Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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HONOLULU - A dozen surfing protestors temporarily blocked the first-ever passenger ferry service among the Hawaiian islands as it tried to complete its second voyage, saying the craft could harm marine life.

Hours after the Hawaii Superferry’s maiden voyage from Honolulu to Maui and back, it was stalled for more than an hour outside Kauai’s Lihue harbor before Coast Guard patrol boats cleared away the surfers and escorted the 349-foot vessel to the dock. Cars were still being driven off the ferry when it was scheduled to be on its way back to Honolulu.

The four-deck, double-hulled ship, named Alakai, turned back from the Lihue harbor to the cheers of several hundred protesters beating drums and shouting Hawaiian chants along a seawall, witnesses said. The protestors, who paddled out to within a few yards of the ship, objected to the ferry’s failure to obtain an environmental impact report before launching.

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Typically I’m all for making one’s life easier, especially when it comes to one’s daily commute, but I find myself a bit chagrined with what’s going on here. Boats are a serious threat to marine life and in area where tourism threatens the local ecosystem on a daily and regular basis I can’t help but to see the addition of a ferry traveling back and forth as an unnecessary evil in this case. What really gets me is that this has launched despite not having followed the proper procedures and channels. Why? How was this allowed?

LANSING, Mich. - A state forensics scientist who said she tested her husband’s underwear for DNA to determine if he was cheating on her has been fired.

Ann Chamberlain of Okemos testified in a March 7 divorce hearing that she ran the test last September on the underwear of Charles Gordon Jr. Asked by his attorney what she found, she answered: “Another female. It wasn’t me.”

She said during another hearing that she ran the test on her own time with expired chemicals that were set to be thrown away.

The Michigan State Police, which oversees the Lansing forensics laboratory where Chamberlain worked, announced Tuesday that it had fired her effective Aug. 16 after conducting an internal investigation into violations of department administrative policy.

State police policies dealing with the care and use of property state that “department supplies, materials or equipment shall not be used for any non-duty or non-department purpose.”

Chamberlain could not immediately be located for comment. A phone listed for Ann Chamberlain in Okemos was disconnected.

The 33-year-old scientist received an award for Outstanding Contribution to the Michigan State Police Biological Services in 2006 for her research and method development in embryonic/fetal DNA recovery, according to Forensic Science Consultants Inc., which lists her among the forensic scientists it employs.

Source

The sad thing is, I can’t help but to wonder what the outcome would have been if it had been the other way around. If it had been a man testing his wife’s fidelity would the fuss have been made? Would they have fired him? I can’t help but to speculate but a part of me highly suspects that had it been a man this would have been swept under the rug and laughed about on coffee breaks. Perhaps I’m far too cynical and mistrusting.

If you or a loved one turns up missing it doesn’t matter what your age, race, sex, and social status is. This is the United States and everyone is equal darn it! But according to this article statistics show that race, sex, and age does play a huge factor in the reporting of missing people:

If you are kidnapped or missing, it helps to be the right race, age, social class and gender. Otherwise, don’t expect the media to cover your story.

“Sex sells, kidnapping sells, but not every kidnapping is equal,” says Roy Peter Clark, vice president and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, a training center for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Kelly Bennett, a case manager for the National Center for Missing Adults, agrees. “Unless it’s a pretty girl ages 20 to 35, the media exposure is just not there,” she says. The most highly profiled missing persons cases in recent years have fit into this category: Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, Jessie Marie Davis. All of these women were also white.

(full article)

Doesn’t this just make you sick? I know my stomach became rather queasy at the thought that such disparity occurs, but when I think about it I have to wonder how I never noticed this before. Years ago there was quite a sensational case here in New Mexico, Carly Martinez a very pretty young woman attending NMSU disappeared. She received tons of coverage her in our state and in parts of Texas but when it came to reporting on the national level - nada, nothing, zip, zero.

She was a pretty young woman but she was Hispanic.

ARLINGTON, Texas - A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.

Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.

“It’s a slap in the face. It’s like, ’Oh, we’re sorry he died, but he’s gay so we can’t help you,”’ she said Friday.

(Full Article)

Seeing this article just completely pissed me off. If the church knew he was gay and offered to hold the service then there was absolutely no reason to turn around and cancel because his obituary listed his life partner, and twenty-four hours before the service to boot! This is completely fucked up! Excuse my French. This was a man who helped to protect our rights and our freedom and this is how they honor his memory? His sexual preference does not and did not change the kind of person that he was; it had absolutely no bearing on his character whatsoever. That said, there was no reason to cancel his memorial service. This was a good man who lived a good and noble life, something that these church members cannot boast.

I’m not a fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton, that’s a well known fact. I would love to have a female president some day but Hilary Clinton is not who I would like to see take that honor and duty. But seeing this just really burns me up:

WASHINGTON - They were high school friends from Park Ridge, Ill., both high achievers headed East to college. John Peavoy was a bookish film buff bound for Princeton, Hillary Rodham a driven, civic-minded Republican going off to Wellesley. They were not especially close, but they found each other smart and interesting and said they would try to keep in touch.

Which they did, prodigiously, exchanging dozens of letters between the late summer of 1965 and the spring of 1969. Ms. Rodham’s 30 dispatches are by turns angst-ridden and prosaic, glib and brooding, anguished and ebullient — a rare unfiltered look into the head and heart of a future first lady and senator and would-be president. Their private expressiveness stands in sharp contrast to the ever-disciplined political persona she presents to the public now.

(Full Article)

I’m a bit torn up on this, certainly there is nothing in these letters that I find to be damaging really, though I’m sure many will drag up what they need from them. What I can’t help but to see here are correlations between Clinton today and what happened back then to Geraldine Ferraro. We certainly don’t see college letters surfacing by “friends” for other candidates but when we have a female candidate the proverbial dirt is already being dug on her up before any other candidate.

Are we ready for a female president or is our nation already taking steps to keep t from happening?