Clipmarks | Honoradele's Pops

Cruelty meets beauty for Pakistan burn victims

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:05:37 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Saira Liaqat squints through her one good eye as she brushes a woman's hair. Her face, most of which the acid melted years ago, occasionally lights up with a smile. Her hands, largely undamaged, deftly handle the dark brown locks.

A few steps away in this popular beauty salon, Urooj Akbar diligently trims, cleans and paints clients' fingernails. Her face, severely scarred from the blaze that burned some 70 percent of her body, is somber. It's hard to tell if she's sad or if it's just the way she now looks.

Liaqat and Akbar are among Pakistan's many female victims of arson and acid attacks. Such tales tend to involve a spurned or crazy lover and end in a life of despair and seclusion for the woman.

The two instead became beauticians.

The women can't escape the mirrors or pictures of glamorous models that surround them, but they consider the salon a second home and a good way to make a living.

Tags: woman, women, pakistan, beauty, survival

Babe Ruth was cancer research guinea pig

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:39:36 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: nbcsports.msnbc.com

The story of Babe Ruth's bittersweet farewell at Yankee Stadium has been part of sports lore for generations. Shockingly stooped and frail, the slugger came to the Bronx ballpark on June 13, 1948, to put on the pinstriped uniform a last time and hear the roar of the faithful once more.

He died only two months later, on August 16, at age 53, by most accounts of throat cancer, brought on at least in part by a well-chronicled fondness for tobacco and liquor. But that's all wrong, says a Westchester County, N.Y., dentist with a passion for baseball history. And he's trying to set the record straight.

Maloney uncovered little-known information about the experimental treatment that the doomed baseball titan agreed to take part in, the kindness Ruth showed toward medical staff during his difficult final days and the rare form of cancer he actually died from, nasopharyngeal carcinoma (it causes less than 1 percent of the cancer deaths in the U.S. today).

Tags: sports, cancer, celebrity, baseball, babe ruth, history, medical

Groups Wants Atheists Included In DNC Interfaith Service

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:11:47 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.gazette.com

Democratic National Convention's Aug. 24 interfaith service in Denver is supposed to be about unity.

But to a Washington, D.C., coalition that supports nontheistic views, it's about division.

The Secular Coalition Group, a lobbying organization for church-and-state separation, is pushing to get an atheist on the speaker list, and contends the service is divisive because it alienates nonreligious Democrats at a time when the party needs to unite to support the presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.

"We can all hold different beliefs," said the group's executive director, Lori Lipman Brown, "but we can still come together as patriotic Americans."

Natalie Wyeth, a convention spokesperson, said Wednesday that everyone, regardless of belief, is welcome at the public service, but would not address if an atheist would be added to the speaker list.

Tags: democrats, obama, atheism, interfaith

Gold Medal Chinese Women's Gymnastics Team Disqualified Due To Age

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:18:59 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: The final straw, however, was when one of the gymnasts lost two baby teeth and asked if the tooth fairy could still find her in the Olympic Village.

Clip Source: www.thespoof.com

Controversy, as usual, at the Olympics

The Chinese Women's Gymnastics Team took the Olympic Gold Medal in the team competition, but has been disqualified due to the falsification of the ages of some of the team members. News sources had reported several days ago that at least three members of the team had falsified paperwork to appear to be older.

Officials begin to be suspicious when the girls pulled out their teddy bears during a competitive break and begin holding a tea party. They were also curious when one girl had to ask for instructions on hooking her bra and another ask for help wiping herself after using the bathroom (her phrase, loosely translated, was "making poopies"). Another strange moment came when one team reported that, in the locker room, the Chinese gymnasts all had cartoon characters on their panties. Further suspicions were aroused when the athletes asked the American team if "the Jonas Brothers" had cooties.

When 'The Blob' came to town

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:54:50 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

There is a man. He carries a can, and inside it is a weird, blood-red hunk of goo the size and consistency of a generous bowl of lumpy raspberry Jell-O.

The town, Phoenixville, is a place of history, too. Fifty years ago, this place was touched by the spotlight. A small production company two towns over made a film that no one expected to go anywhere. Instead, it became one of the iconic sci-fi horror flicks of the 1950s and introduced the world to an actor named Steve McQueen.

In real life, this happens: Each summer, hundreds of locals and folks from as far away as Oregon and Jamaica come to the center of Phoenixville. They visit the house where the doctor "died," stop by the strip mall where the market once stood, eat at the diner on the site where the alien met its frozen end. And, on Phoenixville's main drag, on a warm summer evening, more than 400 of them run screaming from the same theater, the Colonial, in a joyous re-enactment of the movie's big scene.

Tags: horror, movie, film, classic, history

Doctors Can't Deny Lesbians Care on Religious Grounds

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:56:45 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

The California Supreme Court today ruled unanimously that doctors cannot cite their religious beliefs as grounds to deny gay and lesbian patients medical care.

Justice Joyce Kennard ruled that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian couple cannot claim a free speech or religious exemption from California's anti-discrimination law.

The ruling extends a state law barring sexual orientation-based discrimination to the medical profession.

In 1999, after a year of surgeries and hormone treatments — all covered by insurance — Benitez was finally ready to get pregnant. But at the crucial moment, her doctor refused to do the procedure for "religious" reasons.

Benitez is a lesbian and sued her doctors under California's civil rights laws, charging that they discriminated against her because of her sexual orientation.

Tags: medical, gay, lesbian, religion, belief, discrimination

Denver defends 'secret jail' built for DNC

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:36:09 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: This is getting ridiculous--but we'll see what happens at the convention...surely it won't be like Chicago '68...WILL it?

Clip Source: www.9news.com

DENVER - Activist groups say the converted warehouse poses a threat to civil liberties. The city maintains the facility is needed in case of mass arrests during the Democratic National Convention.

The makeshift holding center, dubbed "Gitmo on the Platte" by activists, is located on city-owned property near Steele Street and 38th Avenue. Newly-installed security cameras guard the exterior, chain-link fences and barbed wire form cells inside.

"We feel the city should be ashamed of this secret prison they've set up," said Re-create '68 organizer Glenn Spagnuolo.

Spagnuolo and other activists gathered outside the formerly-secret facility on Friday to protest the city's plan to use it as a processing center for all those arrested outside the DNC.

"The public was never going to view this place, it was just found out," Spagnuolo said. "They got caught with this place. They told our lawyers in negotiations that this place didn't even exist."

Can you find a single verse which specifically sanctions the use of violence

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:02:37 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Interesting article, at the source

Clip Source: blogs.guardian.co.uk

One of the peculiar features of the recent rise in Islamophobia is the manner in which so many opponents of the Muslim faith try to pass themselves off as experts on the Qur'an. In the wake of the Channel 4 Dispatches programme, It shouldn't happen to a Muslim, which I commissioned for Channel 4, numerous critics on Comment is free and on the channel4.com viewers' forum tried to convince me that the Qur'an preaches violence, terror and holy war. In my experience, such critics tend not to have actually read the Qur'an in its entirety, let alone in its original Arabic script, and prefer to rely on a rather disingenuous combination of mistranslation and misquotation.

A few years ago, the prominent Canadian-Muslim scholar, Dr Jamal Badawi, offered a prize of $1 million to anyone who could find any verses in the Qur'an which referred to "holy war". The prize remains unclaimed, as the Arabic translation of "holy war" - "harb muqaddasah" - appears nowhere in the Quran.

Tags: quran, islam

Religion Begets Prejudice

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:45:57 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: ....
Today it is from this same part of America, the most overtly religious part, that most of the hostility toward equality in the pursuit of justice for gay and lesbian people comes. The question that should be asked is: What is there about religion in general and Christianity in particular that continues to fuel the prejudices of our day?

Clip Source: newsweek.washingtonpost.com

Far from my religion tempering my prejudices, racial prejudice was actually instilled in me by my evangelical Christian church. I grew up in North Carolina in what we call the Bible Belt. My church taught me that segregation was the will of God and quoted the Bible to prove it. It taught me that men were by nature superior to woman and quoted the Bible to prove it. It taught me that it was o.k. to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and quoted the Bible to prove it. It taught me that homosexual persons were either mentally sick or morally depraved and, of course, quoted the Bible to prove it. So the idea that being religious might make one less prejudiced is a fantasy. It appears to make people more prejudiced, or at the least, not to confront their prejudices.

Tags: religion

Controversial U.S. Church Group Stopped At Border

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:32:37 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.nationalpost.com

Residents rallied Thursday to protect the family of a young man murdered on a Greyhound bus last week from a posse of radical religious protesters planning to portray Tim McLean's death as God's wrath.

Earlier this week, the Westboro Baptist Church - an organization branded as a hate group and infamous for protesting the funerals of slain U.S. soldiers - announced they would picket Mr. McLean's funeral to let Canadians know that his decapitation was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and adultery.

But Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of church's founder, Fred Phelps, said a small group of protesters was stopped at the Canada-U.S. border on Thursday afternoon.

The resistance to the planned funeral protest started on Facebook yesterday morning when Jim Cotton, a resident of Winnipeg Beach, launched a page asking city residents to help protect Mr. McLean's funeral.

Mr. Taylor's plan worked.

Tags: church, christian, hate, religion, god

Knights Templar Heirs In Legal Battle With The Pope

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:36:35 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

The heirs of the Knights Templar have launched a legal battle in Spain to force the Pope to restore the reputation of the disgraced order which was accused of heresy and dissolved seven centuries ago.

The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth 100 billion euros (£79 billion).

They claim that when the order was dissolved by his predecessor Pope Clement V in 1307, more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures belonging to the knights were appropriated by the church.

But their motive is not to reclaim damages only to restore the "good name" of the Knights Templar.

Tags: church, catholic, pope, knights templar, lawsuit, religion

An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad?

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:39:10 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.time.com

It's not easy to make the infamous Willie Horton ad from the 1988 presidential campaign seem benign. But suggesting that Barack Obama is the Antichrist might just do it.

That's just what some outraged Christian supporters of the Democratic nominee are claiming John McCain's campaign did in an ad called "The One" that was recently released online. The Republican nominee's advisers brush off the charges, arguing that the spot was meant to be a "creative" and "humorous" way of poking fun at Obama's popularity by painting him as a self-appointed messiah. But even this innocuous interpretation of the ad — which includes images of Charlton Heston as Moses and culled clips that make Obama sound truly egomaniacal — taps into a conversation that has been gaining urgency on Christian radio and political blogs and in widely circulated e-mail messages that accuse Obama of being the Antichrist.

"The language in there is so similar to the language in the Left Behind books,"

Tags: religion, advertising, politics, obama, mccain

When government prays, religion loses

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:40:31 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.firstamendmentcenter.org

Not surprisingly, Rev. Turner wants to pray in the name of Jesus Christ — including when it’s his turn to offer the opening prayer at council sessions.

But on July 23, Turner lost the latest round in his battle to invoke Jesus when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Fredericksburg City Council’s policy requiring that prayers at meetings be nondenominational.

In an opinion written by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (asked to take part in the case as a visiting judge), the court ruled that the prayers at issue are “government speech” and therefore the prayer policy does not violate Turner’s free speech or free exercise of religion.

If we must have an invocation at government functions, then let’s do it in silence. That way the Rev. Turners in the room can pray freely in the name of Jesus — and everyone else can pray (or not) according to the dictates of conscience.

Tags: government, religion, free speech

When the ground UNDER the ground is burning...

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:15:31 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: www.venturacountystar.com

One theory behind the latest hot spot is that oil, gas or some other hydrocarbon deep in the soil caught fire and is burning.

It's being called a natural anomaly, a geological whodunit, a scientific puzzler. And it's the second time that scientists have been scratching their heads over the fact the earth under Ventura County is burning.

High atop a steep grass-covered mountain overlooking the Little Sespe Canyon near Fillmore, the earth is on fire.

Wisps of smoke rise from a brown patch of grass that looks like it was toasted under an oven's broiler. Deep down, under the dirt, rocks and grass, something is smoldering and burning, sending smoke through cracks in the parched soil.

Such fires aren't uncommon in areas where there is a high concentration of gas or oil underground, he said.

King stuck a thermometer 14 inches into the ground and got a reading of 550 degrees. One time, the ground was so hot, the glue holding the sole of his boots melted. Grass can burn at 300 degrees.

Olympics protests

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:05:38 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Quite a spectacle--Martial law and fireworks, fabulous opening ceremonies and billy clubs on heads...Saw Preznit Bush tryin to ive the Women's softball team coch some advice or just commenting, slumming, whatever...the poor guy was holdin his nose and turnin away from Chimpy, who thinks he's cool in his baseball cap and failed experience as a team owner. Bush looked embarrassed and Coach looked disgusted...

Clip Source: deesings.livejournal.com

Dissident decries attendance at Games

Hours after returning from a foiled attempt to visit his home country on the eve of the Olympics, Chinese dissident Yang Jianli railed against world leaders participating in the event, particularly President Bush.
"Imagine the situation: The heads of democracies swarmed to Beijing to participate in opening ceremonies which took place under martial law," said Yang, a Harvard scholar and Brookline resident, pointing to the military presence and the crackdown on critics that preceded the event. "Millions of Chinese troops and police are deployed in Beijing and everybody is suspect now. . . . Beijing has become a forbidden city itself."
Yang never made it to Beijing. He never even made it out of Hong Kong Airport. Yang, who was released last year after five years in a Chinese prison, was sent home via Japan, where he had been traveling.

Anti-China protests worldwide as Olympics begin

Small pro-Tibet protest pulled off in Tiananmen