else.”

I know some people see this about religious freedom and religious liberties. They say we should be “tolerant” of people’s religious beliefs about how we’re going to hell. But here’s what I want to know: WHEN has ANY other minority group been expected to sit back and let people walk all over them just because it’s their religion that tells them to do it? Some of the worst forms of bigotry and racism have been justified by religion. Slavery was justified by religion. The HOLOCAUST was justified by religion. The Crusades were PROPELLED by religion. Women were treated as property because of religion. Racism against black people stems from the Bible, according to multiple Christian sects (the Mormons didn’t even let black people enter their religion until the late 1970’s, and they were NOT happy about it). Most of the Native American population was wiped out because American settlers believed they had God’s mandate to take this land from them. And of course, we can’t forget that timeless classic, “We hate the Jews because they killed Christ.” But who would expect a black person to treat a Klansman with respect and tolerance? Who would expect a Jew to smile and be friendly to somebody wearing a swastika armband?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

So why the FUCK should I be friendly and respect the viewpoint of somebody who bases his opinion of me on a Biblical passage that says I should be stoned to death simply because of who I love?

Nepal SC approves same-sex marriage- Hindustan Times.

Fascinating. So let me get this straight (so to speak): a country in which gay people were not even recognized as citizens a year ago now recognizes same-gender marriage… but America doesn’t? What’s it going to take for America to get its act together???

From Yahoo News:

US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.

Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

How did you score on the ISI’s Civics Quiz?

I’m ashamed to admit I missed 2 questions, #27 and #33, giving me a score of 93.94%. Sad, considering that I’m IN an economics right now… ah well. It’s microeconomics anyway. Not sure if we get to take macroeconomics in my program.

To be fair, I missed #33 because of a semantic misunderstanding; I was reading debt and thinking deficit spending. But in retrospect, the real answer makes more sense.

In any event, I think it’s particularly sad that most Americans would fail this quiz. Sad that new citizens probably know more about American civics than lifelong ones, eh?