The conversation turns to sexual harassment being a civil, not a criminal court matter.  And defines slander and libel as being only things that are untrue.  Ergo, if the letter had said, just that the person knew and would reveal the information, that would not be a crime. But once a threat is included that is a crime.

Man accused in David Letterman extortion is indicted | Entertainment | Television | Reuters

The popular host of “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS stunned viewers on Thursday by admitting he had sex with female subordinates, saying he went to the authorities after receiving a package threatening to reveal the details.

My point in blathering on here is that I’m always glad to hear some legal authority – even someone on morning radio whose name I’ve forgotten – reminding the general public that saying things which are true but might be unflattering is not illegal.

And since the radio show host took the conversation there, I suspect his inner journalist is also deeply appreciative of this fact.  Yes, if someone does something stupid or unlikeable, saying so on the internet is not illegal.  They don’t have to like you for it.  But it’s not a crime.

That is my pondering for today.  Viva la freedom of the press.

No, I’m not anti-American.  I’m not even pro-French.  I just don’t see pirates quaking in their boots over their frozen assets.  I am anti sitting around waiting for stuff to happen, stuff like guys named Ismail making good on their threats.

French raid pirate ship, US seeks to freeze assets

Meanwhile, French naval forces launched an early-morning attack on a suspected pirate “mother ship” 550 miles east of Mombasa and seized 11 men, thwarting an attack on the Liberian cargo ship Safmarine Asia, the French Defense Ministry said. No one was injured.

The ministry said the vessel was a larger ship that pirates use to allow their tiny skiffs to operate hundreds of miles off the coast.

…

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced new diplomatic efforts to freeze the pirates’ assets and said the Obama administration will work with shippers and insurers to improve their defenses against pirates, part of a diplomatic initiative to thwart attacks on shipping.

Don’t bring Gitmo prisoners to Georgia, congressman says | ajc.com

Not that Georgia was ever in line to become the next Gitmo, but just in case, U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey has introduced legislation he says will keep that from happening.

Photo by Francisca Ulloa

Happy birthday.  For your celebration, come in and get your boobs squished into a freezing cold vice.  We’ll tell you if you have cancer.

Free Mammogram

I got a birthday card in the mail.  It says, happy birthday, and contains information about receiving a free mammogram.  That is quite possibly the most unexpected birthday gift I’ve ever received.

Don’t get me wrong.  I know this is actually a valuable gift.  Prevention is good.  But really, my birthday is a downer.  I just paid my birthday tax.  The State of Georgia also says happy birthday.  For your birthday, you pay the property tax and tag fee on your car.  So this week I pay a tax and there is the free mammogram?

Ick.

Regifting

My birthday is Sunday, the fourth.  Generally it is best ignored.  Because receiving a regift wrapped in Christmas paper because that is what people can afford, is well – a card or simple happy birthday voice mail is much better.

Okay, so that’s my, please ignore me if you can’t say something nice on my birthday even if you are an institution rant.  Taxing me and offering a medical procedure is not included in “nice.”

Grandma Update

Grandma is herself mentally and linguistically.  I spent fifteen minutes telling her that DD had a playdate with her friend E.  Grandma was confused by the name, didn’t understand that E is a person.  Once that was settled, I spent several more minutes explaining that E is a girl and her brother G is a boy.  Clearly, names that are not gender specific are lost on Grandma.  It is not a trend that she likes.

Physically grandma is not the best. She claims she is well.  Because she is well in spirit (see above).  I can no longer call at any time of day or evening with any certain that I won’t wake her up.  The oxygen isn’t really working so well.  And she just doesn’t sound well (her voice, not what she says).

Grandma and her Male Suitors

Grandma went to a holiday party that the little greek man threw.  I said, “You rejected him, then went to his party?”

She said, “Well, lots of people were there.”

I said, “Grandma, you were there.”

Weirdly, she had no response to that.

Her old boyfriend, J, also called.  She said, oh, it’s nice that he called, I thought he might be dead.

I asked whatever happened to D, who stopped calling, so she thought he was dead.  She said, oh yes, definitely dead.  I asked how she found out.  She said she doesn’t remember, somebody must have called her back.

Poor guy, he even asked her to marry him one last time.  She said she could never marry an Italian-American man:  too possessive.

When I told her about the free mammogram she said, well, at least when you don’t call me back right away, I don’t think you’re dead.

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Belfast militant convicted of N.Ireland attack | ajc.com

A Belfast judge convicted a notorious Protestant militant Friday of trying to kill Catholic politicians during his bizarre — and internationally broadcast — attempt to attack the Northern Ireland Assembly two years ago.

UK court: No bail for cancer-hit Lockerbie bomber | ajc.com

A court refused Friday to release from prison a cancer-stricken Libyan man convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

The Court of Criminal Appeal in Scotland acknowledged that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi’s cancer was incurable, but it said he could not be freed on bail pending an appeal of his life sentence for the bombing that killed 270 people, most of them American.

Not me.  I graduated college at twenty-seven, wondering how many years I should spend working before children, and how many years until biology caught up with me.  I don’t wish that kind of mental and emotional ping-pong on anybody.

Do I think women should get pregnant at sixteen, become dependent on men and stay barefoot?  No, let’s not go there either.

I do think there should be respected vocational and collegiate school tracks available in high schools.  And that Gingrich has a real point about expecting young people to work and be responsible.  But it isn’t going to happen overnight.  Our laws don’t allow work until the age of sixteen, and that is restricted.  And the law doesn’t recognize individuals as adults until the age of eighteen, making it impossible for warehouses and many other types of business to hire younger teens.

And what insurance companies are going to cover younger employees and their families?

And families need to have access to good, affordable childcare prior to their children reaching school age. Otherwise, who will be minding their children while they work?  Entering the professional world at sixteen, rather than twenty-six would mean younger parents.  Would these younger graduates earn enough to support themselves, and possibly a young family?

Nothing can stop the natural occurrence of raging teen hormones that marks adolescence.  But why compound the problem with idleness?

I’m not a grandparent.  And I’m not going to go off on a tangent about how our grandparents or even parents may have married young, had children young, and still worked and may have gone to school.  I don’t think the American social model of the 50s, 60s, or 70s was better than what exists today.  Except maybe conscription – but that’s another blog post.

I agree that our present educational system needs improvement and the social model isn’t working.

Newt Gingrich: Let’s End Adolescence – BusinessWeek

The solution is dramatic and unavoidable: We have to end adolescence as a social experiment. We tried it. It failed. It’s time to move on. Returning to an earlier, more successful model of children rapidly assuming the roles and responsibilities of adults would yield enormous benefit to society.

Prior to the 19th century, it’s fair to say that adolescence did not exist. Instead, there was virtually universal acceptance that puberty marked the transition from childhood to young adulthood. Whether with the Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah ceremony of the Jewish faith or confirmation in the Catholic Church or any hundreds of rites of passage in societies around the planet, it was understood you were either a child or a young adult.

GHANA OBAMA by pd2020@sbcglobal.net

Yes, me, a registered Republican and supporter of McCain since before I was old enough to vote.  Once a card carrying Republican who knew every local politician personally and the policies of every lawmaker that might impact my life, my views have changed.

Or not.

I have never been a one issue voter.  In college while my girlfriends were rallying around pro-choice Clinton, I was “wasting” my support on Perot, because I like the idea of running your country like a business.  And I wasn’t as impressed with George H. W. as I would have liked.

Circa 1999, at a GOP function we (the attendees) took a quiz for fun. My quiz result read:  You are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. You are a libertarian.

I was stunned.

My fellow Republicans, though slightly horrified, suggested that though I am completely immoral on issues of abortion and gay marriage, I made good points and conversation and of course voted for the GOP candidate most of the time, so they’d continue to invite me.

I supported Libby Dole in the primaries.

I like the underdog.  Though it has made me no less a conservative voter. But something else was happening:  the Republicans and the Democrats began to sound alike.  And here we are in 2008 with both candidates accepting lobbyist money (in different forms at different levels), claiming to support the death penalty and trade with Cuba.

Calvin Woodward, of AP, sums up the candidates positions well.  And for me, the place where the candidates are different is health care.

The Associated Press: Where McCain, Obama stand on the issues

HEALTH CARE

McCain: $2,500 refundable tax credit for individuals, $5,000 for families, to make health insurance more affordable. No mandate for universal coverage. Would no longer shield from income taxes those payments that businesses and their workers make toward employer-sponsored health insurance. Tax Policy Center estimates overall plan’s cost at $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

Obama: Mandatory coverage for children, no mandate for adults. Aim for universal coverage by requiring employers to share costs of insuring workers and by offering coverage similar to that in plan for federal employees. Says package would cost up to $65 billion a year after unspecified savings from making system more efficient. Raise taxes on wealthier families to pay the cost. Tax Policy Center estimates overall plan’s cost at $1.6 trillion over 10 years.

No matter who wins, I expect Uncle Sam to stick it to me with taxes.  I’m ok with taxes, if I’m getting something for my money.  I am not ok with taxing employer sponsored health benefits.

And I’m not ok with Sarah Palin as Vice President.  McCain is old.  If he drops dead I don’t want the person who becomes president to be a person who can’t even manage her teenage daughter.

Sarah Palin with daughter Bristol and grandbaby-to-be by sassycrafter

Yes, yes, I know that statement is going to piss people off.  But that is how I feel.  I know a very nice family who raised two children.  One is an outstanding business woman.  The other child is a criminal.  It isn’t their fault.  I still don’t want them running the country.  Call me crazy. But when nuclear weapons are involved, I don’t think we should take any chances.

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La Marseillaise – Accueil

Allez au diable, yankees de merde.

What?  Have my linguistic abilities failed me?  Does that actually say, “Go home Yankee devil and eat shit?” 

Not understanding how this could have escaped newsworthiness in American newspapers, I ran it through a translator program, then googled the news (in English and Spanish).  Yep, that’s what it says.  Here is APs very polite translation.

The Associated Press: Analysis: US relations with leftists leaders sour

Simmering ideological tensions between President Bush and the populist presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela boiled over this week in twin diplomatic spats that threaten U.S. counternarcotics operations in the region and possibly American energy supplies.

The administration says it wants to get along with the growing number of leftist leaders in the Western Hemisphere, but Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are having none of it, essentially responding with the time-honored insult: “Yankee, go home.”

I do know that the United States offends other nations with policy regularly. But why doesn’t Yankee go home with an expletive make the news here?  Seriously, my living under a rock persona only exists for celebrity gossip and doesn’t extend to international news.

As a side under a rock note, I have opened myself to ridicule this week with my inability to pronounce “Ellen” a very common name, and “scuppanong.”

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And it’s a little handy that the wife of a presidential candidate took a course called Executive Protect, don’t you think?

Go Cindy.

ESPN – Cindy McCain takes the wheel in her own race

Six weeks later, McCain was still limited physically and, she said, mired in depression. Jack knew exactly what type of therapy was needed. As a 50th-birthday gift, he bought her a four-day course to the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Chandler, Ariz.

I am not afraid to fly. But this thing, which she prefers, really frightens me. (I am so glad she was not en route to France for a holiday.)

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