April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Debra

Eight things you never wanted to know

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Back in May P’n’P tagged me for this meme.

Yesterday Unrepentant Old Hippie tagged me, so lets see if I can come up with any more interesting(and I use the term loosely) facts about me;

The rules are as follows:

• Each player creates a list of eight random personal facts/habits.
• At the end of your post, list eight people who you want to tag to also do this meme.
• People who are tagged will write their own list of eight personal facts/habits and, if they have a blog of their own, post these rules and their list.

1. I hate peanut butter

2. I always cry when Matthew reads Funeral Blues at Gareth’s funeral, in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

3. I love gadgety goodness. If I had the money I would buy the gadgets. On my list of things I’d like to aquire, digital camera, video camera, cell phone, PDA, laptop. Not exactly newfangled devices but first I need to catch up. :mrgreen:

4. I used to adore Black Magic chocolates, but haven’t liked them since Nestlé took over Rowntree’s.

5. My idea of hilarity often fails to be found funny by others. Oh well.

6. I cannot wrap my head around why people like Ann Coulter get so much attention, fame (infamy? ) and money, when there are intelligent human beings trying to make a real difference whose voices are never heard.

7. I’m not a good winter person. Every March I wander around my property looking for signs of spring and life.

8. If I had to do one of those crazy pageant wishes, it would be to bestow empathy and compassion on everyone. I believe that it is the lack of these two attributes that is responsible for most of the harm that people do.

Consider yourself tagged. 😛

Rupert Murdoch says and the Wall Street Journal

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cnmurdoch127.jpgMurdoch has bought the WSJ for 5 billion dollars.

Showing his usual grace and class he was quoted as saying,

“When the Journal gets its Page 3 girls, we’ll make sure they have MBAs.”

The News Corp. chief also tells Eric Pooley, relating to negotiations with the controlling Bancroft family: “They’re taking five billion dollars out of me and want to keep control … in an industry in crisis! They can’t sell their company and still control it — that’s not how it works. I’m sorry!”

He adds: “The price of the Journal is $60 plus vitriol.”

It would appear there may be a number of job losses in the near future;

On his plans for the Journal: “What if, at the Journal, we spent $100 million a year hiring all the best business journalists in the world? Say 200 of them. And spent some money on establishing the brand but go global … and then you make it free, online only. No printing plants, no paper, no trucks. How long would it take for the advertising to come? It would be successful, it would work and you’d make … a little bit of money.”

Bill Moyers’ of Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS, let his views on Murdoch be known in no uncertain terms.

“If Rupert Murdoch were the Angel Gabriel, you still wouldn’t want him owning the sun, the moon and the stars,” Moyers starts his video essay. “That’s too much prime real estate for even the pure in heart.

“But Rupert Murdoch is no saint, he is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity. When it comes to money and power, he is carnivorous, all appetite, no taste. He’ll eat anything in his path,” Moyers adds. “Politicians become little clay pigeons to be picked off with flattering headlines, generous air time, a book contract, or the old-fashioned blackjack that never misses, campaign cash.

“He hires lobbyists the way Imelda Marcos bought shoes. And stacks them in is cavernous closet along with his conscience. This is the man, you remember, who famously kowtowed to the communist overlords of China, oppressors of their own people, to protect his investments there.”

Union issue also here

Shape of WSJ board outlined

Immigration Equality

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immigration_equality.gifWomens Enews has an article today on lesbians and the immigration system.

Some things I didn’t know, gay couples are not allowed to sponser each other in the same way that hetrosexual couples are.

One major barrier is U.S. refusal to recognize same-sex relationships for immigration purposes, which means that U.S. lesbians are unable to sponsor foreign partners as hundreds of thousands of heterosexuals do. In 2006 about 27 percent of the total grants of permanent residency were awarded to members of a heterosexual couple.

“If someone is straight and in a relationship, boom-boom-boom and they’re done,” says private attorney Noemi Masliah in New York. “Same-sex partners have to jump through the hoops and find different ways. Or some just give up . . . It’s not fair that a lesbian’s status is employment-based and the other (straight) piece is family-based. I think it’s very sad and very dismal and very unfair.”

[Read more…] about Immigration Equality

Can I see some ID

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I saw this on Red Jenny and Unrepentant Old Hippie, so of course gave it a shot.

And I needed a distraction from my last post

My rating :mrgreen:

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* sex (9x)
* breast (8x)
* gun (5x)
* vagina (4x)
* rape (3x)
* abortion (2x)
* gays (1x)

Sweet sixteen and ready for raping

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From BBC

Children’s charities have reacted with anger after a window cleaner who raped a girl of 10 was jailed for two years.

Keith Fenn, 24, will be free in four months after a judge said the girl, who was attacked in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, had appeared older.

The charity Kidscape accused Judge Julian Hall of “trying to find excuses” and said a child must never be blamed.

Attorney General Lord Goldsmith is to decide whether the sentence should be appealed against as “unduly lenient”.

Oxford Crown Court heard that Fenn raped the girl in a park on 14 October, before an accomplice, Darren Wright, 34, took her home and sexually assaulted her.

Judge Hall said in sentencing he faced a moral dilemma as the fact they had sex within 45 minutes of meeting was an absolute crime.

But he said the girl had dressed provocatively and looked as though she was 16.

Lawyers for the defendants stressed that the sex had been consensual, and was only termed ‘rape’ because of the framework of law.

Oh well she was dressed provocatively and looked sixteen, what a horror that he was sentenced at all.

It was only termed rape because of the framework of the law?? WTF??

Gaming: A mental disorder?

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Though some would like to make it so, gamers have dodged a virtual bullet.

Doctors backed away on Sunday from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more.

“Even before debate on the subject began, the committee that made the proposal backed away from its position, and instead recommended that the American Psychiatric Association consider the change when it revises its next diagnostic manual in 5 years. The psychiatrist group has said if the science warrants, it could be considered for inclusion in the next diagnostic manual, which will be published in 2012. While occasional use of video games is harmless and may even help with some disorders like autism, doctors said in extreme cases it can interfere with day-to-day necessities like working, showering or even eating.”

A report, that sadly I can’t find again, cited staying in room, being disrepectful to parents, and general angst as good reasons to consider gaming a disorder. Really??? Sounds like normal youth behaviour to me.

Good background report here