Firefox ate my lunch, or my post at least, so the quick version (okay, not that quick):

The freak Gordon Liddy, famous for eating rats' testicles, burning his arm and other feats, is still with us worrying about women in power menstruating.

Sotomayor is just another prominent woman suffering racist and sexist abuse on prime time media, just because that's part of what sells. Comments and imagery of castration, cleavage, and cellulite, "Mothers I'd Like to Fuck", botox babe, and the various derogatory characterizations waiting for women who step into the public arena, Democratic or Republican, of whatever ethnic group. "Bitch", "Cunt", "Pimp", "Bimbo" and anything else - it just shows those clever talking heads are "edgy". But males in power are serious. They have "cojones". Women are just aggressive ball-cutters when they're not sluts in bathing suits, dykes or plain too ugly to exist. Even the leader of Germany had to endure an unwanted backrub from our President, just part of ritual humiliations.

Blogging over the weekend turned into "why do black men always get blamed", when the statistics really beg us to ask, "why are women, black and white, so much the victims?" All the advice for women about how to fight back, when 2/3 of all attackers are known by the women - over 1/4 are husbands or boyfriends. So take that Significant Other to rape prevention class and practice gutting him with a pair of scissors - otherwise all is for naught in that special moment of intimate decisions back home, because you can't exactly lock them out when they're already in, and don't forget, they'll expect an omelette in the morning.

Oh, and should you fight back, as women are frequently encouraged to do, be comforted that you're likely to be thrown in jail even if your attempted or successful rape is caught on camera (item #4).

For dog lovers, you'll be happy to know that the media and wheels of justice and halls of power speak louder for your protection than black or white women getting raped and murdered. For women lovers, no good news today, come back tomorrow. [Of course this overlaps with sports, where Congress would rather discuss steroids in baseball than serious health care issues].

And yes, I feel for Dr. Tiller, but his murder was aimed not just at him but at women across the country. "We own you, we dictate your choices". One of 3 places to go in the country for that horrid decision of terminating a late pregnancy. Not for selfishness, for the shitty decision of "an early almost painless death versus a pre-doomed existence of excruciating pain followed by early death". President Bush posed in front of test-tube/freezer babies-become adults, not incurable babies wracked with pain waiting to die within the month. Somehow doesn't make as pretty a photo op.

In March, Obama created the Council on Women and Children. There is still no similar Council on Why Men Can't Quit Knocking Up Women and Leaving Them to Deal with the Kid. Of course some suggest that forcing the woman and kid to then live with the irresponsible schmuck will solve it all. As if watching even 1 Adam Sandler movie shouldn't clear out that idea permanently. 

Martha Stewart will likely be the longest incarceration we see for stock market crimes, that hefty $40K she picked up by selling a few shares early. Compare this with the million or so of crashing Harkin stock Bush forgot to report, all those military stock options the cabinet had as they went to war, Ken Lay's millions as he sent his multi-billion dollar company to the toilet, Madoff's Ponzi scheme, AIG's collapsing house of cards, all that seamy-sounding "naked short selling" (meaning "pretend to sell stock you don't actually own"). See, Martha's big mistake besides being smart and successful was that she was a woman. Hell hath no fury.... unlike a few trillion dollars misused and stolen. PS - $10 billion a month for wars!

And we can't show those rape and abuse photos from Abu Ghraib because that will make America look bad, unlike all those other rapes and beatings we know about that aren't on camera that just involve American-on-American atrocity.  Thats just part of the price women pay for living in the Land of the Free (for men). 250,000 sexual assaults yearly in the US, only 6% of attackers will spend a day in jail. No wonder people think we shouldn't put the soldiers on the stand. How is it we thought the Taliban's attitude towards women was primitive and backwards?

Health care isn't important to us because it's considered a woman's sport, too much wrapped around children and female issues "down there". Real men endure broken bones without seeing a doctor. Women take care of sick kids and sick parents. Men deal with health care as an emergency, women deal with health care as basic need. Preventive health care for men is like volunteering to go to a ballet performance. When health care can be framed as a basic need like beer, nachos and a good car stereo, it will receive the attention it deserves. Until then, it's just another point of bias - women and poor people abusing the system. Real men just tear off a piece of cloth, apply a tourniquet, grab a beer and get back to the ball game.  

And here's my little bonus, when one of the usual suspects comes along to tell me I'm posting this because I can't get over my anatomy or genitalia, as happened so often over the last year. Because obviously you have to be female to worry about crimes and violence against women, unlike say crimes and violence against children, animals, the environment.

So while planting pipe bombs at the Olympics is a cause for concerted action, years of harassment and threats and beatings and arsons and murders at abortion clinics is just a matter of free speech, protecting the perversely named "Intelligent Design" and all. Dr. Tiller stepped into the middle of this knowingly, did a job that's none-too-pleasant in the first place, provided an honorable service to women (and some responsibly-minded men) in need and endured the threats and abuse as well, for 36 years, including being shot in 1993. His stalkers will feel no shame or irony that he was killed in a Christian church that preaches love and forgiveness.

And despite all our anti-terrorist efforts in Iraq, surveillance against potentially violent vegetarians and Greenpeace in the US, walling off peaceful protesters and tapping millions of calls by citizens, our "justice" and "intelligence" system hasn't figured out that the Montana Freemen association is a group of thugs that commits violent crimes, despite its history of fighting US Marshalls and multiple convictions. So much for our Department of Homeland Security.