CINCINNATI: RING AROUND THE KARMA BEGINS IN ALL-ABOUT-ME BAYBEE SKIRMISH

Adoption agencies aren't the only bad girls in the baybee making market. Take embryo brokers.

Sunday's Cincinnati Enquirer ran a front page story on the trials and tribulations of Central Texas resident and skin care consultant (?), Lori Johnson, her pursuit to reproduce artificially, and her lawsuit against Embryos Alive a "Christian" Cincinnati home business run by Bonnie Bernard, her husband Gary, and another relative (relationship unknown) Scott Hasselring. Bonnie Bernard is the founder and former executive director of Care to Adopt and Ohio Home Study She is the mother of a 4-year old adopted from Turgovishte, Bulgaria. (see bio and here for a full rundown of Bernard's activities and infertility travails).

To read the full story on the suit, click on "print." Otherwise, you'll only get the first page.

The Embryos Alive webpage is full of airbrushed white wholesome moms with airbrushed white blond blue-eyed babies, happily embedded in pink and blue pastel. The only men shown are in real-life pictures of satisfied dad customers. Below Isiah 43:5 we learn that the business "matches donor embryos with hopeful and waiting parents around the world. Much like a typical adoption where an infant or child is placed with adoptive parents, embryo adoption provides yet another option for loving families -- usually saving both time and financial resources."

Embryo's Alive's filing with the Ohio Secretary of State says its purpose is "to provide an adoption service for abandoned embryos."

If you find an ice cube tray on your porch full of melting ice cubes, call Bonnie quick. If it saves just one...

The Embryos Alive webpage includes a history of "embryo rescue," (also called "embryo amnesty"!) and a list of Christian infertility support groups. Also, and this is important for window shoppers, a directory of waiting embryos, or embies (or blasts) as Bernard likes to call them. If you see one you like, click it on and you'll get details. Personally we like the "Ella family:"

The family tried one transfer and froze the rest. They had agreed if they didn't get pregnant they would adopt which they did and have 2 adopted daughters. They forgot the embryos were in storage until the clinic contacted them.

The lawsuit filed in Hamilton County challenges what Lori Johnson calls "improper procedures" by Embryos Alive. According to the Enquirier:

Johnson alleges Bernard and Embryos Alive defamed her with false postings on the Embryos Alive online support group board, breach of contract and consumers sales laws, fraud and misrepresentation.

To make a long story short... Lori Johnson and her husband, who have already artificially replicated themselves twice with Johnson's own eggs, wanted a third baybee in quick order (their younger child was 15 months old) so the children could grow up close in age. When informed by her doctor that she did not have enough eggs for treatment, Johnson hit the 'net for help, and found Bonnie Bernard & Co who eagerly agreed, after meeting with Johnson in Bernard's Cinci home, to get her the embryos of her dreams.

Only she didn't.

Johnson accuses Embryos Alive of trying to bypass FDA regulations that require lab work be done on "donated" embryos within 7 days of harvest. Bernard reportedly forwarded health histories, but no lab work. When Johnson and her doctor in Texas complained, Bernard suggested the couple and their doctor request a waiver from FDA regs.

I'll let the Enquirer tell the rest.

"We cried. I think we didn't sleep for three nights,"Johnson said. "We were just devastated. Over the course of that week, I let myself believe I was getting five potential babies. 'Would they be boys or girls?' 'Would I have twins?'I was devastated."

Bernard (left) suggested that she seek an exemption of the FDA guidelines in her case but her doctor said he wouldn't.His small office couldn't afford to hire an attorney or deal with the bureaucracy of challenging a government edict.

That decision apparently irked Bernard.

"She told me to go to another clinic, which was horrifying to me,"Johnson said.

"She e-mailed me back and it said, 'I'm disappointed to hear this. This is the kind of thing that makes donor families leave us,'"Johnson said.

Johnson continued to e-mail Bernard, seeking other possible embryo donations. She found one donor on Embryos Alive she considered an ideal match and asked Bernard to show her profile to that family.

"She didn't say anything. She didn't return my e-mails or calls. No response at all," Johnson said.

The next day on the online group Embryos Alive uses to keep in touch with donors and those seeking embryos, Bernard posted an item Johnson is sure was about her.

In it, Bernard thanked "the Lori family" for their financial donation so it could help other families seeking embryo adoption. Johnson believed that meant Bernard was keeping her $1,910 in fees-and wouldn't be helping them adopt an embryo.

This story sounds awfully familiar. Bastardette and others have heard stories and read lawsuits about adoption agency bullying, threats and ponzi schemes for years. Why would embryo brokers be any different? Anything goes when you're in the baybee making and selling business and your customers are desperate for product. Dan and Elizabeth Case, in Beware BBAS, have documented just such behavior at Building Blocks Adoption Service in Medina, Ohio.

Lori Johnson cries out, "Give me a child, even if I already have two perfectly good children, lest I die." Unfortunately, for her ego, she gets as much sympathy from Enquirer commenters as if she'd kicked a Walmart clerk in the head for a blender at a Presidents Day sale. She's already got two kids. What more does this selfish whiney twit want? Or need?

And that's refreshing!

If unpleasantness and avarice are prerequisites for embryo brokering, Johnson and Bernard are a perfect match.

Ring around the karma!

BIRTHERS AT IT AGAIN: BOUNTY ON OBAMA'S BC

The Birthers are at it again! You know. Those Rushista racists, crackpots, and sore losers convinced that Barack Obama was born in Mombassa, not Honolulu. You know. Those troglodytes who disbelieve the State of Hawai'i's statement explaining its birth records access law and assuring inquiring minds that yes, indeedy, Mr. President was born there. Not satisfied, in March Florida Republican Rep Bill Posey introduced HR 1503, requiring all future presidential candidates to divvy up their bc to prove they are good ol' amurkans. Unlike Obama.

Bill summary:

To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President to include with the committee’s statement of organization a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution.

Now comes well-known crackpot Joe Farah, who runs the well-known crackpot World-Net Daily to up the ante. He's offering $10,000 "to anyone who can provide persuasive evidence of involvement or presence at that birth – whether it took place in Hawaii or elsewhere."

To collect the bounty, the "subject" must

1. Agree to an interview with WND journalists;
2. Provide persuasive evidence, such as pictures, documents or verifiable details;
3. Agree to a polygraph test

Individual Worldnet readers are also encouraged to donate to the reward fund to fatten up the kitty.

"Where's the birth certificate" billboards are going up, too, and for $5.00 you can get your own "where's the birth certificate" yard sign. Hmm, that's an idea. No, on second thought....We want OUR birth certificates, not somebody else's.

Unfortunately, Worldnet does not allow comments or it would have a big fat comment from Bastardette.

The Examiner.com posted its own article on the subject, $10,000 bounty for any witness to Obama's birth, much of it taken from Worldnet, featuring a cute pic of Obama as an 8 something and more crackpottery from Farah. There's also a bonus video of crackpot Alan Keyes yattering that Obama is a "radical communist, " which is news to Bastardette. Every Marxist we know considers Obama a Bush-lite and whingy DINO.

This evening Bastardette sent the following comment off to The Examiner:

6,000,000 adopted persons in the US today are denied access to their own original birth certificates. Adoptees are routinely denied passports, pensions, government entitlements, driver's licenses, professional certifications, security clearances, and other normal documents and government favors due to their lack of an original birth certificate. The "amended birth certificate--the state-forged document issued at the time of their adoption finalization that changes the name,parents' names, and sometimes date and place of birth are rejected for the fake documents they are. I have yet to see birthers complain about this. But then, none of those adoptees is a president or candidate they loathe. If the birthers keep up their insane campaign and win, some of those 6,000,000 adoptees could be denied the opportunity to be president or any other elected position birthers decide is worthy of a birth certificate because the states of their births have sealed the birth records.

Ironically, birthers and their ilk are in the forefront of keeping birth certificates sealed. It really is amusing to hear the great birther whine about not being allowed to see someone else's birth certificate, when adopted people aren't allowed, under law, to see their own. Cry me a river, birthers. If Hawaiian adoptees can't get their own birth certificates, why should you be allowed to get a perfect stranger's?

That comment, with a small change, is identical to a comment I posted on Politico a few days ago earlier under Glenn Thrush's Birther Republican running risks?. In fact, I've sent off boiler plate responses to birther rants in numerous newspapers and blogs and (surprise!) received the sounds of silence (and not my old friend) for my trouble.

With one exception: "Dr. Cathy," who we assume is not a reading comprehension specialist, on Politico, (I'm only posting the relevant part. Go to Politco for the full bizarre remark):

Dr Cathy:
If as you adoptees claim above that you cannot get your hands on your adopted birth certificate, not your original, through your own admission, does this not point to the fact that 0bama is unable to produce his original birth certificate because it was sealed? Like yours are. And if his is sealed then would that not demonstrate that we was indeed legally adopted by his second father, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen? If 0bama was adopted, as many believe he was, at the age of 4, he would have automatically acquired Indonesian citizenship according to the laws that govern Indonesia. If he was adopted after the age of five, Lolo would have had to outright adopt him, through Indonesian Court of Law, in order for him to receive any state benefit such as an education. His parents paid for his private elementary school education but he attended state run school before returning to the US. So, we know for a fact that he is a dual national - USA and British, and now, as evidenced by your own comments, he was adopted and his original birth certificate was sealed, then he also became an Indonesian citizen, right? So now he has three loyalties - British, Indonesian and USA. Hello?????? The constitution says "natural born" NOT tri national or even dual national or native citizen, but natural born. Why is this so difficult for many of you to comprehend? And why is it so damned difficult to get you, the press,

Unfortunately, comments are disabled after 3 days and I didn't get around to replying. I'm sure the subject will come up again, though.

Who, however, really wants to get into a tiresome discussion on short and long form birth certificates, sealed records, raised seals, and who knows what other bureaucratic abominations, especially with crackpots who aren't concerned that the birth certificates of 6.000,000 US citizens are confiscated by the government and replaced with forgeries. That 6,000,000 US citizens can be denied services that the non-adopted receive for the asking. That 6,000,000 US citizens with their degraded legal status are a ticking time bomb under the national security state that the birthers and their ilk have created over the last 60 years.

You'd think the idea that 6,000,000 US citizens being denied their own birth certificates would trigger some kind of "patriot" response as well...unAmerican. Oh, that's right! None of us is a president they hate. Yet. What would happen if a bastard with sealed records ran for president? What would they say then? I guess it would depend on the bastard's politics.

MORE REACTION ON LAB SPERM: I NEVER HAD SEX WITH ...

As Bastardette wrote earlier, the news out of Newcastle about lab sperm and its potential is repulsive and antithetical to the right of identity. We all know by now, to paraphrase BB Church, once something becomes institutionalized, it become normalized. Today "understanding sperm" will lead to a cure for male infertility for some. Tomorrow, it will be a handy source for making anonymous baybees for the entitled.

That aside, we knew it wouldn't take long for the Save the Males Brigade to gouge out their brains over the thought of independent little swimmers making their way through the female reproductive system without on-site male mechanics to navigate the channel.

In his Culture Watch blog entry, Redundant Males, Redundant Humanity, born-in-the- USA Australian "family values" goody-two-shoes Bill Muehlenberg winges that Newcastle lab sperm and women who sell their eggs to science are about to make men "more redundant than they already are." (my emphasis). Apparently Muehlenberg, an Australian Family Association poobah, views men as sex machines whose only job is to inseminate women--within the bonds of holy matrimony, of course. Once that job is gone, men are as worthless as an old piece of chewing gum stuck to the bedpost over night. Mrs. Muehlenberg, if there is one, should ask her husband to move the piano or clean the basement to give him a purpose in life outside of his blog. (For mental machosists reading this, go through Muehlenburg's blog. He also believes that Western Christianity is a "Church in exile" held captive by the new Babylonian coalition of "radical feminists" Islamists, queers, and politically correct nannies. You might also check out the AFA's definition of family. )

Muehlenburg writes of the Newcastle sperm project:

A number of problems come to mind, including the obvious: if scientists can now manufacture sperm, that simply makes males even more redundant than they already are. The social result is similar to what we get with parthenogenesis, or procreation by one sex alone. This might be good for amoebas, but it is not good for human beings, and certainly not good for the children who come about by such a process. Children need fathers, not just sperm manufacturers and donors.

Granted Muehlenberg goes into bioethical issues involving artificial-life creation, a couple legitimate, others not ("exploitation" of embryos) but overall his Inner Crybaby's lament over the disgorgement of patriarchy by little swimmers is amusing and ultimately embarrassing. Talk about thinking with your dick!

Cyberspace News Service: the Right News, Right Now! (the old Conservative News Service) takes it a step further.

CNS starts off by blither-blathering about the 2008 Canadian film mockumentary, The Baby Formula, produced and directed by Alison Reid and written by Richard Beattie, who collaborated previously in Succubus, (2006) a short featuring the same main characters in an earlier conception attempt. The plot of Baby Formula (if taken seriously) boggles Bastardette's poor mind more than a hundred Little Orphan Esthers ever could:

A new Canadian movie tells the tale of two lesbians who become pregnant through in vitro fertilization. They use their own eggs -- and sperm created from each other’s stem cells -- making each the mother of their own child and the “father” of their partner’s."

But then CNS says, Never Mind! The Newcastle research differs from this send-up and there's really no connection between it and lab sperm except we wanted to trash women in general and uppity lesbians in particular. Well, nobody at CNS said the last half of that sentence, but that's what they meant:

The difference between the researchers’ accomplishment – published Wednesday in the journal Stem Cells and Development – and the one depicted in the movie, however, is a significant one: Nayernia’s team was able to produce IVD sperm from stem cells with male (XY) chromosomes. When it tried to do so with female (XX) chromosomes they were prompted to form early-stage sperm, but failed to progress further. “This demonstrates to researchers that the genes on a Y chromosome are essential for meiosis and for sperm maturation,” they said in a statement.

Well, that's good to know! Women, at least for the immediate future, won't be able to impregnate themselves, like they do in the movies, with their own sperm or some other woman's. They'll just have to use the old fashioned male variety, identified or anonymous. Or, we assume, in a pinch, the desperate and spermless will just have to adopt, identified or anonymous.

What would Mary Shelley, who had her own issues with men trying to have babies, make of all this? It would certainly take more than a fortnight to work out.

I originally wanted to tie this all in to current adoption and ART secrecy and practice, but Bastardette hasn't the time or energy today. That's what bioethicists are for anyway It seems, though, that lab sperm and artificial wombs, which haven't come up in this conversation at all (don't they make women redundant?), are the obvious answer for all those people of various sexual and gender configurations and relationships who want to keep the origins of their mini-me's a secret from the world and their replicants.

We're confident that the adoption industry will find ways to integrate new repro technology and at the same time perpetuate its duty to child cravers and their secret lives. The industry has already made great strides in "adopting" embryos and surrogacy into their humanitarian aid package. Why not add artificial wombs (with the rent to buy option) and on-site artificial sperm manufacture (made to order, mix and match) and injection?

I never had sex with that woman! I never had sex with that man!

Below is The Baby Formula trailer.

LOSING YOUR DAD IS SCARY ENOUGH

I may write more about l'affaire Michael Jackson, but I want to wait to see what Debbie Rowe does before I go at it again. If she's a decent human being, she'll step out of the picture, even if it takes a few hefty bankers to push her out of the frame. The play-for-fame womb renter (evidence pending) doesn't deserve our concern outside of the harm she is capable of causing. The kids, do, though. Kids--none of us-- deserves to have our DNA, family relationships and humanity exposed, yanked from our control, and broadcast as an international bread and circus. Losing the dad you love is scary enough without being served up as a genetic dog and pony show for the masses.

To that end, I want to point out, Lindsay Greenwalt's A Letter to Prince Michael, Paris and "Blanket" Jackson on her Confessions of a Cryokid blog, telling them (should they read it some day) and us, that they and we are not alone.

By now you have probably heard all the major media outlets advertising that your dad is not your biological father, and that your mom is not your biological mother. I can only imagine how hard this must be, just days after your dad tragically died.,,

But don't feel alone. There are thousands (maybe millions) of kids out there just like you - conceived artificially and denied the right to EVER know who their biological parents are...

Your daddy will always be your daddy, nobody can take that away - and it will take time to mourn his passing. But you also have a biological father out there, and you carry half his genes. His is part of you - he even looks like you! While nothing can mask the loss of your daddy, I hope that your biological father will step up and give you guidance and love, and support through this rough time and as you grow up. You deserve that as children and as human beings....

Cryokids, bastards, anyone who has had their identity engineered by biology, statute, or for-your-own-good should have each other's back. Our families are expansive and so are our arms.

ARTIFICIAL SPERM ON THE MOVE

As if there aren't enough sperm swimming around in search of a comfy home, the BBC reports that scientists in Newcastle have come up with a way to create human sperm in a laboratory. The sperm is developed from stem cell lines taken from leftover human embryos donated for IVF treatment. Go here for the story AND a nifty video showing how it's done.

The idealistic researchers promise that the little swimmers will be used only to help scientists "understand sperm" in order to help infertile men. Lab sperm will not be available for injection by the childless and desperate all-about-me's who don't give a lab rat's ass about the consequences of creating genetic orphans.

The sperm cannot be used for fertility treatment as this is prohibited under UK law. The scientists in Newcastle say it will be at least five years before the technique is perfected - when they believe it should be available to help infertile men.

Just wait for 2014!

BONUS VIDEO: "What Happens During Ejaculation" from Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex and Were Afraid to Ask.

ADOPTION MUCKETY-MUCKS CONTINUE TO ACT STUPID OVER "ORPHAN"

Focus on the Family's Citizen Link informs us tonight that The Christian Alliance for Orphans has set up Orphans Deserve Better, special webpage for Orphan haters. We mean the movie Orphan, not orphans per se, but once the movie comes out, who knows? The way the anti-Orphan gangbangers are behaving I halfway expect to see mobs in overalls marching house-to-house waving pitchforks and torches hunting down evil orphans.

Especially since our Esther rejects her Christian Alliance for Orphans God-loves-me role:

Did you know that orphans are put on earth specifically to experience God's love. That's what The Christian Alliance

Orphan might even undermine CAO's mission:

Motivate and unify the body of Christ to live out God's mandate to care for the orphan with the vision to have every orphan experience God's unfailing love and know Jesus as Savior.

CAO's Jeff Medfind goes over the top in his Orphans Deserve More video appeal complaining that the film suggests that "orphans are damaged goods and adoption can destroy your life."

Loving an orphan can lift us up from selfish routines and petty concerns and give us a deep joy that no vacation or new car ever could.

Some adoptees, based on their personal experience, would disagree.

The moral panic Orphan has induced is more entertaining than the film itself, which will pass into oblivion and DVD a month after release. The "outrage" is an opportunistic moment for drum banging and fund raising. What better way is there to make publicity and $$$$$ for yourself than to create a victim where none exists? The Orphans Deserve Better website and petition (this is separate from the Boycott "Orphan" Movie petition) is clearly a set-up to collect names for money and conversion.

For once the grand poobah of adoption, the National Council for Adoption, has shown some sense and has refused to get involved. We're expecting to see a PETA campaign any day now, though.

It's a B movie folks! In real life there are real orphans who need real help and real families. These real children are being co-opted by privileged self-righteous do-gooders and Bible oil salesmen pretending they can't tell the difference between real orphans in some poverty stricken orphanage in Cambodia and a pretend orphan in a movie. Are these the people we want promoting orphan care and orphan adoption?

Addenda: Check out Orphans are Scary on MamaPop. Thanks Kurt!

ATLANTA CHURCH WANTS YOU TO LEAVE YOUR BABY WITH IT

So much wingnuttery this week, and more to come. Take, Atlanta's Peachtree Presbyterian Church. Please!

On June 7, Pastor Vic Pentz, late of Princeton and Fuller Theologicals, announced to his surprised congregation his little extralegal "safe haven" plan for it. According to Ministry Today, Pentz promises that the church will care for any newborn baby that's dropped off at the church.

"I make a promise to you now and I don't want you to keep this a secret," Pentz said. "The Peachtree Presbyterian Church will care for any newborn baby you bring to this church. We will be the family to find a home for that child, and there's no limit on this. You can tell your friends, and they can tell their friends. … You can tell the whole world."

If you think I'm joking, go here and download either the video or mp3 . You'll find his offer in the last couple minutes of the ironically named Ethics of Life sermon. WARNING: Go to 54-56 minutes. The more hearty, of course, can sit through an hour of Pentz's praise of Juno and a very odd lecture on the marginalization and shame suffered by today's "unmarried mothers." Must be why adoption agencies are beating away unwed pregos with a stick.

Pentz says that the church will partner with Bethany Christian Services, "which will handle the 'how' of making this happen." A Bethany representative will speak at the church in August.

Upon hearing of his decision, Pentz said, "They (Bethany) just smiled and nodded and said, 'You know, we've been praying for a pastor to stand up and say that. Because we can provide all that support that you promised."

Pentz and Bethany might also consider a little talk with the Georgia Department of Human Resources, too. Or maybe not. If they'll licence the thankfully defunct New Beginnings agency out of Edgewood Baptist Church in Columbus, they'll license a boll weevil. (NOTE: During a liability panel at a NCFA conference I attended a few years ago, the director of New Beginnings said she kept clients from suing the "agency" by making them sign a contract with God promising not to. That didn't stop NB from being sued by angry aparents under civil RICO. Gladney's Heidi Cox looked like she wanted to reach over and bitch slap the woman).

Peggy Baird, the director of adoption services for the non-profit Families First service agency was a bit less impressed than the happy shiny Rev. Pentz. She told WXIA-TV that "while she admired the sentiment, he (Pentz) didn't delve into the legal and psychological complications that go into giving up a child for adoption... I think if he's going to pursue this with his congregation, he's got to do ongoing education."

But hey, what's ethics and best practice when those babies are coming in on a wing and a prayer!

WXIA-TV commenters agree:

Sweezy1:

This is good because some people who may struggle with such a big decision may feel more comfortable going to a church than a typical adoption agency.

My husband and I would love to adopt and feel more comfortable going through a church ourselves. May God bless them and may God bless us.

The next two view pregnant women and new mothers potential killers whose babies can only be saved through Presbyterian intervention:

Briskoe:

Man! You people take things waaaaay too far. The pastor is trying to do something good like, giving mother's another option rather than disposing the baby in a trash can. I think every church, no matter what religion, should offer this service in trying times.

Sargon:
What is the argument? It is either kill the baby or give it a chance for life. I vote for life.]

and my favorite, MikeMidtown, is under the impression that hundreds of abandoned newborns are jammed into Atlanta's church basements already waiting for their forever families to pick them up:

MikeMidtown:
Although I think his heart is in the right place, does he and his church have the qualifications to take care of hundreds of newborns? I believe other churches have tried this, but have failed because they could not handle the large number. This just goes to prove that the abortion/right-to-life issue is not just a bumper sticker slogan or sermon at church.

Next time you go to testify at a hearing, remember this is how the average person thinks that adoption operates.

BOOBUS AMERICANUS: THE MIGRAINE INDUCING MICHAEL JACKSON AND DEBBIE ROWE

Bastardette feels a major migraine coming on. This showed up on TMZ this morning: Jackson/Rowe not the biological parents.

Multiple sources deeply connected to the births tell us Michael was not the sperm donor for any of his kids. Debbie's eggs were not used. She was merely the surrogate, and paid well for her services in the births of Michael Jr. and Paris.

In the case of Prince Michael II (the youngest), we're told the surrogate was never told of the identity of the "receiving parent" -- Michael Jackson. Three days after Prince was born at Grossmont Hospital in San Diego County, Jackson's lawyer came to the hospital to pick the baby

Now, US Weekly reports that the father of of the older two is Jackson's dermatologist and Debbie Rowe's former boss, Arnold Klein.

He is the dad," says a Jackson insider. "He and Debbie signed an agreement saying they would never reveal the truth."

Not surprisingly, Klein has refused to comment.

OK, this is all tabloid hearsay, so far, but it's gone out all over the wire. I hope it's not true, but it wouldn't surprise me, either. Well, some of it does. I never seriously expected to read that Debbie Rowe isn't the bio mom of the older kids.

This will get so ugly so fast.

Who's the daddy?
Who's the mommy?
Where's the money?
Where the kids go. Of course!

I can't think of anything more illustrative (along with Octomom) of the American baybee-making-it's-all-about-me-me-me mania that lets little real human beings be artificially created, anonymized, trafficked, and abused for the pleasure of "adults." These freaks should have been locked in cages at Neverland, a prime exhibit of Menken's boobus americanus.

To top if off, there's stories circulating that Jackson didn't have a will, but the Wall Street Journal now reports that a 2002 will, leaving the bulk of his estate to his mother Katherine, his kids, and at least one charity will be filed on Thursday. His father Joseph Jackson was reportedly cut out. Thank goodness for small favors!

After the debt is cleared it's estimate about $200 million will be left.

By the time this is settled Prince Michael, Paris, and Blanket will be grandparents. Unfortunately,,the most intimate parts of their lives will, by then, have gone down into American pop folklore.

If I could say something reasonable about this, I would. But I can't.

REVOLTING ENTITLEMENT BLATHER ON DKOS: "ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION IS NOT PERVERSE"

A really revolting blog appeared today on DKos: Artificial Insemination is NOT Perverse - Exclamation Point

In part:

We get a call from Texas. A pregnant teen saw our ad and wants us to adopt her baby. HURRAY! We fly down to Texas. We see the baby. Adorable! Cute! A baby! We hold the baby. The mom signs the papers. But where is the bio-dad? Off in Oklahoma. He says he'll sign. But then he can't find a fax machine. Then the mom decides she wants the baby herself.

Bye bye baby.

I almost committed suicide over that (thanks to my wife for stopping me).

I'm not doing that again.

We have two kids by artificial insemination. We chose the donor father from a book. They're our kids.

And we're NOT perverse. Period.

I found the entry so annoying that I hot-wired my seldom-used DKos account to post this quick reply.

Artificial insemination may not be perverse (0 / 0)

but to purposefully choose to bring two children into the world via anonymous sperm donors chosen through a book--is perverse and unethical. Do you plan to tell your children how they were conceived or will it be your "little secret." What happens if you don't tell them, and they learn later? I hope you'll tell them when age appropriate; otherwise, you've got a potential disaster ahead of you.

Your insulting comments about the potential first mother who decided to keep her child kind of says it all. You cry about not having your own kids, and complain when she keeps hers. She had no duty to be your incubator. Why is she selfish, and you're not? No one has a right to somebody else's child.

But, every person has a right to identity, and it appears you have erased half of your kids, and are proud of it. Why? You are your kids' father in every sense of the word but the biological. As an adopted person who fights for the right of identity every day, I find this selfishness disgusting and emblematic of so much that is wrong w th adoption and ART today.

by bastardette on Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 10:28:29 AM PDT

I was tempted to add a snark that if somebody is so unstable that they "almost committed suicide" when they were denied ownership of somebody else's baby it's a good thing, but let it go.

PS. Since I posted my response, the blogger came back with a 1-liner that his kids know about their conception.

Addenda 1: It looks like as of about 3:45 PM or earlier, all of my comments on DKos but one were removed. I guess I'm a troll.

Addenda 2: Maybe I'm wrong I found a couple of them. I have a hard time getting around DKos.

Addenda 3: Baby Love Child, who has also been battling this stupid thread on DKos has also posted a blog: On so-called secrecy.