Feminism, Music, Geekiness.....What's in your cauldron?
Senator Hillary Clinton has written a petition against the Health and Human Services Department attempt to call birth control abortion. She's written an article about it, which you can read at Huffington Post and RH Reality Check.
Here's the petition:
http://www.hillpac.com/action/hhspetition/
Labels: more on abortion, stupidity
I've been trying to write about this for days, but I keep getting stuck because I don't know how to spell "ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHSSSSHHHTTTTTRRRRAAAAUUUGGHH!!!!!"...you know, that thing that Macauly Culkin did in Home Alone?
Because it seems that the Department of Health and Human services wants to change the labeling for contraceptives. They want to classify hormonal birth control as.....wait for it....wait for it....abortion!
Yes, the Bush administration's trained chimps, I mean minions, I mean idiots...oh well, I'll just go on...are trying to say that contraception is the same as abortion. "What thar fook?" You ask?
This same group, on its website today, released the results of study showing that the birth rate among teenagers is increasing. And yet they want to get rid of birth control.
I know, right, this sounds so ridiculous? Why on earth would they do such a thing?
The answer: So that they can remove contraception from the list of things that get federal funding. Among other things. Like making sure that pharmacists don't have to go against "their conciences" by allowing other people to live their lives the way they choose.
The other question is how. How on earth would they manage it?
The answer: By claiming that life begins at conception (fertilization) and therefore all fertilized eggs are people too.
Here's the thing. The American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists both contend that pregnancy begins with implantation, that is, when the fertilized egg implants in the uterus. Basically, so does the rest of science. It's impossible to test when an egg has been fertilized, and not only that, but a large number of fertilized eggs never implant, whether or not contraception is involved. Something like 50% of all fertilized eggs never turn into pregnancies. Some studies say that as many as 80 % of all fertilized eggs never implant. Therefore, claiming that fertilization is the beginning of life is ridiculous, since in so many cases, fertilization doesn't lead to pregnancy.
That's kind of beside the point, though. The people supporting this argument don't care about science. The Bush administration has shown over and over that it doesn't care about science, and this is no different. It's something that affects so many of us, though, that we can't let it happen.
Here's the insult to add to the injury:
http://www.hhs.gov/faq/policies/civilrights/95.html
It's where the HHS tells you what to do if you think you've been discriminated against based on gender or sex!!! Um, you mean like your policy that screws over women and takes them back to the dark ages??
Here are a couple of links to letter writing campaigns against this decision:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/17/tell-secretary-leavitt-block-new-hhs-regulations-contraception
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/newsroom/press-releases/proposed-hhs-rule-would-compromise-womens-health-21514.htm
Here are some more coherent, better researched write ups of this horrendous plan:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-page/the-dog-whistlers-the-on_b_75995.html
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/15/hhs-moves-define-contraception-abortion
And some information on how pregnancy happens (heheh...not that kind of info, silly!)
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/04/04/how-pregnancy-happens/
Labels: abortion, birth control, stupidity
Yeah, you're saying, so did I. Whooptie-freakin'-do.
I spent about an hour and a half yesterday morning trying to decide who to vote for....I really didn't want to vote based on personality or "gut feeling" or whatever, because that's a really stupid, cop-out way to participate in Democracy. I finally had to sit down with a check list. Each canditate got a point if I liked his or her stance better on a particular issue. I was using stated positions as well as voting record.
The trouble with that is that senators are elected to represent a particular body of people, and to look out for their specific needs. So, a person could decide that what's best for their state might not be best for the whole country......That got too complicated to think about, so I let it slide.
In the end it was very close. My winning candidate only had 2 more points than the losing one.
On the California side of things, I became convinced that the state has it's head up it's butt with regards to what things should get funding and what shouldn't. Also, how to fund is an issue. The gambling propositions bothered me most significantly. There were 4 on the ballot, asking us whether 4 of the "gaming tribes" of CA native Americans could expand their casinos with the a higher proportion of the revenue going to the state.
The issue of whether native tribes should be allowed to have casinos in a state that otherwise bans gambling has already been decided. That means that my stance against gambling at all is rather a moot point. Still, I don't see the logic behind the idea of basing part of the state budget on people (many of whom will come from the sector of society than can least afford to lose money) getting screwed out of their earnings. "Let's get all this money for the state! There are no downsides! Oh, wait, what? People are losing all their money? Who cares, the state gets more!"
Argh!!!
Anyway......
It was interesting for about 5 minutes to see which states were going to which candidates, but I'm hoping for a little rest from all the election stuff. I'm particularly bored and pissed off about how mainstream media insists on saying that Clinton's victories are because of "women and white people" while Obama's are because of "blacks." Stupid news-media with their insistence on over simplifying and making it seem like the entire democratic electorate is stupid. Thanks guys.
That's about all for today, folks.
Hope all is well.
Ordinarily, I really like Alternet. There are good, in depth articles, many of which talk about current events that are significant and interesting, but that corporate media doesn't seem to care about.
This article, however, really made me want to vomit. Was the most recent debate less than completely engrossing? Okay, I can believe it (I was at rehearsal, as usual, so I missed it). But phrases like:
Sure she's as bland as Obama, perhaps even marginally blander, but at the animal level, she triggers a neurochemical jet that sets off the very first hate most men feel when they encounter a powerful and threatening woman (like, say, I dunno, your 4th grade teacher Mrs. McManus? or the dean Ms. Mead, the wrinkled-mouth Episcopalian baboon who kicked you out of school and told you you'd never amount to anything?).are massively unnecessary.
