Practice every day:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) – The top bowler for the Special Olympics looks forward to meeting President Barack Obama in an alley.”He bowled a 129. I bowl a 300. I could beat that score easily,” Michigan’s Kolan McConiughey (KO-lahn Mc-KAHNA-he) told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

The athletic-minded president made an offhand remark Thursday on “The Tonight Show” comparing his weak bowling to “the Special Olympics or something.” He quickly apologized and told the Special Olympics chairman he wants to have some of its athletes visit the White House to bowl or play basketball.

McConiughey, who is mentally disabled, is just the bowler for the job. He’s bowled five perfect games since 2005.

The 35-year-old McConiughey has been bowling since he was 8 or 9. His advice for Obama? Practice every day.

[h/t The Corner]

Apparently, quite a few women in Afghanistan commit suicide (or try to) by setting themselves on fire. How unspeakably horrible must their despair be if they see this as a “way out”?

[via Maclean’s]

I’ve heard about the joys of motherhood. But, um, pleasurable childbirth? Not so much… They have GOT to be pulling my leg, right?

[h/t The Corner]

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Rebecca adds: I guess if people can walk over glowing coals and not sustain burns, mind over matter even in extremes is theoretically possible … but I’m not terribly convinced that happens, either.

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Tanya says: “Each contraction may bring a rush of joy so overwhelming that the pain recedes into the background.”

Let’s see…rush of joy, rush of pain. Rush of joy…or…rush of pain. I know what I’d prefer. Why find the idea of pleasurable childbearing offensive? Unfathomable; unbelievable. OK. But don’t we have enough to get offended about? There are far too many twisted knickers these days.

Or at least, try to. Here’s what this is about:

On January 20, 2009, President Bush implemented regulations that would protect health care workers who refuse to participate in abortion-related activities from discrimination. President Obama and his Department of Health and Human Services have published their intent to overturn these regulations. The regulations are intended to educate health care professionals, as well as the general public, about the rights of medical personnel to treat their patients in accordance with their conscience, free from discrimination or intimidation. They also give health care professionals a way to press charges in the event that they experience discrimination. By law the Obama Administration must leave a 30 day period open for the public to comment on his repeal of the right of conscience. Please write into the Department of Health and Human Service today and tell them that you oppose discrimination on account of conscience!

The link above gives you a form you can complete and email, voicing your concerns. Please consider doing so.

And not only that, she’s getting a whole new set of designer pans!

Chef Emeril Lagasse says he felt so bad when he heard a woman lost one of his trademark pans while warding off home intruders that he’s replacing the item.
Lagasse is sending 70-year-old Ellen Basinski a whole new set of his signature cookware.

[h/t Blazing Cat Fur]

Some news are so horrifying one can hardly believe one’s eyes. Like in this instance:

Lesbians living in South Africa are being raped by men who believe it will ‘cure’  them of their sexual orientation, a report has revealed.

Women are reporting a rising tide of brutal homophobic attacks and murders and the widespread use of ‘corrective’  rape as a form of punishment.

The report, commissioned by international NGO ActionAid, called for South Africa’s criminal justice system to recognise the rapes as hate crimes as police are reportedly failing to take action over the spiralling violence.

Horrific crimes against lesbians in South Africa are reportedly going unrecognised by the state and unpunished by the legal system

The extent of the brutality became clear when Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa’s national female football squad, became one of the victims last April.

Simelane, one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian and an equality rights campaigner, was gang-raped and beaten before being stabbed to death 25 times in the face, chest and legs.

Eudy Simelane died after being gang-raped, beaten and stabbed 25 times

Triangle, a gay rights organisation, said it deals with up to 10 new cases of ‘corrective rape’ every week.

Okay. First, rape is not a “hate” crime. It’s a crime, period. Doesn’t matter why you rape. It matters that you rape. Second, what the heck kind of “culture” puts up with idiots “explaining” that rape will “cure” homosexuality? (“Oh yeah, so far you weren’t interested in men and that’s because you hadn’t been raped… let us show you how nice men can be.”) This is by no means the first disturbingly outrageous thing coming out of that country. Yet authorities there are, at best, sluggish to respond. I don’t have a solution. The only thing I can think of at the moment is adding my voice to those demanding an end to the brutal mistreatment of South African women so that is what I am doing. If you have a better suggestion, please send it in.

David Frum is starting to annoy me:

The news that Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston have canceled their engagement doesn’t come as very much of a surprise. The arrangement looked from the start like an election-season pretense. With the election decently behind us, the pretense can be dropped.

Now Bristol and her baby can recede into private life for the next 3 years or so. But as she goes, Republicans and conservatives need to think seriously about the lesson she has taught us – or more precisely, about the illusion she has punctured.

Many conservatives carry in their heads a mental image of American society that’s a generation out of date. They imagine the existence of a huge class of socially conservative downscale voters, ready to vote Republican because of abortion and gay marriage.

The story of Bristol Palin should help puncture this illusion.

“Socially conservative downscale voters”? Who, exactly, does he think he is? Someone who puts on his socks two feet at a time?

I would venture to guess that young Ms. Palin is not the first, nor the only, American teenager (white, educated, rich or otherwise) who finds herself pregnant without meaning to. I’m almost certain it’s happened before. Possibly even in nice liberated upscale neighbourhoods. And that in many of those cases, the young mother decides (or “decides,” under pressure from her parents, boyfriend, teachers or all of them combined) to “erase” the mistake.

Are we to consider these young women more “upscale” than Bristol Palin, who chose to keep her baby in extremely difficult – and public – circumstances? Ms. Palin has an awful lot of moral courage. Calling her ugly names says more about you, Mr. Frum, than it does about her. And no, I don’t mean that in a good way.

[h/t Paul Tuns]

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Andrea adds: What is interesting to me is that absent the word “downscale” this would be a valid question about whether those voters interested in abortion or marriage exist, or not. (Though for Pete’s sake, Mr. Frum, we already know you think they do not.) Or, one could refute the notion that unplanned pregnancy didn’t exist in those happy Leave it to Beaver days… it did, of course, but was dealt with differently with a quick wedding, and generally occurred under different circumstances too, ie not with someone you hooked up with once and didn’t actually know. “Unplanned” pregnancy has been happening for a while. The “upscale” response to these problems is this: Above all, do not wed! You might be saddled in a lifelong relationship that is not right. This allows young people to go from sexual relationship to sexual relationship, experiencing heartbreak after heartbreak such that by the time they reach 30 they are cynical and truly unable to form a lifelong relationship of any meaning at all. It’s really so much more civilized. (Turn up nose here.)

Oh dear. If this were George Bush… But when Bill Clinton makes a mistake like this, most of us just move along. Including the interviewer who, if I’m not mistaken, plays a doctor on TV. [Yes, I’m trying to be cute – it’s been a long day. I know who he is.]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmh9p1rlkQk]

[h/t Hot Air]

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Andrea adds: The interviewer addresses Clinton saying this: “as someone who has studied the issue, do you think…” Someone who has studied the issue? Study again, my friend, because this is…alarming. I actually think the interviewer looks a little disquieted: Do I stop him? Correct him? Do we pull out a chart and explain the basics? Change the topic entirely? (Anyone see the game last night?) Very funny.

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Tanya says: Let’s not get Clinton to write up all the legal mumbo-jumbo regarding this issue.  “Embryos that has no chance of ever being fertilized”… why, that would be all embryos, wouldn’t it?

The engagement between Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston is off. I suppose that’s why they kept not announcing a wedding. That’s really too bad.