Sept 25, 2003 - Getting Stoned First let me say - I'm very glad they found a way to keep her from being stoned. Hopefully she'll be able to get back to as normal a life as possible now.
This story clearly illustrates why I don't understand how people that aren't completely brain dead can base laws on religious beliefs instead of reality. She had been divorced for 2 years so the prosecutors had a good point - "Prosecutors argued Lawal’s child was living proof she committed a crime under Shariah".
Please, don't let the facts confuse you - "lead defense lawyer Aliyu Musa Yawuri said that under some interpretations of Shariah, babies can remain in gestation in a mother’s womb for five years, opening the possibility her ex-husband could have fathered the child". Perhaps if her child had been a boy they could have also argued the immaculate conception theory. <sarcasm> we all know females are worthless, especially Muslim females. So gawd wouldn't bother immaculately conceiving a girl</sarcasm>. Check out the Aug 4th section.
"Lawal has identified her alleged sexual partner, Yahaya Mohammed, and said he promised to marry her. Mohammed, who would also have faced a stoning sentence, has denied any impropriety and has been acquitted for lack of evidence." The prosecutors were obviously not all that interested in looking for any evidence as they probably could have proven paternity in 15 minutes with a saliva based DNA test. ... but that would have been scientific fact, not nutball religious "fact".
Sept 24, 2003 - Things that make you go hmmm... I recently read an article about how due to the similarities of how smallpox and HIV infect cells, a person immunized for smallpox may have up to 4x the resistance to HIV as the non-immunized person. This isn't the original article I read, but I couldn't find where I'd originally seen it. That reminded me of stories of how infection rates seem to have gone up in the last couple years. The USA stopped doing blanket immunizations for smallpox in 1972. I wondered what the average age of infection was.... my internet search skills aren't as awesome as they could be, but I found that in the UK the average age was around 33 and in Australia the average age was between 31 and 34. I assume that the USA isn't that far off the mark. hmmm... 1972 + 31 = 2003. Of course it doesn't help that bush only allows federal funding if the sex ed program preaches abstinence and doesn't educate on safer sex.
Sept 23, 2003 - Sex Survey What is up with the Durex sex survey? Link, Link, Link. There is the commonly used statistic from the Kinsey study that says 10% and then there are other studies that put the G/L population at only 4%. The fundies would like to say we are even less than that... but 17% of the population involved with a member of the same sex? I'm guessing a lot more married folks are having a walk on the wild side than even the G/L crowd figured on...
Sept 22, 2003 – Poor Taz Last Thursday Taz went to the vet for his “guy operation” and to have his back dew claws removed. [Normally the dew claws are removed right away with the tail on a corgi Pembroke – kind of like circumcision. The theory is that when they are that young it can be done easily without drugs and they won’t feel much. The breeder’s vet was out of town when Taz was born (and I mean breeder in the dog raiser sense). They did a weird thing with his tail later on, so when we got him at 6 weeks he had an infected stub instead of the virtually no tail common to a corgi Pembroke.] When it came time for his snippage to take place the vet recommended having the back dew claws removed too as they can easily catch on things. He came out of the vets office with bandages on his back legs. We got the sheet on when to start feeding him, not to bathe him, restrict his activity for so many days, etc. Well he was pretty sedate for the first day, but Taz is a puppy that doesn’t really understands restricted activity. The bandages were supposed to stay on until Monday. He had chewed them off by Saturday morning. I redid the bandages, he took those off in a few hours. I redid them again and wrapped them with duct tape… and did it again on Sunday. He had them off again on Monday when I came home at lunch to let the dogs out. One of the wounds didn’t look that good (I’d been putting Neosporin on the gauze) so I called the vet. She said to bring him in. After checking him out, she thought it would be best to re-glue the wounds and bandage them again. So now he has his little leg warmers on again, but this time smeared with a bitter apple chew deterrent (they said if that didn’t work, he’d need a lampshade collar). Our vet at All Creatures (Verona, WI) is really great. They are extremely flexible with scheduling – I’ve called while on lunch break and been able to get him in right away. They give personalized service (Oz wandered off one night and the person that found him call the vet on the rabies tag and they recognized Oz and hooked us up). Everyone on staff is always excited to see the pups when they come in (or at least they fake it convincingly). The only thing that bugs me is the reminder notices that come for their yearly shots – I am not Mrs. Burns! (the breeder oriented software they have – and in this case I mean the dumb hetero – just addresses things to Mr./Mrs. [Lastname of the first person to bring the pet in].
September 15th, 2003 
I read the story a few days ago, then just happened to come across this photo. (disclaimer: no inference to #30's sexuality is implied - or the guy he is "mounting").
September 10th, 2003 Loved this. Marriage according the bible... Someday soon I'm going to post my creative interpretation of the tale of Osama bin Lot. "1. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women.1 Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives.2
2. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed.3 Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden.4
3. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce.5
4. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law.6
1: Gen. 29, 17 - 28; II Sam. 3, 2 - 5.
2: II Sam. 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21
3: Deut. 22, 13 - 21
4: Gen 24:3; Num 25 1 - 9; Ezra 9:12; Neh. 10:30
5: Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9
6: Gen. 38 6 - 10; Deut 25 5 - 10" I don't want to know what it is about the fundies... Years ago I did an interview with the 700 Club. They were doing a series of articles about how homosexuals were recruiting (um.. huh?). So they came to Madison and interviewed me; I was facilitating the g/l youth group. The woman was actually rather nice, the camera and light guys were quiet but respectful. She actually called me after the episode aired to apologize - she didn't do the voice for the story ... (and I didn't think it came off that bad). I asked her why groups like the 700 club were so anti-gay when there were things like murder, rape, child abuse, hunger, etc ... one would think "greater evils". She told me rather matter of fact that Pat and his followers viewed god as the sexual union of a man and woman... yah, the jaw drops They say we are obsessed with sex? Rape is much better than a committed relationship between gay people cuz it is still a sexual union between a man and a woman... Ow. Well there are fundies and then there are the rest of the Xian religion. Right? My dad is a Methodist minister (they are supposed to be welcoming to all sorts of people). Not being a Xian, I wasn't set on having dad do our commitment ceremony, but then I found out he wouldn't even be able to...
September 6th, 2003 Taz had some fun today. I had just let the dogs out the back to do their "business" when the door rang. C came over to borrow some painting supplies. She has a boxer (the dog, not the underwear). Oz loves to play with bigger dogs - the bigger the better. He's played with Jake a number of times and always has fun. Taz, has only met another golden retriever puppy (besides Oz of course). That puppy didn't have his playing skills perfected yet and ended up giving Taz a bloody nose when he nipped a little too hard. So Taz walks back into the house and Jake bounds over. Taz's ears drop and he crouches, he looks obviously intimidated. Jake is simply sniffing around him. Taz submission pees. Well, Oz and Jake rip around the living room, Taz stays hidden for a while. Eventually he comes up, hiding behind the legs of the humans. Before long he is nipping at Jakes paws, then jumping toward Jakes mouth. If you are unfamiliar with the dogs in question, Oz, a full grown corgi easily walks under a boxer. Taz sometimes spring boards off of Oz in order to get to Jake. Jake was a very good sport, he got down on his stomach and "battled" the corgis from their level. Later John takes the pups up to LaValle to visit his folks and terrorize their poor elderly Sheltie Collie. I have to admit that I'm relieved that I don't have to check to see if the pups need to go out. I can go get shredded wood for the garden and spicy Indian food for take out. I love the dogs, I just like to ignore the world and tend only to myself. Tomorrow we are having a block party. Meet your neighbors. I'm going to make some salsa and guacamole. I hope that we can all "just get along". The US is so hateful.
September 4th, 2003 I was reading some more information on the Bearded Dragon the other day and noticed that they also like to eat several flowers (clover, hibiscus, etc). I don't have near as much clover as I used to, but this week my hedge of hibiscus bushes started blooming. I just planted them this spring or I think they would have bloomed before now. I broke off some flower petals and offered them to Perth. Yah! another food he'll consider eating. I picked up some crickets for him yesterday. He isn't the greatest hunter. Usually I have to corral the cricket so that it walks in front of his mouth, otherwise he'll ignore it.
One of the things I had hoped to do during the long Labor Day weekend was clean up my yard. (pick veggies, mow lawn, weed). Well I spent more time playing on the internet and making a website so I still have lots of weeds and need to mow. However one benefit of putting of the lawn work is that due to the lack of rain, the only things actively growing in the lawn are drought resistant weeds. They've gotten big enough now that I can walk around and easily uproot them instead of using herbicides (which I generally try to avoid).
I was able to still find time for the veggie garden work. I've process many gallons of tomatoes. I prefer to freeze rather than can tomatoes, but I'll can the hot peppers. (Blanch, peel, chop, put in quart Ziploc bags). I found a couple odd specimens in the harvest. I'm tempted to save the seeds from them and see if I can recreate the anomaly next year. A grape tomato ended up being Siamese triplets, and a golden tomato grew a tail. If you look closely, the tail has a tail too. Who's been dumping nuclear waste in my backyard?? :)
September 1st, 2003 Wasted too much of the day with Betty at Landover. It's just too easy to make fun. The sad part is that so many actually believe it. Someone I know used to send emails out to everyone he knew about how the country was founded on xtian values, and god is in the constitution and the pledge and on our money, etc... I went through each of his points (won't list them all here). The Constitution only says that our creator gave us rights - meaning that no man, or group of people can take them away. Who your creator is can vary by your beliefs. The founding fathers deeply xtian?... "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shown on man" - Thomas Jefferson. "As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?" - John Adams "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion," - Treaty of Peace and Friendship (Tripoli), November 4, 1796 Putting god on money and in the pledge were the products of McCarthyism and the Knights of Columbus. Hardly anything to be proud of. And recently we've even been told that the 10 commandments are the basis for American Law - not actually the Roman Senate, the Magna Charta, and a hefty contribution from Native Americans. Don't be bothered by the fact that only stealing and killing of the 10 commandments are laws. America was almost founded on coveting. Which made me realize - the only place in the bible that actually has something anti-gay... Thou shall not covet thy neighbors ass... or maybe I'm just creatively interpreting the text. We are also told that Marriage is the holy institution that has held together civilization for the last 6,000 years even though the Catholic Church blessed same sex unions up until sometime in the 12th/13th century. My guess is that the Renaissance was challenging the churches control and since gay men were the lifeblood of the Renaissance, deciding to be antigay might "help". Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with people having a belief system that helps them make sense of the world. I just have a problem when they rewrite history and use it as justification for discriminate against others. When you boil any religion down to bare minimum you get beliefs based on what somebody told someone god thinks. I think god thinks those people are assholes.
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