On to more serious matters

I yacked about my backyard wildlife and now it's time to get on with life already.

Upon searching through various emails and websites this morning, I saw a myriad of issues that were both interesting and disturbing simultaneoulsy.

The first is a bit of commentary published in the L.A. Times by Barbara Ehrenreich. She comments on the outsourcing and rising costs of health care in the U.S., the place that's supposed to be the best in the world to live yet we can't insure many of our own children and citizens. It makes me want to move to Canada more and more, seriously, despite the fact that it snows a lot and is much colder than Virgiginia, even in the summer. Hell, we have states that would rather see cockfighting become a felony offense whereas domestic violence still remains a misdemeanor despite legislation being introduced for the last 2 years that could change it.

George Mason University in northern Virginia (NoVA) is holding a safe-sex fair on Monday, calling it a Sextravaganza. This isn't a problem for me since I'm all about students on college campuses knowing how to put on a condom, about the many different contraceptive devices out there, that EC exists and they are allowed to use it and so forth. Not State Senator Ken Cuccinelli, who, upon learning that organizations providing information about sexual orientation will be there (and this is my favorite part I swear), states that there is no safe-sex in homosexuality. Yep, he says this:

"You can't have safe homosexual sex. There is no such thing and yet one of the sponsoring groups is the homosexual group on campus," he said.

Yes, he embarrases himself a lot with those sorts of comments, but apparently someone believes him because he has been getting elected. Cuccinelli is also the State Senator who introduced SB 839, or TRAP, which would have demanded abortion clinics to operate as out-patient clinics, enforcing a rigorous health code that is not being forced upon other health service offices such as oral surgeons. He also didn't know what the hell he was talking about because he only had proof of one instant where an ambulance was needed and constantly referred to the clinic in his region only. Duh, can we say research it! His buddy, Delegate Bob Marshall and Dick Black are also the infamous anti-choice men who constantly introduce stupid laws into the General Assembly every year. And yet somehow, they all keep getting elected!

On to the next insightful piece of U.S. bigotry then! Jeb Bush in Florida is ready and willing to sign a new gun bill into law. The site here claims it to be spun out of control but there are some heavy dissenters who state otherwise. According to the actual language of the bill, though, I'm more inclined to believe in the "shoot first, ask later" name it's been given. I have a hard time understanding how less gun laws/restrictions equal less crime/violence.

Also in Florida, the state DCF agency has blocked an abortion for a 13-year old girl, claiming that she is not old enough nor mature enough to make her own decisions. W.T.F.!? That I'm reading about it from an Arizona newspaper is telling eh? The Palm Beach Post reports that she has been living in a state home for abused and neglected teens and that the judge did order an immediate injunction pending a psychological evaluation. Need I say it again? W.T.F.!? So they go lax on their gun control so that citizens could "meet force with force", but they don't think a 13-year old girl should have an abortion because she isn't old enough nor mature enough to make the decision on her own?

I agree with the ACLU on this one (as is usually the case): forcing this young woman to carry a baby, that she has already declared not to want, to full term is unconstitutional and cruel. This brings me back to Dr.B's post, Do we trust women? (Upon going over there to find this in order to link it, I saw she has this up on her blog, too, so go read it when you're all done here if you haven't been there first!)

Will the hypocrisy never end?

My note: of course not because we're a Do as I say, Not as I do society.