Just when things seem to be crappy, something like that Christmas bonus comes around. I went to grocery store at about midnight last night for some dog food and cat litter and such. I picked up some deodorant and a candy bar as well. I put them in the little basket part of the cart. I used the “UScan” check-yourself-out thing and went on my way. When I got to the car, I realized that I hadn’t scanned the deodorant or candy bar. I guess the cashier that was supervising there didn’t notice. So, I stood for a few moments in a moral quandary. Eventually, I took them back inside and explained what happened. As a drove home, I felt like I had just passed a test. Strange how life works, sometimes.

In Pakistan this year, 461 women have been killed in so-called honor killings. In these murders, women are slaughtered for having sex outside marriage, dating, talking to men, being raped or cooking poorly. And Pakistan is responsible for their deaths. In 1996, Pakistan ratified the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Through that ratification, Pakistan assumed an obligation to protect women from gender-based violence. As part of that obligation, the government is supposed to ensure that female victims have access to an effective remedy rights violation.

But what has Pakistan done to eliminate this violence against women. Nothing. In fact, the numbers for this year are up nearly 100 from 2001. Yet the U.S. is supposed to believe that Pakistan is being honest when it says it’s clamping down on terrorism? How can we believe Pakistan is concerned about global terrorism when its own women are being terrorized every day?

That rhetoric rings as empty as the words of Javed Iqbal Cheema, Pakistan Interior Ministry, when he said, “The government has recently made some changes in the laws to give more protection to the women.” And they have no idea where Osama is either.

New Treasury Secretary nominee John W. Snow is resigning his membership in Augusta National Golf Club. He may be resigning to protest the club’s stand on disallowing women members. But it looks like Snow is trying to distance himself from controversy.

Sure, former CBS exec Thomas H. Wyman recently resigned, too. The difference is Wyman didn’t time his resignation with a nomination to government office. Now, instead of appearing to be a man with principles, wrong or right, Snow looks like a two-faced phony. Welcome to politics.

Trent Lott said, “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.” As I pointed out in a previous post, Strom Thurmond is a hardcore racist. He ran for President in 1948 as a segregationist, saying, “All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches.”

So I’m curious Mr. Lott, what did you mean when you said, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems”?

Earlier Monday, Lott issued a statement, saying, “My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life.” How can you endorse a man and his life, but not his positions? A man is the positions he takes on things. Hilter had a position on Jews. It doesn’t matter if Hilter like puppies and violets, it’s the position on Jews that made the man.

Same with Strom. He is what he is. And his position on Civil Rights is the worst there is. Lott tipped his hat with this one.

Jesse Jackson, never to miss a controversy, called for Lott to resign, and former Vice President Al Gore called the comment “racist,” and said he should apologize for his comments or the Senate should censure him.

Does, “My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life,” sound like an apology to you? Not to me.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who’s turning into a pussy faster than Michael Jackson, said he believes Lott did not intend for his comments to be interpreted as racist. Way to go Tom.

“There are a lot of times when he and I go to the mike and would like to say things we meant to say differently, and I’m sure this is one of those cases for him as well,” Daschle said.

Lets not forget. Lott referenced Thurmond’s 1948 campaign, where he ran as a segregationist, then said he should have been elected, and if he had been, we would not have had the “problems” we did.

Then, the leading Democrat, Tom “How’s my Hair” Daschle backs down from a clear and blatant slap to the face to generations of minorities.

Gore, speaking to CNN, said, “It is not a small thing for one of the half dozen most prominent political leaders in America to say that our problems are caused by integration and that we should have had a segregationist candidate. That is divisive and it is divisive along racial lines. That’s the definition of a racist comment.”

At least with Clinton, the only thing we had to worry about was if he was going to nail another intern, not disparage millions at the sword of racism.

Next week, Trent Lott does lunch with Mark Furman.

We have gotten a lot of great comments by people over our first posting about the parents suing McDonalds over their kids weight issues. But after reading some more, and doing some thinking, I’ve come to different conclusion.

**I changed the posted date on that older post so it will sit right beneath this one on the site.** One of the items that I read, in comments here on this site and elsewhere, is how could a lawyer in his right mind take this case. Let’s not equate taking on the case with taking on the cause. Lawyers don’t have to believe in their clients cause, they believe that everyone has the right to be represented. That’s what the country was founded on.

Now that I have the purist BS out of my system, let’s look at the more likely senerio.

Let’s say I’m a lawyer and some parents come to me and say they want to sue McD’s because little Jonny is the size of a van. I likely know the case is dumb, will be ridiculed and tossed out, but I’ll say I believe we should all have a voice.

So I file the suit, make a few motions, do a few interviews. Two months later (or longer if I’m a good lawyer), the case gets tossed out by a judge who says it’s stupid.

I get to bill my clients for 10 or 15 grand for doing hardly no work because it never went to court. Then I can go on the Today Show and say, I just did it because I wanted to help the parents of the country to get in the discussion of what food is healthy and how kids should be fed. Then, I look like an OK guy. An OK guy that billed my clients 15 grand and I was on the Today Show.

We know it’s going no where, but has anyone thought for a second about what they ate for lunch today? Was it healthy? If it was, good for you. After taking a stand against the parents, have you eaten less fast food? If so, good for you.

In the end, the parents get nothing. Maybe fat Jonny stopped eating Tubby-sized McGrease and started walking. So, I ask, what is really so bad about this case?

McDonald’s is seeking to have a federal class-action lawsuit dismissed. The lawsuit was leveled by parents who are blaming the fast food giant for their kids being obese. Is someone suing the parents for being stupid?

**Originally posted on November 21.** Lawyers for McDonald’s say that a federal class-action lawsuit attempting to hold them liable for the obesity of children should be dismissed, arguing that under the theory, you could even sue mom for cooking fattening foods.

“They are seeking to hold McDonald’s and McDonald’s alone accountable for the growing problem of youthful obesity,” said Brad Lerman, a lawyer for the restaurant chain.

What we are seeing is the fallout of life-long smokers suing tabacco companies after getting cancer. I think what’s missing here is a dose of common sense. What we are seeing is another dose of I’m not responsible for my actions taking place.

What these people should also add in the lawsuit is their IQ to prove how stupid they are also. In fact, if I was on the McDonald’s legal team, I’d make a motion to administer IQ tests.

“The understanding and comprehension of what hamburgers and French fries do has been with us for a long, long time,” Lerman argued. “People don’t go to sleep thin and wake up the next day suddenly obese. They realize it when their clothes are too tight and their pants don’t fit.”

One teen, Gregory Rhymes, who likes to Tubby-size his orders, said he weighs 400 pounds and is 5 feet, 6 inches tall and has been diagnosed with diabetes.

Ashley Pelman, 14, of the Bronx, submitted an affidavit saying she weighs 170 pounds at 4 feet, 10 inches and has been eating at the chain three to four times a week since she was five.

Another named plaintiff, Jazlyn Bradley, 19, of Brooklyn, said she weighs 270 pounds and is 5 feet 6 inches tall, and that during a four-year-period she ate twice a day at McDonald’s.

The parents of these children say they never saw posters in the restaurant explaining the nutritional content of the food.

I’m not sure who is to blame here. Some of these kids should have been taught that shoveling grease into your piehole would result in picking up a few extra pounds. The blame lies in a lack of common sense and parents that clearly don’t care about their children.

I’d like to know if these children also have an Xbox, Playstation or GameCube and have the habit of playing it, or partaking in some other inside activity - like watching TV - for a good part of the day.

I had a mother that would walk over to the TV and turn it off, regardless if I was in mid-program, and make me go outside. That gave me the appreciation of the outdoors to at least a small degree.

I wonder about a parent that would let their child stuff that mutton in their gullet at such an extreme rate, then not cut them off when they noticed the ill effects. Do mom and dad not care that little Susie is a walking coronary? Of course not, when you can make Susie’s eventual heart attack into a few million dollar lawsuit. So while she’s getting her veins vacuumed out, mom and dad can party in Costa Rica while working on a buttery tan. Speaking of butter, Susie probably put plenty of butter fat in her ass handles while mom and dad were busy not being involved in her life.

So who should we sue? The parents. Those kids should be turned over the protective services and saved from that child abusing home.

A few days ago, I drove in my Cherokee to Wendy’s to get some lunch. If I noticed a few extra pounds because the heavenly #6 I ate, could I sue Jeep for providing the car that drove me there? How about I sue the unholy, PETA hating chicken farm that provides Wendy’s with poultry?

How about I skip my next Wendy’s run and use that $4.84 to buy those kids a fucking clue?

Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina is celebrating his 100th birthday as fellow Senator’s hail his career as “legendary.” Strom “White Power” Thurmond was first elected to the Senate in 1954. Since then he has compiled quite a record.

He started as a democrat, then switched to the republican party. Harry Truman insisted that the Democratic Party embrace the cause of civil rights at the 1948 convention, so Thurmond bolted the party. Fifty years ago, Thurmond ran for the White House as a segregationist. Luckily, Truman won that election.

As well as holding the record for longest serving and oldest Senator ever, he hold another record. He holds the record for the longest filibuster in U.S. Senate history at 24 hours and 18 minutes, in opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Act. He began his filibuster by reading the texts of the election laws of all 48 states.

Strom’s father, Will Thurmond, shot and killed a political foe who called him a “low, dirty, scoundrel.” He was acquitted after pleading self-defense.

He is one of few living politicians to have received votes from Civil War veterans.

He now spends every night at Washington’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He still makes it to the floor to cast his vote, though observers say that he often doesn’t appear to know what it is he’s voting for, or against. If that is shocking, consider that, as president pro tem of the Senate during the Clinton administration, he was third in line for the presidency.

And I’m not going to get into the hundreds of complaints that were filled against this “lengendary” Senator by women on the Hill for his sexist actions, including groping women as they walked in his office.

So, as Strom winds up his political career, I’d like to say, good riddance.

Do the gods of different nations talk to each other? Do the gods of Chinese cities speak to the ancestors of the Japanese? To the lords of Xibalba? To Allah? Yahweh? Vishnu?

Is there some annual get-together where they compare each other’s worshippers?

“Mine will bow their faces to the floor and trace woodgrain lines for me,” says one god.

“Mine will sacrifice animals,” says another.

“Mine will kill anyone who insults me,” says a third.

Here is the question I think of most often: “Are there any who can honestly boast, ‘My worshippers obey my good laws and treat each other kindly and live simple generous lives?’”

The Boston Archdiocese is now claiming it is bankrupt.

Are they refering to moral bankruptcy? The Boston Globe reported Sunday the archdiocese is preparing to file for bankruptcy rather than face a legal battle that could drag on for years, and cost more than $100 million.

I think there is a bigger issue at stake here - moral bankruptcy. Here were a group of religous leaders taking advantage of the very foundation of America’s hope - our children.

Every report that comes out turns my stomach even more. Priest after priest in this one area reported to have sexually abused children. And time and time again Cardinal Bernard F. Law protected them.

Then, with seemingly overwhelming evidence, the Church continued to deny and pass blame. The congregants of this diocese should take them for every penny they can. If the suffering of children will not thwart them, then put them out of business.

This should be a criminal matter. No one is above the law, not a man on the street, not a Priest on the alter. It should be investigated by state and local authorities. There should be no Church Review Board. There should be a man with a FBI badge who says, I’m not letting these kids get hurt anymore, and if you are guilty you are going to jail.

If we can agree on something, it should be that our kids should be allowed to be kids and crimes against children should be punished swiftly and harshly.

As in George McGovern. Remember him? Didn’t think so. Most notably he was the Democratic candidate for President in 1972. He lost by a few billion votes. But, being true to his liberal upbring, he still takes a few swings from time to time. In a essay in Harper’s called “The Case for Liberalism” McGovern says:

“President Bush has said repeatedly that the terrorists hate us because of our freedom. I don’t believe that. The world’s people have always admired our freedom. What they don’t like is the arrogance and indifference to world opinion inherent in so much of our international policy. Plenty of my fellow citizens don’t like that either. I’m not alone in my dislike of the way our government is waging the so-called war against terrorism, in my opposition to a war with Iraq and to calling Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the “axis of evil.” And I intend to press these points as long as I believe my convictions are grounded in common sense, patriotism, and veneration of life.”

This is very interesting because we have been discussing this in many different facets on this site.

I have wondered how the President could lump Korea as “evil” then openly expect them to work with us in resolving the co-called nuclear issue. N. Korea dropped that on the US like the Fat Boy on Japan. I actually wonder if it was a calculated response to the World War 2-ish “Axis of Evil” brand Bush attempted to stick to them. It certainly called into account this administrations hypocritical response to the nuclear issue. Ready to wag war in Iraq, but asking other allies to negotiate with N. Korea.

But this just brings forward two issues in my mind. One, the Wall Street Journal, where I discovered this nugget on McGovern, has often appeared as a liberal publication, but lately has taken to siding with the conservative stances of Bush and bashing liberals when they attempt to raise other points of view. Conservativism (if that is really a word) seems to be in fashion right now, and it worries me when one-time liberal leanings start to lean back.

Simply, there are plenty of Republican publications to poke and prod at us liberals. But when liberals start dressing as conservatives, I start to worry. Maybe they weren’t really liberals to begin with. Maybe some of these publications are simply printing what they may in order to sell, thinking their readers now want some old fashion liberal bashing.

But the scientific process asks for skepticism. That is what we have attempted to do here. Whether or not we are good at it is another issue entirely. But looking at every issue under the lens of skepticism first is healthy in my book. That is what George McGovern was attempting to do.

I don’t agree with McGovern on a whole lot, but the WSJ’s assertation that he should have run for office in other country makes him sound like a trator for writing an essay. Odd that a WSJ reporter would nearly attack his 1st Amd. right.

Then again, it’s the end of the day and I’m tired already.