The entire t-shirt staff (that’s me) is taking an extended long Easter weekend off. So if you order a shirt this weekend (and really, why wouldn’t you?), it won’t be shipped until I come back. To make you forgive me for being so lazy, enter the promo code “lazystaff” at checkout and get a nice little discount.

Happy Easter everyone!

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Andrea adds: If Brigitte is lazy, then I am a completely irredeemable couch potato. Still, nothing wrong with a discount on our lovely T-shirts.

Wow, what a wonderful blog. Bring your kleenex.

[h/t]

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Tanya adds: After trying to take in that blog, I Googled “anencephaly” to, amazingly, find this website.

You are valuable because you exist.
Not because of what you do or what you have done
but simply because you are.”
Max Lucado

Let’s take a moment to salute Cmdr. Josée Kurtz, Canada’s first female warship commander.

Mark Steyn writes:

There is a — drumroll, please — demographic element to the automobile question. Europeans often ask, “Why do Americans need those big cars?” The short answer is: Because Americans have kids and Europeans don’t. So Italians and Spaniards and Germans (and Japanese) can drive around in things the size of a Chevy Suburban’s cupholder because they’ve got nothing to put in them.

If you’re a soccer mom schlepping three kids plus little Jimmy from next door around, you need a vehicle of a certain size. In the old days, you could just toss ’em all in there and they’d roll around as you took the hairpin bends in fourth gear. But now you can’t stick kids in the front and you need baby seats for the youngest and booster seats for the oldest and soon nanny-state regulation will require every American under 37 to be in a rear-facing child seat, which is a pretty good metaphor for where the country’s going.

And, if you mandate small cars and child-seat regulations, don’t be surprised if the size of the American family starts heading south, too. The difference between U.S. and European vehicles isn’t an emblem of environmental irresponsibility or American corpulence but of something more basic and important.

It’s great to be pushing small cars that go about as fast and park almost as easily as a tricycle. If people want to pay extra premium for the privilege of driving around in a glorified beach buggy, it’s their affair. But it’s not for everybody. Families, people with huge karate bags (those sparring pads and shoes sure are bulky), and those who generally like to drive at decent speeds in relative comfort, deserve options, too.

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Here’s what Andrea is pushing: The Couchbike. Affordable. Comfortable.  And Green. Who could ask for more? (Room for your karate equipment somewhere on the sofa, Brigitte.)

If you have more energy than I do, go fight this. Apparently, if we dislike polygamy it must mean we’re racist. Whatever. I’ve got things to do – Andrea gave me this recipe for chewy molasses cookies and I must try it.

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Andrea adds: The key to getting the cookies right is to not bake them too long. I’ll be darned if I know the key to fighting off “support for traditional marriage=racist/xenophobic/loser” allegations. Oh those crazy chattering classes. Always on about something progressive, aren’t they?

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Tanya thinks: she’ll try that cookie recipe, but sub out the refined sugar for organic cane sugar, and the all-purpose flower for whole wheat. I’ll let you know how it turns out. It may turn out to be one heck of a confusing mess (the whole ‘legalization of polygamy’ thing, I mean…I’m pretty confident the cookies will be alright).

Some people are so keen on preventing animal cruelty they prefer killing them rather than look after them.

Wonder what Sir Paul McCartney will think of this. After years of scolding everyone from seal hunters to ice cream makers, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has taken a public shellacking for its own euthanasia policies. It turns out the organization put down more than nine out of 10 of the animals brought to U.S. headquarters. Of 2,216 animals taken to its premises in Norfolk, Va., last year, 2,124 were put to sleep‹almost six per day. Homes were found for just seven. “Peta has a perverse definition of euthanasia,” says a former worker. “One that apparently demands that any animal with the slightest discomfort ought to be killed.”

Why, of course. Indiscriminate killing is sooo ethical…

[Did I remind you to buy a shirt today?]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq6b9bMBXpg]

[h/t]

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Patricia adds: Okay – Brigid and I LOVE-LOVE-LOVED that!!

In Britain:

Many charities have been told that they must extend their counselling and outreach services to men because of new equality laws which require local authorities to ensure that services do not discriminate on grounds of sex.

Fiona Mactaggart, the former Home Office minister, said an “unintended consequence” of the law has meant some domestic violence services have lost grants or contracts for refusing to do so.

She said: “There are some local authorities who interpret equalities to mean that a refuge has to provide for men, not only for women.

“There are some stupidnesses developing in the system that nobody intended.”

Indeed. There are excellent reasons why women’s shelters are women-only. Some women are so badly abused that the mere presence of any male around them sends them into a panic. That’s not to say male victims of domestic violence and abuse – don’t laugh; this is a real problem – don’t deserve help. They do. Just not in the same shelters. It’s not rocket science. Why can’t governments grasp such simple commonsensical concepts?

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Rebecca asks: Why not file a complaint with a human rights council against the abuse victims, who are clearly discriminating against men in this case? That’s only marginally stupider than all kinds of cases that actually appear before HRCs.

It will be fun to see if any radical pro-choicer has the gall to denounce this piece of legislation:

OKLAHOMA CITY — A bill in the Oklahoma Legislature would allow pregnant women to use deadly force in order to save the lives of their babies.

[…]

Oklahoma already has a law allowing a person to use force to protect himself or another person from someone else. The new bill includes an unborn child as “another” person. Oklahoma has also had a law covering the murder of unborn babies since 2005.

I believe anyone has the right to use force, including the deadly kind, when and where necessary to defend one’s own life or the life of someone else, born or not. So while I may find this law somewhat redundant, I’m in favour of it. But what of the folks who hate the thought of recognizing unborn victims (actual or potential) of violence, because it might lead people to reconsider their position on abortion? What of those who fear granting a fetus even the most basic rights because they see it as a slippery slope towards restricting access to abortion? Are they going to say pregnant women have no right to use force to defend themselves if and when attacked?

Say, this is neat. Loblaws distributed a flyer for its line of Joe “underthings” that was, well, offensive and/or too sexy for the taste of many shoppers (including this one; I don’t like underage models in this sort of pose), and after a bit of an outcry decided to yank the flyer back and apologize.

No need for “human rights” tribunals or any of that rhubarb. Or as this columnist puts it:

Good for Loblaw, actually. A little tempest did not become a storm.

It is a useful reminder, too, that consumers are not powerless in the face of retail advertising they think is offensive or in poor taste.

“As consumers, we have a tremendous voice,” said Jane Tallim, co-executive director of the Media Awareness Network, a national group that advocates for media literacy, particularly among young people.

We all have a voice – as consumers, and as citizens. Let’s use it.

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Andrea is getting up the courage to tell her gym that she didn’t like the song “I kissed a girl” before, and she certainly sees no need for the remix version, now. It symbolizes the very worst of a sexually libertine, hedonistic culture to me, and it’s geared at young girls. Yes, kickboxing class does give me time to think. (To the beat of the music, bien sur.)