Al Shabaad militias cut off hands and feet even for attempted theft.

On last night's Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC): Gay couples are banned from marrying in 44 states, one of which being Mississippi with a disapproval rate of 86%; for that matter, in 2001 Mississippians voted 2 to 1 to keep the confederate image on the state flag, 46% think interracial marriage should be illegal, 40% legal and 14% don't know. They will also soon be asked to vote whether a person is so at the moment of fertilization, cloning or functional equivalent thereof. If even a cell is posited as a person, then how can slavery with its 2/3rds of a personhood have existed? What this means:Why did Mississippi join the Union again?

" Germany continues to preach savings over stimulus to contain the debt crisis, withstanding sustained pressure from American policy makers and opting for the path of fiscal discipline supported by the Netherlands and Finland" From Germany Approves Euro Bloc Bailout Expansion, by Nicholas Kulish, in today's The New York Times. What this really means:You say you need money, we say we save money, but we still can't call it off...

Governor Cuomo won't start new negotiations with members of the New York State Public Employees Federation who refused a deal that would have stopped salary increases, increased health benefit contributions and left the workers unpaid for absences from work. His and the administration's answer? Job cuts: 643 in Mental Health, 446 in the Department of Corrections, 386 in the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities and 361 in the Department of Transportation. With Democrats like this, who needs Tea Party Republicans?

"Hello, it's a great day in South Carolina" is the new greeting state employees are required by law to say over the phone, thanks to Governor Nikki Haley.

The town clerk of Ledyard NY refused to issue a marriage certificate to a lesbian couple because, at her say, doing so infringes upon her religious beliefs. If a lesbian couple holds so much power in the town clerk's life, imagine what members of other religions must do. See the article in today's New York Times: Rights Collide as Town Clerk Sidesteps Role in Gay Marriage.

Saudi women now have the right to vote, but just recently one was sentenced to 10 lashes for driving a car. According to Islamic law, women need a male caretaker to travel outside of Saudi Arabia, to work, and to go to the doctor's.

Neutrinos are faster than light by 60 nanoseconds.

2009 Pulitzer Prize Non-Fiction winner " Slavery by Another Name: The Reenslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War Two" by Douglas A. Blackmon is banned reading by Montgomery Alabama Kilby Correctional Facility staff. It's considered a "security threat" because it describes how prisoners were leased to what amounted to slave labor. The authorities in question claim that the book breaks a rule which bans material that "incites violence based on race, religion, sex, creed, or nationality or incites disobedience toward law enforcement officials or correctional staff." See "Alabama Inmate Sues to Read Southern History Book" by Campbell Robertson, in September 27, 2011 The New York Times.

Republicans are balking at the President's new job bill because it also prohibits discrimination based on the person's unemployment status. To Texas Republican Representative Louie Gohmert the unemployed are simply a "protected class" there to make trial lawyers rich, since recognizing economic disparity is not his forte.

In the Unites States, 46 million people live below the poverty line.

From the recent United Nations speeches: Netanyahu mentions that Itan provides Palestinians with 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets.

Edgar Lee Masters. Spoon River Anthology. Wendell P. Bloyd They first charged me with disorderly conduct, / There being no statute on blasphemy./ Later they locked me up as insane / Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard. / My offense was this: / I said God lied to Adam, and destined him / To lead the life of a fool, / Ignorant that there is evil in the world as well as good. / And when Adan outwitted God by eating the apple / And saw through the lie / God drove him out of Eden to keep him from taking / The fruit of immortal life. / For Christ's sake, you sensible people, / Here's what God Himself says about it in the book of Genesis: / " And the Lord God said, behold the man / Is become as one of us" (a little envy, you see), / "To know good and evil" (The all-is-good lie exposed) : / "And now lest he put forth his hand and take / Also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever: / Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden." / (The reason I believe God crucified His Own Son / To get out of the wretched tangle is, because it / sounds just like Him.)

A South Carolina woman flies a Confederate flag at her house in a predominantly African-American neighborhood. At the town meeting called for the event, she tearfully says she's not racist. The decision is that she has the right to the flight, and others the right to protest.

Ahmad Shamloo. Iran.c.1959.Punishment. From This Prison Where I Live. The PEN Anthology of Imprisoned Writers. In this place there is a maze of prisons/and in each prison a myriad of dungeons/and in each dungeon countless cells/and in each cell scores of fettered men./*/One amongst these men,/persuaded of his wife's infidelity/plunged his dagger deep./*/Another amongst these men,/desperate to put bread in his children's mouths,/ slaughtered in the searing midday heat./*/Some amongst these men/on a quiet rainy day/ambushed the money lender./*/ Others, in the hush of the alleyway/crept stealthily onto the rooves./Still others/plundered gold teeth from fresh graves/at midnight./*/ But I, I have never murdered on a dark and stormy night./But I, I have never ambushed the money lender./But I, I have never crept stealthily onto the rooves./*/ In this place there is a maze of prisons/and in each prison a myriad of dungeons/and in each dungeon countless cells/and in each cell scores of fettered men./*/But I, deep in my reveries,/never lend an ear to them. No,/I listen out instead for a dim echo/ of the endless song of the desert grass/as it sprouts, shrivels, withers,/scattering to the winds./*/And I, were I not a fettered man,/one day at dawn,/like a dim, almost buried, memory,/I would leave this cold, contemptible place/*/And this,/This is my crime.

Roberto Benigni. From Tuttobenigni. All of Benigni. The Middle East Question: I'd like to know what's going on in the Middle East? It's been going on since I've been five years old...I turn on the television: they're bombing in the Middle East...So what's going on there? How is it they don't explain what's going on? Nowdays the Minister of Foreign Affairs goes to the Middle East and says:-How is it going?-They're bombing.-Oh, thanks, goodbye,see you later, huh? That's the explanation...I'd like to go to the Middle East and ask them a question. I'd like to go in there and say: WHAT'S GOING ON? They say:-Why?-WHAT'S GOING ON? HEEEEY! It's been since I was six years old that I turn on the news and there's a mess...-WHAT'S GOING ON???

President Obama does us honor: he said that if raising taxes equally is class warfare, he's a warrior for the middle class.

A gay Army soldier had the humanness to ask all the presidential candidates for the Republican Party if they would repeal the ban on Don't Ask Don't Tell and was visibly moved. He was booed by the audience and Santorum urged the military to celibacy. This person is in Iraq risking his life to defend us and his emotions do him honor. The same can't be said for the booers and Santorum.

Primo Levi. From Ad ora incerta.(At an uncertain hour). To friends. Dear friends, here I say friends/ in the wide meaning of the word:/ wife, sister,brotherhood, parents,/ school friends/people seen only once or associated with for an entire lifetime:/As long as between us, for at least a moment,/ a segment has been stretched,/ a well defined cord./*/ I speak for you, comrades of a way/ thick, not without its difficulties,/ and for you as well, that lost/ your soul, the spirit, the taste for life./ Or no one, or someone, or maybe only one, or you/ who are reading me: remember the time,/ before the wax would harden,/ when everyone was like a signet./ Among us everyone carries the mark/ of the friend met on the way;/ In everyone the trace of everyone./ For good or evil/ in wisdom or folly/ each stamped by the other./ Now that time is beckoning near,/ that events are ended,/ to all of you the soft wish/ that the fall be long and mild. December 16, 1985.

What constitutionality is possible from a Supreme Court that discounts issues such as minimum doubt and access to justice by the poor in its decisions?