Gender discrimination at work: A-OK!

I'm a little tardy in writing about the Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear.

The court ruled that employees must make their discrimination complaints within 180 days “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” In other words, the discrimination occurs at the time a woman is given a salary that is significantly lower than her male counterparts. If she doesn't catch on to the pay disparity within 180 days, she's screwed. Which is why Ledbetter's attorneys had argued that she was discriminated against every time she was handed a paycheck for less money than her male equivalent on the job -- not simply when her salary was determined. According to the Times:

Ms. Ledbetter’s salary was initially the same as that of her male colleagues. But over time, as she received smaller raises, a substantial disparity grew. By the time she brought suit in 1998, her salary fell short by as much as 40 percent; she was making $3,727 a month, while the lowest-paid man was making $4,286.

So 180 days isn't much time to figure out a pay disparity exists. How many people -- especially, for example, women in nontraditional professions -- talk openly with their coworkers about how much they're earning?

This is likely to have a chilling effect on employment discrimination suits. As Scott says,

• Republicans don't have to modify or repeal civil rights legislation, and the Court's needn't strike it down; the courts and/or the executive branch can just gut the legislation by making it difficult to enforce in ways that don't attract public attention.

This decision is an even greater incentive to get behind the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require employers to make employee salaries public so women will know sooner if they're getting paid less for equal (or more) work.


UPDATE: In comments, Jill Zimon points out that Congressional Dems have responded to the ruling by pledging to pass a law that eliminates the time restriction.

(P.S. For your reading pleasure, Ginsburg's dissent.)

Trouble for Mexico City?

Here's some potentially bad news. Mexico's Supreme Court is going to hear a challenge to the the landmark law that legalized abortion in Mexico City.

Supreme Court Justice Sergio Salvador Aguirre said arguments that abortions violate the constitutional right to life were strong enough to warrant a full review that could lead to the law being thrown out. The court did not announce a date for opening deliberations.

The heated debate over abortion pits Mexico City's leftist government against conservative President Felipe Calderón and the influential Roman Catholic Church. The legal challenges were filed by two federal agencies, the Attorney General's Office and National Human Rights Commission.

The good news? The case won't stop doctors from providing care to women in the meantime.Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, of the Democratic Revolution Party, said, "Our position is fixed. The health department will go on working."

Bad-ass woman of the week: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Check out this NY Times piece on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and how she's using her current Supreme Court term to speak up. Literally.

In both the recent federal abortion ban case and this week's discrimination ruling, Justice Ginsburg read dissents from the bench:

But the words were clearly her own, and they were both passionate and pointed. In the abortion case, in which the court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act seven years after having struck down a similar state law, she noted that the court was now “differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation.” In the latest case, she summoned Congress to overturn what she called the majority’s “parsimonious reading” of the federal law against discrimination in the workplace.

...The oral dissent has not been, until now, Justice Ginsburg’s style. She has gone years without delivering one, and never before in her 15 years on the court has she delivered two in one term. In her past dissents, both oral and written, she has been reluctant to breach the court’s collegial norms. “What she is saying is that this is not law, it’s politics,” Pamela S. Karlan, a Stanford law professor, said of Justice Ginsburg’s comment linking the outcome in the abortion case to the fact of the court’s changed membership. “She is accusing the other side of making political claims, not legal claims.”

Gee, I wonder why.

A friend of Ginsburg's, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, says "shehas always been regarded as sort of a white-glove person, and she’s achieved a lot that way...Now she is seeing that basic issues she’s fought so hard for are in jeopardy, and she is less bound by what have been the conventions of the court.” Thank goodness. Now let's just hope people will listen.

O'Reilly defends "White, Christian, male power structure"

And McFlipper just smiles and nods. Lovely.

Democratic Party has the transcript.

United Nations Human Rights chief speaks out against sexual violence

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour says that she is appalled by the level of sexual and gender-based violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi.

Read the full post at UN Dispatch.

Women protest DA's decision in California gang rape case

The wonderful women at California NOW protested yesterday in front D.A.'s office in San Jose, speaking out against the office's recent decision not to bring charges in a case where three women witnessed a young woman being gang raped.

Click this link to go to the video:
http://video.nbc11.com/player/?id=115107

Link-A-Dink

Milwaukee: a guy there robbed a bank, then hung around to harass one of the female tellers. Shockingly, she said no.

Women are leading the fight for indigenous people's rights.

Celebrating the Pill's 40th birthday.

How dudes with websites turn a high-school athlete into an unwilling internet sex object. I feel absolutely terrible for this girl: "She felt violated. It was like becoming the victim of a crime, Stokke said. Her body had been stolen and turned into a public commodity, critiqued in fan forums devoted to everything from hip-hop to Hollywood."

A fight is brewing over how much HIV/AIDS funding will be dedicated to pushing abstinence at the expense of real preventive measures.

How Monica Goodling tried to get off the hook by referring to herself as a "a fairly quiet girl, who tries to do the right thing," and other thoughts on the chick-factor.

California now allows conjugal visits for gay inmates.

UN Dispatch talks to a unit commander in Liberia's all-woman peacekeeping force.

How religion affects teen sexual behavior.

A chat with Seattle's queer feminist electro duo, Team Gina.

Further evidence of the huge toll the war has taken on Iraqi women.

The L.A. County Department of Health reports that women of color have higher rates of chronic disease than white women in the area.

Gay-rights activists are detained by police in Russia, after the cops refused to protect them from a rioting crowd.

A new report on the "celluloid ceiling" found U.S. female directors made only 7% of the 250 highest-grossing films in 2005.

Illegal abortions are putting poor women in Brazil at risk.

"Life within the woman" now trumps life of the actual woman.

The first Carnival for Radical Action.


Exposing the millionaires who helped push Bush to fund abstinence-only education at such exorbitant levels.

Stern College, the women's college at Yeshiva University, won't provide birth control, condoms, or emergency contraception.

How to "use your breast power responsibly." Gross, right? Even worse, it's ABC News, not Cosmo.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius rejected a bill that would have opened abortion-related medical records to the public.

Sexual assault of female foreign corrspondents is all too common.

Louisiana House passes a bill banning D&X (or so-called "partial-birth") abortions.

In another blow to the abstinence-only-until-marriage crowd, the American Journal of Sociology publishes a new study showing sex is NOT harmful to older teens' mental health.

Erica Jong urges female fiction writers to not let their work be branded as "chick lit."

On the politics of "ghetto" and mainstreaming stereotypes.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announces plans to subsidize contraception.

Frances Kissling dares the church to excomminucate her.

Michelle Obama discusses mommy-tracking.

The New England Journal of Medicine weighs in on Gonzales v. Carhart. And the antis are getting ready to start harassing doctors who they suspect are continuing to perform D&X abortions.

Britain offers men up to six months of paid paternity leave, but new figures show that very, very few men have taken advantage of the policy.

Sexist hotel "sex kits"?

Horrors! Feminism has masculinized women, and now poor guys don't know how to assert their manliness.

Tennessee rejected a bill that would have required ultrasounds for any woman requesting the abortion pill, RU-486. The legislation was redundant -- all doctors already must perform an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy before administering RU-486.

Teen girls' reported satisfaction with their own bodies decreased after only 10 minutes of watching music videos.

Why diversity training isn't enough.

Future abortion providers face a long road.

A New York City Council report says there are few barriers to EC access in the city.

Montana pharmacy refuses to dispense birth control

Well this is just typical. A pharmacy in Montana, Snyder Drug, has come under new ownership and now has a new policy of denying women birth control. Allyson Hagen, the director of NARAL Pro-Choice Montana, reports...

The new owners have ties to the anti-choice community and now own two pharmacies in Great Falls. My organization is in the process of working with local activists in Great Falls to do more research into their policy and what they are telling consumers about birth control, what other drugs they dispense (Viagra anyone?), see what other pharmacies in Great Falls are refusing to fill birth control or EC prescriptions, and come up with an action plan.

NARAL Pro-Choice Montana believes pharmacies have an ethical obligation to honor valid, legal prescriptions and avoid jeopardizing their patients' health. In Montana's rural communities, there may only be one pharmacy in town. What if that one pharmacy was refusing to fill birth control prescriptions? Since when does a pharmacist have the right to decide whether or not to fill your prescription and interfere in the doctor-patient relationship?

Read Hagen's full post at Left in the West.

Malalai Joya Ousted By Afgan Parliment

Above is a video of an interview with 29-year-old Malalai Joya, whom I have blogged about here, who has just been ousted by the Afghanistan parliament for enraging former mujahadeen fighters – now in President Hamid Karzai’s U.S.-backed government and many of whom are warlords — by comparing them, in a recently-televised interview (not the interview in the clip above) with a stable full of animals, saying “This is a word that fits — a cattle house is full of animals, like a cow giving milk, a donkey carrying something, a dog that’s loyal,” Joya said.

I included the video clip above for several reasons, among them that Joya describes in the interview the way an 11-year-old girl was recently kidnapped by warlords, raped, and then exchanged for a dog. Where women’s and girls lives mean nothing at all, it is no crime, in their minds, for men with money or power to kidnap, rape, and exchange a little girl for a dog, but it IS a crime to compare the men who do such things with dogs or other animals. In fact, to compare such men with dogs and animals is, in my view, to insult the dogs and animals.

A parliament rule known as Article 70 forbids lawmakers from criticizing one another, a rule Joya says was created because of her outspoken challenges to the warlords, who she says in the interview clip above are, with U.S. backing, holding all of Afghanistan hostage. Joya has had to travel with a cadre of bodyguards and has had her life repeatedly threatened. Please watch this video. Women are committing suicide in huge numbers in Afghanistan, their lives are worth nothing, and the U.S. says nothing, does nothing, and is, in fact, responsible.

Hell with gasoline drawers. Every last mother fucking one of you.

Second Carnival of Radical Feminists

The 2nd Carnival of Radical Feminists is fast approaching! Get Your Articles to Ann Bartow by June 3!

Submissions to the Second Carnival of Radical Feminists should be written or discovered and sent forthwith to Ann Bartow prior to June 3!

The new Carnival, by the by, got a nice mention in the latest Utne Reader Web Watch in an article about racism in the blogosphere entitled Bigotry and the Blogs.

Check it out!

Post To Note

Great post and comments thread at Pandagon.

She is speaking about Dean Barrett, where he says: "Because we don’t know where life begins, the only logical thing to do is to err on the side of caution — the side of life. In other words, because an abortion might take an innocent life, it should be avoided. It should also be illegal in most cases."

Read his article here: You don’t actually need god to think women shouldn’t have rights. All you need to do is ignore that women exist altogether.

Female sharks capable of virgin birth

I love me some non-sperm births.

Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give birth without sperm from males, according to a new study of the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a U.S. zoo.

Analysis of the baby shark's DNA found no trace of any chromosomal contribution from a male partner. Shark experts said this was the first confirmed case in a shark of parthenogenesis, which is derived from Greek and means "virgin birth."

"The findings were really surprising because as far as anyone knew, all sharks reproduced only sexually by a male and female mating, requiring the embryo to get DNA from both parents for full development, just like in mammals," said marine biologist Paulo Prodahl of Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, a co-author of the report.

Female shark's have a well-documented ability to store sperm for a lengthy period of time. The lack of any paternal DNA in the baby shark ruled out this possibility.

Yea for them sharks gettin it on...with themselves.

Ex-lawmaker charged with raping teen girls

Another slime who denied wrong-doing then changes mind when truth revealed.

A former state House member was arrested Friday on charges of rape and other sexual offenses against two teen girls.

The combined charges against him in both counties include eight counts of second-degree rape, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of sexual contact with a child younger than 16, two counts of witness tampering and one count of stalking. Some of the rape charges carry penalties of up to 50 years in prison.

The accusers were aged 15 to 19 over the years the crimes allegedly occurred. One girl was allegedly molested when she was a legislative page.

The girls told law officers that Klaudt touched their genitals during what he called exams for a purported scheme to have them donate their eggs to make money, Long said.

"He was convincing these girls they were candidates for donation of their eggs, that this would be a significant financial advantage to them and it was necessary for him to perform these acts on the girls to determine if they would be viable candidates for the procedure," Long told The Associated Press.

A written affidavit filed in court by Long said Klaudt initially denied performing "tests" on the girls, but he changed his story after investigators confronted him with copies of e-mails he sent to one of the girls.

Klaudt then said "maybe I did some things I shouldn't have," the attorney general wrote.

Klaudt's arrest is the second time in a year that the South Dakota Legislature has been rocked by allegations of improper sexual conduct.

Wow, what a way to abuse your power. Daddy Dobson is waiting for your genuine confession.

African models wrestle with size schism

Skinny African girls may get to strut on Western catwalks, but the fat ones have to stay at home. This is the message being delivered to the 500 or so Ghanaians who have registered with the country’s only international modeling agency, Exopa.

“A lot of them want to go. But not everyone has the chance to go because of the size the Europeans want them to be,” said Exopa’s Ghanaian director Sima Ibrahim.

As models on Western catwalks get thinner and thinner, their hungry look has sparked noisy debate about the pressure this places on girls and women to achieve perfection.

In Africa, rolls of flesh are usually seen as a sign of wealth and status, not of ill health.
Few aspire to a skinny look, as those who look starved and ill too often are that way through misfortune, not choice.

Few Africans want to see a superskinny model, said Sylvia Owori, who runs Uganda’s Ziper models.

“I think most Ugandans would be disgusted. They’d think she’d just come out of the village and she was malnourished,” said Owori.

14-Year-Old Girl Wins Geography Bee

Home-schooled 14-year-old Caitlin Snaring from Redmond, Wash., won a $25,000 college scholarship Wednesday at the 19th annual National Geographic Bee.

Caitlin is only the second girl to win in the bee's history.

"I don't know why more girls aren't interested in geography," she told reporters after winning the championship round.

"I wanted a girl winner this year."

Girls Rock.

Child Rapist's Sentence to Test Supreme Court

Louisiana's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man may be executed for raping an 8-year-old girl, and lawyers say his case may become the test for whether the nation's highest court upholds the death penalty for someone who rapes a child.

Both sides say the sentence for Patrick Kennedy, 42, could expand a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The high court said then that its ruling applied only to adult victims.

Louisiana law allows the death penalty for the aggravated rape of someone less than 12 years old. "He's the only person in the United States on death row for non-homicide rape," Picou said.

Kennedy was convicted in 2003 of raping a relative as she sorted Girl Scout cookies in the garage of her home in suburban New Orleans. He bragged to one man that the girl "became a lady today," deputies said.

The governors of South Carolina and Oklahoma signed laws last year allowing the death penalty for people who repeatedly rape children.

A bill that would allow the death penalty for a second offense of child rape is awaiting the governor's decision in Texas. Georgia law allows death as a penalty for rape. Dieter said Florida and Montana also have such laws, but authorities have said the penalty would be invoked only for rape of a child

Banned for life: Gay men still can’t donate blood

Gay men remain banned for life from donating blood, the government said Wednesday, leaving in place — for now — a 1983 prohibition meant to prevent the spread of HIV through transfusions.

The Food and Drug Administration reiterated its long-standing policy on its Web site Wednesday, more than a year after the Red Cross and two other blood groups criticized the policy as “medically and scientifically unwarranted.”

Yea, cause only gays have HIV. When, in reality, everyone is at risk of HIV. The homophobia of the FDA is obvious, as this policy is equivelant to the idea that AIDS is a gay disease. And you woyuld think that a scientific institution would know ebtter. But hey, they are puppets to the Master, ya know.

The FDA said HIV tests currently in use are highly accurate, but still cannot detect the virus 100 percent of the time.

So then we should all be banned then, right...by that logic???

Critics of the exclusionary policy said it bars potential healthy donors, despite the increasing need for donated blood, and discriminates against gays. The FDA recognized the policy defers many healthy donors but rejected the suggestion it’s discriminatory.

California DA won't prosecute rape case; says eye witnesses and DNA are "insufficient evidence"

Nice to know that if you get gang raped and there are fucking eyewitnesses, your case won't get prosecuted.

What's the penalty for the alleged gangrape of a drunk, 17-year-old girl at a party with 10 of your buddies? Bupkus, said the Santa Clara, California District Attorney's office yesterday.

The alleged rape occurred March 3 at a wild, off-campus party hosted by a member of the DeAnza College men's baseball team in San Jose, California. Three partygoers, members of the school's women's soccer team, said they saw a young girl on a mattress on the floor, clothes around her ankles and vomit on her face, with one man on top of her and approximately 10 more looking on in a dark bedroom. Feeling "something wasn't right," the girls pushed their way into the room (actually, they kicked the door down) and rushed the victim the the hospital.

20-year old April Grolle, one of the women who intervened, said "One of the guys who was in the room said 'This is her fault. She got drunk and she did this to herself.'"

Assistant District Attorney David Tomkins said, "We looked at every shred of evidence in this case, and we used every procedural avenue available to us to examine the facts. We discussed it and decided there was insufficient evidence of any crimes being investigated."

Lovely. So no charges will be brought against the men, NOT EVEN STATUTORY RAPE, who were members of the De Anza College baseball team. The only punishment? Eight baseball players were suspended, and three games were cancelled.

Because yea, when a woman gets drunk, she is consenting to sex. And heck it appears even gang rape. All the responsibility is on her for HER actions, not the rapists. She was drunk...blah, blah. Then its quite easy to say that women shouldn't get drunk (because they are held to different standards than men) NOT that men shouldn't take advantage of drunk women and rape them when they are unconscious.

The women are outraged and are speaking out about it. One even poignantly states the lack of charges "makes us think that no girl is ever going to want to come forward and say they were violated as this girl was, because they're going to think it doesn't even matter...But it does."
And that is why they are my hero of the week.

U.m.

Catholic.net is really super proud of its daily comic, Umbert the Unborn, in which a talking cartoon fetus tells us why we should all be pro-life. And I suppose they have every right to take pride in their little creation. Umbert is pretty exceptional. For an isolated embryo floating in amniotic fluid, he is extremely agile, highly lingual, and incredibly communicative. And he looks very mature for his age. Why, if it wasn't for his poorly drawn umbilical cord (which seems to be attached to nothing, least of all a woman), you would never even guess him to be unborn.























Wow. This cartoon is, like, totally effective. If I ever become a victim of an unwanted pregnancy and find myself tempted to exercise my right to terminate it, I will be forced to imagine that the zygote that has implanted in my uterus is actually a pudgy intellectual cartoon toddler who can sing and dance and talk on a little uterine cell phone to his unborn friends who reside in other wombs. (I'm not even joking. He really does this. And naturally, the female fetus has a bow on her head.) What a relief to know the truth. Thanks, pro-lifers!

Leslie Unruh wants your rights...and your babies

Watch Mary Alice Carr of NARAL Pro-Choice New York take on lunatic Leslee Unruh on the recently approved contraceptive Lybrel.

Scariest part: "I want more babies! More babies! We love babies!"

Yea, that's why you bribed teenage girls with money to keep their pregnancies.

Raped? Well maybe you were just glad for the attention!

Well this is just wonderful.

A teenage girl who claims she was gang raped by three 13-year-old schoolboys was overweight and would have been “glad of the attention”, a barrister told a jury.

The 16-year-old and her friend told a court the boys mugged them for their phones then raped them repeatedly in a park while filming the ordeal on a mobile.

But lawyer Sheilagh Davies, acting for one of the defendants, said the girls consented to sex “maybe to gain attention, maybe to gain affection”.

Davies also told the jury that the girl had “slimmed down a lot” since the rape and that she "may well have been glad of the attention.”

Please excuse me while I swallow my stomach.

Oklahoma bans abortion in state hospitals

Here's one for the "ugh" files:

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry allowed an anti-abortion bill to become law on Wednesday by taking no action on the legislation.

The passage of the measure makes Oklahoma the only state this year to pass legislation that would prohibit certain abortions in state-funded medical facilities, according to a research institute.

Read more about the measure here.

2008 Presidential Candidate Choice Statements

I'm sure y'all want to know where all of the candidates stand on choice, so NARAL Pro-Choice America has done the work for you. They asked candidates from both parties to express – in 200 words or less – their beliefs about a woman's right to choose.

Check out the candidate's statements here, along with their voting record, and a selection of public statements on the issue of choice.

Kelly Clarkson On Sexism In The Biz

Apparently Clarkson has spoken out about her experiences with sexist music executives and their blatant disapproval of her writing her own music because she's a young woman:

"Everybody doesn't like me writing all the time, no matter how many No. 1's you write. It's clearly like yelling at a brick wall....It's because I'm a woman — because I'm a young woman. I literally heard someone say it [during a conference call]. They didn't know I was on the phone. Like, really? We're living in what century? I hung up. I was like, I can't even address that. 'Cause that was the most ignorant thing I've ever heard."

In the meantime, she just won a Song of the Year award for, yes, a song she wrote herself. Take that.

More vet inmates are sex offenders

Surprise, surprise. A study released yesterday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that more veteran inmates are sex offenders than non-vets:

Veterans are half as likely to be incarcerated as those without service experience in the first place, researchers found, but 23 percent of the veterans in prison were sex offenders, compared with 9 percent of nonveteran inmates.

The numbers mirror a trend seen in military prisons, where populations have declined but sexual assault remains the most common crime.

And this conclusion surprises people? For real???

Link-A-Dink

Internationally, girls are more likely than boys to be malnourished, suffer poverty, face violence and be refused an education.

There are 25 shelters nationwide that serve homeless queer youth.

A new novel is about two sisters who separately deal with domestic violence.

Leonard Nimoy: Size-positivity crusader.

Are Katie Couric's ratings low because she's a woman? (Answer: No.)

Japanese women are getting curvier, and clothing makers are changing their sizes to accommodate them.

There's a new musical about Grace O'Malley the "Pirate Queen."

Is a male version of the IUD -- reversible, nonhormonal, long-term contraception -- in the works?

Chlamydia: Not good. Let's hope that vaccine comes through.

A new study shows confident, assertive women are more likely to be harassed.

A group of conservative Chilean parliamentarians are seeking to roll back the country's progressive emergency contraceptive policy.

A high-school girl who was sent to the principal's office for saying "That's so gay" sued the school district, saying it was a violation of her First Amendment rights. The judge recently sided with the district.

Introducing the Butch Cookbook.

New right-wing "holiday": Abstinence Day?

Now that control of Congress is back in pro-choice hands, we have the first chance in more than six years to turn the tide on deceptive "abstinence-only" programs.

Since President Bush took office, Congress has spent a whopping 778 million of your tax dollars on ineffective abstinence-only programs!

While Congress has been on a spending spree, studies show that many abstinence-only programs include medically inaccurate and misleading information. Even worse, independent research shows that students in these classes are not more likely to abstain from sex or delay when they become sexually active.

Tell your members of Congress today that Americans oppose ineffective, ideologically-driven abstinence-only programs.

NARAL is working closely with key members of Congress to turn the tide on abstinence-only funding, but right-wing groups won't let this happen without a fight.

Groups like the Family Research Council are holding "Abstinence Day" on Capitol Hill tomorrow, where they will try to overwhelm lawmakers with one-on-one lobby visits and flood phone lines with calls from anti-choice activists.

Instead of recklessly spending your tax dollars on programs that don't work, Congress should focus on commonsense solutions to prevent teen pregnancy. Several bills would do just that, including these two measures:

• The Responsible Education About Life Act would establish the first-ever federal sex-education program for young people; and
  The Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Responsibility, and Opportunity Act would help schools set up programs that encourage teens to delay sexual activity and help parents communicate with their children about sex.

Keroack On Crack

The former head of the federal agency overseeing family planning programs misled the public about his qualifications and background, a RAW STORY investigation has found.

Although as an appointee Dr. Eric Keroack quickly became mired in controversy over his opposition to birth control, abortion and comprehensive sex education, newly obtained documents show that from the start Dr. Keroack was far from qualified to head the federal women’s health program.

We ALL knew he was incompetent. But no one had the nads to ensure that anything was ever done about it. All of King George's robots were in just long enough to cause damage before their cowardly resignations.

Though he has no formal research credentials, Dr. Keroack has lectured widely from a PowerPoint presentation that uses Loony Tunes characters to illustrate his theory that premarital sex damages the female brain, making non-abstinent women incapable of forming emotional bonds.

Keroack’s highly unorthodox medical views had originally cast doubt on his qualifications to serve as the nation’s birth control czar. His appointment did not require confirmation from Congress.

No shit. And what do you mean "originally"? It didn't "cast doubt", it was perfectly clear. He was one of Bu$hies sex-fanatic puppets permanently bent over.

Random News BlowJoe

Great post at Feministe by guest blogger Flea. Truly wonderful insight into the vast difference between the reactions men and women get regarding abortion.

The Pope doesn't like abortion.

A group of women - Moms Rising - is making the personal political (again).

Some people don't like comprehensive sex ed, even when AIDS is an issue.

There are health benefits to educating girls.

Looking to increase the number of sperm donors in Britain, comedian Danny Robins went on tour persuading men to give it up.

The phrase has spawned a lawsuit.

When some asshat spraypainted the word "fag" on out lesbian Erin Davies' Volkswagen Bug, she kept on driving it. She's even going cross country in the car this summer to "confront homophobia." For all you straight guys who worry that your Miatas are too gay, you could be driving a VW Bug covered in rainbow stripes and hate slurs.

Carter To Bush: You Suck Major Asshole

Former President Carter says President Bush 's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy. The criticism from Carter also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding.

Woa.

"When you call somebody the worst president, that's volatile. Those are fighting words." says Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter biographer.

But she was drinking

Dig free rape porn? The Joplin Globe endeavors to give satisfaction. The Missouri paper, whose motto is apparently “It’s your girl. We deliver it,” titillated readers on May 10 (and for all I know it may do this all the time) with a graphic and truly gnarly description of a sexual assault. The Globe stringer was reporting on a court proceeding, but he might as well have been writing a rape fantasy scene for one of those ‘gritty’ dude-crime novels that always end up on the NY Times Bestseller List.

Although the perp in the case, who is accused of molesting and photographing an unconscious woman, was bound over for trial, Globe reporter Jeff Lehr was determined (a) to omit no lurid detail, and (b) to intimate that the 23-year-old victim had it coming to her. Lehr trots out the same tired old subtext: a chick who has a few drinks in public “of her own free will” should then expect to be “taken advantage of” while passed out drunk. If you’re a woman, drinking of your own ‘free will’ = “I consent to whatever abuse strikes your dudely fancy.” Of course the “but she was drinking” gambit is just a bit of shaming to rationalize male use of women. It works, not because it is logical, but because it is consistent with cultural narrative; a priori consent to male abuse, as we have seen, is implicit in the cultural construct “woman.”

Which is why our victim should also expect to have the graphic, humiliating details of her assault printed in the local paper.

Because rape is so hilarious, Globe reader Rick Tiberio was pleased as punch at the opportunity to read this crap. He sent in a grateful letter to the editor, confessing that he had to have a cigarette after reading it. Hilarious old Rick Tiberio should check out the online version; it comes with a handy ad for a casino depicting women as cleavage delivery devices. Nice.

Canadians buying 6-week gender determination test

A British company that sells a "Pink or Blue" home test that tells the gender of a fetus six weeks into pregnancy says it has been sending a couple of test kits a week to Canada. DNA Worldwide said it is getting dozens of inquiries from Canadians looking for the test of a blood of a pregnant woman. A U.S. company also sells the test online. "It's a little finger-prick that she puts into her finger and then we take a little blood sample, analyze it in our labs to find out if there's male DNA in her bloodstream," said David Nicholson, director of DNA Worldwide. Results come back within four to six days, and the company claims the test accurately shows the gender of the fetus 95 to 98 per cent of the time, if instructions are followed properly. The company began selling the tests online in April.

U.G.H.
Get this in the hands of countries that are already having issues with sex-selective abortions, and you have just found a way around the legal system trying to fight it. Too many of these countries already devalue girls, hence the need to abort the fetus when sex is found to be female. Now, a little prick at home and off to the doctor you go. There will be no evidence that anyone "knew" the sex unless police just begin to raid random women's homes for these tests conveniently in the trash basket.

I'm not in favor of this in any way. The technology itself is not the issue, it is the potential for serious abuse. And until the severe inequality that exists between male and female feti ceases, which I doubt ever will, then technology like this is dangerous for all the wrong reasons.

(Click title for external link. Note: This article uses "gender", when the appropriate term should be sex.)

Wolfowitz Resigns

So Wolfowitz has finally resigned from the World Bank, effective June 30, reportedly as the first president to ever leave the World Bank "under a cloud of scandal."

You won't be surprised to hear that loyal Bushies think Paul "Comb-Licker" Wolfowitz has been ousted not because of ethics violations but rather as payback for the Iraq War. The Wall Street Journal claims the charges against Wolfowitz are "bogus.

"But some 13,000 World Bank staffers are happy to see the comb-licking man go. According to the World Bank Group Staff Association: "[Wolfowitz] has demeaned the Bank, insulted the staff, diminished its clients, and dragged this institution through the mud."

In keeping with the flat-earth Heritage Foundation's advice to Bushie, the list of possible replacements are qualified to fill the position because they are loyal Bushies.

So, of course, Bill Frist, failed Senate Majority Leader, is on the list, as is Bush poodle Tony Blair.

But since it is an American tradition that World Bank presidents can only be Americans, Tony Blair will undoubtedly be crossed off the list. Despite a plethora of neocon scandals, indictments, and corruption, Bush continues to have no shortage of incompetent American poodles to choose from.

Again...how many is that? I've lost count. King George is losing one incompetent, corrupt, crony after another. This is almost becoming comical, if it weren't so fucking scary that this man can get away with just about anything and has yet to be held accountable for anything.

Kudos To Forbes

For actually talking about a study which finds that boys and girls are pretty much the same in how their brains develop.

I was beginning to think that no such study would ever be published.

Iraqi Women Are NOT Free

Check out Katha Politt's latest, 'Democracy' Is Hell, that takes on the laughable idea that women are now "free" in Iraq.

And read "The Talibanization of Iraq," by Bay Fang. Cause remember, Laura Bush assured us we were bringing freedom to the women of Iraq! Right.

• Furthermore, extremists in both Sunni and Shiite areas have taken over pockets of the country and imposed their own Taliban-like laws on the population, requiring women to wear full-length veils, segregating the sexes in public and forbidding such activities as singing and dancing. Hair salons are bombed, and many have gone under-ground. Women college students are stopped and harassed on campuses, so going to school is a risk. “I don’t have one woman friend who has not been harassed, or worse, on the street,” says Mohammed. Women who work for OWFI (Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq) are routinely threatened with beatings or rape if they aren’t completely veiled. Islamist “misery gangs” regularly patrol the streets in many areas, beating and harassing women who are not “properly” dressed or behaved.

And haven't we heard this before: Garance Franke-Ruta has a piece at TAPPED refuting Christina Hoff-Summers’ claim that American feminists, like, totally ignore women in Islamic countries.

Oh, I so love this claim. Just Google “Mavis Leno” or “Ms. Foundation” and “Afghanistan,” hm? Both were working for Afghan women years and years before any of the wingnuts discovered the value of using Afghan women to shame American feminists by pretending they had discovered Afghan women first.

I remember reading about the Ms. Foundation’s work in Afghanistan against the Taliban when I was in school, over 10 years ago! What is this shit??? Mavis Leno was working with Afghan women LONG before it became "trendy" to care. Give me something new, asshats.

Take Me Away Calgon...

A hotel in Indiana is in the process of constructing a women-only floor.

Hotel spokeswoman Andrea Groom says half of the business travelers today are women.

She says some women don't feel safe in a strange city or don't like being approached by men in lounges.

The women-only rooms will have amenities not found in other rooms, such as chenille throw blankets and special bath products.

So I don't know if this women-only thing is for safety concerns or for girlie soaps, but either way I'm not a big fan. As I've written before about things like women-only train cars (created to try to curb sexual harassment) the idea of separating women out instead of trying to improve the world we're already in doesn't seem like much of a solution.

Link here: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7003336077

And hello...putting the responsibility on women not to get harassed rather than on the men to stop harassing is really problematic.

Supreme Extreme of the Week

Senator Sam Brownback actually argued on Wednesday that, "We talk about abortion, but abortion is a procedure. This is a life that we’re talking about. And it’s a terrible situation where there’s a rape that’s involved or incest. But it nonetheless remains that this is a child that we’re talking about doing this to, of ending the life of this child."

So again...fetal righst trump my rights to not be an incubator for your ideology? My rights to not be FORCED into carrying a rapists child to term is nothing because of your fetish with feti?

I don't understand how this passes for a political position, as opposed to the fundamentalist lunatic fringe psycho-babble that it actually is.

And he apparently believes he has a uterus as well.

A Leader Of Compassion And Hope Dies

Yolanda Denise King, daughter and eldest child of civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has died, said Steve Klein, a spokesman for the King Center.

King died late Tuesday in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 51.

Born on Nov. 17, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., King was just an infant when her home was bombed during the turbulent civil rights era. She was a young girl during his famous stay in the Birmingham, Ala., jail. She was 12 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. died.

"She lived with a lot of the trauma of our struggle," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, an aide of Martin Luther King Jr. "The movement was in her DNA."

King -- an actor, speaker and producer -- was the founder and head of Higher Ground Productions, billed as a "gateway for inner peace, unity and global transformation." On her company's Web site, King described her mission as encouraging personal growth and positive social change.

How bout that? Positive social change. It's nice to hear those words, especially when her passing is completely overpowered by the late hate-monger Jerry Falwell.

King was also an author and advocate for peace and nonviolence, and held memberships in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference--which her father co-founded in 1957--and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her death comes more than a year after the death of her mother, Coretta Scott King.

Yolanda King was the most visible and outspoken among the Kings' four children during activities honoring this year's Martin Luther King Day in January, the first since Coretta Scott King's death.

At her father's former Atlanta church, Ebenezer Baptist, she performed a series of one-actor skits on King Day this year that told stories including a girl's first ride on a desegregated bus and a college student's recollection of the 1963 desegregation of Birmingham, Ala.

She also urged the audience at Ebenezer to be a force for peace and love, and to use the King holiday each year in January to ask tough questions about their own beliefs on prejudice.

Open, honest dialogue. The only way for positive change to emerge. Her father knew that. Her mother knew that. Yolanda will be missed. A direct line of peace fighters is now one less. We must all stand and rise to the occassion and humbly fill her shoes.

Planned Parenthood may love Giuliani, But I do NOT

I got this disheartening email from Planned Parenthood this morning, lauding Rudy Giuliani's position on abortion:

In response to comments by Republican primary candidates during tonight's debate, Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards issued the following statement:

"Giuliani's pro-choice position proves that you don't have to check your convictions at the presidential primary door. It's increasingly clear that the days of the anti-choice stranglehold on the Republican Party are numbered.

"While other Republican candidates pander to and fight over the extreme right wing within their party, Rudy Giuliani is leading the pack and he recognizes that standing up for women's health is a winning position. Freedom of choice and personal responsibility are bedrock values of the Republican Party. Now is the time for mainstream Republicans to raise their voices in support of this important issue.

Right. Clearly Giuliani is staking his campaign on his deep, unwavering commitment to women's health... He repeats that he's personally opposed to abortion, that he would support further restrictions, he supported the SCTOUS ruling, stated that he would appoint an anti-choice Supreme Court justice, and that overturning Roe would "be OK."

Apparently $900 in donations buys a lifetime endorsement from Planned Parenthood, no matter how weak your position on choice.

Corporate Bullies Attack Ms., the Nation, Mother Jones

The future of independent magazines like Ms., Mother Jones, The Nation, etc. is at risk with a massive new postage hike!

The U.S. Postal Service has accepted a Time Warner proposal that would significantly increase postage rates for smaller magazines, while reducing costs for the nation's largest publishers like Hearst and, you guessed it, Time Warner.

Ms. is working with Free Press, a national non-partisan organization working to reform media, and the Media Consortium, including Mother Jones, The Nation, American Prospect, The Progressive, In These Times, and other independent media to send a massive number of letters protesting this unfair postage hike.

Please take a minute now to cosign a letter demanding that the rules are changed.

Time Warner's plan was chosen - with almost no public awareness - instead of another proposal that would have imposed a more equitable increase for all magazine publishers. If and when it is implemented as scheduled in July, the Time Warner plan could force many smaller publications out of business.

This proposal unfairly hurts smaller, cutting-edge publications like Ms., at a time when we need independent media more than ever. You can count on Ms. magazine, not "big corporate media," for the real story on the issues affecting women in the U.S. and worldwide.

Don't let Time Warner and the corporate media win - demand that Congress step in to stop the unfair postage hike and save independent media!

Is it the end for abstinence-only education?

Dare I hope?

Democrats plan to let a federal abstinence-education program die quietly next month, demonstrating that pursuit of their legislative agenda can sometimes be passive.

The authorization for Title V abstinence-education grants expires at the end of June, and those on both sides of the sex-education debate agree that the $50 million-a-year mandatory-spending program — which draws an additional $37.5 million match from the states — stands little chance of winning an extension from a Democratic-controlled Congress.

We will have to wait and see as it is not a done deal. But this has been a long time coming and now us heathens have control. Let the good times roll...

Why are servicewomen being denied birth control?

Approximately 350,000 women currently serve in the U.S. military, making up almost 15 percent of all active-duty personnel. But federal law does little to protect their reproductive rights: not only are they banned from accessing abortion care at military medical facilities, but some cannot even obtain emergency contraception, which can prevent unintended pregnancy if taken soon after sex, at their base pharmacy.

Our government should provide the highest standard of care to women who have volunteered to serve our country, plain and simple. In 2002 health officials at the Defense Department agreed, and approved Plan B® to be stocked at military medical facilities. However, weeks later, President Bush's political appointees overruled the decision without discussion or explanation.

This week, Congress has an opportunity to improve health care for women in the military with a bill sponsored by lawmakers in both parties and on both sides of the choice issue. The Compassionate Care for Servicewomen Act simply adds Plan B® to the list of medications that must be stocked at every military health-care facility.

Please take action today to defend the rights of those who defend us. Urge your lawmaker to support the Compassionate Care for Servicewomen Act to ensure that emergency contraception is available to women on every military base.

Censorship from CBS

It took CBS two weeks to fire Don Imus for calling a college women's basketball team "nappy headed hos," but it only took them two days to fire respected retired Major General John Batiste for speaking out against the president on the war.

Batiste, a Republican, commanded troops in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. He left the Army so that he could speak out against the president's reckless policy in Iraq, and CBS hired him as a part-time consultant to comment about it. Last week, he appeared in a VoteVets.org TV ad speaking out against the president on Iraq. Just two days later, CBS fired him.

It's censorship, pure and simple.

CBS says they fired Major General Batiste because he engaged in advocacy—but they're holding him to a different standard than their other consultants.

For example, former White House communications director Nicolle Wallace is a consultant to CBS and consistently uses her position to push White House talking points. It was even reported that she was advising the McCain campaign, yet CBS did nothing when she appeared as a consultant on their network to promote his candidacy.

Plus, the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon also appeared on CBS as a consultant while advocating in favor of President Bush's escalation plan.

CBS is sending a message that you can't be a consultant to their network if you're critical of President Bush and the Iraq war. That's political censorship and CBS needs to hear groundswell of outrage from concerned viewers right away.

Major General John Batiste is not the first general to speak out against the president on Iraq. Recently a number of generals and military leaders have spoken out against President Bush's failed policy—including Reagan's former NSA director, General William Odom, Vietnam veteran Major General Mel Montano and another former general from Iraq—retired Major General Paul Eaton.

These generals must be heard, not censored for speaking the truth.

Sign the petition demanding that CBS re-hire Major General Batiste.

http://pol.moveon.org/batiste/one_click_sign.pl?id=10331-4072784-BnJgiM&t=4

Breaking News: Gonazales Blames McNulty

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday he relied heavily on his deputy to oversee the firings of U.S. attorneys, appearing to distance himself from his departing second-in-command.

Gonzales' comments came the day after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said he would step down by the end of summer, a decision that people familiar with his plans said was hastened by the controversy over last year's firings of eight prosecutors.

"At the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names," Gonzales told reporters after a speech about Justice Department steps to curb rising violent crime.

"The one person I would care about would be the views of the deputy attorney general, because the deputy attorney general is the direct supervisor of the United States attorneys," Gonzales said.

Mind you, Gonzales sang praises about McNulty yesterday after his resignation. Now, he's giving him the shaft.

Dirty. You're a dirty coward.

G-Shot: The latest in designer genitalia

I saw this on Nip/Tuck last season, but apparently some women are shelling out $1,850 every four months for a shot of collagen to the G-spot. This is what you get when you cross labiaplasty with the myth of the vaginal-only orgasm. Scary.

From the G-Shot official website:

• The G-Shot® is a painless office procedure performed in your doctor’s office under local anesthesia. The actual injection usually takes less than 8 seconds and the total office visit time is usually less than 30 minutes. A specially designed speculum is used to assist in the deliver a specified amount of human engineered collagen directly into the G-Spot after local anesthesia. The G-Shot® augments (enlarges) the G-Spot. This results in a G-Spot about the size of a quarter in width, and one fourth of an inch in height (meaning the projection into the vagina). Note that results do vary.

There's a very long list of potential side effects. Doesn't it seem safer (and more economical) to invest in a few high-quality sex toys? Or maybe go out and find a partner that actually wants to find ways to pleasure you? Because after reading the testimonials, it becomes very apparent that this "enhancement" is just as much about making sex better -- and easier -- for your (male) partner: “My man is so excited about my G-Shot he can’t wait until I get home from work” and "After the G-Shot® it is simple to direct your partner to your amplified pleasure center.” The quotes seem to imply that women were stressed out and feeling like they were failing their partners by not having an orgasm fast enough. (“My G-Spot is always present and ready for action at a moments notice.”)

And this quote from the article is sadly revealing: "The main thing is it gives me a boost of self esteem," Sherrill said. Self esteem? As in, she's finally able to orgasm vaginally, just like she always thought she should? Just like a real woman should, huh?

I wonder how many of the women who sign up for this have a positive outlook on their bodies and their sexuality, a box full of sex toys at home, and a partner who's genuienly interested in making sure they have pleasurable sex? My guess is not very many.

House Dems speak out on Pope's comments

Here's a little something interesting.

A group of House Democrats yesterday publicly repudiated the Pope’s recent suggestion that politicians who support abortion rights should be excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

Eighteen House Democrats, led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), are responding to Pope Benedict XVI’s statement that indicated he would support Mexican bishops if they were to excommunicate Mexican legislators who voted last month to legalize abortion in Mexico City.

The statement reads: "We are concerned with the Pope’s recent statement warning Catholic elected officials that they risk excommunication and would not receive communion for their pro-choice views...Advancing respect for life and for the dignity of every human being is, as our church has taught us, our own life’s mission.”

Thompson Revises Apology on Gay Comment

Behind door #3?

Nooo, not a microwave! It's your very own bag of shit!

Tommy Thompson cited a dead hearing aid and an urgent need to use the bathroom in explaining on Saturday why he said at a GOP presidential debate that an employer should be allowed to fire a gay worker.

Thompson said he thought he was being asked if there were enough laws already to address discrimination in the workplace. The question at the debate was, "If a private employer finds homosexuality immoral, should he be allowed to fire a gay worker?"

Thompson replied: "I think that is left up to the individual business. I really sincerely believe that that is an issue that business people have got to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be."

This is not Thompson's first apology or explanation for the remark. The day after the debate, Thompson said he was sorry and that he had misinterpreted the question because he didn't hear it properly.

But on Saturday, Thompson elaborated by saying he has lost hearing in one ear and that his hearing aid battery for the other ear had gone dead. "I didn't hear the question. All I was thinking about was getting off the stage," Thompson said. "I said it, I'm sorry, and it won't happen again but it's not my record. ... There's nothing discriminatory about me at all."

That faux pas, as well as one in April when he told a Jewish group that earning money is "part of the Jewish tradition," have been a distraction for Thompson's campaign.

A distraction? More like an indication.

Furor over fired attorneys hastened Paul McNulty's decision to leave

Nutha incompetent robo-crony down.

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said Monday he will resign, the highest-ranking Bush administration casualty in the furor over the firing of U.S. attorneys.

Anyone surprised? Exactly how many Bu$hies have resigned since his tenure? I've seriously lost count.

McNulty testified in February that at least one of the fired prosecutors was ordered to make way for a protégé of Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political adviser. Gonzales, who has resisted lawmakers’ calls to resign, maintains the firings were proper and rooted in the prosecutors’ lackluster performances.

He obviously knows information that he should be handing over. But resigning relieves him of any responsibility of doing the right thing. Pretty much the mantra of the Bu$h MISadministration.

Hate Dealer Fallwell Has Fallen

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.

President Bush issued a statement after Falwell's death, saying, "Jerry lived a life of faith and called upon men and women of all backgrounds to believe in God and serve their communities. One of his lasting contributions was the establishment of the Liberty University, where he taught young people to remain true to their convictions, and rely upon God's word throughout each stage of their lives.
“Today, our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Macel and the rest of the Falwell family."

For so long Jerry Falwell has preached that homosexuality is a sin, the message being that we can be kind to gay people, but they will inevitably burn for eternity for this choice in lifestyle.

Where is God in this so-called "faith" that Bu$h speaks of? Discriminating and hating is not a family value and it is certainly NOT a value of faith.

Oh, and Liberty University is notorious for their strict moral code prohibiting homosexuals from attending the university. Yes, he taught young people alright...that only certain people are the children of God and that he is the one who decides who is and isn't.

“Jerry has been a tower of strength on many of the moral issues which have confronted our nation,” fellow evangelist Pat Robertson said Tuesday.

Aahh, Pat Robertson. THE Pat Robertson, known for foaming: "“Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Wanting equality equates to all this??? Ok then.

A few of Fallwell's wonderfully self-proclaimed morals:

• He stood against the Equal Rights Amendment, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, gambling and rock music.


• In 1999, he told an evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew who was probably already alive.


• He warned parents that Tinky Winky, a purple, purse-toting character on television’s “Teletubbies” show, was a gay role model and morally damaging to children.


• Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, Falwell blames gays, abortionists, the ACLU, and other groups for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.


• He sold a video that accused then-President Clinton of crimes and calling him an "ungodly liar."

Like President Bu$h is? Or Gingrich? Haggard? Tobias? Gonzales? Cheney? Or the entire administration?

Falwell was re-energized after family values proved important in the 2004 presidential election. He formed the Faith and Values Coalition as the “21st century resurrection of the Moral Majority,” to seek anti-abortion judges, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and more conservative elected officials.

During a campaign speech urging a return to social moderation, McCain referred to Falwell (and others) as "agents of intolerance." Yet, he bent over and took it in the ass for votes when McFlipper spoke at Liberty Univeristy in 06.

What will his legacy of hate, inequality and intolerance leave behind? Perhaps just that. At least it does to me. I extend my condolences to his family. While I never wish harm or death to my so-called adversaries, I must admit that I am deeply disturbed by his passing because when one falls another rises and replaces. And while Jerry Falwell represented everything I loathe and disagree with, he himself was not what I hated. His policies, his hate, his ideology is what I fought against. As with King George, it is not the man that I defy...it is what he represents.

Fewer U.S. women getting mammograms

After rising steadily for decades, the proportion of U.S. women getting mammograms to screen for breast cancer has dropped for the first time, federal researchers are reporting today.

The overall rate at which women are undergoing regular mammograms fell 4 percent between 2000 and 2005, marking the first significant decline since use of the breast X-rays started expanding rapidly in 1987, the study by the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

Breast cancer strikes more than 200,000 women each year and kills more than 40,000. But the odds of surviving have been rising, in part because more women are being diagnosed by mammograms at the earliest, most treatable stages.

The reasons remain unclear, but researchers speculated that it could be due to factors such as increasingly long waiting times to get appointments, waning fears about breast cancer, the drop in hormone use after menopause, and the ongoing debate over the benefits and risks of the exams.

Or how about we get real. Lack of health coverage, HMO's demanding certain women don't qualify, the lack of trust in certain minority groups for the medical profession and just plain lack of education, even about something as simple as self examinations.

Asian Slurs End Shock Jocks' Show on CBS

Nice. People being held accountable for their actions.

One month after CBS Radio fired radio host Don Imus, it has permanently pulled the plug on a pair of suspended New York shock jocks for a prank phone call rife with offensive Asian stereotypes.

"The Dog House with JV and Elvis," hosted by Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay, "will no longer be broadcast," CBS Radio spokeswoman Karen Mateo said Saturday.

The cancellation of the show on WFNY-FM, nearly three weeks after the hosts were suspended, was another indication of the increased scrutiny on radio hosts and the heightened management sensitivity to complaints in the wake of the Imus firing.

Vandergrift and Lay broadcast a call to a Chinese restaurant in which the caller, in an exaggerated accent, placed an order for "shrimp flied lice," claimed he was a student of kung fu, and compared menu items to employees' body parts.

Yet, still no accountability for the rape jokes of Condi Rice. So racist jokes are unacceptable, but sexist jokes are not? And by sexist I mean laughing about beating and raping a woman. Cause that's just some funny shit.

Yet Japan Nixes Breastfeeding Proposal

One step forward, two steps back.

While Britian may allow women to feed their babies in public (I hate that word, allow; why do I need your permission, motherfucker???)

On the other hand, a Japanese proposal to urge mothers to breast-feed their babies and sing lullabies to children was scrapped after critics warned it was too intrusive, a news report said.

The proposal, which would also have recommended parents limit their children's television viewing and promote age-appropriate morals, was to have been announced Friday by an education reform panel named by the government.

But experts and some government officials said the measure was "beyond intrusive," and interfered in people's private lives, Kyodo News agency said Thursday.

I agree to some extent, mainly the morals issue. Who's morals, the government's or the parents? So because some of the proposal is "beyond intrusive" that means the entire idea is scrapped? Why not just eliminate the part where you CAN'T FORCE MORALS ONTO PEOPLE???

Britian's Boob Fest

THIS PIC IS NOT PORN!!!

Ministers in the UK may give all women the legal right to breastfeed in public as well as give breastfeeding breaks at work. Sweet.

The discussion has been brought up due to a memo signed by nearly 200 politicians, “The Breastfeeding Manifesto,” (awesome title) which brings up the health issues -- for mother and child -- that arise from women not being allowed to breastfeed during work as well as uses examples of breastfeeding women being forced to leave public spaces.

I've blogged about this before. If women's breasts hadn't been completely sexualized and not lost its actual reason for existence, breastfeeding babies would not been viewed as wierd or disturbing. Here in the US, people get crazy about seeing a woman feed her child. They think its gross. They sue stores. They force women into dirty bathroom stalls. Why? Why is it gross to view a natural course of nature? Why is it gross to see a woman's breast?

Because dem are dirty boobies, bad boobies. It is the inability to separate the over-sexualized society of porn-filled images with the natural, beautiful occurrence of feeding a child.

NJ To Force HIV Testing?

New Jersey Senate President Richard Codey introduced legislation on Thursday for New Jersey to be the first state to require both pregnant women and newborns to be tested for HIV.

The bill would make all pregnant women get tested twice; once early in their pregnancy and a second time in the third trimester. Newborns would be tested as well.

While I’m all for offering pregnant women an HIV test (which is the current law in NJ), I’m also for women making their own medical decisions about their pregnancy; an actual mandate interferes with that right, as well as opens the doors to even more policies that could invade those rights further. I don’t like it. And I never will.

Soon they'll be testing for proper vitamin use. And whether pregnant women die their hair.

This also poses unintended consequences, such as potentially scaring off women in seeking medical treatment for fear of being forced to test. And what if they are positive? Then what?

Elect To Protect

Judging by the first two debates and Sunday talk shows alone, choice is emerging as an especially big issue in the 2008 presidential elections.

NARAL Pro-Choice America is the first pro-choice organization to provide statements from presidential candidates on where they stand on women’s freedom and privacy.

Click here to view them.

Support the Safe Motherhood Platform

Motherhood should be a time of great joy and new beginnings, but in the poorest parts of the world, motherhood can be deadly.

One woman dies about every minute from pregnancy related complications. This leaves more than 1 million children motherless and vulnerable.

Statistics like these are especially devastating because almost all maternal deaths today are preventable and most complications can be avoided or treated effectively with modern care.

Motherhood can and should be made safe! Join us in supporting the Safe Motherhood Platform: a trio of legislative initiatives that can help save up to 142,000 mothers and up to 1.4 million infants world wide. Millions of women could build a better future for themselves and their families.

This legislation will increase funding for international family planning and maternal health programs carried out by the United States Agency for International Development.

I believe, and I'm sure you do too, that it's unacceptable for mothers to die from simple pregnancy-related complications. There is no excuse for the lack of hygienic medical instruments, lack of access to modern contraception, or the absence of trained and knowledgeable birth attendants.

Congress is debating this legislation right now. Take action >> http://go.care2.com/e/R9PK/iQbT/EbUL

Ratify the CEDAW

Celebrate Mother's Day by contacting your senators and urging them to support ratification of the Women's Rights Treaty. Officially named the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), this Treaty has been used by women around the world to reduce violence and discrimination.

The U.S. stands alone among industrialized nations in its failure to ratify CEDAW. How can the U.S. maintain that it is a leader in women's rights when it refuses to join the 185 nations who have ratified CEDAW? Do we want our government to stand up for international women's rights or to stand with Sudan , Somalia and Iran , which have also failed to ratify CEDAW?

The Feminist Majority, in coalition with 200 leading organizations across the U.S. , is asking us to contact our senators during the week of May 14 on behalf of women and mothers around the world. Urge your senators to support ratification of the Women's Rights Treaty.

More Papal Propaganda

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Pope Benedict XVI castigated popular culture for promoting sexual immorality Friday as he canonized Brazil’s first native-born saint before hundreds of thousands of faithful and a sea of flags in the world’s largest Roman Catholic nation.

Holding up Friar Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao as a model of rectitude and humility “in an age so full of hedonism,” Benedict said the world needs clear souls and pure minds, adding: “It is necessary to oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage.”

Hhmm, this judgement of morality from a man who was a Nazi youth? I think not.

Benedict didn’t elaborate, but his message for Brazilian Catholics reflected his uneasiness with the impact of popular culture on young people.

Get with the times, old man. How can one expect to "connect" with their followers if they have ansolutely NO idea what they are talking about?

Earlier this year, Benedict declared that “any trend to produce programs and products — including animated films and video games — which in the name of entertainment exalt violence and portray anti-social behavior or the trivialization of human sexuality is a perversion.”

So is genocide, you hypocritical holier-than-thou fucktard.

Link-A-Dink

The ACLU has a Mother's Day action to push for ratification of CEDAW -- the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

Caryl Rivers explains how the media perpetuate women's fear of being a bad mother.

It's still taboo to say you have no interest in ever becoming a mother.

Can GPS devices be used to stop abusers?

Yes, the marriage-industrial complex really has gotten this out of control.

Most women who seek abortions in China aren't being forced to comply with the "one child" policy, they're young and single.

Giuliani, who said overturning Roe would "be OK" in the May 3 debate, is now supposedly a pro-choice candidate. I never know with this guy. He's given money to Planned Parenthood, but supported the SCTOUS ruling. I just don't like him. Just fucking say it already.

Papa Ratzi, on his papal visit to Brazil, endorses the excommunication of Catholics who endorse pro-choice policies -- with language so strong that the Vatican toned down the transcript of his speech.

Why the former head of Catholics for a Free Choice, Frances Kissling, hearts Roe. And why she stayed silent on the issue of "partial-birth" abortion -- until now.

Dahlia Lithwick on why women shouldn't apologize -- or feel stupid -- for taking internet harassment seriously.

Feminist Souad Sbai calls for more rights for muslim women who immigrate to Europe.

Why aren't pro-choice Democrats pushing to repeal the Hyde Amendment? For real.

Reviewing the latest model kidnapping-torture flick.

The American Psychological Association evaluates "post-abortion syndrome."

Some states move to increase regulation of crisis-pregnancy centers.

Randall Tobias, who pushed abstinence programs abroad and was revealed to enjoy "massages" from DC sexworkers, is not the first public abstinence advocate to violate the strict moral code he touted.

The situation for women in Iraq grows ever worse.

The divorce rate is at its lowest since 1970. Probably because people are getting married later, or choosing just to live together instead.

The Texas legislature officially overrules the governor's HPV vaccination mandate. And New
Hampshire has avoided controversy by not making the vaccine required for school entry, but instead making it free. And the strategy seems to be working.

Plus, there have been conflicting messages in recent reporting about the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine.

Kansas nixes abstinence-only sex ed. And Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick calls for an end to abstinence-only education in his state.

A poll commissioned by a national abstinence organization shows that parents would rather see sex ed that emphasizes abstinence but also teaches about contraception. Which is... comprehensive sex ed. The no-sex-until-hetero-marriage crowd is erroneously touting this as public support for abstinence-only programs.

Meanwhile, a Florida school -- which contracts with a crisis-pregnancy center to provide its sex ed -- brings in an abstinence-only speaker, then releases a flier calling it an "abstinence rally." Parents are pissed.

The high cost of America's hyper-masculine culture.

Plan B has been over-the-counter (kinda) for nearly a year, but has access really expanded?ACOG reports access varies greatly from state to state.

Rebecca Traister writes a mash note to Jane Fonda.

A new Iranian film is about women who dress up as boys in order to be allowed in to watch a soccer match.

Parents of Down syndrome children are reaching out to other parents who find out (via a prenatal test) that they are pregnant with a Down syndrome child. Dana responds here, and Salon's Peter Birkenhead weighs in with a moving post about he and his wife's decision to abort.

That's MISTER Condom To You

Pregnancy and HIV transmission rates in Thailand are surprisingly low, thanks in part to the "fabulously successful" efforts of Mechai Viravaidya, otherwise known as Mr. Condom. Mechai has decorated a restaurant with condom-covered lampshades, asked Buddhist monks to bless batches of condoms, and even "encouraged people to blow them into balloons."

This campy safe-sex hero is so well-known, his first name is slang for condom in Thai.

If a man with a condom teddy bear can change the world, imagine what we could do if we put down the McDonald's and turned off the tube.

Teaser of 12 Seconds: CNN International

"Bush Resigns" appeared on screen for 12 seconds on CNN International around midnight ET, May 11, 2007.

Lawdy, I almost had an orgasm before I realized what was going on.

Boo-Hoo Bishop Man!

The head of the Bishop's Pro-Life Activities in Omaha, NE, displeased by the College of Saint Mary's choice of commencement speakers, asks the people of the diocese to "take a stand and to prevent the College of St. Mary's from tarnishing its reputation."

Because a college full of grown women can't make that decision for themselves.

Did You Know?

Did you know?

During the last presidential campaign, half of Americans said in a USA TODAY poll that it's inappropriate for a woman to have a paying job if her husband is president.

Um, excuse me people! I am an individual that does not exist to blow smoke up my husband's ass. I exist to accomplish things, make change, make and live a full life. If I CHOSE to work, I will. If I don't, then I don't. But speaking in terms of appropriateness, this is ridiculous. This is not the 1920's people. Women can and do work. Women can and do many things. And earning money while my husband earns money is my perogative. And my equal right.

So..if Hillary is president, then Bill can't work because it would be inappropriate? I doubt it would EVER be viewed in that manner. In fact, I would bet that people would EXPECT him to work because he is a man after all. Men who don't work are viewed as lazy and weak. Women on the other hand and weak regardless.

Bend over and let me shove my hard-earned 20 dollar bill up your ass.

The Right Kind of Dead Woman

Virushead shares a view about the SCTOUS ruling:

"I have something to say about the recent Supreme Court decision that upheld the ban on late-term abortions, whether or not the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life. I’m a pragmatic contextual ethicist with a spiritual sensibility, and I cannot be silent. I cannot pretend that I don’t understand the next step in this game. If you stop for a moment to think about it, what will be required next is blindingly obvious.A dead woman."

In this climate, the woman’s life will have to be perceived as “mattering” before anyone will risk the fight. She’ll have to be perceived as a true and noble victim, above reproach from any quarter. She won’t be a drug addict, and she won’t be poor. She’ll have to be married, I suppose, and maybe even a fundamentalist (that family will get the ultimate wake-up call!). She’ll be white… ya think?

Read it. Hear it. Know it. Understand it.

Somewhere There Is A Poem

The beautiful Gina Loring shares with us her inner soul. And it is raw power folks.

Speaking of Freedom of Religion...

Newsradio 850 KOA host “Gunny” Bob Newman takes a page from the Michael Savage book with this unbelievable rant about Muslims. (Colorado Media Matters):

NEWMAN: I want — tell me if I’m wrong or tell me if I’m right. I want every Muslim immigrant to America who holds a green card, a visa, or who is a naturalized citizen to be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times. And the FBI and the NSA should monitor their phones and their emails, all communications — electronic — at all times, as well as bug their places of work and their residences. If they don’t like the idea, or if they refuse, throw their asses out of this country. All mosques and community centers as well as Muslim organizations must be monitored. We know with the arrests today that the Muslim terrorists are absolutely, positively here — and we invited them to our country! And I think maybe it’s time that we should stop doing that. Call me kooky, but I think maybe it’s time for a little moratorium on Muslim visas, period. Hey, I’m sorry, guys — I know that a lot of you are great people. I know you just like to do business here or become a U.S. citizens and be a peaceful person. I know that. But you know what? You better get control of your own people. Once you get control of them, then come see us again and we’ll think about — however many decades down the road it is — we’ll think about maybe opening our doors to you again. But you are doing absolutely freaking nothing to help, to, to help this nation. And that’s that.

Excuse me, but what would Gunny Bob say about homegrown Christian domestic terrorists, such as OKC bomber Tim McVeigh or abortion clinic, gay bar, and Olympic Park bomber Eric Robert Rudolph?

By his own twisted logic, we should monitor and round up all Christians too, right???

I think not.

Freedom of Religion, As Long As Its The Religious Reich

"I have been warning you for years now about this cult born out of the pits of hell and responsible for sending millions of souls to eternal damnation. For the nearly 200 years this cult has been in existence they have strived for mainstream acceptance. They are the most devious of all the cults since they have always tried to portray themselves as ‘just another Christian group’ when in fact, they are no more Christian than a Muslim is!”
– Bill Keller, insider trading ex-con, and host of the Florida-based Live Prayer TV program and LivePrayer.com, apparently holding none of his bigotry back when it comes to Mormons and Muslims.

“This message today is not about Mitt Romney,” he writes. “Romney is an unashamed and proud member of the Mormon cult founded by a murdering polygamist pedophile named Joseph Smith nearly 200 years ago. The teachings of the Mormon cult are doctrinally and theologically in complete opposition to the Absolute Truth of God’s Word. There is no common ground. If Mormonism is true, then the Christian faith is a complete lie. There has never been any question from the moment Smith’s cult began that it was a work of Satan and those who follow their false teachings will die and spend eternity in hell.”

Does the Christian Taliban not realize that some folks consider THEIR belief to be of cult-like status? By opposing every other form of religion to be wrong and cultish is the very base of how cults survive. They brainwash their followers into believing that their way is the only true way and that every other belief/religion is the work of Satan. That those other heathens are banished to eternal damnation.

And why is it that this idiot is so smart to know The Absolute Truth?

Don't Ask Don't Tell: A Second Time Around

“I have now spent five years in the Navy, and I have loved every minute of it. It is unfortunate that in our country, which prides itself on being a beacon of liberty to the world, discrimination is still alive and well, even in our own government. I am proud to be among the one million gay veterans who have answered the call to duty, and I look forward to working alongside them to topple this un-American and counter-productive law.”
– Jason Knight, commenting on the Navy’s decision to give him a pink slip--again

Petty Officer Second Class Jason Knight refused to stay in the closet after he made headlines recently because he received recall orders to serve in Kuwait. He had been discharged before for coming out to his command during his last enlistment.

Remember, this is the same Pentagon brass that is allowing branches to lower standards and recruit people with antisocial personality disorder, autism, and troll for recruits on MySpace.

Also welcomed into the fold, as they look for warm bodies, are folks convicted of aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats. The number of convicted felons enlisted in the U.S. military has almost doubled in the past three years, and 43,977 individuals convicted of serious misdemeanors such as assault have enlisted under the moral waivers program.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon says more troops are needed to stop the bloodshed in Iraq; that there is woefully inadequate healthcare in our veterans’ health care system; and that there are new concerns about the “surge” of troops in Iraq.

But, despite all those pressing matters to deal with, the Pentagon found time today to fire Jason Knight because he happens to be gay.

No Justice for Poor Women and Children in The South

The New York Times reported late April that after decades of progress infant mortality is on the rise in the southern US. Many are pointing to cuts in welfare and Medicaid, as well as lack of access to doctors.

Reading between the lines, however, there is also a story of the feminine face of poverty, racial disparity, and a lack of access to sex education and family planning. It's a travesty that in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, women lack access to information that can save their children, as well as improve their own lives.

Dispelling the Opt-Out Myth

I found this interview with Pam Stone, the author of "Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home." She is dispelling the myth of the "Opt-Out Revolution," articulated in the infamous Lisa Belkin trend story from the NYTimes.





It is interesting how Katie Couric leads the interview with reference to the "new trend" of opting out, which Stone quite deftly shows is not a "new trend."
Fucking D.U.H.

Most Ohio hospitals would not give EC to women

Here's some not-so-cool news:

In 2005, a survey revealed that of 151 Ohio hospitals, only two would give out the morning-after pill to women who called in looking for it -- even if they had a prescription. One in four even denied the drug for rape victims. For women, the results were surprising and appalling.

“I knew it was inevitable some hospitals would refuse to prescribe it," Kellie Copeland, the executive director of NARAL, said at the time. But even she was “horrified” at the results.

Two years later, NARAL conducted some follow-up research to see if policies had changed. Not so much.

Today, 56 percent of hospitals that responded said they would not provide emergency contraception. Seven percent still refuse to give the pill out to rape victims. 56 percent???

Let's hear it for compassion to rape victims!

MA Court: Sex by fraud isn't rape

This was sent to me: a most disturbing ruling.

She went to bed one night, in the bedroom she shared with her boyfriend, and a man she thought was her boyfriend got into bed and had sex with her. It turned out the man was her boyfriend's brother who pretended to be her boyfriend...Is that rape? The Massachusetts Supreme Court says no. Then what the fuck is it then?

Lovely, huh? Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday that Sex by fraud and deceit that does not involve force is not rape. The state's rape law requires force. The court said that MA's law defines rape as intercourse "by force and against [the] will" of the victim and that "fraudulently obtaining consent to sexual intercourse does not constitute rape as defined in our statute."

Almost disturbing as the decision: the picture that ABC decided to accompany the article.

Why was this picture necessary? It looks consensual because it was; just under false pretenses and deceit. Fraud is illegal; rape is illegal. I don't understand what the problem is.

As victim’s advocate Wendy J Murphy opines in the Boston Globe article, the ruling merely reiterates that in the eyes of the law, a dude’s right to pork supersedes a woman’s right to personal bodily sovereignty.

And in more rape news: A South African Court ruled that forced anal penetration of a male isn't rape.

Shock Jock Update

*Update*

XM Satellite Radio shock jocks Opie and Anthony apologized Friday for airing a homeless man's crude comments that he'd like to have sex with Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth.

Opie and Anthony laughed as they imagined Rice's "horror" while describing a violent sexual encounter in which Rice is punched in the face.

Yea, cause beating a woman while you rape her is hysterical!

Whew, thank goodness for that apology. That really clears things up.

Does Ann Coulter Speak For You?

Speaking of Ann The Man Coulter, the Center for the Advancement of Women is launching the Ann Coulter Does Not Speak for Me campaign. For too long, progressive voices have been more concerned about being nice than being heard. As a result, we have been drowned out by the likes of Ms. Coulter, for whom being nice is no consideration. She is not only the loudest mouthpiece of the radical right, but also a #1 New York Times bestselling author! America is listening to Ann Coulter and we need to change that!

Sooo, I want to meet others who are equally disturbed, and who want to speak out. Sign on to the petition and tell the world, “Ann Coulter Does Not Speak for Me.”

Pro-Choice Victory?

Something happened in Oklahoma that was seen as a pro-choice victory. A bill that would have barred abortions in state hospitals except when the woman's life is threatened was vetoed by the governor and so far the veto has not been overridden. But attempts to override it can continue:

An ardent anti-abortion senator lost a second bid on Wednesday to override Gov. Brad Henry's veto of a bill to bar abortions at state hospitals except to save the life of the mother.

Henry vetoed the measure on April 18, saying he feared it would add to the suffering of poor women with problem pregnancies. The Democratic governor also was critical of the bill because it did not include exceptions for rape and incest.

The vote on Sen. James Williamson's second override attempt was 31-16. It takes 32 votes, or a two-thirds majority of the 48-member Senate, to override a gubernatorial veto.

The bill was opposed by the Oklahoma State Medical Association and other medical groups, who said it could endanger the future health of some women.

Only time will tell if this is a victory or yet another loss of reproductive rights and liberties.

The New Black: Racism, Sexism and Homophobia

The world is laughing at us. AGAIN.

Why are they laughing? Well, just in case Hurricane Katrina didn't convince the rest of the world that Americans are the most racist mother fuckers on the planet, now they're watching us tolerate Rush Limbaugh sing "Barack the magic negro."

This is not a question of rights. It's a matter of taste and judgement. When are we going to demand that our media behave like adults?

Continuing with this week's theme of White Supremacy, Americablog reports that James Dobson's crew at the American Family Association and some of the other radical Right Wing groups are quoting Paul Cameron.

In case you're not familiar with his work, Cameron advocates the extermination of homosexuals and tattooing HIV patients on their faces. Cameron's group, the Family Research Institute, is monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an ACTIVE HATE GROUP!

Cameron made his remarks about exterminating gays at CPAC, where Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot."

What scares me is that the people in a position to stop these hate mongers do nothing but idly stand by and listen.

Imus was fired for his racist jokes (which were also sexist-but he was fired for the racist remarks)....then why are these people allowed to speak such hate? Along with fellow hater Ann The Man Coulter, who uses homophobic language left and right, no one does anything to stop these people. No one MAKES them stop by reinforcing consequences.

Two idiot shock jocks called Opie and Anthony laugh up a storm while joking about raping Condi Rice. Yet, CBS Radio says it has no plans to fire the creeps.

Racist remarks? Maybe you'll be fired.
Homophobic verbal attacks? That's jusy everyday talk.
Misogynistic rape jokes? Haha, we don't REALLY mean it.

Iranian Activist Arrested

Haleh Esfandiari is the latest Iranian women's rights activist to be arrested by Iranian 'mullahs'. And so the list of imprisoned Iranian women's rights activists keeps growing.

Esfandiari was also the author of Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution. It appears the clock on Iranian women's rights are unfortunately being rolled back and all voices of protest are being silenced, under this regime.

McFlipper staffer called Planned Parenthood "one of the most radical pro-abortion groups in the country"

John McCain's presidential campaign has taken a troubling turn. This week, the Los Angeles Times reported that John Weaver, a strategist for John McCain's presidential campaign, verbally attacked Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading reproductive health care advocate and provider. Weaver called the 90-year old provider of birth control, cancer screenings, sex education and abortion services "one of the most radical pro-abortion groups in the country."


For the record: Ninety seven percent of Planned Parenthood's services are focused on prevention, including family planning, contraception, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Three percent of Planned Parenthood services are abortion care. The remark was an attack driven by the McCain campaign's need to score political points.

Some may know, there was a time, not too long ago, when McFlipper and other Republican candidates for office reflected the beliefs of most Republicans: that individuals have the right to make personal, private and responsible decisions about their health, their families and their futures -- based on accurate, unbiased information and free from government intrusion and mandates.

Where did this belief go? It has turned into divisive, wedge issues used to divide our nation, not unite it.

And by the way: many of McFlipper's donors are supporters of Planned Parenthood. This attack was merely to score political points.

Friday Top 10 Tracks

1. Crystal--Fleetwood Mac

2. Midnight Rider--The Allman Brothers

3. Into The Mystic--Van Morrison

4. Let Him Fly--Dixie Chicks

5. Solsbury Hill--Peter Gabriel

6. Don't Let Me Down--The Beatles

7. Strange Fruit--Billie Holiday

8. Folsom Prison Blues--Johhny Cash

9. Behind Blue Eyes--The Who

10. Fortunate Son--Creedence Clearwater Revival

Don't Fear The Reaper

The newest way to be considered beautiful and hot?

The New York Times tells us in an article yesterday about the latest in "hot" bodies: a "well-chiseled clavicle."

That's right ladies, not only do we need skinny waists to be pretty, we need skinny collarbones.

Keep it up and soon the new "hot" will be skeletons. Now there's beauty for ya! A dead looking woman!

All Around News Round-Up

Everyone is going nuts that Giuliani donates to Planned Parenthood. Some are asking if this means that the GOP is becoming more flexible on abortion. Certainly, in recent history the Republican party has been an outspoken critic of choice (in terms of your vagina, not the market). Nonetheless, the traditional Republican view is for a small government and self-sufficient individuals who make their own decisions. There are many Republicans who are pro-choice, just not the ones running for President (except for Giuliani).

There's other news, especially about disabled kids. The NYT has a story on pre-natal testing for Down's Syndrome. The article reports that 90% of women who are told their fetus has Down's Syndrome abort. A movement has started to de-stigmatize Down's Syndrome, and explain that children and adults with Down's can live fairly normal and productive lives.

As I posted earlier, the young girl whose parents had her physical development halted due to her severe retardation and that the surgery to sterilize and stunt Ashley was a violation of the law. (Who will be the first small-government Republican to offer "Ashely's Law" - a federal law prohibiting this type of surgery?).

It seems that the US has higher birth rates than other developed countries - even non-Hispanic white women in the US have more children than their counterparts in Canada. This article points out the fact that we have a lack of pro-natalist laws (laws that would encourage people to have kids, like paid maternity leave), but instead attributes the high birth rate to our values.

Virginia is experiencing a surge in syphilis (there is also a rise in syphilis among gay and bi men); another use for embryonic stem cells discovered;
veterans are getting paid by the government for contracting STDs while in service;
wealthy Chinese are having more than one child;

Fucked up story of the week: Hiring a hit man to kill a baby.
Also in the same article, five youths made a brief appearance in a Soweto court to face charges of raping, stabbing and stoning to death 14-year-old Thato Radebe, whose body was found on waste land.

Bush has threatened to veto any bill that loosens restrictions on abortion. Most importantly, this affects USAID funding. One of the big problems with the global gag rule is that it needlessly separates treatment. For example, a pregnant woman with HIV cannot go to a full-service women's clinic that does abortions for her health care (like a Planned Parenthood).

Slate goes over the no-"period" pill and comes to the conclusion that it will lower a woman's risk of endometrial cancer. Not ovulating also reduces the risk of ovarian cancer. The article also mentions a study that debunks the previous studies about breast feeding leading to lower rates of obesity. Slate also reviews a book on the social problems of IVF. On another site, a book about the cultural history of impotence. Speaking of Slate, there's been a lot of talk regarding Saletan, one of Slate's reporters. Also, a book review on the meaning of "virginity."

Oh, and speaking of fertility, women can freeze tissue from their ovaries to use later - this will extend her fertility. And the "designer babies" that are free from the breast cancer genes.
Male births on the decline in the US and Japan.

The economist (and the Times) talk about duck penises this week. The economist focuses on duck rape, the Times on the range of physical reproductive organs.

Kaiser tells us that the Missouri parental consent law was upheld and points us to a Reuters article on abortion in Brazil.

RHRealityCheck fills us in on everything, including that abortion clinic threat in Austin (the cops arrested a suspect), second trimester abortions in the UK, and the Advocates for Youth ad campaign lambasting ab-only ed. Similarly, I think this is old, but I saw these French HIV ads.

Women who have c-sections have future placenta problems. Texas will not require the HPV Vaccine, Muslims have their own Dr. Ruth, there are semi-identical twins, paralyzed men can father children, the British health system is going to cover a patch that boosts women's sex drives, an article on the word "slut," the Texas Senate has approved a bill that would force a woman to see an ultrasound before having an abortion (Georgia is doing the same thing), girls are being taught about their cycles, and some people are upset.

Guttmacher has it's first quarter round-up of state legislative trends with respect to abortion. Romney talks about Giuliani's position on abortion. A woman keeps her dying son on life support while the doctors fight to remove it, as allowed under Texas law (thanks to then governor George W. Bush). Guttmacher also has a report on post-partum contraceptive use in Mexico.

Remember that guy who contracted with his girlfriend to have sex with the girlfriend's daughter? He was convicted.

Rape Threats: The New Trend?

Threats of rape are NEVER ok. Threats of rape are NEVER ok. Threats of rape are NEVER ok.

All you anti-woman misgoynists, listen up. Sexual violence does not make you a man. It does not make you anything except a predator.

A reader sent in this horrible radio clip today (warning: it is REALLY offensive) and I am truly sickened. Some of it is just awful, with talk about beating Condoleeza in the face while "holding her down".

I may not agree with Condaleeza Rice's or Laura Bush's politics, at all, but under no circumstances would I think it is OK to threaten them with sexual violence. What is up with all the verbal rape threats to women lately? Is this some kind of paranoid misogynist trend because so many (in reality, not that many) women are gaining access to power?

The Homophobia of E-Harmony

I'm really diggin the new Match.com commercials where it shows a man looking at a magazine, most likely of naked women where he proceeds to state: "Nope, still gay"

Then a banner appears across him and says "Rejected at E-Harmony".

Yep, the Christian Taliban won't even allow gays on their site. Kinda like Sandals vacations, where only hetero couples are allowed to stay at Sandals resorts.

Eh. Unbelievable, the audacity to refuse paying customers because of who they are.

Refuse to use E-Harmony ya'll. It unapologetically condones prejudice and hate.

Support the Compassionate Care For Rape Victims Bill

I have very exciting news!

On Tuesday, the Senate Health Committee passed the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims bill (SB 129) out of committee by a bi-partisan vote of 6 to 1!

Soon the full State Senate will vote on this important legislation. We need your help to ensure this bill passes! Please contact your state senator and ask him or her to vote for SB 129.

SB 129 would ensure that all Wisconsin rape victims receive comprehensive care following an assault, including information about and access to emergency contraception. Shockingly, only a third of Wisconsin emergency rooms unconditionally offer this pregnancy prevention medication to rape victims.

Access to emergency birth control is a critical part of treating victims of sexual assault, and will decrease the number of unintended pregnancies resulting from rape.

Lesbians Are So Sensational

How about this for a snappy headline:

Dead sperm donor liable for lesbian child support

What, exactly, is “lesbian child support,” you are undoubtedly asking yourself.

You’ll never guess, so I’ll tell you. It’s just regular old child support — the kind dudes never want to pay. Why does The Daily Telegraph call it “lesbian child support”? I sure as hell don’t know. Because lesbians are so hot and sensational or something? Put the word lesbian in a headline and men are foaming at the mouth to read it, as well as the homophobe evangelicals ready to use it for their hate propoganda.

It would all be very simple if they’d just cut out the bullshit red herrings about nuclear families and Jesus-approved heternormativity and whether or not sperm donors are dead. The fact that the dude’s original involvement amounted to him spunking in a cup? Irrelevant! The fact that the mother was in a committed relationship with a woman? Irrelevant! The fact that the dude has since dropped dead of a stroke? Irrelevant!

Hey girls! Don’t have kids you can’t afford! Hey dudes! Too cheap to support your spawn? Squirt it in a tubesock!

Hey news media! Can’t think of anything useful to write about?
There’s a war on!

Fat Rant Multiplied

Remember Joy Nash's amazing "Fat Rant" I posted a while back?

Well, it's spawned bunches of responses on YouTube.

Watch a few and who knows....upload one of your own!

The "A" Word: A Mother's Abortion Secret

Like most pro-choicers, I didn't care much for the title, but I thought the article itself was definitely worth the read: The "A" Word: A Mother's Abortion Secret.

It clearly portrays the disconnect girls have towards their bodily autonomy and their rights. It also exposes the fact that we know teenagers are having sex and are having unintended pregnancies. Abstinence-only education and restrictions to access of birth control can take responsibility for that.

RU-486 Next On The Fetus Fanatic Hitlist?

I heard of reports that a bill in the Senate would suspend FDA approval of RU-486 due to spurious falsehoods propagated by Senator DeMint.

Check it out for such gems as:
"The reported risk of death associated with RU-486 is ten times greater the risk associated with surgical abortions. The death rate associated with surgical abortion is one in a million. By contrast, the reported risk of death associated with RU-486 is higher than one in 100,000. "
- Sen. DeMint

Sen. DeMint's press release is here.

Every single claim in the release is false.

Once again, a piece of legislation without any basis in reality has been enacted.

Long.Live.Propaganda-Based.Medicine!

Here's the condensed version of the facts Sen. DeMint lied about:
-- 6 reported deaths in women using RU-486/misoprostol.
-- 1 case has been determined to be unrelated to abortion/meds, 1 case is still under investigation.
-- 4 cases where, according to the FDA, [w]e do not know whether using Mifeprex or misoprostol caused these deaths.

Of the six fatalities, three involved the rare bacterium Clostridium sordellii. In four cases, women were given part of the drug regimen vaginally, an unapproved method.

Contrast that to reported deaths involving C. sordellii infection unrelated to ETOPs: 8 cases after giving birth, 2 cases following miscarriages, and 1 death linked to infection during the woman's menstrual period. So...not always linked to using RU-486, huh?

But wait, there's more!

According to the FDA, the off label regimen used in the cases under discussion was 1 tablet of RU-486 (200 mg) orally, followed by 4 tablets of misoprostol (800 mcg) pv.

[The FDA-approved regimen is 3 tablets of RU-486 (600 mg) orally, followed by 2 tablets of misoprostol (400 mcg) orally.]

All these deaths occurred in patients who used only 1/3 of the FDA-approved RU-486 dose po, but double the misoprostol dose administered pv.

Do Some Good This Mother's Day

Send a free Mother's Day e-card to a mother you know and spread the inspiring impact of microfinance and Grameen Foundation.
A $45 loan helped Andrea of Mexico expand her handicraft business and afford better nutrition and education for her children.
Send e-card with Andrea's story.
Read more...

OR

This Mother's Day share peace with a FREE Mother's Day For Peace E-card!
Want more? Make a gift supporting global peace efforts on behalf of your mom and it will be MATCHED TODAY -- that means your Mother's Day gift will be doubled!
Learn more about this peace holiday at Rediscover MothersDay.org
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Pussycat Dolls Are The New Face of Feminism?

With much talk about how The Pussycat Dolls are empowering to and for women floating around, I found this awesome prose about how far from empowring it actually is.

Obviously I agree for the very reasons stated in the blog.

A snippet: "By constantly trying to portray themselves as feminist icons who were preaching a message of "empowerment" and "third-wave feminism" the Pussycat dolls and their handlers were virtually begging for feminists to fire their arms and take them down a couple of pegs. I completely understand feeling anger at having this trite pop group pass themselves off as the new face of feminism when their message has nothing to do with empowerment and everything to do with sexuality"

Read here: http://media.orkut.com/articles/0700.html

And here is another article about this new "empowering" of women: Feminism Then and Now
http://www.counterpunch.org/rothenberg05092007.html

Cruising Can Be Dissapointing To Say The Least

Innocent searching of clothing labels is quite unsettling.

Check out this t-shirt from Delia's. And yes, we all know that "tight" is slang for cool. But I think we all understand the double entendre here. And it's fucking nasty--especially considering Delia's clothing is primarily marketed towards pre-teens.

Sexualizing little girls is never in style, yo.

I noticed that it also states it is no longer available for purchase. After cruising other feminist sites and hearing their rage and disgust, I wonder if they were somehow responsiblefor the pulling of this shirt?

Because it has been done before, like below.

Remember that successful "girlcott" of Abercrombie & Fitch?

After the well publicized girlcott of Abercrombie & Fitch, the clothing company has come out with some new and improved shirts. Unfortunately, they did not use the ideas the girls came up with, instead we now have: �Brunettes have brains� and �Blonde with a brain� aren't exactly super-inspiring slogans, but they sure beat the shirt that started it all: Who needs brains when you have these.

But they are still selling "Bitchy is my middle name."

More Background of Prostitute-Lovin' Tobias

Tobias used to be the CEO of Eli-Lilly. He supported the Abstinence-only no condoms programs but at the same time was working hard to undermine attempts to establish generic versions of extremely expensive AIDS drugs. Tobias worked to put more people at risk of AIDS while assuring big profits for US drug companies when they fell ill.

Of course Tobias would see this as logical. His abstinence-only programs DOUBLED the AIDS infection rate in Uganda on his watch. Both the religious right and big pharma should be pleased.

"There's no evidence in generalized populations that a broad-based use of condoms as the backbone of prevention efforts has worked," Mr. Tobias said in a March 10 interview"

Leslee Bag-O-Douche Unruh is a big fan of Tobias, read about her support of him here, here and here.

Of course Unruh is a big supporter of Tobias, he held the checkbook to potentially write big checks for her Abstinence Africa program that has helped create the disaster in Uganda.
Between the recent news that:
Abstinence-only clearly does not work.
Information on condoms used as the cornerstone for abstinence-only programs is outdated and incorrect. Actual statistics for condom use are far better than they are stating.
Now the head of the programs she saw as her cash cow to profit and punishment has fallen.

Clearly if the head promoter of abstinence-only can't keep it in his pants maybe it is time to admit the programs are a waste of money.

Here's One For The Abstinence Fetishers: Oral Sex Linked To Throat Cancer

Yesterday brought some bad health news: According to a new study, certain strains of HPV could cause throat cancer.

Also, from Google News, researchers have linked oral sex to a type of throat cancer, saying that those who engaged in the sexual act with more than 6 partners over the course of their lifetime were 9 times more likely to develop oropharyngeal cancer. Hhmm, seems odd to me. Then why aren't we seeing more prostitutes with throat cancer, gay men, girls who attend those "blow job" parties? And why is it more than 6 partners? What if a wife blows her husband a million times? Does that count? Is she of lower risk because it was with the same partner? I'm a bit skeptical here. Its a loaded gun for the Abstinence fanatics.

Oh, and I'd like to point out that the study linked both fellatio and cunnilingus to an increase in throat cancer occurrences.

Irish teen will travel to England for abortion

Finally some good news on this case.

The teen girl in Ireland whose fetus is terminally ill has (finally) been granted permission to go to England to get an abortion.

But not, of course, without going through hell first; as described in several earlier posts.

Michael Moore Faces U.S. Treasury Probe

The Bu$h MISadministration is attempting yet another diversion tactic from the unwarranted war by investigating Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore.

He is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.

"Sicko" promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America's passion for guns in "Bowling for Columbine" and skewered Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in "Fahrenheit 9/11. In his upcoming health-care documentary, Moore takes 9/11 workers to Cuba trying to prove the point that it has a better health care system than the U.S.

In March, Moore took about 10 ailing workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort in Manhattan for treatment in Cuba, said a person working with the filmmaker on the release of "Sicko."

"Our health-care system is broken and, all too often, deadly," Producer Megan O'Hara said. "The efforts of the Bush administration to conduct a politically motivated investigation of Michael Moore and `Sicko' will not stop us from making sure the American people see this film."

Sept. 11 rescue workers "risked their lives searching for survivors, recovering bodies, and clearing away toxic rubble," O'Hara said. "Now, many of these heroes face serious health issues, and far too many of them are not receiving the care they need and deserve."

A dissection of the U.S. health-care system, "Sicko" was inspired by a segment on Moore's TV show "The Awful Truth," in which he staged a mock funeral outside a health-maintenance organization that had declined a pancreas transplant for a diabetic man. The HMO later relented.

The timing of the investigation is reminiscent of the firestorm that preceded the Cannes debut of "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the festival's top prize in 2004.

Gender flap cancels priest-imam soccer game

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A soccer game between Muslim imams and Christian priests at the end of a conference to promote interfaith dialogue was canceled Saturday because the teams could not agree on whether women priests should take part.

Church of Norway spokesman Olav Fykse Tveit said the imams refused to play against a mixed-gender team of priests because it would have gone against their beliefs in avoiding close physical contact with strange women.

What's so strange about women? Their vaginas? Those dirty, dirty vaginas make it impossible to play a game of soccer. Sigh.

The church decided to drop its female players, and the priests' team captain walked out in protest.

"Because we thought it would be a nice conclusion of the conference we didn't want to call it off, so we decided to stage an all-men team game instead," Tveit said. "We realize now that it will be wrong to have a priest team without women."

After the fact of course.

Lawmaker Censured Over Intern Sleepover

A Republican legislator apologized after he was censured and stripped of his committee leadership position for sleeping overnight on the floor of a female intern's apartment.

Assemblyman Michael Cole, a 35-year-old married father of two, had said he walked the intern home from an sports bar April 16 after watching a Stanley Cup playoff hockey game. He had said nothing inappropriate occurred and that he spent the night on the apartment floor after he felt he was too drunk to drive.

The 21-year-old intern was fired from the program. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver admonished Cole Thursday.

The Assembly's anti-fraternization policy was adopted in 2004 after several high-profile cases involving sexual relations and Assembly staffers. "I accept full responsibility for violating the intern fraternization policy that Speaker Silver put into place three years ago," Cole said in a statement.

She gets fired and he gets a stern reprimand and a demotion???

Why is she being punished for this obvious abuse of power? Why didn't he get fired from all his duties as well? Inequality is a bitch, ya'll.

Too drunk you say? Call a cab. Call a friend. Walk. Just don't give us the tired excuse of being drunk.

Hospital Admits It Broke Law Sterilizing 6 Year Old Girl

A Seattle hospital acknowledged breaking state law when doctors performed a hysterectomy on a severely developmentally disabled girl whose parents have pursued medical treatments to stunt her growth, in order to make her easier to care for.

Sterilization surgeries must not be performed on children without a court order, Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center said Tuesday after an investigation by the Washington Protection and Advocacy System, a non-profit group advocating for the rights of people with disabilities.

Doctors performed the experimental surgeries in 2004, removing the girl's uterus and breast buds. The girl, identified only as "Ashley," was 6 years old at the time. The hospital's ethics committee supported the treatment, which included hormone therapy, but noted before the surgeries that court review would be required.

"We deeply regret that a court order was not obtained and that an independent third party was not sought to represent Ashley. We take full responsibility for the miscommunication between the ethics committee and the treating physicians," said Dr. David Fisher, the hospital's medical director.

But Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, said advocates for the disabled "still have a lot of questions about why this type of invasive and irreversible procedure would be performed on a 6-year-old."



Carrie Buck, circa 1920's.









Sheesh. This reminds me of Buck vs. Bell, where 18 year old Carrie Buck was deemed "feeble minded" and was involuntarily sterilized against her will. Buck's 52-year-old mother possessed a mental age of 8 and had a record of prostitution and immorality. She had three children without good knowledge of their parentage. Carrie, one of these children, had been adopted and attended school for five years, reaching the level of sixth grade. However, according to Priddy, she had eventually proved to be "incorrigible" and eventually gave birth to an illegitimate child. Her adopted family had committed her to the State Colony as "feeble-minded" (a catch-all term used at the time for the mentally disabled), no longer feeling capable of caring for her. It was later discovered that Carrie's pregnancy was not caused by any act of "immorality" on her own part. In the summer of 1923, while her adoptive mother was away "on account of some illness," her nephew raped Carrie, and her later commitment has been seen as an attempt by the family to save their reputation.

Feminists For Colbert

I've always enjoyed Colbert, but ever since Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem gave Stephen Colbert a little "ice cream threeway" lovin', feminists have had a special place in their heart for Colbert.

And now a new blog, Feminists for Colbert, makes it official.
Check out the video:

Connecticut Requires ALL Hospitals To Offer EC

The Associated Press reports that CT House lawmakers have "overwhelmingly approved" a bill that requires all hospitals, including Catholic facilities, to offer rape victims emergency contraception.

The legislation, which passed the Senate last week, now moves to Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell.

The governor said she was inclined to support it, but would not make a final decision until she sees the bill.

I loves me some good news. But, I am a realist and predict lawsuits, challenges to the law that will drag out to the Supremme Court which will...well, we know what the newly Bu$h stacked Court will do.

GOP Presidential Candidates United Against Roe v. Wade

During the May 3rd Republican Presidential Primary debate, all 10 candidates stated their support for a repeal of Roe v. Wade. NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan said:

"Even former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has professed pro-choice beliefs in the past, conceded that he would not defend Roe v. Wade and said that it would be 'okay' if the Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision."

Kennan went on to say: "The bottom line is elections matter. We are committed to protecting the gains we made in 2006, and we will elect even more pro-choice candidates and a pro-choice president in November 2008"

The candidates' statement at the debate are consistent with their responses to the Supreme Court decision on the Federal Abortion Ban last month.
Click here to see what they said.

Pope warns Catholic pro-choice politicians

Pope Benedict issued a warning today to Catholic politicians, saying that they risked excommunication from the Church and should not receive communion if they are pro-choice. Whoa. Kinda what John Kerry was threatened with during his presidential campaign.

It was the first time that the Pope, speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him on a trip to Brazil, dealt in depth with a controversial topic that has come up in many countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Italy.

The Pope's comment comes after Mexican Church leaders' threats to excommunicate legislators who voted to legalize abortion in Mexico City.

Read the full article here.

Old white dude wants women off the BBC

Someone sent me this article about Sir Patrick Moore, an astronomer and presenter of The Sky at Night, who recently said that the BBC has been ruined by women and should be gender segregated.

Ahh, yes. Back to the days of Jim Crow. Except now its Jane Crow, obviously.

Film of the day: A Transgender Journey

This short film from the VC Film Festival is really good.

It made me think about a lot of different things about the way we assume, talk about and just blatantly overlook the experience of transgender folks.

The bravery is astounding.

Any thoughts?

Bush promises to veto any pro-choice legislation

It's official: President Bush wants you to know that he's still doing all he can to attack a woman's right to choose.

Just days ago, President Bush sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatening to veto "any legislation that weakens current federal policies and laws on abortion, or that encourages the destruction of human life." (Politico.com, 5/3/07) This includes any measures that “allow taxpayer dollars to be used to be used as well.

Bush essentially told the new Congress that he wants to continue denying millions of women access to essential medical services, including family planning and safe, legal abortion.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America said, "George W. Bush essentially told the new Congress that he wants to continue denying millions of women access to essential medical services, including family planning and safe, legal abortion, even if it means jeopardizing their health. Just how is that 'pro-life'?"

Indeed.

This letter shows just how out of touch Bush is with reality. Americans are tired of hypocritical, divisive attacks on a woman's right to choose. That's why we voted the anti-choice congressional leadership out of office in November.

By throwing down the gauntlet, Bush refuses again to support pro-choice, pro-prevention bills like:

The Freedom of Choice Act, which would codify Roe v. Wade and guarantee the right to choose for future generations of women.

The Prevention First Act, which would help women prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion by increasing funds for family-planning services, assuring contraceptive equity in health-insurance plans, and improving women's access to emergency contraception.

Both bills have cosponsors from each political party and broad public support.

Take action:

1. Contact your members of Congress and ask them to stand firm against Bush's threats and cosponsor the Freedom of Choice and Prevention First Acts.

2. Read more about the story.

3. Forward this action to your friends and ask them to get involved.

Florida Planned Parenthood 2007 Legislative Updates

On Friday May 4th, the Florida Legislature ended its 60 day session. It was a very successful session for reproductive health and rights. We kept at bay bills that would have been extremely damaging to women’s health, and also moved forward our own proactive prevention agenda. Below is a recap of the bills that would have affected reproductive health care in Florida .

Our success was due, in large part, to the 150 activists who traveled to Tallahassee for our annual Lobby Day, and also to all of our activists who took the time to call their legislator on some of these critical issues! Florida NPR reported that over 2,800 calls went into Senators’ offices against the Parental Notification bill alone! Thank you! We couldn’t have done it without you!

The Good.....

SB 1156 by Rich /HB 1191 by Roberson - The Prevention First Act

This is the second year that the Prevention First Act was introduced in the Florida legislature. It called on the Department of Health to make information on family planning services more accessible, required that emergency contraception be made available to all rape and incest survivors in emergency rooms, and required Florida schools to teach a comprehensive sex education curriculum. The bill passed easily out of one Senate committee with bipartisan support -- but without the section on sex education. Although the bill didn’t progress beyond this point, it was well received by the legislators and we look forward to introducing it again next year. (Unfortunately, no action on the bill was taken in the House).

SB 162 by Geller / HB 663 by Randolph - The Parents’ Right to Know Act

This legislation would have required schools that teach abstinence-only education or receive abstinence-only funding to inform parents what information their children are not receiving in the classroom, such a medically-accurate information about contraception and sexually transmitted infections. This bill was referred to several committees in the House and was passed unanimously by the Senate Health Policy Committee. The bill never came up for a full House or Senate vote. FAPPA will revisit the bill and determine how to proceed for the 2008 session.

SB 86 by Fasano /HB 561 by Homan - HPV Vaccine Bill

A bill was introduced by Senator Fasano and Representative Homan that would have required the state to recommend, though not require, vaccinating middle school girls against the human papilloma virus (HPV), which linked to cervical cancer, as well as distribute information about HPV to parents or guardians. This bill successfully passed a hard fight through one committee in both the Senate and House, but then died in committee.

The Bad.....

SB 1602 by Storms /HB 1497 by Traviesa– Restrictions on Reproductive Health Care

What began as a bad bill that would have made it more difficult for minors to secure an abortion if they did not wish to notify their parents became an outright assault on both adult and young women’s access to reproductive health care. The original bill tried to increase the obstacles young women would face if seeking a judicial bypass of the parental notification law. The Florida House of Representatives added several dangerous amendments to the bill that would also have required all women (including adults) to wait 24 hours before receiving an abortion as well as receive and be offered to view an ultrasound so that they could consider the full effects of their decision. This was a clear attempt to intimidate women who have already made a very difficult and personal medical decision and interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. We are thrilled to report that this bill died on the last day of session and did not become law.

SB 2546 by Storms/HB 1425 by Baxley- Child Abuse Reporting

This bill would have criminalized sex and scared young women out of seeking health care. It would have required health care practitioners who provide abortions, personnel of abortion clinics and others to report pregnancies of girls under 16 years of age to law enforcement agencies. It also would have required health care practitioners who perform abortions on girls under 16 years of age to collect and preserve specified DNA samples from the teen and fetus, as well as forward them to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. This bill was defeated in committee in the Senate.

SB 234 by Posey/ HB 71 by Poppell-Unborn Victims of Violence Act

This piece of legislation was another step by the opposition to grant legal person hood to a fetus and is an attempt to ultimately undermine Roe vs. Wade, piece by piece. Under this pieces of legislation, if a woman is injured or killed by another and the resulting act leads to the death of her fetus, then the perpetrator of the crime could be charged with homicide. This would have also changed the words "viable fetus" to "unborn child” in an attempt to establish fetal person hood. This bill died on the last day of session.

On March 19-21st, the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates (FAPPA) and it’s eight affiliate held its annual Lobby Days in Tallahassee . Over 150 activists from around the state attended the event which included advocacy training and legislative visits. Supporters from each of Florida ’s Planned Parenthood Affiliates, the majority under 30, urged their legislators to co-sponsor the Prevention First Act, Florida Planned Parenthood’s PRO-Active legislation to prevent unintended pregnancy and the need for abortion. One of the highlights of this year’s event was a press conference on the steps of the Historic Capitol featuring Senator Nan Rich and Representative Yolly Roberson, sponsors of Florida ’s Prevention First Act. The enthusiasm of our Planned Parenthood supporters was overwhelming!

Guatemala's Femicides

To contact your representatives in the Senate and ask them to cosponsor S.Res. 178 -- the Senate Resolution condemning Guatemala's femicides -- call the Capital Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or click here.

Washington State Makes History -- a Victory for Paid Family Leave

This afternoon, Washington Governor Chris Gregoire signed the paid family leave legislation that grants up to five weeks of paid leave a year to care for a newborn or newly adopted child. The following is a press statement by Debra Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families:

“By enacting paid family leave legislation today, Washington took an important step toward becoming a more family-friendly state -- and America is one step closer to becoming a nation in which no worker has to choose between a paycheck and caring for a family member.

Washington’s paid parental leave law is the next step in a growing national trend. To date, paid family leave bills have been introduced in 27 state legislatures, including Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon.

By signing the bill into law, Governor Gregoire made a powerful statement in support of working families. We commend State Senator Karen Keiser, Representative Mary Lou Dickerson, and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown for responding to their citizens’ needs and blazing a trail for workers. The hard work by the Washington Family Leave Coalition, led by the Economic Opportunity Institute, will benefit Washington families for years to come. It is high time for more states and the federal government to follow.”

Evangelical leaders promote ‘orphan care’

DENVER - Prominent evangelical Christians are urging churchgoers to strongly consider adoption or foster care, not just out of kindness or biblical calling but also to answer criticism that their movement, while condemning abortion and same-sex adoption, doesn't do enough for children without parents. No shit.

With backing from Focus on the Family and best-selling author Rick Warren, the effort to promote "orphan care" among the nation's estimated 65 million evangelicals could drastically reduce foster care rolls if successful.

Yet sensitive issues lie ahead: about evangelizing, religious attitudes on corporal punishment, gay and lesbian foster children, racially mixed families, and resolving long-standing tensions between religious groups and the government.

Um, racially mixed families? Has anyone seen America lately? And will they refuse to adopt gay children or demand to return them when they begin to show "signs" of homosexuality?

"In some people's minds, the church has been very pro-life up until the point of birth," said Michael Monroe, who co-founded an adoption and foster care ministry at Irving Bible Church outside Dallas.

Not some asshat, all of us believe this because what HAVE you done???

Monroe continues: "But a lot of people are saying it's not enough to be pro-life, we need to be pro-children, as well."

Again, no shit asshat. The pro-life" stance has only cared about the unborn, never caring for the hundreds of thousands (500,000 in 2005) in the foster care system, the thousands neglected because they were not wanted but were forced into the world because of anti-choice legislation.

Why aren't these Christians concerned with REAL problems? Global warming, famine, AIDS, human trafficking, ethnic cleansing, violence against women...just to name a few. Oh, cause they are pseudo-chrisitians, using wedge issues like abortion and banning gay marriage as their strong hold on the throats of Americans.

The Lack of Gender and Ethnic Diversity on Cable News Continues

Check out this great report from Media Matters, "Locked Out: The Lack of Gender and Ethnic Diversity on Cable News Continues."

The report's not-so-shocking conclusion? "[C]able news remains an overwhelmingly white and male preserve. "

D.U.H.

Warning: Graffic Video Of An Honor Killing Of A 17 Year Old Girl

Honor Killings. We here about 'em in thise other countries. But do we really know the vile truth of it all? The victim-blaming and the rhetoric used to support that. Violence of this kind is a production of male ego and woman-hate and this truth is pitifully disguised when justified through religious or cultural circumstances. There is no cultural defense when it comes to mob mentality, woman-hate and violent murder. Unless, you want to talk about the global culture of patriarchy.

I post the video here, not out of prurience, but because anyone who thinks men don’t hate you ought to see what happened to this teenage girl. They ought to hear the jeering of the mob of men who circled her like hyenas and tortured her to death. They ought to watch the flash of flip-phone videographers trying to capture the butchery for posterity. They ought to puke when confronted with the delusional, sociopathic depths to which any man can degenerate when indoctrinated, as all men are, by a culture of domination.

The Daily Mail and other reports title the story more or less like this: “Teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy.” Implying that the girl, however much sympathy we have for her, nevertheless brought the savagery on herself.

Whether or not the woman had converted to Islam, or whether or not it was just an honor killing, or if she fell in love with the wrong man, were used as possible explanations. As though any of those reasons can justify such a hideous display of violence.

Activists in Kurdistan agree.

More Girls Than Boys Drinking

Recent reports are showing that there are more girls than boys aged 12-14 years old that are engaging in binge drinking. The Center for Disease Control calls this “an alarming trend.”.

The CDC states:
“There are a multitude of dangers. . . Drinking and driving; being more likely to be sexually active; more likely to be engaged in sex without protection; more likely to be in physical fighting; more likely to have sexual abuse; more likely to use drugs."

A lot of "sex" dangers in there. I would think most of these are the same “risks” for boys, don’t you think? By saying this finding is "alarming," are they implying that a 13-year old boy is more capable of handling serious drinking than a 13-year old girl? Just a thought. But regardless, it is a little crazy that girls this young are engaging in binge drinking.

Kinda reminds me of that memo from a sherrif in NY somewhere who told women to make sure they were clean shaven in case they passed out from drinking and showed all the boys their naughty bits and could be taken advantage of. Nevermind that the MEN shouldn't be violating the women, but whatev.

It's past your worktime!

A southern state in India is planning on implementing legislation that will ban women from working night shifts to “ensure their safety.”

The Karnataka government is in the process of passing the bill as a part of the Karnakata Shops and Establishments Act, where women will be prohibited from working later than 8 p.m. in all professions except those within the IT industry and hospitals.

Once again, women are being punished to avoid the possibility of rape or assault while men’s responsibilities are bypassed. After all, it’s much easier to just restrict women's rights to work rather than actually deal with the problem. (At the same time, something tells me that the actual well-being and safety of women is not necessarily the government’s concern.)

And apparently not the media's either.The coverage of the story doesn’t discuss the potential financial burden the curfew can have on women (after all, they are being taken from their jobs), but focuses on the problems it will cause for the hotel industry. (Since much of their workforce are women.)

It’s nice to see where everyone’s priorities are.

Better Not Lose That Slipper! Or Your Hymen!

Does anyone else find it telling that abstinence-only folks rely on fairy tales and the like?


Last year's theme of The Wizard of Oz was just wierd, with workshops like:


"If I Only Had a Brain: The Effects of Sex on Brain Physiology"


And my personal favorite: "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead! Which Old Witch? (The "Safe-Sex" Witch)"

I Heart New York

Astoria, Queens is home to perhaps the only homeless shelter in New York spefically for for transgendered youth.

This is an outrage! Already we have The Hate House claiming to veto any hate bill legislation that would include sexual orientation, schools that exclude gays from admittance and homosexuals having alarmingly high suicice rates.

Wake up folks. Gay people are here. And they are our neighbors who deserve the same dignity, respect and SAFETY as the rest of us.

House passes hate crime bill

A good news/bad news day.


The good news: The House passed a bill that would add gender and sexual orientation to the categories covered by federal hate crimes law. (Under current federal law, hate crimes are acts of violence against people based on race, religion, color, or national original.)


The bad news: The White House has already had issued a veto threat against the legislation.

My thoughts?

Link-A-Dink

Bush brings forced-pregnancy advocates to new levels of ecstacy by vowing to veto any legislation expanding abortion rights. No comment on whether he'd also veto a pro-contraception bill like the Prevention First Act.

Rebecca Traister on Ricki Lake's new childbirth documentary.

Another entry in the long-running feminist debate over sexwork.

Morgan Stanley must shell out $46 million to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit brought by the National Council of Women's Organizations.

New York Times TV critic calls the women of "Grey's Anatomy" feeble and pitiable.

Scott Lemieux reviews Melody Rose's new book about chipping away at Roe.

Garance argues for raising the age of consent to participate in porn from 18 to 21.

How de-unionization hits women -- especially Latinas -- particularly hard.

The politics of the female orgasm.

One-third of the historically male Pentagon Press Corps is now female.

How pro-choice advocacy and birth activism go hand-in-hand.

Mainstream media picks up the story of harassment of female bloggers.

Jenn Pozner explains why the right-wing cable news pundits really hate Rosie O'Donnell.

The U.S. military reportedly thwarted a planned attack on Iraqi schoolgirls.

Shockingly, the Imus debacle has not reformed shock-talk radio.

Luck of The Irish My Ass

Fuck.

After appealing to the high court, it looks like the young woman in Ireland who was being withheld from leaving the country to seek an abortion in the UK is not being granted permission to leave.

While the Health Service Executives (who were originally prohibiting her from leaving) agreed on Friday to allow her to travel to the UK for the abortion as long as the judge ruled it was appropriate and under other conditions, the judge stated that granting the order would amount to a failure to protect the rights of the fetus and hence would be unlawful and "improper."

Now the HSE is trying to fix their fuck-up by bringing a judicial action review, saying that the judge misconstrued the law and that the woman should be allowed to travel.

Thank God You Have A Penis

On tonight's episode of "Thank God You're Here", Fran Drescher walks into her skit, where she is supposed to introduce herself to the governor. At the table is a man and a woman.

Yep, she walks straight to the man and says "hello governor". The woman stands and says that she is in fact the governor.

I found myself really fuming over this, although I don't know why I'm surprised. It's actually indicative of society's lack of women in positions of power, not to menion government representation. Because if equality actually existed, we wouldn't be so quick to assume that the man HAS to be the governor. Couldn't possibly be the woman!

Australian senator calls female politician unfit because she's "deliberately barren"

Oh this is fucking typical.

An Australian senator has caused a storm of protest for describing a female politician as "deliberately barren" and therefore unfit to govern.

Bill Heffernan said Labor Party deputy leader Julia Gillard did not understand the public because she had no children.

No children? Step down little girl, you just don't understand the world. Cause without children, a woman has no place in this world. Certainly not in a man's world.

The Fossella Five

Elaine Brower, Tom Good, Sally Jones, Ben Maurer and Barbara Walker were arrested on March 23, 2007 in Congressman Vito Fossella’s office.

Their crime? Reading the names of the (US) war dead aloud and demanding a meeting with their representative so they might discuss the extreme positions he holds on the Iraq War.

These 5 activists are charged with disorderly conduct and criminal tresspass. They are demanding Fossella drop all charges and agree to a meeting.

Show your support - tell Fossella to drop the charges and meet with his constituents.

Sign the online petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/fossfive/petition.html

Support The Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Responsibility, and Opportunity Act

Today, May 2, is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and it marks the ideal time to acknowledge that President Bush's "abstinence-only" programs just aren't working.

A recent independent report underscored what you and I have known all along - that "abstinence-only" programs don't work. The report found that students in "abstinence-only" programs are NOT more likely to abstain from sex or delay when they become sexually active. Yet anti-choice politicians in Washington have spent $1 billion in taxpayer dollars on a plan that fails to make the grade.

And we all know that no matter how many reports document this failing ideology forced onto our nation's youth, Bu$h and his croonies repeatedly deny their findings and continue to fund an inefficient and dangerous program.

What now then? Luckily, we've got another option. Sen. Robert Menendez and Rep. Steve Rothman (both D-NJ) have reintroduced the Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Responsibility, and Opportunity Act to help schools and community groups set up programs that encourage teens to delay sexual activity and help parents communicate with their children about sex. Click here to ask your members of Congress to cosponsor this legislation to empower families!

The facts about teen pregnancy don't lie:

• The United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the Western industrialized world.
  
• One out of every three young women in America becomes pregnant before she reaches the age of 20.
  
• Each year, 750,000 young women become pregnant.
  
• Eight out of 10 of these pregnancies are unintended and nearly one-third end in abortion.

It boggles my mind that, despite the evidence, President Bush wants to throw more of our tax dollars at a failing initiative. Let's do what is right for teens and their families.

Let's give our teens a better, commonsense option - contact your members of Congress today!

A Tale of A Forced Pregnancy

A 17-year-old girl who is four months pregnant and whose child cannot survive outside the womb has gone to the High Court to challenge a decision by the Health Service Executive to stop her leaving the State for an abortion.

The girl is in the care of the HSE and is challenging its decision to contact gardaí and not to let her travel for the abortion unless she presented as a suicide risk.

After hearing this news, the girl made a decision to travel to the UK for a termination but the HSE asked gardaí not to permit her to leave the jurisdiction.
So this girl will literally be held by the police (gardaí ) if she tries to leave. It's sickening.

She's challenging the ruling in court tomorrow.

Ugh. Another story of a girl being forced to do something against her wishes because we all know she doesn 't know what's best for hr. Can;t trust her with a choice, but we'll FORCE you to have a child? Only to die anyway? Fuck you twice.

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To walk a mile in her shoes...

Today was the 6th annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Men's March in Sherman Oaks. From Sepulveda to Vesper and back (one mile total), men marched Ventura Blvd. chanting "stop rape now" and getting onlookers caught in the traffic to honk their horns.

The event raised money for the Valley Trauma Center, a program of the College of Education at California State University. The center is dedicated to the elimination of sexual and interpersonal violence through healing, empowerment and increased public awareness of prevention strategies.

What used to be a single event back in 2001 has now spread into 35 marches total around the country this year. "Violence against women does not just affect women," Founder Frank Baird said. "Men are hurt and angered when women they care about are raped."

Officer accused of forcing couples to have sex

DETROIT - A police sergeant is accused of pulling couples over with his cruiser and forcing them to engage in sex acts while he watched, threatening them with penalties if they refused.

Detroit Sgt. Roosevelt Tidwell, 39, pleaded not guilty Thursday and has been suspended from his job with pay. With pay??? WTF?

A 21-year-old Detroit woman told investigators that she and a male friend were driving through Chandler Park early Feb. 7 when a Detroit police officer pulled them over.

The officer took their identification and got in the back seat of her car, then told the male friend to perform a sex act on the woman, according to court records. He threatened them with a $500 ticket if they didn’t, according to court records.

The woman said the officer also fondled her breast and forced her to fondle him. The officer then told her to get out of the car and demanded her cell phone number.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Tidwell later called the woman several times. The woman secretly taped at least one call and gave the tape to investigators.

Serve and PROTECT, eh?

The charges also include two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, four counts of extortion and two counts of misconduct in office.

But why can't he be charged with sexual assault? Forcing someone, by means of weapon or threat is assault. He used his authority to force these people to perform sex acts and one couple was actually forced to have intercourse. He threatened them. Nuff said, you fuckwad.

Barbie Goes Digital

Barbie, the doll responsible for the self-esteem problems of millions of little girls has gone techno! Let's not forget that Barbie's figure in real-person measurements is an impossible 36-18-38.

Mattel (MAT, news, msgs) this week unveiled its newest Barbie: a $60 device that connects girls to a new Web site, BarbieGirls.com. Mattel is hoping that Barbie Girls will reinvigorate the brand and serve as a case study in how a 1950s-era business finds its place in the Digital Age.

In this virtual world, girls will create a character they can name, dress and customize by skin tone, hairstyle and expression.

Skin tone. Interesting, considering there was no Barbie of color until 1968, 9 years after the blonde, white Babrbie was produced.

‘Captain America’ accused of groping woman

MELBOURNE, Fla. - A doctor dressed as Captain America was arrested after groping a woman at a bar and fighting with her boyfriend, authorities said.

Patrons at the bar were dressed in costumes as part of a bar crawl Saturday night, police spokeswoman Jill Frederiksen said.

A man carrying a burrito and dressed as Captain America approached her, began to say dirty things and touched her inappropriately, police said. He then brawled with her boyfriend, authorities said.

Yikes, even super heros are assaulting women. Watch out ladies, you can't trust anybody. Not even your friendly neighborhood Captain America.

Come and Get It Girls!

Sugardaddyforme.com is a new dating site that caters to young, beautiful women who dream of being pampered, and the “older gentlemen” who want to provide the pampering.

Sigh. Cause we all just want old man money bags boning us while he dangles money in our faces.

The very idea of sugar daddies always made me sick. To me, its prostitution. If you sleep with me (love me) I'll pay you butt loads of money.

And why must they be young? The "trophy fuck" is old ladies, just like your pimp. Old men wanting young women is so pedopheliac...and let's just get real. These owmen would NEVER even consider sleeping with these men if they didn;t have money, which only adds to the nasty notion that women are gold-diggers and just out for the buck.

So come on ladies, line up like cattle...your dream grandpa is waiting! With cash in hand!

Random Rage of the Day

There’s a wave of delusion sweeping over America’s pharmacists, leading them to believe that it is their appointed mission in life to regulate the reproductive lives of their customers. We’ve all heard about the rogue pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception and birth control pills, generally because a) they imagine the pill is some kind of abortion or Satanic ritual, or b) the woman with the prescription isn’t married and therefore, in the estimation of these self-appointed arbiters, has no business doing anything that requires birth control. But that’s nothing compared to the pharmacists who refuse to sell any kind of contraceptive device at all:

“Where would the condoms be?” A man asks with total sincerity and seriousness—He is an adult after all.
“We don’t have condoms.”
“You’re a pharmacy without condoms?”
“Well,” she scoffs, “that’s not exactly the kind of behavior we want to promote now, is it?”

And what kind behavior is that? Contraception?

Even by the godbags’ own reasoning (and I use the term loosely), this makes no sense. Here’s an adult (who could very well be a god-fearing Christian) who just wants to have a little nookie with his spouse without the fear of getting impregnating her every single time. This is common and perfectly acceptable among the majority of Americans. A pharmacist's job is to dispense medication, NOT morals. Last I checked, that is what priests did.

I’m guessing that sperm worship — which has long been the province of Catholics — is becoming more widespread among fundamentalist Evangelicans. Every spermatazoon is a perfect, sacred gift, created by Jesus Himself. Phooey. Then married men with wives after menopuase would be committing a sin every time they had sex, for that sacred sperm has been wasted.

As for pharmacists - I’m waiting for these sanctimonious hypocrites to deny an unmarried man erectile disfunction medication. Or condoms, for that matter. Will never happen. These "sex is for procreation only" fanatics never seem to have problems giving grandpa his little blue pill so he can mount his ailing wife all night long.

Let's switch the language here a bit:
“Excuse me, can you tell me where this bookstore keeps its stocks of Left Behind?”
“We don’t have Left Behind.”
“You don’t have Left Behind?”
“Reading trashy fundamentalist fiction isn’t exactly the behavior we want to promote, is it?”

Needless to say, if a clerk at a bookstore said that, there would be a nationwide boycott by angry Christians concerned with their inviolable freedom of expression.

Insulting Advertising of the Day

I'd love to know who comes up with this insultingly ludicrous "advertising".
Lemme guess...uh, male executives???

U.S. officials exclude car bombs in touting drop in Iraq violence

True to form, when the Cheney Menstruation doesn't like a set of statistics, they just change the method of accounting. So the question is: If a car explodes and say, 100 people are killed, but the U.S. says that car bombs don't count, did those people really die? Apparently not.

U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.
Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn't include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.



*This never happened, move along.

Hypocrite of the Day: Randall Tobias

As you have all heard and I have posted about Randall "Hookergate" Tobias in my Link-A-Dink, the latest Bush crony resigned a few days ago after being exposed being named customer of the month of an escort service.

Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation. Tobias, who is married, said there had been "no sex," and that recently he had been using another service "with Central Americans" to provide massages.

Another service "with Central Americans." That's what he's using now. This is the guy in charge of America's international aid and development assistance to countries around the world.

'Cause, you know, those hot Latin chicks - those Central American gals - are innately more talented at *cough* giving massages *cough*.

As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Ground control to Major McSpooge: There are plenty of legitimate Certified Massage Therapists in D.C.
An "Escort service" for a massage?
Okaaaaay!
How much for a deluxe massage with a Happy Ending?

The hypocrisy of this MISadministration, all of King George's incompetent croonies, and the Christian Taliban is astounding. As I said, this is the guy that Bush hired to push abstinence-only programs abroad...while he was engaging in extramarital sex here at home.

But hey, a quick trip to Daddy Dobson's radio show will fix that right up for ya, as was the case with Gingrich, McFlipper and the countless number of Repuligoons who are all forgiven for their trespassess because, well...they are Christians you know.

McFlipper's Lack of Balls, Yet Again

Sen. John McCain (Asshat-AZ) has accomplished a milestone in the Senate: he has chickened out on the most votes of any active Senator in the 110th Congress — second only to Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), who is currently recovering from a brain hemorrhage.

While McFlipper did not have time to have yet another brain hemorrhage himself (he obviously has had several before,) he did find time to say Go fuck yourselves to the Senators who actually did have the fucking balls to vote and place their position on the record.

What a brave (talking) guy, will he be too busy sucking and slobbering on James "Daddy" Dobson's shriveled phallus or bending over for Jerry Falwell to vote to override the veto?

Link-A-Dink

NPR had a segment on the new Amnesty campaign to end violence against Native women. One of the shelters they featured, Pretty Bird Woman House, is holding a fundraising campaign. Click here to donate.

Caryl Rivers on how the news media scare women.

A man is arrested in the attempted Austin Women's Health Center bombing.

A new bill would make sure EC is available to women on military bases, who currently have to drive off-base to get the pill.

The debate over Kabul Beauty School.

One of the men who used the services of the "D.C. Madam" is... one of Bush's abstinence appointees. Yep, the guy that Bush hired to push abstinence-only programs abroad was, uh, engaging in extramarital sex here at home.

Who really benefits economically from marriage?

Shocking headline: "Condom Information in Abstinence Programs Called Inaccurate."

How Russell Simmons missed the point.

Somebody needs to fill Pat Robertson in on what Women on Waves actually does...

Remembering a vocally pro-choice woman who led the Republican party in the late '70s. (Kind of like the anti-Schlafly?)

The New England Journal of Medicine says "both health care providers and patients should be alarmed" by the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion. And Cynthia Gorney explores what this will mean for doctors.

...and in the wake of the ruling, the Supreme Court returns a handful of related cases to the states.

A sports columnist announces his upcoming surgery to make his body match his brain, which he says is "wired female."

Gay marriage evil, abortion terrorism: Vatican Come on, Catholics - tell us something new!

In other church news...

The Vatican's second-highest ranking doctrinal official on Monday forcefully branded homosexual marriage an evil and denounced abortion and euthanasia as forms of "terrorism with a human face."

In Remembrance

Somehow I missed this, but yesterday was "Creating a Day Without Sexual Violence: The National Day of Truthtelling", held in Durham, NC.

Along with all my sisters, I remember and cherish the countless women (and men) who have endured this atrocious form of violence, entitlement and oppression. (I am fully aware and do not deny that men also endure sexual violence, but my blog is woman-centered and focused. I choose to write solely about the oppressions and inequalities women face).

I wish to use this space in remembrance of my neighbor of 2 years ago. I will not recount her story because it is not mine to tell, but I will say this: I think of you often and hope you are well. We got him. He can not hurt you again. I wish for you peace and love.

Archbishop Protests Sheryl Crow Charity Appearance

St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke denounced a Catholic charity Wednesday for scheduling singer Sheryl Crow to perform at a benefit concert because of the singer's support for abortion rights.

Burke submitted his resignation as chairman of the board for the Cardinal Glennon Children's Foundation, saying the decision to let Crow sing on Saturday left him no other choice.

"It's very painful for me," Burke said during a news conference Wednesday. "But I have to answer to God for the responsibility I have as archbishop.

"A Catholic institution featuring a performer who promotes moral evil gives the impression that the church is somehow inconsistent in its teaching," Burke said.

Crow is set to appear at the 19th annual benefit for the Bob Costas Cancer Center at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center. Costas will host the event, which will also feature comedian Billy Crystal.

Event organizer Allen Allred said he was disappointed with Burke's decision, but that Crow would appear as scheduled.

"This is not an event that's about ideology," Allred said. "This is about helping kids."

Burke made national news during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, by saying he would deny Communion to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights.

He later clarified the statement to say Catholics can vote for such candidates if they believe the candidate's stance on other moral issues outweighs the abortion-rights stance.

Burke said it was a "scandal" to let Crow sing at the event and amounted to an act that could lead others to evil. He cited Crow's support for stem cell research and "procured abortion."

Burke said he became aware of Crow's participation in the cancer benefit in February and asked other board members to cancel her appearance.

"They didn't accept my concerns," Burke said.

Allred said board members did not honor Burke's request because they did not want to play politics with performers at the annual event, which has featured big-name entertainers like Jay Leno in the past.

"We do not apply an ideological litmus test" in choosing performers, Allred said.

Ahh, it must be nice when your already-set-to-go resignation coincides so well with something you can express your moral outrage toward, thereby martyring yourself for the cause on your way out the door. Asshat.

( posted here in case the link stops working, or if you don't feel like clicking )

Domestic Terrorist Caught

A 27-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a makeshift bomb that was found outside a clinic where abortions are performed, authorities said Friday.

Paul Ross Evans has been charged with use of weapons of mass destruction, manufacture of explosive material and violating freedom of access to clinic entrances, according to a statement issued by the Austin Police Department.

"We've got an ongoing investigation into him and all of his particulars," said Erik Vasys, a spokesman for the FBI. Evans was on parole for a burglary conviction, authorities said.

It contained an explosive powder and two pounds of nails, said David Carter, assistant police chief.

Had the bomb detonated, it could have injured people 100 feet away, police said.

Evans is in federal custody and being held without bond. He could face up to life in prison if convicted on the weapons of mass destruction charge, Vasys said.

Yes, this is domestic terrorism to any crazies who insist that terrorists are only brown people with towels on their heads. Using weapons to intimidate, threaten and cause bodily harm is terrorism. From the dictionary, DT is: "terrorism practiced in your own country against your own people".

They never learn. Their message of "murder" is wrong so lets murder the murderers is...futile. Come up with a new plan ya'll. Violence solves nothing. Learn how to use your mouth against things you disagree with. Why is this world so quick to utilize the "easy" way out by using violence instead of dialogue and debate? Also, I doubt the G-d they pray to would aprrove of this means of spreading a message. They never think of the innocent people who get caught in the line of their hatred. Ever think about a mailman happening along or even a woman walking inside? Whether the doctors performing abortions are innocent or not is based on opinion and one's value system and let me tell you something killer man, your opinion is YOURS. I don't agree. Are you gonna kill me too?

A Fat Rant

Oh, Julie Nash...how I heart you too.

Exactly Who Are You Giuliani?

Giuliani is such a bag-o-douche. He has reversed every progressive thought he once had in that tiny little brain of his.

GIULIANI SHIFTS ON "CIVIL UNIONS":
In a startling departure from his previously stated position on civil unions, Mayor Giuliani came out to The New York Sun recently in opposition to the civil union law just passed by the New Hampshire state Senate. "Mayor Giuliani believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Domestic partnerships are the appropriate way to ensure that people are treated fairly," the Giuliani campaign said in a written response to a question from the Sun. "In this specific case the law states same sex civil unions are the equivalent of marriage and recognizes same sex unions from outside states. This goes too far and Mayor Giuliani does not support it." The Democratic governor of New Hampshire, John Lynch, has said publicly that he will sign the civil union law.
On a February 2004 edition of Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor," Mr. Giuliani told Bill O'Reilly, when asked if he supported gay marriage, "I'm in favor of ... civil unions." New York Sun: Giuliani's Startling Departure on Civil Unions

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On April 4th: "I am against abortion, I think it's wrong, but ultimately I believe it's an individual choice. People should know that, they should evaluate that and decide how important that is."

On April 5th: "TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told CNN Wednesday he supports public funding for some abortions, a position he advocated as mayor and one that will likely put the GOP presidential candidate at odds with social conservatives in his party.
"Ultimately, it's a constitutional right, and therefore if it's a constitutional right, ultimately, even if you do it on a state by state basis, you have to make sure people are protected," Giuliani said in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash in Florida's capital city.
A video clip of the then-mayoral candidate issuing a similar declaration in 1989 in a speech to the "Women's Coalition" appeared recently on the Internet."There must be public funding for abortions for poor women," Giuliani says in the speech that is posted on the video sharing site YouTube. "We cannot deny any woman the right to make her own decisions about abortion.
"When asked directly Wednesday if he still supported the use of public funding for abortions, Giuliani said "Yes."
"If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right," he explained, "If that's the status of the law, yes."
But the presidential candidate reiterated his personal opposition to the practice."I'm in the same position now that I was 12 years ago when I ran for mayor -- which is, personally opposed to abortion, don't like it, hate it, would advise that woman to have an adoption rather than abortion, hope to find the money for it," he said.
"But it is your choice, an individual right. You get to make that choice, and I don't think society should be putting you in jail."
And the Giuliani campaign noted later in the day that the former mayor would not seek to make any changes to current law, which restricts federal funding to cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.

Yet, he supports last weeks' SCOTUS ruling on upholding the Partial Birth Abortion Act. Where's the individual choice there? Where is this supposed support? Why the flipping? Why support public funding for poor women but make no attempt to reverse current law to fund for vitims of rape or incest or to save the freaking life of the mother???

You are bafoon of massive proportions.

Craiglist: The New Sex Scene

The possibility of getting a blowjob from a complete stranger is what makes Craigslist so popular, according Stephen Bagg's recent report.

Sigh. Yesterday's news, folks. Anything for a free blow. The only difference here is that today's technology allows you the convenience of not having to go to a bar or seek out and *pay* a prostitute.

NY Governor Eliot Spitzer Is My Hero Of The Day

(Spitzer and NARAL Pro-Choice New York President Kelli Conlin)

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Wednesday that he planned to introduce legislation to overhaul the state’s pioneering but antiquated abortion law, shoring up abortion rights in New York.

The proposal follows the United States Supreme Court’s decision last week to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, at a time when several other states are moving to tighten restrictions on abortion.

New York took an early role in legalizing abortion, and the governor’s plan could take on much broader significance if the Supreme Court ever returns abortion law to the discretion of the states. Still, it is far from certain that the legislation will pass the Republican-led State Senate.

Mr. Spitzer’s bill, the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act, would update current law, which, for example, does not include a provision allowing for abortions late in pregnancies to protect a woman’s health. New York state laws on the books also treat abortion as a homicide, but with broad exceptions that allow the procedure in many cases.

Mr. Spitzer’s proposal would remove abortion from criminal statutes and make it a matter of professional and medical discretion. It would also repeal an old statute “that criminalizes, among other things, providing nonprescription contraception to minors,” according to the governor’s office.

“Even if the Supreme Court does not understand the law, we do,” Mr. Spitzer said, appearing briefly at a Manhattan luncheon held by Naral Pro-Choice New York. “New York State will continue to be a beacon of civil rights and protection of women’s rights.”

I heart you. Will you marry me? Yea, your wife probably wouldn't appreciate that. Then can I just stare at you?

Children's Author Declares: You Strip, I Sign!

A Baltimore-area author of children's books has been banned from visiting Harford County public schools after publicly suggesting that a 10-year-old girl disrobe during a visit to her school, a comment the author said was a quip that was taken out of context.

Please explain ANY context that would be considered appropriate you pedophile.

Author Richard Lynn Stack, a former lawyer who visits schools around the country with his dogs, was at Abingdon Elementary School on April 16 for an event when a student asked Stack to autograph her forehead, said Don Morrison, a spokesman for the county school system.

Morrison said that parents of students who were nearby reported two days later that Stack responded by saying he would give the student an autograph if she climbed on a lunch table and took off her clothes. Stack told school officials he was making an absurd comment in response to the student's unusual request, Morrison said.

First, why did it take parents 2 days to report this?
Second, a girl makes an "unusual request" for him to autograph her forehead and instead of saying, "wow, that's a bit unusual, how about I just sign your book. Or how about your hand", he decides he has a better, more appropriate alternative:

No, get on that table you little slut and shake what ya got! Shake it or no autograph for you, you naughty little piece!

What I find typical is that if a boy had asked this same thing, I am pretty sure he never would have told him to get on top of a table and strip. In fact, I know he woulodn't have because males are not objectified as sex objects. As things. This is more telling on how he views the female poluation in general.

Oh and by the way, it was hardly an unusual request. Fans request signatures everywhere. Ever seen a Poison video? Every body part of a person has been signed, and by "person" I mean women.

And just what would he have done if she had gotten on top of that table and stripped? I shudder.

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The New Adventures of Old Christine

LA Times male sportswriter Mike Penner announces his transexuality: "“Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation. As Christine.”

I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them.

For more years than I care to count, I was scared to death over the prospect of writing a story such as this one. It was the most frightening of all the towering mountains of fear I somehow had to confront and struggle to scale.

Transsexualism is a complicated and widely misunderstood medical condition.

How do you go about sharing your most important truth, one you spent a lifetime trying to keep deeply buried, to a world that has grown familiar and comfortable with your façade?

To a world whose knowledge of transsexuals usually begins and ends with Jerry Springer's exploitation circus?

This last sentence really puts the nail in the head. The only thing people see on TV about transexuals are the "freaks" and the crazies. Hardly the majority I would argue. There are no documentaries, no 60 minute special educating people about a population of people who DO exist. We were lucky just to get TransAmerica recently. Still though, one movie can not reverse the severity of the discrimination and oppression this population faces because deep down people view transexuals in sub-human contexts.

And I am still concerned about why the DSM lists transexualism, AKA gender identity, a mental issue. The DSM lists mental illnesses and I completely disgaree that this in any way is an illness. Funny, but heterosexualism is not an illness. Could it be because the assess who decided these illnesses are basing their beliefs from the viewpoint that heterosexualism is the "normal" and "healthy" standard?

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How Dare the Public Library Stock Books About How Other People Live!

An Arkansas father is suing a public library after his teen boys found a book on lesbian sex, titled The Whole Lesbian Sex Book.

The dad is outraged. Outraged! Apparently, he is not familiar with what they’ve been seeing all over the internet these days. He says the book is “patently offensive and lacks any artistic, literary, or scientific value.”

And what is artistic, literary or has scientific value in a hetero sex book on the exact same shelf?

I find THAT offensive!

Lesbian Author addresses Arkansas Library/Lesbian Sex Situation

Bomb found in Texas abortion clinic parking lot

Can someone please inform me why this isn't PLASTERED all over the news!?!

This is news man. A bomb? I mean c'mon.

AUSTIN, Texas - A bomb was left in a duffel bag in the parking lot of a clinic where abortions are performed, but a bomb squad safely detonated it.

An employee found the package Wednesday in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center, authorities said. The immediate area, including nearby Interstate 35, was evacuated briefly.

The device "was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death," said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department.

HELLO?????

Tests later confirmed that the package was explosive. The regional Joint Terrorism Task Force, led by the FBI and including Austin police, is investigating.

Explosive! Yet, no news. I haven't seen ONE report on this on any major news station.

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