Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.
Indiana’s “Handmaid’s Tale” bill has been pulled.
A controversial proposed bill to prohibit gays, lesbians and single people from using medical procedures to become pregnant has been dropped by its legislative sponsor.
State Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, issued a one-sentence statement this afternoon saying: “The issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn from consideration by the Health Finance Commission.”
(via Terrance)
If this passes, I may want to stop admitting that, though I grew up in Alaska, I was born in Indiana…and most of my extended family on my dad’s side is still there.
Indiana Republicans are working on a bill that will make it so that only legally married women will be allowed to reproduce.
Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant “by means other than sexual intercourse.”
You better believe gays and lesbians seeking to have children via artificial insemination, surrogacy, etc., will stopped in their tracks by this law.
What I don’t understand is why the law only addresses motherhood. Why isn’t it a class B felony under this law for a man to engage in “unauthorized reproduction”? You don’t have to read The Handmaid’s Tale to envision what these folks have in store.
Just horrendous. This needs to get stopped, as soon as possible.
(via Terrance and Boing Boing)
Update: The bill has been yanked.
A controversial proposed bill to prohibit gays, lesbians and single people from using medical procedures to become pregnant has been dropped by its legislative sponsor.
State Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, issued a one-sentence statement this afternoon saying: “The issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn from consideration by the Health Finance Commission.”
Heh — “more complex than anticipated.” In other words, she realized that word had gotten out just how insane this was.
True then, and true now:
If we confuse dissent with disloyalty — if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox — if we deny the essence of ratial equality (sic) then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the … confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and independence of which we speak and for which our ancestors fought.
— Edward R. Murrow, Ford Fiftieth Anniversary Show, CBS and NBC, June 1953, “Conclusion.”
Found on Wikipedia while looking up information on Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joe McCarthy after watching the trailer for Good Night and Good Luck — which, by the way, looks very interesting.
Snipped from Terrance:
Wanda Sykes, on Jay Leno, says of president Bush.
Jay: “But President Bush took responsibility.”
Wanda: “I don’t think the President should have taken responsibility…. I don’t blame the President. I blame the American people. Y’all knew the man was slow when you voted him in. You can’t blame the blind man for wrecking your car when you’re the one who gave him the keys.”
So very, very true.
Snopes just confirmed that this is an authentic photo of a note written by President Bush “to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005.” Apparently the photo’s been causing something of a stir because of the content of the note:
I think I may need a bathroom break? Is this possible…
While it’s an admittedly easy opportunity to snicker at our dearly beloved führer president, I think people have been interpreting this incorrectly.
President Bush wasn’t checking to make sure he could wander out to the restroom without offending anyone.
The real story is that he wasn’t sure. He didn’t say that he needed a break — he said that he thought he might need a bathroom break. He then followed that up by musing as to whether it was even possible that he’d need a bathroom break.
Weird, weird man.
“ToriMix v1” by Amos, Tori from the album Difficult Listening Hour (2000, 45:31).
Found this via Chris Randall. Yes, I know it’s over-simplified hyperbole, and I’m guessing that it dates from roundabout election time. So what. It gave me a grin.
(Sidenote: I did a Google Search to see how widespread this was, and only got four hits, three of which were variations of the URL to Chris’s blog. But if I do a Google Blog Search, I get 165 hits. Has Google removed weblogs [or, at the very least, drasticaly de-emphasized them] from their default search now that their blog search is active?)
Dear Red States…
We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking just the Blue States with us.
In case you aren’t aware, that includes Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.
We get the Statue of Liberty. We get Hollywood and Yosemite. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom and Enron. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss. We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that the new country will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your politicians and evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with high morals.
I saw this sticker slapped on the side of a lamppost last night and it made me laugh:
This one’s the product of 2045 Seattle, a pro-monorail campaign.
There’s more and more posses out there these days. Andre the Giant had the first, Charles Darwin has one, Darth Vader, even Tony Danza…and I know there’s more.
But there was only one problem. I didn’t have a posse.
So I had to take care of that.
So…when did CNN start hiring The Onion‘s writers?
Oh, wait. They’re serious?
Amazing.
At least he’s actually acting like a President for once. Pity that it took this long, this big of a catastrophe, this many dead people, and I’d bet that it’s motivated more by his tanking approval rate than any real sense of responsibility…but at least it’s something.
“Nothing Really Matters (Kruder and Dorfmeister)” by Madonna from the album Nothing Really Matters (1999, 11:10).
On August 27th, President Bush declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana due to the then-incoming Hurricane Katrina. Sounds like a good thing, and possibly one of the few things done right in this whole mess, right? Well…not quite. The declaration spelled out which Louisiana parishes were covered by the State of Emergency (emphasis mine):
The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.
As Chris Floyd first noticed, none of the coastal parishes were included in this list. All the inland, landlocked parishes were mentioned, but the coastal parishes in the most immediate danger from Katrina? Conspicuously absent. Bob Harris created this map highlighting the mentioned parishes:
So good to know we’ve got the best and the brightest doing everything in their power to keep the people of America safe from any harm.
Well, not so much Bush specifically, as the entire botched crisis management in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It’s an astoundingly good editorial sequence — could it be that the media’s finally been jostled awake from its all-to-complacent willingness to give a pass to everything the current administration does?
Here’s the video clip. It’s an embedded .wmv file, unfortunately, but the transcript follows.
