“This is a problem that’s been ongoing for a while. We’ve had women and children (sent) to facilities outside of our community for years now,” Branson said. “We just have to get something done.”

After waiting in the hospital for several hours on Sunday, Branson said, the two victims were told they would have to go to Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka to be examined. Two other victims were examined at the hospital.

LMH employs sexual assault nurse examiners who are trained to collect evidence for “rape kits,” which prosecutors and investigators use to help solve the case. Branson claims the hospital doesn’t have enough nurses for the number of sexual assaults that occur in Douglas County.

I’m betting that there’s much more to this story than what appears here. ¹ I have little trouble believing that there are more than a few times when hospitals are maxed out — and this situation will increase if those in power get their way — but…

UPDATE: Here is, according to the Douglas County DA’s office, an enumeration of the times when someone was turned away at LMH and sent elsewhere.

1. However, that really doesn’t make it better.

You may know or have probably heard about these dolls for men that are very popular in Sex Shops around the world. There are inflatable ones, full-body, silicone, as well as other models. So now the first doll for dogs has been launched in Brazil. That’s right, a doll for dogs to practice safe sex. The majority of non-neutered dogs spend a good chunk of time looking for something to hump. They try pillows, furry creatures, people’s legs and even other animals.

To put an end to this nonsense and improve the little ones’ lives, the enterprise PetSmiling, headquartered in Miami, United States, and in São Paulo, Brazil, is bringing to the market the DoggieLoverDoll: a female canine manufactured in soft rubber with a silicone vagina and an easy to clean reservoir. The product also comes with a tube of water-based intimate lubricant, to increase the useful life of the doll.

[regretfully inherited from: Insty.]

BALTIMORE – At one of the nation’s top trauma hospitals, a nurse circles a patient’s bed, humming and waving her arms as if shooing evil spirits. Another woman rubs a quartz bowl with a wand, making tunes that mix with the beeping monitors and hissing respirator keeping the man alive.

They are doing Reiki therapy, which claims to heal through invisible energy fields. The anesthesia chief, Dr. Richard Dutton, calls it “mystical mumbo jumbo.” Still, he’s a fan.

“It’s self-hypnosis” that can help patients relax, he said. “If you tell yourself you have less pain, you actually do have less pain.”

Alternative medicine has become mainstream. It is finding wider acceptance by doctors, insurers and hospitals like the shock trauma center at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Consumer spending on it in some cases rivals that of traditional health care.

O what a time to be alive…

See ya in 25, pal.

An Australian artist has produced a range of Islamic surfboards in an attempt to create a greater understanding between East and West.

Phillip George was inspired by his trips to the Middle East and by riots in 2005 when Lebanese Australians were targeted on a beach in Sydney.

He has called the range the Inshallah – or God Willing – surfboards and has put them on exhibition in Sydney.

There are 30 surfboards in all, each adorned with intricate Islamic motifs.

Mr George hopes that the Inshallah surfboards can help bridge cultural and religious misunderstandings within Australia.

But I gotta ask: what trailer park did they dig up these Mark Funkhouser and Gloria Squitiro characters from? Can you not imagine a bigger pair of morons to hand the keys to a major Midwestern city to?

What I find the most humorous about them is not really them but all of the people who voted for them, most of whom swallowed the same lines they spoke when the lines were coming from Barack Obama.

But then I realize that all of the people who voted for them live in Missouri, and as such, not worth a further waste of my time.