John McCain, who at 63.8% missed votes has ditched out on work more than any other member of the 110th Congress, has taken to complaining that Congress should come back to session early in order to let him “drill here and drill now,” already. But he has “not missed any crucial vote.” Oh, the irony, it burns!

Liveblogging the McCain/Obama/Warren/skydaddy wankfest.

“Measuring the ‘Colbert Bump’: Do politicians raise more funds after appearing on “The Colbert Report” comedy show?”

Debra at RAN wonders, “Why don’t the environmental & animal rights movements work together?”

Meat Spaghetti? “You know how some parents resort to tricking their kids into eating certain foods when they’re little? Try not to gag: ‘Meat scientists’ have come up with a way to make meat into spaghetti to trick kids into eating meat.”

Look who’s in the April-June edition of the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii’s newsletter, The Island Vegetarian! (Hint: jump to page 17.)

Last-but-not-least, via Black Canseco @ Racialicious: Why We Want Our Kids Back Too:

Nancy Grace doesn’t have an aneurysm on camera when LaToya goes missing. Dan Abrams doesn’t get outraged when Marcus or Jamar vanishes. Katie Couric and Barabara Walters don’t break down in tears when kids from South Central are murdered. Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann don’t interrupt your program when Jaunita is found chopped up into pieces. Magazines and newspapers aren’t tracking those cases. They’re just not news enough or “human interest” enough for all of that.

Ironically, according to the FBI, the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and other orgs, most of missing children (those under 18) in America are neither white nor female. In fact 33% of all missing children under 18 are African American girls; overall, it’s believed that Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans account for over 40% of all missing children under 18. As for missing adults (those over 18), the National Center of Missing Adults, FBI, and other orgs have report similar findings.

Lastly, the Amber Alert, which was originally designed for missing children under the age of 18, yet has no set national criteria for use (guidelines vary by state) has been under attack from critics claiming it’s used mostly for white female adults, many of whom haven’t been abducted but have “runaway” or have voluntarily left their environments.

These kinds of hypocrisies and disparities drove me to look for ways to help. That’s how I discovered great child advocacy sites like Missing Minorities, What About Our Daughters? and Black And Missing. Since I used to write ads for a living, I figured I could do something they could use—and the We Want Our Kids Back, Too campaign was born.

Read the whole thing, and then download a poster (or two or three) here.

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Tagged: link love link dump links john mccain barack obama 2008 elections racism race missing children msm environment animal rights movements activism meat spaghetti mad science colbert bump

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