Heatwave!

Whoever said global warming was a hoax can kiss my black a%#! It must be 110 degrees all up and down the least-coast. Anyway, the blog must go on.

Right about now I am feeling Reggie. The little dude, who in true Philly fashion, went on stage and jammed with the Goo Goo Dolls. Definitely a YouTube moment. And, I am not feeling this church lady. Girlfriend sued her church for $250,000.00 large because they allowed Gay marriages. I don't agree with her, but that is not my issue. This is a free country, she can believe anything she wants.

My issue with "church lady" is that she dropped $250,000.00 in the offering plate over a 37 year period. Thirty Seven years ago $250,000.00 would have bought her a really nice house. And it would have been paid for by now. Instead, the good Reverend got it. Man I sure hope she worships in a very nice building.

Hey, did I read this right? They sentenced a woman to death by stoning in Iran? WTF?

"Human rights activists are rallying the international community to stop an Iranian woman being stoned to death. In 2006, Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani was convicted of having extramarital relations with two men, who subsequently killed her husband according to Huliq.

While she initially received 99 lashes for adultery, during an appeal of her case, the court sentenced her to death by stoning. Her sentence has caused widespread outrage because there is no conclusive evidence that she actually committed a crime. Ashtiani's attorney, Mohammad Mostafaei, an acclaimed human rights lawyer, told the Guardian, "This is an absolutely illegal sentence. Two of five judges who investigated Sakineh's case in Tabriz prison concluded that there's no forensic evidence of adultery." For a case of adultery to be punishable by stoning, four witnesses must be able to confirm the act, according to Article 74 of the Iranian penal code. In Ashtiani's case, there are no witnesses .

Additionally, the trial was conducted in Farsi, while Ashtiani, from Northwestern Iran, speaks Turkish. Ashtiani's children, son,Sajad and daughter Farideh, are leading the campaign for her freedom. Sajad told the Guardian, "She's innocent, she's been there for five years for doing nothing...Imagining her, bound inside a deep hole in the ground, stoned to death, has been a nightmare for me and my sister for all these years." Women executed by stoning are buried up to their necks (men are buried up to the waist) and a crowd throws stones at their head, which slowly leads to death. Sentences are commuted if one is able to dig oneself out of the hole"...[Article]

Unfortunately for you, Sakineh, this did not happen in Israel, so there will be no real International outcry. Certain bloggers won't take up your cause. And there sure as hell won't be any denouncing of the evil Iranians.

Finally, speaking of evil; I know I touched on this in an earlier post, but I can't let it go just yet. Besides, I saw an excellent article in HuffPo by Stanley Kutler that brought my thoughts around to the subject all over again:

"Elena Kagan's confirmation is likely if no other reason than the emptiness of the Republican case against here. Her hearing had, in her own well-chosen words, "an air of vacuity and farce." Nevertheless, the Republicans scored electoral points and solidified their appeal to those whose hostility toward President Barack Obama is rooted in racial basis.

Kagan, as is well known by now, clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court's first African-American. Apparently, there is no statute of limitations on the kind of attacks Marshall endured in life, and which continue 17 years after his death.

At the first day of Kagan's hearing, the Republicans seemed bent on projecting Kagan as Marshall's clone, one who would follow his "activist" judicial philosophy. Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) laid the cards clearly on the table when he charged that "too often, it sounds to me like Ms. Kagan shares the view of President Obama and Justice [Thurgood] Marshall that the Supreme Court exists to advance the agenda of certain classes of litigants." He insisted that Kagan had the burden to demonstrate she can be "a fair and impartial Justice, rather than one who would have an outcome-based approach."

Kyl and fellow Republicans Sens. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL), Charles Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) invoked Marshall's name nearly forty times in two days, nearly three times more than President Obama's. They repeatedly referenced Marshall's judicial philosophy as "evidence" of Kagan's intentions. Sessions, the ranking member of the Committee, made it perfectly clear, calling Marshall "a well-known activist." The Republicans offered no examples of how Marshall's rulings twisted the Constitution to achieve that sinister-sounding "outcome-based approach."

After the first day of hearings, a Utah newspaper asked Hatch if he would have voted for Marshall when his confirmation came up in 1967. "Well, it's hard to say," Hatch replied. Hatch projects himself as an ordinary fellow (listen to his YouTube rendition of his "Eight Days of Chanukah" song) with an upright Mormon world view, and the Senate's moral voice. Some moral voice.

Had Hatch opposed Marshall's confirmation in 1967, he would have had had interesting bedfellows for 10 steadfast segregationists rejected Marshall, joined by one newly-minted future of the Republican party - the never-repentant J. Strom Thurmond. There are two contexts here: the present moment of Kagan's hearing, and the historical one of Marshall's travail in his confirmation hearings.

Kagan appeared with impeccable credentials, and with smarts and savvy for running essentially a seminar with the senators. Robert Bork foolishly tried to take the lecture senators as if he were in a classroom, but only succeeded in alienating them. Kagan not only demonstrated a learned and supple mind, she showed herself to be a very human, warm individual, with a sense of humor that provided a few spontaneous moments.

So, why the Republican hostility? Their not-so-subtle uses of the Marshall analogy amounted to stump speeches for the electorate back home. The senators well know their constituents' hostility toward President Obama has powerful racial overtones that fuel the public anger so calculated for the evening television news. The Thurgood Marshall references amounted to a purposeful, well-orchestrated strategy to fire up the "base." [Article]

Can someone please convince me why I should become a conservative? I promise I will keep an open mind.