Day: April 3, 2014

Feds open Medicare to same-sex married couples

Leave a comment


Kathleen Sebelius — AP Photo

The Obama administration announced on Thursday that same-sex married couples can qualify for Medicare hospital and physician benefits for the first time.

The decision, coming after a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a federal ban against same-sex marriage, allows the Social Security Administration to determine the eligibility of married gay applicants to Medicare, the federal government’s healthcare program for the elderly and the disabled…

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the government has begun the enrollment process for some same-sex spouses while handling requests for special enrollment periods from others. CMS oversees the $635 billion Medicare program. But SSA determines eligibility.

“If you’re in, or are a surviving spouse of, a same-sex marriage, we encourage you to apply for Medicare if you think you might be eligible,” CMS said in a web posting.

Overdue – and welcome – whether you qualify or simply are an American who believes in civil rights.

Jesus Freak robs same convenience store twice in one day

3 Comments

When a woman walked into a 7-Eleven in Washington on Sunday, she wasn’t just looking to spread the word about Jesus. According to Edgewood police, Enjoli Norde robbed the convenience store of cash and then came back for cigarettes and beer.

Pierce County Superior Court documents allege that the 34-year-old entered the store and asked the clerk, “Do you love Jesus?”

She then allegedly pointed a pistol at the male clerk’s head and said, “You better love Jesus because you’re gonna die; open up your drawer…I like girls, but if you call on me I’ll come back and kill you.”

Norde ran away after leaving the 7-Eleven with $150, according to KOMO.

She returned a short while later, gun in hand, and asked the clerk what his favorite beer was while holding him at gunpoint. She then grabbed a six-pack of that beer and began loading her backpack with cigarettes after sending the clerk out into a hallway.

On her way out, Norde left the clerk a couple beers and threw $15 at him. “Something for you,” she said.

When police tracked her down at the apartment of her mother and grandmother, Norde had a pellet gun, cartons of cigarettes and cash in her possession. She was charged with robbery and harassment.

Police report noted she alternated between asking the coppers if they loved Jesus – and screaming at them in rage. I’d say she’s a little conflicted or is stuck in one of those strange corners of Christianity that prefers murder to love.

Fundamentalist measles threat from Canada

2 Comments

TrueBeliever

Health officials in Canada’s westernmost province are battling a large measles outbreak that is now threatening to spill over the border into Washington state.

As many as 330 cases of the highly contagious disease have been reported since early March in British Columbia’s lower Fraser Valley, near Vancouver, according to Paul Van Buynder, MD, chief medical officer of Fraser Health.

All but two of those cases have occurred among members of an orthodox Protestant sect that doesn’t believe in vaccination…

Four ill members of the congregation live across the U.S. border in Washington and have been isolated, but Van Buynder said Whatcom County officials now think a fifth person — not part of the church — has been infected…

The report comes as New York City health officials are reporting additional cases in an outbreak there, bringing the total to 25, including 12 children and 13 adults. Most of the children were too young to have had their measles shots and only four of the adults had a verified vaccination.

All told, the CDC said, there have been 104 cases of measles reported so far this year in the U.S., although that total did not include the Washington cases and only 23 cases in New York City. Most states had no cases but California is reporting 50.

Measles is officially eliminated in both the U.S. and Canada, but imported cases [and stupid cases] continue to cause disease.

Van Buynder said the Fraser Valley outbreak is epidemiologically linked to a large continuing epidemic among orthodox Protestants in the Netherlands that has been raging since May 2013 and had caused more than 2,600 cases by the end of February 2014.

An earlier outbreak in Canada — 42 cases in Alberta in the fall of 2013 and winter of 2014 — was also linked to the Netherlands epidemic.

The religion defense against vaccination is such crap when you consider the numbers of unvaccinated children – still too young to vaccinate – put at risk by True Believers.

Nun tells Catholic school kids masturbation turns guys Gay

1 Comment

A Catholic nun has caused a firestorm after she allegedly told teens at Charlotte Catholic High School in North Carolina last month that masturbation can turn boys gay, and gay men have up to 1,000 sexual partners.

Sister Jane Dominic Laurel, an assistant professor of theology at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee, reportedly has a history of anti-gay rhetoric. In one of her online lectures, she called oral sex an abnormal act that’s “imported from the homosexual culture…”

In one of her online videos Laurel reiterates that “a man’s desire for instance, for his father’s love, his father’s affection, what happens to it? It can become sexualized. And he can begin to think he has a sexual desire for another man, when in fact, he doesn’t.” She adds that boys who have been sexual abused also use “homosexual acts” as revenge. When reached by phone, Laurel said she hadn’t seen all the reports yet, and could not immediately provide comment.

Aquinas College President Sister Mary Sarah Galbraith defended the school presentation in a statement to the Tennessean, maintaining that, “the presentation was given with the intention of showing that human sexuality is a great gift to be treasured and that this gift is given by God…”

RTFA for notes on this silliness compounded by ignorance. MoJo also maintains a list of stupid abstinence lecturers appearing around the country if you really want to make your brain bleed.