• The pin-making vendors who produced that stupid "Black House" pin have a history of repulsiveness. [Jezebel]

• Keep waiting for that phone call from the Obama camp, J-Hud. [Bossip]

• Speaking of Obama (for a change, right?), he delivered a personal apology to the two women that were barred by volunteers from standing behind him at a campaign event. [Politico]

• Don Cornelius has officially stepped off the Soul Train. It was a long ride. [BV]

• 50 Cent's now suing his baby mama for defamation. Yawn. [EUR]

• Michelle Williams isn't getting any play on BET because her album isn't urban enough. [SR]

• Meanwhile, Kelly Rowland encouraging kids to have an open dialog about safe sex and HIV/AIDS. [CL]

• Black men unite against R. Kelly and his ilk. [WAOD]

• Young Jeezy was arrested yesterday, but not for selling coke. [AHH]

• That rumor about Diddy and Tracey Edmonds is supposedly true. Whatever — I can't keep up with either of them. [Bossip]

Not a single one of the sub-Saharan countries in Africa are on course to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon. Kimoon called the lag a "development emergency."

Set in September of 2000, the eight MDGs are as follows: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal free primary education; gender equality and empowerment of women and reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development. The UN had hoped the goals would be met by 2015.

Kimoon says that advances in specific goals in countries like Kenya and Ghana proves rapid achievement is possible, but stresses that increased foreign trade and investment are necessary for Africa's growth. Currently, the entire continent of Africa has a three percent share of the whole world's trading and investment. Unfortunately, poised to unravel the few but remarkable gains made over the last eight years is what Kimoon calls the "alarming" global food shortage, the scourge currently straining the good ol' US of A.

Because it's what they do, the New York Post has compiled a list of the 50 best (their word) jokes of the last 12 months, a feat that accomplishes little more than to confirm everyone's assumptions: the Post can never be intentionally funny.

Of the greatest 50 quips in the world today, at least 40 are completely void of humor and hackneyed, two or three are not jokes at all and seven mock either African Americans or women (four for the ladies and three for the blacks). All in all, we think the whole exercise was just the Post endorsing Obama in the only way it knows how.

"Jokes" are after the jump.

CONTINUED »

AUNT STEINEM? David Paterson, New York's newly appointed blind, black Governor, recently recounted to The New York Times an incident in which he became "furious" with a colleague when she told him she had encountered more bias in her life for being a woman than for being black: "'Internally, I probably felt myself more discriminated against as a disabled person,' Mr. Paterson said in 2006. 'And when I would experience discrimination from another African-American I would go ballistic. I thought black people were supposed to understand.'"

Hundreds of tough broads took to the streets of Johannesburg today to show solidarity with a woman who was sexually assaulted for wearing a miniskirt.

The women marched to the taxi line where Nwabisa Ngcukana, 25, was groped and beaten last month by a nasty group of cab drivers and passersby, who said she was dressed too provocatively.

At the taxi rank the groups clashed, with some of the women baring their breasts in defiance and some of the cabbies hurling insults like "prostitute." Nonhlanhla Mokeona, a protester with the group People Opposing Women Abuse, said, "What we want to highlight is that women have rights - they have the right to choose what to wear."

Last week, South Africa's National House of Traditional Leaders, its highest council of tribal and community elders, said that women often wore short skirts in traditional ceremonies. Not that it should matter, but it helps.

Look, ladies! It's the brand new bullshit that men in the fashion world, who would never subject themselves to such torture, are attempting to trick you into believing is attractive. ("You'll never land an i-banker if you're unwilling to prove to them that their attention is worth your mobility.")

They're only four grand. Go grab a pair, and then pray to whatever god you get behind that, after you get laughed out of the club, you aren't chased.

• At this point, it would almost be funny if it wasn't so sad and infuriating. Good ol' Bush has appointed a woman who is anti-birth control to head the family planning division of the Department of Health And Human Services. [WP]

• This is what Jason Kidd has resorted to? Grabbing crotches in the club? [Bossip]

• It's hard to pick just one thing wrong with this picture. [C&D]

• No matter how hard this guy tries, I will never, ever, ever, ever be interested in NASCAR. [DS]

• So, considering the current racial climate, it's probably a good idea to keep that Halloween hangman decoration in the garage this year. [SL]

Don Imus is going back on the air, and, relatively speaking, there has been precious little outcry about it. Well, you know what? Nelly is pissed. And he has a lot to say about it. A lot

CONTINUED »

• Don't you love it when individuals or events are credited with "opening dialogs" that people have been trying to open for decades? [NW]

• Everybody Haaaaates Clarence. The CW should look into a 30 minute sitcom. [NYT]

• When employers criticized for a lack of diversity defend themselves with the "but there were no qualified black candidates" line, they're usually lying. [BG]

• Prodigy just began his gun trial (he faces 15 years if convicted) after cops discovered him pulling a Nicole Richie on a one way street in NYC with an unlicensed handgun in the glove compartment. [AHH]

• Credit card providers aren't tapping into the African American market. I wonder why. [MP]

Dear Polow,

I thought about just ignoring you, since two posts in a week on someone who, let's face it, should really be keeping his ass behind the scenes making beats and not speaking, should have been more than enough. The more the people respond to your idiocy (disguised as intellectual truth) the more important you will think you are. And you're not, really. At all. But I had to say something. I am a black woman, after all.

A very astute reader (what's up honee!) said that her grandmother always used to say that a fool with a little bit of education is dangerous. Now, I wouldn't call you dangerous (I'd downgrade it to annoying), but you are the perfect example of the guy who reads a book or has a couple of experiences and thinks he knows the truth about the world. The truth about black women. Sorry, Polow. You don't know the truth about me or anyone I know. So…why don't you go make a beat for Fergie or something, and leave the race and gender lectures to people who actually know what the hell they're talking about.

Pardon my sass. It's just the way I was raised.

Sincerely,

Lauren

"Every freak should have a picture of my dick on they wall."
— Polow Da Don, "Throw Some Ds"

After much controversy, and, so he claims, "positive feedback," Polow Da Don has returned to All Hip Hop to further prove that he is a misogynist of the highest order. Many were angry at his earlier comments, which were basically that white women made better girlfriends than black women because black women didn't know how to be submissive.

I think it offended a lot of black women specifically, but it's really a statement that is offensive to all women. It supposes that our role in a relationship is to submit to a male. In 2007, I'm all for being giving, helpful, and respectful (and having a man who embodies those things as well), but "submission" is not in my job description as a girlfriend/wife if its not in my man's too.

Polow da Don is under the erroneous impression that only black women who come from single parent households (my parents have been married 35 years) and who are uneducated (I guess the Master's degree doesn't count) feel the way I do. Think again. To spare you from reading the entire, completely ridiculous Q&A, allow me to paraphrase his core argument after the jump.

CONTINUED »

Black women, consider yourselves lucky Polow Da Don's not interested in you.

AllHipHop.com: Now, you call yourself the "King of All White Girls." Elaborate on that for me.

Polow Da Don: Just the “King of the White Girls.” I ain't self proclaimed but I run with it. [Laughs] There was a stage in my life where I went crazy with dating white women. I have nothing against black women, but they’re raised differently. White women are raised to respect and serve their men. Black women are taught to question [their men]. Black women look at submission as being weak. White women look at submission as being a woman. And anyone who has a problem with this statement is ignorant. Just look at the divine order; it goes man, woman, child.

[AHH via Bossip]

• Are Tisha Campbell and Duane Martin getting divorced or not? And is he gay? [CL]

• Deion Sanders gets his own reality show on Oxygen? I don't understand what TV execs have been smoking lately. [EUR]

• I can't imagine Vanessa Huxtable faring well in the Australian Outback. [SP]

• It turns out the Newark murders were not black on black crime after all. [CNN]

• And the advertising industry sinks even lower… [Racialicious]

The fact that Terrence Howard's ex-wife won't take him back despite his pleading is not such a surprise considering this quote from a recent Elle interview:

"Toilet paper - and no baby wipes - in the bathroom. If they're using dry paper, they aren't washing all of themselves. It's just unclean. So if I go in a woman's house and see the toilet paper there, I'll explain this. And if she doesn't make the adjustment to baby wipes, I'll know she's not completely clean."

And this:

"If a relationship is built on sexuality, it won't last long. Now I'm completely chaste through a relationship unless I get married. I don't believe in premarital sex. It enabled me to date three or four women at the same time, because as long as I wasn't having sex with them, I could always just walk away. There were some [past girlfriends] who pushed for sex, and sometimes they won. Afterward, I would feel unclean, like I'd compromised my own values. So I would have to let them go because they didn't help me to be a stronger person."

The guy is just plain creepy, obviously, with questionable views on both women and personal responsibility. Imagine if he was your man, counting your baby wipes after each trip you made to the bathroom and blaming you every time he got aroused. No wonder Halle Berry and Gabrielle Union never called his ass back.

[Jezebel]