“Every doctor that does abortions has been under an assassination threat for decades,” Hern told The Colorado Independent hours after Tiller’s death. “The anti-abortion movement message is, ‘Do what we tell you to do or we will kill you,’ and they do. This is a fascist movement.”

Hern said the assassination of Tiller, a close personal friend, is the “absolutely inevitable consequence” of decades of anti-abortion fanaticism.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder requested the US Marshals’ assistance providing security at a number of clinics and doctor’s offices across the country on Sunday, after Dr. George Tiller was murdered while attending church services by a “pro-life” activist.

There’s a lot going on in the world, from the plane that caught on fire Saturday night at DIA to Obama’s determination to bless those who not only curse him, but curse his most staunch supporters as well; but right now, School Girl is awake so I need to get going. Except for two things…

First, the plane crash wasn’t as benign as it was originally made out to be. True, nobody died. However, as of this morning, two people are still in critical condition at one of our largest area hospitals; one had a pretty serious head injury, the other may have had a heart attack (she had reportedly complained of shortness of breath and chest pains at the time). Makes me eager to get on a plane, yes it does…

Second, the whole “we must have a religious service as a part of the transition of our secular government” thing has me a little unhappy to begin with (and I felt that way when I was religious as well); but honestly, was there nobody else Obama could have chosen? A sexist homophobe who has likened gay marriage proponents to proponents of incest and pedophilia? That’s the only guy? Yes, the choice was probably made for him, but I have no doubt that he has personally approved each and every choice associated with the inauguration. I’m also concerned that this is the direction Obama’s administration is going to go; trying to make everybody happy, whether they agree with you or not. Unfortunately, the old saying is all too true – when you try to make everybody happy, you don’t make anyone happy. Including yourself.

Happy, happy holidays. Off to make breakfast and sugar cookies.

Yesterday, George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq and declared that we are nearing the end of our “little adventure”. An Iraqi journalist, Muntadar al-Zaidi, stood up during Bush’s joint press conference with Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki and threw his shoes at him.

In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, Iraqi television journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi stood up and shouted “this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” before hurling a shoe at Mr Bush which narrowly missed him.

Showing the soles of shoes to someone is a sign of contempt in Arab culture.

With his second shoe, which the president also managed to dodge, Mr Zaidi said: “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.”

Mr Zaidi, a correspondent for Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV, was then wrestled to the ground by security personnel and hauled away.

Today, Bush is scheduled to be in Afghanistan to see how wonderfully things are going there. Wonder what will be waiting for him when he gets there.

UPDATE: Thousands of Iraqis are in the streets of Baghdad today, demanding Mr. Zaidi’s immediate release.

Obama is supposedly naming Steven Chu, Nobel-Prize winning experimental physicist and head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his Secretary of Energy. Currently, the Laboratory is doing research on non-carbon-based energy sources under Chu’s direction, which is also an indicator of what (I hope, I hope) an Obama administration will become.

Hooray science! Thanks to Skepchick for this happy news.

Quite literally, hell has broken loose in Mumbai over the past couple of days. Jim Yeager at Skippy has some thoughts about the subject.

Possummomma writes about the phenomenon of doomsday cults, and what they have in common with…other things.

Did you hear the one about the man who was trampled to death at WalMart? Yeah, really. And people wonder why I no longer leave the house on “Black Friday”.

I’ve been seeing all sorts of exciting craft projects over the past 3 days. Sadly, I cannot show them to you, or I’d have to kill you. You know how it is. Once they’ve been sent off…

Speaking of sending things off…I have an annual-ish announcement to make next week. This year, I can confidently say there won’t be anything like a miscarriage to get in the way.