THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WARMINSTER, Pa. — The leaders of the Republican and Democratic committees in Warminster are calling for the resignation of GOP Supervisor Fred Gold, who sent an e-mail with a photo of a topless woman promoting Jan. 15 as “Breast Appreciation Day.”

The e-mail that accompanied the photo asked, “Beats … Martin Luther King Day, doesn’t it?”

Democratic chairman Joseph Bowes Jr. and Republican chairman Jim Messina described the e-mail as insulting to women and blacks.

“It embarrassed the party. It embarrassed me,” Messina said.

Bowes called it “offensive on many levels.”

Gold sent the e-mail from his personal account, and apologized if anyone who received or saw it was offended.

“I certainly don’t think I did anything immoral or unethical,” he said. “To resign because of this, I don’t think so.”

Of coures he doesn’tget it, b/c he doesn’t get it. Nothing like offending both women and blacks at the same time. Hey, at least he’s efficient!

RG is right we have been v. serious lately so:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his phone and calls emergency services.

He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: “Take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”

There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

Back on the phone, the hunter says, “OK, now what?”

If you have ehard it before, you don’t have to laugh!

Who, generally, are the poorest people in the world? Women. Why? Too many answers to list. In this case the reality matters more than the result.

Unless we, meaning our entire population, can come to grips why our mothers, our wives, our girlfriends, our friends, sisters, co-workers and equal contributors (actually women probably work harder, but I have no evidence) to our economies have been and remain such targets of hate, we cannot consider ourselves living in a progressive society.

The only justification I can determine for women’s lesser status is that men are physically 1/3 stronger. Women think differently than men, but difference does not better or worse make. I could list other differences, but the point has already been made.

A major “disadvantage” women have is that they have and continue to be responsible for children. I don’t simply mean that women bear our offspring, I mean that if a man chooses to walk away from his prodigy, generally, the woman must, for many socially justified reasons, assume the feeding, development, clothing, education etc., of her minions. For some reason this glaring inequity is lost on about half of the population. Whether it is from physical prowess, tradition or nature does not matter, women are tied to their offspring. That men have an advantage is indisputable. That they exploit it is unexcusable. It is this same mentality that encouraged trans-Atlantic slave trade: the slavers and its consumers because of geographical luck stood in a better position to exploit a group of people. No matter how defenders of the institution try to justify its use, slavery wronged millions.

In a way the hate men still show women is worse. Slaves were hidden from the view of most, a distant problem that few saw. Women are such an integeral part of our lives, the parties who determine the survival of our species far from hidden from view. The only explanation is that we are still so filled with self-loathing that we need to destroy or at least control the beings that bring us life.

So no matter how many distant planets we discover, what we do with quasars, whether or not we leverage nano-technology, until we progress to the point where women do not have to constantly live in fear, we are no better than the primitive peoples we think we are so much better than

Here’s Howard Zinn on the Progressive about Iraq:

http://progressive.org/mag_zinn0406

Partially in response to the gay marriage issue, but also as a general issue I propose the following:

How does the left win the next two elections? Can we? Must we? Why or why not?

Okay for before anyone jumps on me for not supporting gay marriage, I am totally in favor of gay marriage, civil unions and any way we can allow people who have a particular sexual preference the rights people with different genital types have.

Having written this disclaimer, I do have a problem with inserting the gay marriage as an election issue, particularly where one of the possible winners has the potential to turn our nation into a fascist state. Unfortunately, the trend looks like it is veering in the same direction. Gay marriage propenents want to make their statement and burden the candidates with needing to answer to this constituency. The problem with this tendency is that many in this country are dead set against a lifestyle that many except with no problem; by insisting that gay marriage is on the platform, we risk losing another election and hoping and praying for another four years that concentration camps do not become a housing mandate.

To be sure this is not just a gay issue. The left tends to eat their young, while the right unites at church sponsored bake sales and has no problem winning election after election. As much as you and I want people of any sexual orientation to have rights equal to everyone else’s, does anyone think that gay marriage stands a chance under a church driven, (not gay) cowboy worshipping, gun-loving regime?

This is not an attack on gays; all of us on the left need to realize that our little pet projects will have a much better chance under a more sympathetic pairing of the legislature and the executive branch. Once we elect the people who will give our causes an opportunity, then we can make our demands heard. Even with the right in disarray, they still have one or two issues that unites them at the polls.

Let’s make the next two national elections about putting more reasonable officials in power, rather than another six year bitch fest about how bad our situation has become.

I’m getting there. Not completly familiar with what goes where, but I should be able to figure out the rest by Monday. I am going to fix the red text links next. Do come up with ideas of what you people think looks good, what should go where, etc.

The deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security was arrested last night on charges that he used the Internet to seduce an undercover Florida sheriff’s detective who he thought was a 14-year-old girl, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.

Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested at his Silver Spring home at 7:45 p.m. and charged with seven counts of using a computer to seduce a child and 16 counts of transmitting harmful materials to a minor, according to a sheriff’s office statement.

Agents with the department’s Inspector General’s Office, the U.S. Secret Service, the Montgomery County police and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant and seized his home computer and other materials, the statement said.

Doyle was online at the time awaiting what he thought was a nude image of a girl who had lymphoma, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in an interview with Fox News’ “On the Record With Greta Van Susteren.” “We wanted to make sure he was using that computer and talking to detectives at the time of the arrest,” Judd said.

In his initial communication last month, Doyle told an undercover computer-crimes detective who he was and that he worked for the Department of Homeland Security, later disclosing numbers for his office phone and government-issued cellphone and using those lines, the sheriff’s office said.

“If he would provide that kind of information to include a photograph of himself with his identification tags, who else may he be talking to around the world who he thinks to be a 14-year-old girl?” Judd said on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”

Attempts to reach Doyle, who was booked into the Montgomery County jail on the Polk County charges, on his office and cellphone numbers and by his official e-mail were unsuccessful.

He was a TSA spokesman before becoming deputy press secretary last year to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Chertoff press secretary Russ Knocke declined to comment on the case beyond releasing a written statement, saying, “We take these allegations very seriously and we will cooperate fully with this ongoing investigation.”

Judd said Doyle confessed and waived extradition to Polk County.

According to the sheriff’s office, Doyle initiated a sexually explicit conversation with the detective on March 12 in response to an Internet profile of a 14-year-old girl.

Doyle allegedly sent pornographic movie clips, non-pornographic photos of himself and instant messages from his AOL account, the police statement said. The sheriff’s office alleged that Doyle “on many occasions” instructed the undercover detective to perform a sexual act while thinking of him and described explicit acts he wished to perform.

Another Homeland Security official — Frank Figueroa, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tampa — faces trial this week on charges of exposing himself to a teenage girl last year at a mall. Figueroa, who has been suspended, pleaded not guilty.

This may seem like an unwarranted question, Should We Rebuild New Orleans?–the sentimental response would be, “Yes, of course”. And other objections about people losing their homes and, more importantly, their neighborhood heritage seem obvious, but being the down-to-earth Taurus that I am, prgamatic questions arise.

The cost for rebuilding the levees has already reached $10B. Much of the city needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Who knows the level of toxicity that presently exists? (the government won’t tell us). The wetlands that protected the city from flood were fairly devastasted before Katrina. I doubt they are useful at all now. Much of the city, as we know, was at poverty level before the disaster, and basically served as a low-wage labor source for the tourist industry. Of course, the port served as a critical hub for shipments up the Mississippi, but how many times will companies rebuild their facilities after hurricanes? Add the fact that the city stands about 50 feet below sea level (I am not sure about the exact figure, but I know it is enough to be a major stumbling block). With all of the above, add that climatologists expect Category 4 and 5 hurricanes to be the norm, there are many arguements AGAINST building anew.

So, my dear companions, what are your thoughts? Is New Orleans worth rebuilding? Why or why not?