Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Chile's New Leader A Woman

She is a Socialist, a pediatrician, and a victim of Pinochet torture in the 1970's

Michelle Bachelet, a 54-year-old physician who had been health and defense minister under outgoing President Ricardo Lagos, won 53.51% of votes, based on results from more than 97% of votes. Businessman Sebastian Pinera conceded defeat...

"Who would have imagined 10, 20, even five years ago that Chile would elect a woman president?" she asked.

Her victory appeared to signal a political shift in Chile, one of the western hemisphere's most conservative countries, where traditional religious values have guided public policy.

Bachelet is an agnostic. She has been long separated from her husband and has raised three children largely on her own -- "all possible sins together," she has said.

She was imprisoned and tortured during the early years of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and lived in European exile in the late-1970s. She speaks five languages.

Does this mean there is hope for us?  Five languages? Our president has trouble with one.

Lawyer Kidnaps Client Over Fees

This is why lawyers get a bad name: Texas Attorney Arrested for Allegedly Kidnapping Client in Attempt to Collect Legal Fees:

A lawyer faces a felony charge of kidnapping for allegedly abducting a client from his wedding celebration in an attempt to collect legal fees.

Castelan, 31, hired Allen in April when he was arrested for possession of a stolen firearm, tampering with a government document and possession of a controlled substance.

Allen vouched for Castelan's bond amount of $5,000, police said. Six months later, a grand jury indicted Castelan on the drug possession charge, but he failed to show up to court.

Allen tried to persuade Castelan to come to court, but when he didn't, the court found her responsible for the $5,000 bond.

Police say Paula Allen, 51, took Rolando Castelan from his Dec. 10 wedding and then drove him around in handcuffs as Castelan called friends and family from a cell phone to scrounge up the money he owed his lawyer, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported for its Friday edition.

Police say she took Castelan from his wedding reception with the help of three "associates," whom police have not identified.

When Castelan's ex-wife agreed to meet and pay the money, Castelan managed to escape the Suburban he had been held in for four hours.

Castelan turned himself into authorities nine days later and remains in the McLennan County Jail for his indictment. His post-indictment warrant does not allow for a bond.

The  story  never tells us if Castelan returned to the wedding celebration or how the marriage is doing.

Borat: Sacha Baron Cohen-An Olddate

Sorry, but I cannot manufacture Borat updates when there is nothing new. To quench the thirst of those in need, let's have an 'olddate' and go back to a New Yorker article from September 20, 2004.  Talk of the Town decided to check with Kazakhstan officials to verify the assertions of that country's foremost journalist Borat. 

It turned out falsehoods, and many others, have been spread by Borat,:

Roman Vassilenko, the press secretary for the Embassy of Kazakhstan, wants to clear up a few misconceptions about his country. Women are not kept in cages. The national sport is not shooting a dog and then having a party. You cannot earn a living being a Gypsy catcher. Wine is not made from fermented horse urine. It is not customary for a man to grab another man’s khrum. “Khrum” is not the word for testicles.

Like you , I was disappointed to learn that Borat , at times, was less than reliable.  However:

Travel guides mention a Kazakh sport called kokpar, a precursor of polo. When Vassilenko was asked about it, he hesitated, then explained, “That’s the one where a goat, a dead goat”—a headless dead goat—“is, um, being held as a sort of a prize. And then one rider has it, and he has to run away with it from others who seek to catch it and snatch it from him.” And then they have a party.

On the American Journalism Scorecard for Accuracy in Reporting:

Borat 62%

Ann Coulter 19%  (She is a good speller.)

Soglin Marginalized By Religious Bigot

Right before the holidays, I did a post on the anti-Catholic tirades and bigotry of Ralph Ovadal who claims to be a man of God:   Tom Reynolds Takes on Homos and the Pope.  Well, we have not heard the last from Ralph Ovadal:

Pope, Pastor, and Paul

I thought some of you might be interested in hearing from the pope's latest defender. The following commentaries were written by the former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, left-wing icon, crypto-communist, 1960s student-riot leader Paul Soglin. Of course, Mr. Soglin may still be upset with me for holding a press conference in the state capitol during which a number of us pastors called for his resignation on account of his promotion of perversion. As you read the well-read editorials by Mr. Soglin, I have no doubt that you will rejoice with me that he chose to include some excerpts from our tract  An Urgent Plea to Roman Catholics. "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong" (Job 5:13).          Pastor Ralph Ovadal

I believe that the "promotion of perversion" reference was to my firm support of the City of Madison's inclusion of 'sexual orientation' and 'sexual preference' as protected classes in its Equal Opportunity Ordinance. Madison was the first governmental body in the United States to adopt such legislation when we introduced it when I was mayor in the 1970's.  I am proud.

I am not sure that I am a defender of the Pope, but I certainly know religious bigotry when I see it.

Grumps Gets 'Canada Award' for Outing Ann Coulter

Waxingamerica prides itself on bringing you the worst of Ann Coulter, no matter how boring she is. I know when I have been bested.

I cede honors this week to Grumps at  The Happy Circumstance who comes to us from "...one small corner of the planet."  While I don't buy his lame excuse that  " Paul Soglin Made Me Do It." Grumps certainly gets the award for best Ann Coulter Outing so far, in 2006.

Come on Grumps, admit it; its fun tagging Ann Coulter, even if she is easy pickings.

Florida School Vouchers: Struck Down

In what has to be a serious blow to those who advocate school vouchers in violation of the principle of separation of Church and State, the Florida Supreme Court knocked down the state's school voucher program:

Chief Justice Barbara Pariente, writing for the majority of the court, said the Opportunity Scholarship Program "diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools," which are the sole means set out in the state constitution for educating Florida children...

...The 1st District Court of Appeal had ruled that the system violated the separation of church and state in the Florida Constitution, but the state Supreme Court did not address that issue. (emphasis added)

Shortly we will hear the whining from the Neocons about 'activist judges.' First let us remember this is Florida, not some raging Blue State like Massachusetts.  More importantly, this is not an example of judicial activism, this is an example of judicial conservatism. The court found that the legislature violated the State Constitution in their extremism. The Court conserved centuries old law and principle.

Ann Coulter

Nothing.

New York Times on Key Sacha Baron Cohen-Borat Story: GOT KUMIS???

In another effort to boast its credibility, the New York Times continues to fearlessly plow ahead on matters pertaining to Boart, (Sacha Baron Cohen) and the good people of Kazakhstan.

In a rare instance of Boldface foreign policy journalism, we checked with ROMAN VASSILENKO, the press secretary for the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Washington, who has made a second career out of correcting the record on Borat's Kazakhstan...

..."I get one, two e-mails a day," Mr. Vassilenko said. "But it's been constant. I get e-mails from Americans and from Kazakhs. Americans are suggesting how they should handle it, i.e., that we should invite him to Kazakhstan, which we did. There are some very passionate people in Kazakhstan who are very eager to host him. One Kazakh businesswoman in Taraz invited him; she wants to make him taste kumis, which is fermented horse milk."

For the uninitiated, KUMIS (and I quote):

Kumis

Source: Olga, RussianFoods.com Editor   Mail to: [email protected]

Description Kumis, favorite Kazakh drink is a milk product from mare (cow) milk, considered restorative and tonic. Method Bring to boil milk, water and sugar, then coll down. Add kefir or clabber and leave in a room until it is sour. After that add yeast and leave until fermentation. Mix carefully, strain and bottle. When kumis bubbles, it is ready to be served.		Ingredients 1 l milk. 1 c water. 3 tb sugar. 2 tb kefir or clabber. 5 g dry yeast.
Kymyz (kumis) is made from fresh mare''s milk only, which is poured into a special leather bag for fermentation and is then stirred with a special wooden stick "bishkek" over 2000 times to produce good kymyz. Adding kefir to cow milk will make more kefir as bacteria involved in fermentation is different from the bacteria used in kymyz.   Madia   Wrong Recepie (sic) I wonder why the Editor did not take time to learn what real Kumis is before publishing it. Kumis is mare's milk, which is female horse, not a cow. Kumis boosts one's immunity and is very healthy. It does have a specific sour taste which may not be liked by everyone. Goes well with honey. Thank you. Yenlik

When these Cossacks get recipe correct, we will republish.  Maybe problem not recipe, maybe problem is telling horse from cow?

Wait, comrade!!!!  I am now convinced, mare is correct from offical link to Kazakhstan Visitor's and Convention Bureau:

The national speciality is kumis, fermented mare's milk. Cafés where this can be ordered are called Kumis-Khana. Refusing it when offered may cause offence. In the steppe and desert regions where camels are bred, the camel's milk, called shubat, is offered to guests.

Eight glasses a day, bubbala.

Evolution

I know this has no place in a blog that prides itself on intelligent discourse,  but after the evolution post below...well...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.president-bush.com/president-bush.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.president-bush.com/gwbush.html&h=800&w=1120&sz=179&tbnid=GeajDbaUab4J:&tbnh=107&tbnw=150&hl=en&start=10&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbush%2Bapes%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

Tom Reynolds Takes on Homos and the Pope

The more I thought about yesterday's post, the more I realized that Wisconsin State Senator Tom Reynolds needed his own post about his cavorting with the anti-Catholic crowd. To set the record straight, in 2003 Reynolds attended the International Conference on Homo-Fascism.

These are the folks who brought us An Urgent Plea to Roman Catholics.  Since that conference (Homo-Fascism) in 2003, Reynolds has refused to disavow these religious bigots and he prints for the organizers of the conference:

The InStep story along with dueling AW and WCU press releases drew the attention of Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel political columnists Cary Spivak & Dan Bice, who followed up with Reynolds and confirmed his presence at the Homo Fascism conference. In their January 13, 2004 piece the columnists wrote: “ ‘It sounded interesting,’ said the West Allis senator who owns a small print shop. ‘I don’t know much about them. I do a little printing for them.’” The “little printing” included a number of WCU brochures. Some of WCU titles are “A Little Discrimination Can Be a Good Thing,” “Homosexuality: The Truth” and “Is Someone You Know A Bugger?”

But I digress.

The purpose of the post is look at what Reynold's buddies say about the Roman Catholic Church:

An Urgent Pleas to Roman Catholics

• The Word of God and the word of the Roman Church are at direct odds with each other on many foundational issues including, most critically, how one receives forgiveness and salvation from God. It is impossible for one to be obedient to both the Roman Church and the Bible, just as it is impossible to follow both the pope and Jesus.
• In light of the Roman Catholic claims about their first pope, it seems more than a little strange that only James and Jude wrote less of the New Testament than Peter wrote. There is a plethora of other biblical evidences which make it obvious that the Roman Church is dead wrong when it comes to its claims about the papacy
• Surely, the checkered and at times sordid history of the papacy is also proof that the pope is not the infallible, holy vicar of Christ. Some popes have been fornicators, homosexuals, and murderers as even Roman Catholic historians admit. Many have been grasping political opportunists. Popes have anathematized their predecessors, wielded power over civil rulers in an ungodly fashion, and presided over horrific, brutal events for which the modern Roman Church has ended up offering tepid apologies under great pressure. How could such men be the “vicar of Christ”? The Roman Catholic Church is in great conflict with God’s Word over the papacy.
• What Jesus Christ has commanded His followers to do as a “remembrance” of His death and their inheritance of eternal life through belief in Him (Lk. 22:19-20), the Roman Church has turned into a blasphemous, pagan ritual which misleads millions and keeps them in bondage, separated from Christ and salvation. No true Christian can have any part of it (I Cor. 10:20-22).
• Those who teach that man must do certain works to achieve salvation are presumptuously teaching that man can do the impossible and satisfy God’s perfect standard of justice and holiness by human efforts. They are also blasphemously teaching that once those works have been done, God must grant salvation or owe the worker a debt (Rom. 4:4-5)! The Roman Catholic Church cannot be the true Church since it teaches this false gospel (Gal. 1:8-9)!
• The man the Roman Catholic Church claims was the first pope was married (I Cor. 9:5)! Here again, the Roman Church is teaching a false doctrine and wresting the Scriptures (II Pet. 3:15-18). Will you believe God’s Word or trust your eternity to a church which legislates and upholds a doctrine of devils?

Wow.

It is too late for Reynolds to renounce this bigotry.  No responsible adult in public office can be excused for such horrendous judgment in selecting his buddies.

Are there any Roman Catholics remaining in the district who will vote for Reynolds?  Waddya think, President Bush?   

 

President Bush suddenly recalling that Pastor Ralph Ovadal told him: "Call upon the name of the Lord for salvation instead of praying to Mary and 'the saints' and relying on pagan rituals. Then follow Jesus and live your life according to God’s Holy Word instead of the corrupt decrees of Rome."