Really!?!

(Skip to 2:16 for the reference. Darn you, AIG.)

This morning I clicked on the Shine link on left side of my Yahoo! front page. The About Us section of Shine includes the following:

When we started talking about creating a new website for women, we wanted to avoid all of the common categories that advertisers or marketers tend to put us in. We didn’t want to be a site just for moms or just for single women or working women, or any specific demo- or psychographic. We wanted to create a smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info and to connect with each other and the world around them . . .

. . . We’ve got a woman campaigning for the top job in the country, female bloggers now outnumber men, and we’ve got Tina Fey writing a hit network show for goodness sakes. We no longer need to stand by passively as the media portrays us as fashion-obsessed diet victims. With the internet as our megaphone, we can now portray ourselves as funny, opinionated women who are in charge of our incomes, careers, families and happiness.

So what you won’t find on Shine: Advice on how to please your man and diets that urge you to "lose 10 pounds fast!" . . .

Coolness!

But then I scrolled down Shine's frontpage and found the following headlines under the love + sex section:

Is there such a thing as an "ugly vagina"?

and

I need advice: Spit or swallow?

I spent the next few minutes yelling at my computer screen. Then I wondered, Is this really "a smart, dynamic place for women"? I certainly have more pressing issues to ponder than "an ugly vage". For instance, the illegal occupation of Iraq, or the genocide in Darfur, or the 2008 US Presidential election. Shine does address our current political state with the following front and center article: Obama v. McCain: A fashion face-off, subtitled, "First Lady Fashion Smackdown".

Yeah.

I do some advice for Ms. Vajajay and the Concerned Spitter. If you are with a gentleman--and I use that term loosely--who insults your vagina or gets upset when you don't swallow his ejaculate, then kick him to the curb. Tell him "to the left", and keep it moving. Your partner should see you as more than an eager-to-please sperm receptacle. Moreover, you should see yourself as more than that. Stop trying to figure out what someone else might like. Figure out what you want and what makes you happy. Then go from there.

Those Shine people should hire me. I am an expert at giving advice about issues which I have no experience in.

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It's not over.

Wall Street awakes to 2 storied firms falling, by Joe Bel Bruno, Christopher S. Rugaber and Martin Crutsinger, AP via Yahoo! News.

Lehman Brothers, burdened by $60 billion in soured real-estate holdings, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court after attempts to rescue the 158-year-old firm failed. Bank of America Corp. said it is snapping up Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in a $50 billion all-stock transaction.

The demise of the independent Wall Street institutions came as shock waves from the 14-month-old credit crisis roiled the U.S. financial system six months after the collapse of Bear Stearns.

The world's largest insurance company, American International Group Inc., also was forced into a restructuring.

And a global consortium of banks, working with government officials in New York, announced a $70 billion pool of funds to lend to troubled financial companies.

The aim, according to participants who spoke to The Associated Press, was to prevent a worldwide panic on stock and other financial exchanges.

This is not good. I would venture to say "bad" even.

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