ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

...we wrote about the economics of prostitution. But we wrote about some more serious topics, too...

While everyone considers Demi to be the O.G. cougar, she doesn't see it that way.

"I'm certainly not the first person to be in a relationship with a younger man, but somehow I was plucked out as a bit of a poster girl," she says. "I don't know why that is. But I just kind of step back sometimes and say, 'There is some reason, and what is it that I have to share in a positive way?' I'd prefer to be called a puma."

("Puma" is already used to describe women in their 30s who go for younger men, so 47-year-old Demi doesn't really fall into that category. But she thinks "she came up with the new designation," so maybe it's best to let her go on believing that?)

Now about her 31-year-old husband. She loves him. A lot.

We started down this road in 1976 when the Hyde Amendment passed and when, in 1980, the Supreme Court upheld the principle that the federal government had the right to enact policies that favored childbirth over abortion by restricting funding for abortion. Most Democrats saw that giving antiabortion taxpayers greater moral standing than women who choose abortion was a political power play. After all, taxpayers don't get any other say in how their taxes are used. Pacifists' dollars support war; anti-bailout Americans saw their taxes go to banks just this year. Except on the issue of abortion, if you want to be a tax resister, the only thing to do is not pay your taxes and go to jail.

Despite weeks of media attention paid to the now-infamous "C Street" house owned by The Family, a secretive Christian group, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak — who lives at the house near the U.S. Capitol — denied any knowledge of the nature of the mysterious Washington, D.C., rowhouse and any involvement with the organization that owns it and uses as a seat of influence on Capitol Hill.

During a conference call with reporters Thursday morning, Michigan Messenger asked Stupak, a Menominee Democrat, about the house where he has lived for many years and his connections to the shadowy organization that owns it. The longtime Upper Peninsula legislator claimed to have "no affiliation" with the group, which is known as The Family or The Fellowship.

"I don't belong to any such group," Stupak said. "I rent a room at a house in 'C Street.' I do not belong to any such group. I don't know what you're talking about, [The] Family and all this other stuff."

The C Street house, a former convent, is still listed on official tax documents as a church but it functions largely as a boarding house, with six to eight members of the U.S. House and Senate living there at any given time. Current residents include Stupak, Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), and Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.).

...

Jeff Sharlet, contributing editor at Harper's magazine and the author of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," lived for a time at Ivanwald, another boarding house owned by the group in Arlington, Va., this one for younger men without political power.

Sharlet said that Stupak's denial of any knowledge of The Family or its activities is false. "When I lived with The Family at Ivanwald, a house for younger men being groomed for leadership, I was told that Stupak was a regular visitor to the Cedars," Sharlet said. The Cedars is yet another compound owned by The Family, one that hosts weekly prayer events led by former Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese.

Sharlet said that Stupak had much greater involvement with the group than he is admitting, noting that the congressman was "a Family-assigned mentor to one of my brothers at Ivanwald." That Ivanwald resident, Sharlet said, "regularly left for what he and others described as mentoring sessions."

A private is comforted outside Fort Hood Army base after the shooting deaths of at least a dozen people at a personnel and medical processing office and at a theater, both on base. (Ben Sklar / Getty Images)

Sgt. Anthony Sills comforts his wife as they wait outside the army base Thursday. They had to wait for a lockdown to be lifted before they could collect their three-year-old son, was in daycare on the base. (Jack Plunkett/Associated Press)

Soldier comforts his wife.

Daniel Clark hugs and comforts his wife Rachel after the shooting by Nidal Malik Hasan at the Fort Hood army base near Killeen, Texas. Photograph: Rodolfo Gonzalez/AP

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), the head of the Republicans campaign committee, caused a stir at last night's Rules Committee meeting when he suggested that treating female-related health conditions was comparable to insurance-company imposed restrictions on smokers.

"Why should a woman pay more than a man?" asked New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone, according to the Courthouse News Service.

"Well, we're all different," Sessions explained. "Why should a smoker pay more?" he said before interrupted.

In a study of 3000 people, those who did not regularly eat breakfast in their early teens said they lost their virginity at an average age of 17.5, versus an overall average age of 19 for all Japanese.

Those who had a morning meal when they were younger had their first sexual experience at 19.4 years.

The study...concluded that a stable home life discouraged early sex.

"Those unhappy with their parents - such as for not preparing breakfast - may tend to find a way to release their frustration by having sex," said Kunio Kitamura, head of the Japan Family Planning Association who led the research.

"If children don't feel comfortable in their family environment, they tend to go out."

The police officer who brought down a gunman after he went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base was on the way to have her car repaired when she heard a report over a police radio that someone was shooting people in a center where soldiers are processed before they are deployed abroad, authorities said on Friday.

As she pulled up to the center, the officer, Kimberly Munley, spotted the gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, brandishing a pistol and chasing a wounded soldier outside the building, said Chuck Medley, the director of emergency services at the base.

Sergeant Munley bolted from her car and shot at Major Hasan. He turned toward her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and the gunmen went down with several bullet wounds, Mr. Medley said.

Whether Sergeant Munley was solely responsible for taking down Major Hassan or whether he was also hit by gunfire from another responder is still unclear, but she was the first to fire at him.

Sergeant Munley, who is 34, is an expert in firearms and a member of the SWAT team for the civilian police department on the base, officials said.

this female MP was the first responder

What does her gender have to do with it??????
Hecate, Runnymeade Conspirator | Homepage | 11.05.09 - 9:29 pm | #

everything, because it shows that woman can't fucking kill someone when they have to.
BURP | 11.05.09 - 9:30 pm | #

The trade publication Publishers Weekly likely wanted to provoke discussion with its annual list of the year's best books, but not like this. In its issue of Nov. 2, Publishers Weekly compiled its PW Top 10, a decidedly subjective ranking of the best fiction and non-fiction published in 2009, including the biography "Cheever: A Life" by Blake Bailey; the novel "Await Your Reply" by Dan Chaon; and the graphic novel "Stitches" by David Small. But as The Guardian reports, the ranking has drawn protests from a women's literary group, which notes that there are no female writers on the list.

In her introduction to the year-end lists, Louisa Ermelino, the reviews director of Publishers Weekly, wrote, "We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz," adding: "It disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male."

Before making judgments about the shootings at Fort Hood, a thorough investigation needs to take place, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Thursday.

"It is imperative that we take the time to gather all the facts, as it would be irresponsible to be the source of rumors or inaccurate information regarding such a horrific event," Cornyn said in a statement.

"Once we have ascertained all the facts, working with our military leaders and law enforcement officials on the ground, we can determine what exactly happened at Fort Hood today and how to prevent something like this from ever happening again," he said.

At least one gunman killed 12 people and wounded 31 in a shooting on Thursday afternoon at Fort Hood in Texas. Military police killed one shooter, who had two guns, and at least two soldiers are in custody.

Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the commanding officer at Fort Hood, the largest active military installation in the country, said the base was in lockdown as military authorities, with the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigate the rampage.

"This was a terrible tragedy," said General Cone, speaking at a news conference Thursday afternoon. "Stunning."'

An Army spokesman, Gary Tallman, said that the dead gunman was an Army major. A law enforcement official identified the him as Malik Nadal Hassan.