Soy Saps And Impurifies All Of Our Precious Bodily Fluids

Ken AshfordSex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

According to the christianists at World Nut Net Daily, ingesting soy (you know, like tofu or soy milk) makes you gay.

Not a real-men-don’t-eat-quiche kind of gay, but actually homosexual kind of gay.  If you have soy as a pregnant mother, your kid will come out of your uterus singing Barbara Streisand tunes:

There’s a slow poison out there that’s severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture. The ironic part is, it’s a "health food," one of our most popular.

Now, I’m a health-food guy, a fanatic who seldom allows anything into his kitchen unless it’s organic. I state my bias here just so you’ll know I’m not anti-health food.

The dangerous food I’m speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.

I have nothing against an occasional soy snack. Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you’re also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.

Estrogens are female hormones. If you’re a woman, you’re flooding your system with a substance it can’t handle in surplus. If you’re a man, you’re suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your "female side," physically and mentally.

***

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products.

Kind of reminds me of this:

StrangeloveripperGeneral Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk… ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children’s ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I… no, no. I don’t, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.

The author of "soy make kids gay" column is one Jim Rutz, a former Amway distributor (hmmmmm) and founder and chairman of Open Church Ministries, an organization which helps "believers worship as the early church did."  The bio on his website takes note that he never received much attention from girls in his youth, and it fails to mention a wife and family.  RevivalsoyproteinHmmmm.

And he went to undergrad at San Francisco University.  Hmmmmm.  *Ahem*

By the way, does Nathan "Does A Gay Gene Exist?" Tabor realize that he’s been contributing to the gaying of America?

Nathan Tabor has helped build a successful family business in Kernersville, N.C. Revival Soy has over 130 employees and is one of the fastest growing businesses in western North Carolina.

[Source]

South Dakota Law

Ken AshfordCongressLeave a Comment

Here you go:

12-11-1. Special election to fill congressional vacancy–Time of election of representative. If a vacancy occurs in the office of a senator or representative in the United States Congress it shall be the duty of the Governor within ten days of the occurrence, to issue a proclamation setting the date of and calling for a special election for the purpose of filling such vacancy. If either a primary or general election is to be held within six months, an election to fill a vacancy in the office of representative in the United States Congress shall be held in conjunction with that election, otherwise the election shall be held not less than eighty nor more than ninety days after the vacancy occurs.

Why this matters…

Milestone

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

American-led casualties — meaning "dead or wounded" — has surpassed 25,000.  See a multi-media presentation about this here.

Obama Winning Over The Right

Ken AshfordElection 20081 Comment

Rich Lowry over at NRO’s The Corner takes reads right-winger emails, reflecting on Obama’s performance on Monday Night Football:

—I watched the Bears game with my father & wife’s grandfather in Dupage County Illinois. Unlike the rest of America we know how to vote. (Have fun in Washington Congressman Peter Roskam!) Both my father & my wife’s grandfather starting voting Republican right out of the womb. But when the Obama Monday Night Football cameo ended they both turned to each other & said, "I like that guy." Mitt, John & Rudy, be afraid, very afraid.

— Obama’s turn on Monday Night Football was actually very well done. I don’t like his politics, but it’s hard not to like the person.  He’s got an easy smile and came across like "It’s cool to be asked to do this, so I am doing it."  Nothing awkward at all.  He’s very non-threatening. 

—I think it was a pretty good political move.  Any chance to snub Hillary, who at times has portrayed herself as some sort of Chicago sports fan, is a plus for him. 

Ezra Klein explains the Obama hype:

So the Obama hype has been a bit puzzling to many. Myself, at times, included. But watch this video of the speech he gave in New Hampshire. Just watch five minutes of it. It’s one of the most remarkable addresses I’ve ever seen, and, in its soft and irresistible way, it explains the whole of the buzz. In possibly the most telling section, he gives a great riff on health care, which manages to totally inspire while not actually saying anything sweeping or controversial. Watching it, you’d swear he just promised the stars, the sky, and universal insurance, when he really just committed to electronic records. And yet, you scarcely mind, if you even noticed. That’s some powerful political mojo.

He’s right (and click the video link).

Finding Terrorists Through Google?

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Remember when one of the lessons of 9/11 was the revelation that the various departments of government don’t talk to each other and share important information?

That was supposed to change.

But it didn’t:

When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect its sources and tradecraft.

Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way — by using Google.

You have got to be kidding me. Bush’s State Department began targeting suspects based on Google searches? This is how administration officials approach identifying suspects associated with a clandestine nuclear weapons program in a post-9/11, post-Iraq-intelligence-failures environment?

Feel safer?

The State Department’s googling resulted in 12 names of Iranian suspects.  but — surprise, surprise:

None of the 12 Iranians that the State Department eventually singled out for potential bans on international travel and business dealings is believed by the CIA to be directly connected to Iran’s most suspicious nuclear activities.

Is this any way to run a country’s anti-terrorist efforts?

Internet Explorer 7.0

Ken AshfordScience & TechnologyLeave a Comment

My computer nagged me to get the updated version of IE 7.  So I did.

It’s a vast improvement over the old one.  Really good features, including tabs, pop-up blocking, phishing protection, etc.

I heartily recommend it.  Microsoft doesn’t always do things right or intuitive, but this time they did well.

Dispatches From The Front Lines Of The War on Christmas

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

Well, now it’s getting ugly: they’re making hot dogs out of reindeer:

The reindeer dog, which costs $8, is made by Indian Valley Meats of Indian, Alaska.

It’s actually a blend of reindeer meat, beef and pork. Because reindeer meat is so lean, it needs fat to add flavor. An all-reindeer hot dog would just taste like "rubber," said Cathy Drum, whose family owns Indian Valley Meats.

The company had to reduce the amount of reindeer meat in its sausages a few years ago "because people were calling, complaining they were too rubbery," she said.

Barry Soskin, 49, a fRedhots customer who sampled a reindeer dog Friday, found the texture "tougher" than a regular red-hot but liked the flavor.

Word Of The Year

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

Merriam-Webster announced its Word-of-the-Year results, and the winner is a new word coined by Stephen Colbert:

truthiness (noun)
1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)

The other words nominated (but not winning): google, decider, war, insurgent, terrorism, vendetta, sectarian, quagmire, and corruption

Princess Diana: Still Dead But back In The News

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

2141743_diana_300CNN (12/10/06):  Report: Diana’s Driver Was Drunk

LONDON, England (AP) — New DNA evidence proves the driver of Princess Diana’s car was drunk on the night of her fatal crash in a Paris underpass in 1997, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Saturday.

The tests confirm that original post-mortem blood samples were from driver Henri Paul and that he had three times the French legal limit of alcohol in his blood, the BBC said, quoting from a documentary it will screen Sunday.

Excuse me, but didn’t we already know this?

The Guardian (12/10/06): U.S. Bugged Diana’s Phone On Night Of Death Crash

The American secret service was bugging Princess Diana’s telephone conversations without the approval of the British security services on the night she died, according to the most comprehensive report on her death, to be published this week.

Well, that’s something I hadn’t head before.  The article doesn’t explain why the U.S. tapped Diana’s phone, but it does add the information that the driver (the drunk one) was in the pay of the French equivalent of the CIA.  Hmmmm.

Conspiracy nuts, you have your marching orders.

UPDATE:  The Diana phone-tapping starts a debate between former Bush speechwriter David Frum and progressive blogger Glenn Greenwald.  Start with Frum here, then Greenwald’s response here.

Women Talk Nod More Than Men?

Ken AshfordWomen's Issues1 Comment

Amanda Marcotte is responding with a hearty "bullshit" to the study by Dr. Louann Brizendine — a study which concluded that women talk three times more than men.  Amanda points to Exhibit A — a New York Times interview with Dr. Brizendine, which features the following exchange:

NYT: Your book cites a study claiming that women use about 20,000 words a day, while men use about 7,000.

Dr. Brizendine: The real phraseology of that should have been that a woman has many more communication events a day — gestures, words, raising of your eyebrows.

So apparently "talking" isn’t really "talking" in the good doctor’s study.  For example, a woman who nods all day without actually vocalizing, is apparently "talking" for purposes of the study.

Amanda concludes that by twisting the data in this manner, the doctor is out there reinforcing a stereotype, simply to sell more books:

Brizendine is out there pushing the “women are more verbal” line because the dominant culture wants men to be better at “important” fields like math and science, but I wonder what she’d think if confronted from the stereotypes of prior times that held that women were feeble in all intellectual fields.

Read the whole thing.

Tom Delay.com

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

Tom Delay started a blog.  Here’s why:

I have created this blog in order to provide Americans with a new meeting place where such opinions and viewpoints might be better shared, discussed and debated; a place where conservative and traditionalist Americans might speak truth to power and to one another.

How successful was this viewpoint-sharing project of Tom’s?  Well, It lasted 75 minutes before he closed off and erased reader comments.  Apparently, people don’t like him very much.  Fortunately, someone preserved the comments here.

RELATED:  Judge Lee Sarokin (now retired), formerly sitting on the bench of the U.S. Third Circuit, has started blogging, too.

Ba-rockstar Obama

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

Obama fevor hit New Hampshire, as the not-so-dark horse nominee for the 2008 presidency.  By all indications, this guy is carrying something very special — not seen in politics in decades:

"I’ve never seen anything like it," said Jim Demers, a lobbyist and former Democratic lawmaker who met Obama at the airport Saturday night and accompanied him throughout the events yesterday. "A lot of people have compared it to the days when Bobby Kennedy was running for president. I don’t think we’ve seen it since."

I suspect the Obama sheen will become tranished over the next two years, especially after he throws his hat in the ring.  As The Carperbagger writes, "no one can live up to the expectations that we’re seeing now."

Obama is pretty humble and equally wary of the buzz he’s generating:

"I am suspicious of hype. The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife," he said at a news conference between events. "And I think what’s going on is people are very hungry for something new. I think they are interested in being called to be a part of something larger than the sort of small, petty, slash-and-burn politics that we have been seeing over the last several years. To some degree, I think I’m a stand-in for that desire on the part of the country."

Still, I don’t think I’ve seen such excitement generated over a new face in the presidential races in a long time.

New York Times coverage here.

Mark Foley Report

Ken AshfordCongress, Sex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

Ethics Report says that the House Ethics Committee didn’t break any rules, but still were negeligent in not protecting the House pages from the very creepy Mark Foley.

The full Ethics Report is here, but if you want to read 104 pages of AOL instant messages from Mark Foley, go straight here (PDF format).  And emails here (also PDF format).

Man, was he creepy!

Who Got It Right, And Why Nobody Should Be Listening To People Who Got It Wrong And Still Think They Are Right

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

Paul Krugman’s Honor Roll of people who had it right, way back when it mattered and could have made a difference:

Former President George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, explaining in 1998 why they didn’t go on to Baghdad in 1991: “Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”

Representative Ike Skelton, September 2002: “I have no doubt that our military would decisively defeat Iraq’s forces and remove Saddam. But like the proverbial dog chasing the car down the road, we must consider what we would do after we caught it.”

Al Gore, September 2002: “I am deeply concerned that the course of action that we are presently embarking upon with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.”

Barack Obama, now a United States senator, September 2002: “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”

Representative John Spratt, October 2002: “The outcome after the conflict is actually going to be the hardest part, and it is far less certain.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi, now the House speaker-elect, October 2002: “When we go in, the occupation, which is now being called the liberation, could be interminable and the amount of money it costs could be unlimited.”

Senator Russ Feingold, October 2002: “I am increasingly troubled by the seemingly shifting justifications for an invasion at this time. … When the administration moves back and forth from one argument to another, I think it undercuts the credibility of the case and the belief in its urgency. I believe that this practice of shifting justifications has much to do with the troubling phenomenon of many Americans questioning the administration’s motives.”

Howard Dean, then a candidate for president and now the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, February 2003: “I firmly believe that the president is focusing our diplomats, our military, our intelligence agencies, and even our people on the wrong war, at the wrong time. … Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quantities of arms.”

We should honor these people for their wisdom and courage. We should also ask why anyone who didn’t raise questions about the war — or, at any rate, anyone who acted as a cheerleader for this march of folly — should be taken seriously when he or she talks about matters of national security.

Yup.