BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By Imogen Foulkes Swiss voters go to the polls later to decide on a proposal to ban the building of minarets in their country. The proposal is backed by the Swiss People's Party, the largest party in parliament, and by Christian groups. They say minarets would be the first sign of the Islamisation of Switzerland. The Swiss government is urging voters to reject a ban. There are 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland, and just four minarets across the country. Islam is the most widespread religion after Christianity, but it remains relatively hidden. There are unofficial Muslim prayer rooms, and planning for new minarets is almost always refused. The proposal is for a one-line addition to the Swiss constitution, stating that the construction of minarets is forbidden. Supporters of a ban claim allowing minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system - Sharia law - which are incompatible with Swiss democracy. Opinion polls ahead of the vote are close, with signs that a s

Boycott Burqa Barbie by Phyllis Chesler What will they think of next? A be-headed doll? That’s right. I am talking about the new Burqa Barbie [1]doll which is now on display in Florence, Italy, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Barbie doll. As my colleague over at weaselzippers [2] wonders: Will clean-cut Ken now come (pun intended, ‘tis mine) with four burqa’ed Barbie doll wives ? Ah, I am such a Grinch. After all, the Burqa Barbie is being auctioned off for the Save the Children charity. Save the Children? Surely, you must be jesting. I would like to save the children from this as well as from every other Barbie doll. (Yes, I know Barbie has diversified and now comes in every color and profession). But naked, even Doctor Barbie is still a pagan goddess or fertility figure but one with absolutely no relationship to female biology or reality. Barbies are always anatomically impossible: their feet are pre-shaped for high heels, their breasts are high, firm, and perky—like

US suicide rate rises as recession continues New alarming statistics suggest that the number of suicides in the US has increased with the effects of the recession. The latest surveys show the number of Americans killing themselves because of issues related with the economy may be climbing in the recessionary year of 2008 compared with that of 2007. “Suicide among families for financial breakdown is of great importance and certainly preventable. However, it leaves incurable scars in families with such financial situation,” an American psychologist and Press TV contributor Mala Coleman King says. “The growing rate of suicide is rising as recession continues. There were suicides before the recession. The new financial situation added to intensity,” King added. Suicide in the workplace and the nation's military has also shown a steady rise. Calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a government-funded number linked to a network of crisis centers, are on pace to reach about 630

I don’t mean to dismiss the Obama myth, his words, the change we need is real, its just his actions don’t even come close to measuring up. Just read the legal documents he has signed his name to. Read them. His actions are most often the opposite of what he says. I venture to say a 10 year old can recognize that after doing a school day’s worth of research. Obama is a national tragedy. He is a symbol of the times. He is not a leader, just a symbol. He projects the change we need. He was our shortcut to correcting our diseased political system, a way to rid it of corruption. He symbolized the change millions so desperately need. People came out in the millions for the first time “hoping” if they could work and organize to put him in office, we would have some representation to defend against the economic elite that have put the overwhelming majority of US politicians on the payroll and brought humanity to a breaking point. People just need to research how the Obama myth was hatched. Gol

A lot of food for thought here. Comments welcome!: Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far? Edited excerpt from the Amped Status report, "The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society." The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let's look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack. 1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high. 2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mar

A couple days ago I was sitting at the doctor's office getting a series of bloodwork done when I saw this: On Monday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that doctors delay mammography screening for breast cancer until the age of 50. The recommendation goes against the American Cancer Society’s long-held position that women receive their first mammogram by the age of 40 and follow up with yearly mammograms until the age of 74. WT#?? Are these people kidding? Yes, I admit I am over 50. Because of having PCOS since age 9 I have been getting regular mammograms since I was about 35 years ago. Drug therapy for infertility as well as for my PCOS and subsequently my Atypical MS means I always err on the side of caution and my doctors agree. PCOS carries a high rate of cancer later in life. Thank God I dodged that bullet after this May's surgery. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't take care of my body - flawed as it is. I have had a number of friends m

by Underground Panther in the Sky When I was growing up and I faced people in school on the bus, people who rejected and bullied me, soon I felt strange, like I had been marked. When kids from schools I had never attended, kids I never met spat on me, it felt like I had some invisible neon sign on my forehead -- I could not see it only bullies could see it. It felt bad like the mark of Cain. It was burned into my being by abusers. The contact I had with psychopathic evil that erased my self-hood as an innocent kid, in repeated blinding soul-shattering moments of senseless unspeakable horrors and betrayal, made a mark. If you care and can feel, and see too much of the evil in the reality we live through, too soon, too close it changes you forever. I knew this was true even when I was 6 years old. I just didn't have the words to express it than like I do now. It felt as if abuse had made a change within me, a message I did not want to send out, advertising the damaged goods -- I am w

ABSOLUTELY CRIMINAL FOR THE U.S.! Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study. The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable. "This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist. The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery, comes as Congress is debating the expansion of health insurance coverage to millions more Americans. It could add fodder to that debate. The researchers couldn't pin down the reasons behind the differences they found. The uninsured might experience more delays being transferred from hospital to hospital. Or they might g

The tea party protests continued last week, as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann held an anti-health-care-reform rally on the steps of the Capitol. While she estimated that 20,000-45,000 people attended the event, the Washington Post reported it was actually more like 10,000. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis Still, that is a sizable number of Americans exercising their right to free speech and assembly, and that warrants news coverage. But Sean Hannity and his team did more than cover the event. They not only inflated the number in attendance with their words, but actually used footage from a heavily-attended protest this summer to make this health care rally appear more popular. Hannity even pointed out that this was a huge crowd for a Thursday, when the protest footage they used was from a Saturday. HANNITY'S DAMAGE CONTROL “…the

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If you read nothing else today, PLEASE READ DONNA DARKO This appears to be an updated post from August that begins by accounting the history of how the primaries and caucuses were used to skewer The Woman. The updates are a complete account of what women are thinking since the House betrayed them this week. The bottom line is blind trust of the third wave in Barack Obama endangers pretty much all their rights as human beings of the “Wrong” gender. This is a huge wakeup call for the Third Wave of lax feminists. We owe them this because they are about to have a lot of water to carry. Well, maybe we don’t owe them this, but the truth is Women’s Rights are in huge danger all the way around under this congress and administration. This is not over. It’s just the start. If the House can do what they did under Democratic Leadership in the House, Senate and White House, they can and will do it again. It’s as simple as that. Wake Up Sleeping Giant! or lose your rights as a person. Even if

By DENISE GRADY Many people with chronic fatigue syndrome are infected with a little known virus that may cause or at least contribute to their illness, researchers are reporting. The syndrome, which causes prolonged and severe fatigue, body aches and other symptoms, has long been a mystery ailment, and patients have sometimes been suspected of malingering or having psychiatric problems rather than genuine physical ones. Worldwide, 17 million people have the syndrome, including at least one million Americans. An article published online Thursday in the journal Science reports that 68 of 101 patients with the syndrome, or 67 percent, were infected with an infectious virus, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, or XMRV. By contrast, only 3.7 percent of 218 healthy people were infected. Continuing work after the paper was published has found the virus in nearly 98 percent of about 300 patients with the syndrome, said Dr. Judy A. Mikovits, the lead author of the paper. XMRV is a

When I believe they're right - I am happy to give these opinions more bandwith on my blog: TERROR IN TEXAS The nation today ponders the irony of the slaughter of US soldiers, not on a battlefield in some dusty and distant land -- but on an Army base deep in the heart of Texas. But there is no irony. In the terrorists' war on America, every square inch of the nation is a potential battlefield, including Ft. Hood, Texas. The point of terrorism is to terrorize. It matters not at all whether the victims are soldiers on a military base, or office workers in downtown Manhattan, as long as the results are so shockingly bloody that they sap the will of Americans to stand up for their way of life. But is the alleged gunman -- Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- really a terrorist? Well, with no warning and less provocation, Hasan on Thursday suddenly shouted "Allahu Akbar!" (Allah is great!) and opened fire on soldiers and civilians at a Ft. Hood deployment center. Thi

My father, of blessed memory, was a respected Lieutenant with the NY State Troopers. And a Type II Diabetic, as was his mother and her whole family. That said, he would never, ever have done this. It is so horrible when bad apples are encouraged to be worse... and below this I will tell you why I find this so personally scary. On the other hand, having given some seminars to law enforcement officers on the dynamics of domestic violence, I can say that many police officers do not get it about abuse (and don't seem to care, either). And they don't get how abusers can seem quite normal and even charming while they sit in a precinct office blaming their victims or even filing false charges to blame shift . In some cases, if an officer wasn't on one side of the bars, some would probably be on the other . That said, I still have high respect for police officers - many of whom do a difficult and often thankless job - day in and day out. Police cadets urged to go cau