Apples and Oranges

I was reading the news this morning when I came upon a very interesting article on MSNBC about birth control. The article describes the debate over how birth control will be handled under the new health care bill.  Apparently there is the possibility that the new bill could grant free birth control to millions as a preventive medical measure.  Those in favor of birth control cite the overwhealming evidence in its favor.

"There is clear and incontrovertible evidence that family planning saves lives and improves health," said obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. David Grimes, an international family planning expert who teaches medicine at the University of North Carolina. "Contraception rivals immunization in dollars saved for every dollar invested. Spacing out children allows for optimal pregnancies and optimal child rearing. Contraception is a prototype of preventive medicine."

Unfrotunatley the article takes a strange turn after this.  The conversation is then turned over to...... The National Catholic Bioethics Center.... WTF?!

"We don't consider it to be health care, but a lifestyle choice," said John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, a Philadelphia think tank whose work reflects church teachings. "We think there are other ways to avoid having children than by ingesting chemicals paid for by health insurance."

I'm not quite sure what to say on this. Why is a religious organization talking about whether birth control is health care? The NCBC is not making an ethical statement. They are making a statement about a fact (the fact of whether or not birth control is health care.) The NCBC makes a nice effort to cloak their factual and obviously false claim about birth control/health care with a hint of moral superiority but these are still two separate issues. For some reason we are constantly mixing apples and oranges whenever we debate very serious issues like this. We need to lean to separate issues of simple fact from some of the more slippery wrangling we do over the more subjective moral questions...... And why don't we ever see any balance on the ethics questions posed?  In my opinion the church is the last place I would go for both factual and moral guidance. 

And shouldn't the PR firm representing the Vatican advise against any kind of involvement in talking about kids for at least a while?  I guess a religion that has actively supported child rape for decades and decades and decades would have to take a step backwards if there were less unattended children for them to prey on. 

Elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho!!!!

America is chocked full of idiots. In fact I'm sad to report that we have turned the corner and the simpletons now outnumber the rational.  I have proof!  Her name is Christine O'Donnell.  Holy crapstick she is stupid. Not ignorant, stupid. Like pet rock stupid or Sarah Palin stupid (I know its redundant.. shut it!) I name her as proof of how stupid Merica (say it out loud like that, its how idiot a-Merica says it) has become because enough ass clowns actually exist to get her not only on a ballot but she won a primary.

But some of you may be saying to yourself. "Hey jerk blogger! Why are you being such a big ole meany to our poor lil Christine?  What gives you the right to call her stupid?"

The answer is as follows.


Wow.... damn wow...... and sigh. Unfortunately this is the way we are going in Merica.  Soon we will truly live in the film Idiocracy. (great flick by the way) and we will be electing this man...

Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho

The only way I don't see this happening is if we wake up and stop the movement towards crack head pseudo-leaders like Christine O'Donnell. Otherwise we are doomed to let Cost-Co run the country and the Beef will reign Supreme ;)

Behold the perfect Right Wing utopia.

This is being reported..... everywhere but I'll send you to MSNBC for reference. The story goes like this. A city offers a fire fighting service to some of the rural families that fall out of its jurisdiction for the bargain basement price of a $75 yearly subscription. This seems like a reasonable proposition. The city is offering a service (that is paid for by its taxpayers) to those outside of the city limits if they are willing to pitch in.  One of those rural families forgot to pay for the service... and then their home caught on fire...... and the fire department showed up and watched the home burn to the ground...... wow.



I understand that city, state and federal services have to be paid for but this seems extremely cruel and unfortunately this seems to be the kind of community that many on the far right want to create. IE We have to privatize everything, the government is always evil, free market.... blah blah.

This reminds me of the endless stories I have heard about insurance companies that attempt to find errors on your applications so they can deny you medical coverage or the vehement push by Republicans to privatize Social Security right before the economy went to shit (that would have worked out real nice wouldn't it?). Privatization is not the answer for critical services like Police, Fire, and I would argue health care. What happened to this family is what will happen in a radically conservative anti tax and government community. Peoples homes burn to the damn ground because they didn't pay a $75 fee.

Is this the kind of country we all want to live in?  Should the police stop and check to make sure you have paid your taxes before they stop someone from killing you? This is disgusting. We should help each other first and check the books later. (and by the way if you are one of those callous pricks that are turning your nose up at this poor guy that lost his home and saying "Fuck him, he should have paid his insurance" I will make sure I remind you when your foolish vision of a world where its "every man for himself" crashes down on your head. Because it will if this crap version of America wins.)

Again I do understand that these services have to be covered but we shouldn't let someones home burn just to encourage others to pay a fee. The firefighters actually stood around and watched this mans home burn to the ground.   We already have this kind of heartless treatment of people in our hospitals. Sure the emergency room will make sure you don't die if you come in the door bleeding to death but if you don't have insurance they will not take care of you beyond that.  We can all either come together and take care of crap like this and take care of each other or we can live in the perfect Right Wing utopia. Bellum omnium contra omnes

SHOCKING REVELATION: Athiest are smarter than the Religious

As reported on CNN some researchers put together a series of quizzes to test the religious and general knowledge of folks and the findings were surprising (to the religious ones). 

"Those who believe the Bible is the literal word of God did slightly worse than average, while those who say it is not the word of God scored slightly better." 

This shouldn't shock us but just in case here is another juicy quote. 

"Smith (the researcher) has a theory about why atheists did so well on the quiz - they have thought more about religion than most people..... The single strongest factor predicting how well a person does on the religious knowledge quiz is education - the more years of schooling a person has, the more they are likely to know about religion, regardless of how religious they consider themselves to be" 

 Soooo what you are saying is that the more one thinks about religion in general..... the less it makes sense. Stay in school punks!