OBL, Whitney, and the rise of American Theocracy.

Oh my! It seems my girl Whitney had quite a few admirers all over the world.

"Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden is so obsessed with singer Whitney Houston he thought about killing her husband, Bobby Brown, it was claimed last night.

"The suggestion is made by Sudanese poet and novelist Kola Boof, who claims she was bin Laden's sex slave for four months 10 years ago.

In her autobiography, Diary of a Lost Girl, she writes: "He told me Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen."

Boof, 37, who claims bin Laden raped her and held her prisoner in a Moroccan hotel, says he could not stop talking about the songbird, even though he disapproved of music.

"Osama kept coming back to Whitney Houston," she says in the book, excerpted in the magazine Harpers' Bazaar. "He asked if I knew her personally when I lived in America. I told him I didn't.

"He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston, and although he claimed music was evil he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar.

"It didn't seem impossible to me. He said he wanted to give Whitney Houston a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum.

"He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his colour rule and make her one of his wives.

"Whitney Houston's name was the one that would be mention constantly.

"How beautiful she was, what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and by her husband Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have women's husbands killed." [Source] (h/t to Susan)

Damn, OBL had more love for Whitney that some of the racist mofos in this country. (And people wonder why I despise FOX and everything they represent so much.)

Anyway, tonight I want to blog about the "occupy woman's vagina" folks who have hijacked this contraception debate. Because we all know that blocking a woman's right to reproductive services is the republican thing to do.

President Obama, much to my displeasure, compromised with the Catholic Church in this debate. I hate to break it to him, but if he thought that the folks who are trying to score cheap political brownie points from this would back off, he would be wrong.  And the Catholic Church certainly isn't giving any ground. (Why should they? It's not like we are talking about pedophile priests or anything.)

"It's still clear that President Obama does not understand this isn't about cost--it's about who controls the religious views of faith-based institutions," Blunt said in a released statement. "President Obama believes that he should have that control. Our constitution states otherwise."

And who should have the control over a woman's body? If a------ fill in your religion other than Catholic--- woman chooses to work for a Catholic hospital or university and wants to buy birth control pills for whatever, are you telling me that she shouldn't be allowed because she works for a Catholic institution? (One that most likely gets some kind of public funding.) What about individual freedoms in this country? If a non Seventh Day Adventist man works for Andrews University and wants to buy a bucket of chicken in Berrien Springs, Michigan on a Saturday night, are you telling me that he shouldn't be allowed to because Adventist don't believe in eating meat? And if the poor guy gets a heart attack because of his love for the Colonel's cooking, are you saying that the Seventh Day Adventist health plan shouldn't have to pay for his hospital visit to clear out his arteries? Should an employer who is Jehovah's Witness be allowed to deny blod transfusions to one of his or her employees? Of course not. We all know a stretch when we see one.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church and their political soul-mates are trying to pull a fast one on the American people. This is not about religious freedom, it's about religious tyranny. Do you honestly believe that if men had to give birth to children we would even be having this debate?

I love what Wendy Kaminer wrote in The Atlantic:

"What accounts for the rhetorical excesses of the Catholic Church and its advocates on the campaign trail and in the media? They reflect some genuine outrage, no doubt. But, in part, the rhetoric is an organizing tool (which may succeed in wresting new concessions from the administration). And in part, it reflects larger rhetorical trends: We inhabit a culture of hyperbole, especially during election years. Every argument is a gunfight (to which someone mistakenly brings a knife), every gunfight is a war, and every war a potential apocalypse.

Still, while the fate of American civilization doesn't depend on this debate about the obligations of church-affiliated institutions to abide by secular law, the stakes are relatively high. As government workers are laid off and government programs shrink, the public role of private, tax-exempt non-profits expands. The stronger their right to dispense public funds and deliver public services according to sectarian religious dictates, the weaker our rights to a non-sectarian public sphere. It's a zero-sum game." [Source]

I disagree with her about one thing: the outrage expressed by church officials might be genuine, but the outrage expressed by the poli-tricksters rallying around this issue are as phony as a W's cowboy persona.