Update on Kathleen

Kathleen successfully got the subpoena quashed and the lawyers has to show why he shouldn't be sanctioned.

From the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, Case No. 1:08-mc-00013-JM:

ENDORSED ORDER granting MOTION to Quash Subpoena.

Text of Order: “Granted. Attorney Clifford Shoemaker is ordered to show cause within 10 days why he should not be sanctioned under Fed R Civ P 11 – see Fed R Civ P 45(a)(2)(B) which requires that a deposition subpoena be issued from the court in which the deposition is to occur and Fed R Civ P 45 (c)(1) commanding counsel to avoid burdensome subpoenas. A failure to appear will result in notification of Mr Shoemaker’s conduct to the Presiding Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia.”

So Ordered by Magistrate Judge James R. Muirhead.
(Entered: 04/21/2008)

Read it all at her blog, with appropriate links here

I am Kathleen!

The gall of some people

Maybe I have a different idea of what it means to be a friend...well, I know I do. It's a very good reason why I don't have many friends. These days no one really knows what it means to BE a friend. "Friend" has become pretty fucking shallow these days. Apparently all a friend is good for anymore is to have someone to brag about your kids to, hang out at the beauty shop/mall/arcade, and stab in the back at the first opportunity. It amazes me that I'm 32 years old and the meaning of friendship hasn't really changed since 3rd grade....my grandmother though, has friends. Like real friends. "I'll go through some hardship to be there for you" friends. Which is why I have only THREE friends. Don't worry, no one "betrayed" me...Just understand, a friend is there no matter what. This is what I believe a friend is. If you really want to get right down to it...I have 20 or 30 friends. People I haven't talked to in a long time because our lives went seperate ways, but we care for one another and will still be there. I have 2 friends that I hadn't spoke to in years because they moved and some bad shit happened to them...but they heard from another mutual friend I needed help and HITCHHIKED to come give it. Now THAT's a friend.

My husband has the most shallow fucking friends...I swear. Ok, let's straighten this out. My husband has two best friends. One is C. C was actually MY friend from high school. We grew up together, went to the same college. When S and I met, they met and became extremely close. C and S have a real friendship. When C got married naturally we made room for his wife. She's hard to get close to, she's painfully shy, but after several years I hope she feels like she's a member of us. Then there's J. He's a nice guy, in that whole "I'd have a beer with him" type of thing. That's really it. He and my husband grew up together. They were best friends since they were like 4 or something. In each others wedding, played Little League together, y'know I'm really hard pressed to find anything he's done that is best friend-ish. He's like an arm's length friend. Anyhow, moving on. J has this girlfriend, maybe wife, we've met her twice. The first time she seemed quite the snot. J and I aren't friends, his girl and I are not friends, his girl and my husband are not friends. There's your background.

S got these 4 tickets to an Astros game. Apparently these seats are THE SHITZ!!!!!!!!eleventyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dudes, you get those type of tickets you call 1. Your bestest friend 2. Your best friend 3 & 4. A couple of cool dudes you like to hang with. Well, C's wife just had a baby so S calls and they do that guy high school thing. "Fucker I got some tickets..brag brag" and what it pretty much comes down to is 'I want you to come with me, but life has you and I just wanted you to know I thought of you FIRST'. So naturally step 2 is call J. They haven't hardly spoken in MONTHS. The only reason J knew WE'D had a new baby is because last time they talked we had just found out I was pregnant. So if he had the time free you'd expect "yeah, I'll be there". I mean, hey, hang out together, catch up, have a good guy time. (I take S's guy time very seriously because he has so many responsibilities..I feel he really needs that). Instead J says "I haven't spent much time with the gal pal, mind if she comes if you have an extra ticket". WTF???? So you take my husband's extra ticket and then bring your girl who is going to take up the majority of your time? WTF????? Be man and buy the damn tickets off of him. Otherwise you're just taking advantage of a good friend and being a not so good one to boot. You don't take your girl to a guy's time at all, but even if you feel that for some damn reason it's necessary, you damn sure don't take the ticket from a guy who you're probably going to hardly talk to all fuckin' day. You wanna spend time with your gal, great, but do it on ya'll's time. Say you can't make it and hang with her. That's fine. But how the fuck do you say, "Sure, I'll take the ticket that wasn't intended as gift and now I want a second one so I can spend the day with my gal". WTF is wrong with you people? He wasn't giving you a ticket, he was inviting you to join him.

S says it doesn't bother him and perhaps it shouldn't bother me. But it does. I feel he's taking advantage of my husband and my husband's good nature. My husband avoids confrontation. He doesn't like the negativity that comes with confronting someone. He lets me take care of that for the most part. However, MOST OF THE TIME, when it comes to soley HIS friends and HIS family, I stay out of it. There's shit I ain't stepping in. Next time I'll suggest other buddies than this one to go hang out with, since J doesn't feel S is worth hanging out with. Just taking his ticket.

Sex offenders

This is actually two different subjects. However, I'll do the daily dose of stupidity first for those who just come for the rants.

BBC News has an article where the Pope comes out against sex abuse and how disappointed he is the US bishops aren't getting this under control. And do you know why priests are screwing little kids?

He laid part of the blame for the crisis, of which he feels "deeply ashamed", on a breakdown in US values.

and:

"What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?"

Because apparently the answer isn't to let your damn priests get married and fuck. The answer is to make Americans watch Disney. It's not AMERICANS doing it, it's PRIESTS who happen to be American. If it's really American tv then why don't the church stop paying cable subscriptions? Or should I take the second sentence above to me 'why protect children from pervert priests under our control if we don't also step in and protect them from CSI?'. Look you guys, your concern is priests and the child sex scandal. Don't blame it on shit OUTSIDE of your church, blame it on the laws of the church. YOUR CHURCH is the problem. Out of all the jobs in the world where there are more child sex offenders, it is only PRIESTS and TEACHERS. Teachers I get. Pervs like jobs that get them around their target. The sad thing is, even teachers fall a far distant second to the amount of child sex offenders in the Catholic church! A good many of the teacher sex offenses we see on the news is the 15 year old boy fucking his hot math teacher. Believe me, 9 times out of 10 he WANTED it. He was all over her like...well, like a 15 year old getting the chance to fuck his hot math teacher. Just let the priests fuck. Nothing brings you closer to the glory of an invisible being like the glory of an orgasm. If nothing else, think of it like this: Your god gave you dicks. Your god gave you the sexual urge that goes with those dicks. Glory your god by using the gifts he gave you, and the priests will fuck other women (GROWNUP WOMEN) and not little kids. I'd rather hear of 7 Jimmy Swaggerts in the Catholic church than ONE priest even THINKING about molesting a child. Which brings me to another point: Do you realize how many Baptists have been busted fucking around on their wives? And the church is still going strong. People don't want associated with the Catholic church because apparently even the ones that aren't raging child molesters COVER UP FOR THOSE CHILD MOLESTERS. Criminal charges people, have you heard of them? You don't retire them to a fuckin' GARDEN. If you cannot police your church, then shut up and let us police them. Don't give me that "we take care of our own problems" shit. You have an obligation to god to protect the weaker (children). You aren't just letting down those kids, your letting down your god. Unless he approves of mollycoddling pedophiles. Then he's a sick bastard too.

So onto Sex Offenders part 2.

I'm not "FOR THE CHILDREN". It's a cry used to manipulate the populace when you don't have a rational leg to stand on. It's the new way of stirring up mob mentality. Terrify the parents (who are obviously retarded).

However, that being said, there are certain things that are non-negotiable when it comes to my kids. My husband comes home today all kinds of excited. We are looking for a house. All these kids and 2 bedrooms are just not enough. He found what he thought was an awesome one. I have to admit, the bathtub made my heart speed up 1/2 a snail's pace. I was too busy waiting for the other shoe to fall. The house is great, even though it's not enough bedrooms (one of these days I'llget him to understand we NEED 4 bedrooms. A big bedroom in a 3 bedroom house is not good enough). Anyhow, so I'm listening to all the GREAT features. They are great. I got alittle held up in the fact that we'd be renting the house and the owner is using part of the garage for storage. Not cool IMO. But what, for me, was the big problem was the OLD MAN LIVING ABOVE THE GARAGE. ON the property. Not next door in his own house, but ON THE PROPERTY. My husband says, "she says he's real nice and keeps to himself". So I'm not even getting second hand knowledge here, I'm getting it THIRD HAND. I have a problem with this. If there's an old man living next door, you tell your kids to stay in their own yard until you get to know the guy. You poke your head out the door every so often, count heads, and make sure no wierdo is hanging out over the fence talking up your kid. Sit in the kitchen, drink your coffee and watch out the backdoor because if the dude comes on your property, SOMETHING is up because he doesn't belong there. Maybe he's telling you he saw a waterleak under your house, maybe he's a perv. How do you watch an old man who's SUPPOSED to be hanging out in the backyard? And what kind of freak-o's will he have over that may hang out there with him? I know you can't live your life by mights and maybes, but this isn't he MIGHT come steal our tv (which I could handle), this is he MIGHT mess with our KIDS. If you bust him IT'S TOO LATE. If the tv goes missing and you find out its him, no biggie. Have him arrested buy a new tv. This is a bit more than a damn missing tv. S got irritated at me. "You say I don't think it's important enough to move and I find a great place and you blow it off over one thing". Not one little thing buddy. A BIG one. A HUGE one. I don't care if he's quiet and keeps to himself. I've SEEN a real life child porn ring busted. Not in the room seen, but I knew damn near all the participants (small town). One of the guys owned the video store I rented at all the time. Really nice guy, nice wife, kept to himself. Quiet type. He was a star in several of the movies they busted. In fact, out of the 5 guys busted, only ONE was someone we all wouldn't let on our property. HE didn't surprise us. The other 4? Very nice men who went to church, friendly, seemingly decent folks, married. Yes honey, it's just like on tv. They aren't exxagerating, it is more often the nice old man next door than the goth guy down the street. S "You just assume he's a criminal". Yes, because we're not talking about our tv, we're talking about our kids. I assume everyone is a criminal, it doesn't stop me from moving next door to them. I just be aware. This guy stops me, because it's MY KIDS. Maybe I'm being mean and he's not a perv. Odds are he's not. But I"m not hurting him by assuming he is. I would be hurting my kids by assuming he isn't and putting them in his reach.

I can't afford to trust anyone. I have a job protecting these little defenseless people I love. That's not to say he doesn't take his job as the same seriously. It's just, I came from the criminal element. I KNOW as only a kid growing up in that can. I really do assume everyone is a criminal. We move next door to a sweet old lady with a lot of traffic, I WILL assume that she's selling drugs to beef up her SS. I will still talk to her, I might be wrong, probably am. But when the cops show up to pick the gal up, I'm never surprised...

Bloggers unite!

I had a list of things I wanted to cover today, just general bullshit, bad drivers, stupid people, etc etc. However, I come home to find something more intolerable. The blogger at neurodiversity.com, Kathleen, is being harassed. Kathleen runs an autism site. I don't profess to know much about autism, just enough to make me sound stupid if I was dumb enough to talk about it like I had a clue. I call it harassment, but the woman was issued a subpoena for pretty much her entire life. The lawyer represents a widely known autism case I'm not familiar with. Quite frankly, I would suggest you read the subpoena and her response to it, at her website here: http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/150/ for the details. Many of her commenters feel this is a strike against getting the truth of autism out. I don't know about all that, but this is a strike at bloggers everywhere. Whether you blog to inform, a la Junkfood Science, or blog your frustrations a la Fundie Watch and What's Going On?. This subpeona demands, as if she had some effect on the case itself, her compliance in some pretty serious demands that are not at all relevant to the case in question. In fact, the case was began in 1994, some ten years before she ever began blogging. It seems they are offended that she has the unmitigated gall to disagree quite heavily with them. The demands are wide reaching, and even if she did have something to do with the case, some are a stretch of your imagination. They've even gone as far as to include her entire blogroll on the subpeona, simply for the crime of being on her blogroll. At least one of those bloggers have nothing to do with autism! They didn't actually read the blogs apparently, just included the whole blogroll.

Many of the comments think this is about autism, and I won't deny it is, but this is also a strike against us all. Blogging is word of mouth anymore. Blogging is our voice. Just think of the blogs you read and which ones inform you, and how much you rely on their voice (hopefully only after serious intelligent thought) and realize that these are people who's voices would never have been heard if it wasn't for the internet. I find Junkfood Science just vital on my list of things to read. Sandy is my access to transparent medicine as she outlines everything she writes. Hers is a voice I'd to have done without if it wasn't for blogging. She's my reassurance that some medical proffessionals are fighting the abuses from within. Imagine how bitchy and disillusioned I'd be without her, now that you've seen me with her. What's Going On? keeps me up to date on my favorite subject, the abuses around us, since I just don't have the time anymore to find the gems she finds so well. I rely on her good sense, her skepticism, her information when I don't have a second all day until bedtime, and then I just want to check on my friends. Without The Rest of the Story, I wouldn't know that there are others out there as upset as I am over abuses of not just smokers, but science itself. It's a comforting thing that probably adds years to my life. And thank goodness for Watcher, who without Fundie Watch, would leave me smack in the bible belt so frustrated I'm not sure if I could keep myself out of prison.

Not all these blogs are information, or even valuable information, but can you imagine if the Concerned Women for America's Matt Barber tried these tactics to silence Watcher or Ron Britton ((Bay of Fundie). What about the innocuous deafgamers.com? Would the gaming industry pull a stunt like this because the site cost them customers due to being rated as "Not Deaf Friendly"? That one is a stretch, but apparently, no amount of stupidity is beyond people. If such a tactic can be used to silence Kathleen, then cannot such a tactic be used to silence us all? You don't have to find an interested reporter anymore to blow the whistle, there's the Internet...or will there be if any jackass can subpeona your entire life, even if YOU have absolutely nothing to do with the case, just because you said something he didn't like? In these days the newspapers are not a reliable source of information anymore, this is all we have. And while some bloggers are idiots, others are invaluable to us all. I wouldn't even silence the idiots so that those of use can't be shut up. Imagine you've been unfairly targetted by a lawyer for something in your blog, how else will you spread the word? Should that lawyer be able to file against you, costing you money and abusing our legal system? Yes, this is about autism, but it's about so much more, too.

I am Kathleen!

Deaf website

Most of you know I suffer from progressive hearing loss. I try to prepare for it, but it's preparing for the unknown. So sometimes I am struck with the things that I may not be able to do. I'm pretty ok with it, no matter what it is. The things I truly love for the most part don't need the ability to hear....except my games. Oh my games. PC games, console games, online games, rpgs...RPGs MAN!!!! *coughs* Umm.yeah, so I'm a geek.

Point being, it never crossed my mind that someday I may not be able to play many of my games AT ALL. I mean, I am going deaf, and some of my games have a heavy dialogue thing going..but I got a very awesome headset that helps....it didn't occur to me that if I needed a top of the line headset, that I may have some issues later when I can't hear. So imagine my surprise, and surprising gratitude at www.deafgamers.com. I'll be linking it in the side panel as well. But I wanted to draw attention to it. If you know a deaf gamer, this is a great site and I may even contribute in with online games myself, as those don't seem to be covered as well. From their About:

At Deaf Gamers the way we review the software is a little different as it's from a deaf persons perspective. Text/visual feedback is a key issue for a deaf person and many has the occasion been when a deaf games player has purchased a game only to find no visual feedback or very little of it (this can ruin the game for them). As you will know, conventional game reviews usually don't provide this info and the deaf gamer is left guessing. This is where Deaf Gamers comes in and tries to redress the balance.

This is just a little piece of it. There's a bit more info for those that are interested. But check it out if you are deaf or send it to someone else you know who could use it.