Eideard

The bishop knows where to send the check…

The Democratic-led Senate is expected to reject as early as Thursday a largely symbolic Republican challenge to a White House rule guaranteeing free birth control for women who work for religiously affiliated employers.

Even Senate defeat of the legislation would allow Republican lawmakers to take a stand in a rancorous election year debate over a policy that is vehemently opposed by social conservatives and Roman Catholic bishops…

The Department of Health and Human Services announced in January that employers including those with religious affiliations — such as universities, charities and hospitals — would have to provide free birth control coverage for women enrolled in their health plans. Church employees are exempt from the rule…

The birth control coverage requirement infuriated Catholic leaders…who think they have a right to overrule civil law in America…

Roy Blunt’s bill would exempt employers from providing health benefits that conflict with “beliefs and moral convictions.” Anyone standing in line to watch Congress explain their “beliefs and moral conviction”?

Democrats including California Senator Barbara Boxer denounced the measure as too broad, saying it could allow potentially any employer to deny additional types of health insurance coverage on moral grounds.

It’s only been about a day since the last time I said this: I realize Christianity may hold the copyright on hypocrisy; but, today’s Republicans – with appropriate aid from the Kool Aid Party – have perfected the process.

Now we get to witness temporary nutball unity between the 14th Century and the 19th Century in an attempt to turn this nation into a theocracy.

Patrick Foss is a top teenage soccer player who plans to graduate a semester early and enter the University of Virginia next January. His neighbor is a point guard on the local public high school basketball team in northern Virginia.

Next fall, Patrick, 17, would like to try out as a kicker on the football team at Freedom High School in South Riding, Va., but he is home-schooled and thus ineligible.

“My parents pay the same exact taxes as my next-door neighbor who plays varsity sports,” he said. “I just want to be part of the community. You shouldn’t have to pick between athletics and academics.”

The usual beancounter’s excuse. Why fight for improvements in the public school system when you can go outside the system. And, then, you want to cherry-pick what bits and pieces you find fit your desires.

A hotly contested bill that passed the Republican-controlled House of Delegates in the Virginia General Assembly on Wednesday would change that, permitting home-schooled students to play varsity sports at public high schools. The Virginia bill is the latest attempt by home-schooling advocates around the country to gain greater access to extracurricular activities at public schools…

Opponents of the bill argue that playing varsity sports is a privilege surrendered when students opt out of the public school system; that home-schoolers might take roster spots from public school students; and that it would be extremely difficult to apply the same academic, attendance and discipline requirements to home-schooled students as to those who are monitored daily in public schools.

To maintain varsity eligibility, for instance, Virginia’s public school students must take five courses in the current semester and must have passed five in the previous semester. Home-schooled students do not have to adhere to that standard…

Read the rest of this entry »

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Frank and his husband Joe Kapley-Alfano embrace

An appeals court on Tuesday found California’s gay marriage ban unconstitutional in a case that may lead to a showdown in the Supreme Court.

Supporters of the ban said they would appeal the judgment…Their appeal is likely to keep gay marriage in the state on hold pending future proceedings. But the lawyers who won the appeals court round called the decision a milestone, and outside City Hall in San Francisco, a center for gay rights, dozens of same-sex couples hugged and kissed in public, cheering the ruling.

“It means we are included in the American Dream,” said Joe Capley-Alfano, who married his husband, Frank, in the summer of 2008, a window of legal same-sex marriage in California.

The majority in the 2-1 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California’s Proposition 8 ban did not further “responsible procreation,” which was at the heart of the argument by the ban’s supporters.

“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” the ruling reads.

Can you imagine these idiots who bankrolled Prop 8 trying to convince anyone other than some spooky True Believer that the only function of sex is responsible procreation. Their own children must laugh at them hiding reality in the bedroom.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Illinois Supreme Court’s recent decision to permit the televising of trials in the state’s circuit courts brings to mind another question of television in a court: the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court will soon hear oral argument — the fascinating, highly informative back-and-forth between the justices and the lawyers before them — in a monumental case that will determine the constitutionality of the government’s new health care plan.

Everyone is interested. C-SPAN has asked the justices for permission to televise the extraordinary five-and-a-half hours of oral argument (most cases get just one hour) scheduled for March 26 through 28. But the Supreme Court, despite numerous requests and even proposed congressional action extending over several decades, has never permitted television.

The justices fear the presence of cameras would tarnish the court’s dignified proceedings. But bear in mind that the Supreme Court doesn’t try cases, so there’s no danger of uncorking sensational trials like those of O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony or Michael Jackson’s doctor. That’s not the issue.

Chief Justice John Roberts — offered the usual crap arguments politicians always come up with about undue influence, blah, blah.

In fact, there’s lots of experience to point to, and the precedents are clear: television would not impair the Supreme Court’s dignity or its proceedings.

Two-thirds of the state supreme courts admit cameras to their oral arguments. Two federal appellate courts have allowed them. They’re standard in the Supreme Court of Canada. Most of these courts have welcomed cameras for years without adverse consequences, effectively dispelling the vague worries of the justices in Washington…

In Canada the proceedings of the nation’s Supreme Court have been televised since the mid-1990s. Four fixed cameras, mounted high on the walls of the courtroom in Ottawa, face the bench and the counsel’s podium. When a judge asks a question, she pushes a button that both opens her microphone and focuses a camera on her.

“Our judges are proud of it,” said Andres Garin, executive legal officer of the Supreme Court of Canada. “There’s no downside. It has not been disruptive. There’s no playing to the camera.”

Of course, if the U.S. Supreme Court should allow television, but then finds that its presence is deleterious, the justices could always reverse their own decision. They’ve done it before.

Political cowards are usually political hypocrites. Please, let’s don’t ascribe legitimate motives to the hacks in black robes who oppose transparency. There are members of the court who support the broadcasts. They’re the one who weren’t appointed by Republicans.

Yup. The Supreme Court says corporations are just people. Their money doesn’t count anymore than money from you or me.

Let me get my Wellies on before this crap gets any deeper.

Bridgette Dunlap organized off-campus clinic for birth control prescriptions

Bridgette Dunlap, a Fordham University law student, knew that the school’s health plan had to pay for birth control pills, in keeping with New York state law. What she did not find out until she was in an examining room, “in the paper dress,” was that the student health service — in keeping with Roman Catholic tenets — would simply refuse to prescribe them.

As a result, students have had to go to Planned Parenthood or private doctors to get prescriptions. Some, unable to afford the doctor visits, gave up birth control pills entirely. In November, Ms. Dunlap, 31, who was raised a Catholic and was educated at parochial schools, organized a one-day, off-campus clinic staffed by volunteer doctors who wrote prescriptions for dozens of women.

Many Catholic colleges decline to prescribe or cover birth control, citing religious reasons. Now they are under pressure to change. This month the Obama administration, citing the medical case for birth control, made a politically charged decision that the new health care law requires insurance plans at Catholic institutions to cover birth control without co-payments for employees, and that may be extended to students. But Catholic organizations are resisting the rule, saying it would force them to violate their beliefs and finance behavior that betrays Catholic teachings…

The administration’s rule has now run headlong into a dispute over values as Republican presidential contenders compete for the most conservative voters. In an election season that features Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who have stressed their Catholic faith, scientific thinking on the medical benefits of birth control has clashed with deeply held religious and cultural beliefs.

The Obama administration relied on the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, an independent group of doctors and researchers that concluded that birth control is not just a convenience but is medically necessary “to ensure women’s health and well-being.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Medical marijuana advocates are hoping state governments can succeed where their efforts have failed by asking federal authorities to reclassify pot as a drug with medical use.

Shortly before Christmas, Colorado became the fourth state to ask the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to reclassify marijuana as a narcotic in the same league as heavyweight painkillers including oxycodone. The governors of Washington and Rhode Island filed a formal petition with the agency in November, and Vermont signed onto that request shortly afterward.

All four are among the sixteen states and the District of Columbia that have laws on the books that allow the medical use of marijuana, even though the drug remains illegal under federal law. Meanwhile, federal authorities have asserted their power by raiding dispensaries in states including California and Washington.

Supporters say the public is on their side, and the state requests show the feds are increasingly isolated on the issue. But they acknowledge it’s still an uphill battle…

Insert appropriate smartass remark about “Change” here.

In their November petition, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee argued that “the vast majority of modern research” has found marijuana useful for treating patients with glaucoma, for relieving the nausea suffered by cancer patients in chemotherapy and for relieving symptoms of degenerative nerve diseases…

Critics call medical marijuana a “Trojan horse” for legalizing the drug entirely, and federal authorities mounted a string of high-profile raids in California, Washington and Montana in 2011…

Which further convinces social conservatives that their backwardness has at least an opportunist ally in the White House.

Morgan Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project said the states’ requests to reclassify the drug “could and certainly should” give the states some breathing room, “but I really don’t think it will…I think that it’s not going to provide any real tangible benefits immediately,” he said. But it if succeeds, “It will definitely bring the federal government more in line with currently accepted science.”

In the meantime, “There’s no reason for the federal government to be wasting resources going after medical marijuana providers,” he said.

Yup.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The Environmental Protection Agency finalized new federal standards on toxic pollutants and mercury emissions from coal power plants Wednesday, a move being praised by environmentalists but criticized by others, who predict lost jobs and a strain on the nation’s power grid.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, at an event at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, announced that for the first time U.S. coal and oil-fired power plant operators must limit their emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.

“I am glad to be here to mark the finalization of a clean air rule that has been 20 years in the making, and is now ready to start improving our health, protecting our children, and cleaning up our air,” Jackson said. “Under the Clean Air Act these standards will require American power plants to put in place proven and widely available pollution control technologies to cut harmful emissions of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases. In and of itself, this is a great victory for public health, especially for the health of our children…”

All qualities which mean nothing to people who paper their souls with greenbacks and pimp for profits above all else on this tawdry planet.

“These standards rank among the three or four most significant environmental achievements in the EPA’s history,” said John Walke, clean air director of the National Resources Defense Council. “This rule making represents a generational achievement.”

The new regulations are among the most wide-reaching to come from the EPA during Barack Obama’s administration. They include separate limits for mercury emissions, acid gasses, and other pollutants from several metals…

According to an EPA analysis, the larger economic benefits of the reduced pollution will more than pay for the short-term clean-up costs. The EPA also predicts more jobs will be created than lost as power plants invest million of dollars in upgrades.

It also estimates health costs — as a result of less exposure to these toxins — will be reduced to between $59 billion and $140 billion by 2016, and the new regulations will prevent 17,000 premature deaths each year…

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a group traditionally sympathetic to Republicans, has aired ads urging listeners not to “let the EPA turn out the lights on the American economy…”

If memory serves me right, the US Chamber of Commerce didn’t spent a cent on whining about sub-prime derivatives and sleazy Wall Street practices that dumped the world’s economy into the crapper a few years back. Anyone sense something hypocritical about that?

This is one of those topics that suggests enough discussion to prompt writing a book – or a separate blog. But, I’m not about to do either. So, discuss it in “comments” or among yourselves.

A rising number of children are learning about sex from watching pornography because sex education lessons are inadequate, researchers have found. The average age at which children first watch pornography is just 11, interviews with 140 pupils, teachers and people working in the porn industry also revealed.

Australian researchers Maree Crabbe and David Corlett said children were turning to adult films because schools were not handling the positive aspects of sex…

“Discussion of sex and intimacy is too often avoided in schools,” they said. “Porn has become a cultural mediator in how young people are understanding and experience sex. Porn is our most prominent sex educator…”

Mary Clegg, chair of the British Association of Sexual Educators, agreed there was a shortfall in sex education at schools. “A lot of our sex education is based on a don’t-do model,” she said. “But young people are hungry for more explicit information. They’re curious and they’re hormone-driven.”

The research found 88 per cent of scenes in pornographic films showed an element of physical aggression, with most directed at the female participant.

To me, that’s the key to the discussion. I would have said this – even prior to reading about the research.

Read the rest of this entry »

The move by the governors — Christine Gregoire of Washington, a Democrat, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, an independent who used to be a Republican — injected new political muscle into the long-running debate on the status of marijuana. Their states are among the 16 that now allow medical marijuana, but which have seen efforts to grow and distribute the drug targeted by federal prosecutors.

“The divergence in state and federal law creates a situation where there is no regulated and safe system to supply legitimate patients who may need medical cannabis,” the governors wrote Wednesday to Michele M. Leonhart, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Marijuana is currently classified by the federal government as a Schedule I controlled substance, the same category as heroin and L.S.D. Drugs with that classification, the government says, have a high potential for abuse and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”

Which shows how out of touch with reality our federal government can be.

The governors want marijuana reclassified as a Schedule II controlled substance, which would put it in the same category as drugs like cocaine, opium and morphine. The federal government says that those drugs have a strong potential for abuse and addiction, but that they also have “some accepted medical use and may be prescribed, administered or dispensed for medical use.”

Such a classification could pave the way for pharmacies to dispense marijuana, in addition to the marijuana dispensaries that operate in a murky legal zone in many states.

“What we have out here on the ground is chaos,” Governor Gregoire said in an interview. “And in the midst of all the chaos we have patients who really either feel like they’re criminals or may be engaged in some criminal activity, and really are legitimate patients who want medicinal marijuana.

“If our people really want medicinal marijuana, then we need to do it right, we need to do it with safety, we need to do it with health in mind, and that’s best done in a process that we know works in this country — and that’s through a pharmacist…”

Ms. Gregoire noted that many doctors believe it makes no sense to place marijuana in a more restricted category than opium and morphine. “People die from overdose of opiates,” she said. “Has anybody died from marijuana?”

Pigheaded is still considered a requisite quality in determining who gets to run for political office in the United States. Along with obedience to party hacks, public allegiance to 19th Century ethics and unwillingness to learn from either science or experience.

Congress and the White House’s stubborn reliance on information and policies decades out of date is considered a moderating force for good. In reality, the result is a continual drag on opportunities for the United States to keep up with advances in knowledge and sensible practices.