Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

Kenyan Police Disperse Gay Wedding – NYTimes.com.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan police officers broke up a gay wedding on Friday and arrested several wedding guests, saying they had to intervene before an irate mob could stone the wedding party to death…

Exxon Valdez oil could persist for ‘decades and possibly centuries’ | Greenspace | Los Angeles Times.

The “stunning” legacy of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska is the persistence of oil along the beaches of Prince William Sound that in places is “nearly as toxic as it was the first few weeks after the spill,” says a new report from the group charged with monitoring the cleanup.

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.

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.

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.

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???

After 63 years, vet learns of brother’s death in Nazi slave camp – CNN.com.

One wonders if the US government would have made a bigger deal out of this enslavement and murder if the 350 soldiers had not been separated and sent there specifically for being or looking Jewish. Don’t forget that this is the same US that segregated its troops based on race (black people were good enough to fight, but not good enough to be integrated??), and deliberately kept out of the country hundreds of thousands of Jews who were trying to flee from the Nazis and who wound up being slaughtered by them because they could not find refuge here. The US literally turned away ships full of people who had made it out, only to be sent back.

The US could have done more – it just didn’t care enough. And apparently that apathy extended to its Jewish and “Jewish-looking” soldiers as well. I have always been very proud that my grandpa, a Jewish man, fought for America in World War II. It makes me sick to think that he, too, could have been conveniently “forgotten” by the US Army if he had been captured.

How much of a geek am I, that I had to actually open Google Earth and see the giant stuffed pink bunny for myself?

It’s there! I’m so amused.

Safety food inspectors in Connecticut recently found melamine in White Rabbit candy – you know, those yummy vanilla chewy candies with the edible rice-paper wrapping? If you purchased some recently… yeah. Throw it away.

I have a question: just who does the IOC think it is kidding? Government-issued documents are the last place they should look for reliable information. I have no doubt whatsoever that a government like China’s would not hesitate to reissue birth certificates and passports with falsified ages if it meant they would come out ahead in the Olympics. In fact, medal-winning Chinese gymnast Yang Yun has already admitted that she was 14 at the 2000 Olympics. Surely she, too, submitted legal government-issued documents proving her age? Documents provided by, oh, I don’t know, the Chinese government?

Well, he did it. He’s the man of the hour! Michael Phelps won his 8th gold medal earlier this week, meaning he has won more gold medals than any other athlete at a single Olympiad. The record was previously held by Mark Spitz.

In other news, does anybody else think that Nastia Liukin was robbed of that gold medal on the uneven bars? What was up with that tie-breaking method? I still want to know how China expects us to believe that tiny kid who won is really sixteen. I don’t believe it for a minute. Ah well. At least Liukin got her all-around gold.

There are a few entertaining bits in this Daily Show clip – but the most entertaining for me is that FAUX News has resorted to showing 8-year old clips of McCain’s Election 2000 press conferences so they can get a shot of him looking younger.

This awesome story is making the rounds on the Internet and in the news lately.

In 1969, Anthony “Ace” Bourke and John Rendall rescued a lion cub from the “exotic animals” department at Harrod’s Department Store in London. They named him “Christian” and raised him in their apartment, exercising the cub on the grounds of the local church. After a year, though, Christian the lion became too large to keep in their home.

As luck would have it, the two men coincidentally ran into actors Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, who had recently starred in Born Free, the 1966 film about another domesticated lion who had been reintroduced into the wild by the couple whom the actors had portrayed, George and Joy Adamson (author of Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds). They suggested that the two men contact George Adamson in Kenya.

Bourke and Rendall eventually brought the lion to Kenya, and after a few years, they returned to visit him. They were informed at that point that Christian was the leader of his own pride and was fully wild now, and that he would not remember them. See for yourself what really happened when the lion and the men met again.

You can purchase the DVD made about Christian the lion at the Born Free Foundation website.