I still love my state

An Ohio legislator (state senator Robert Hagan, D-33) has introduced a bill to bar Republicans from adopting children, in response to the bill which seeks to bar adoption by gay people. The language is hilariously similar, and the logic behind it is just as solid as that behind the gay-adoption ban.

Hagan said his "tongue was planted firmly in cheek" when he drafted the proposed legislation. However, Hagan said that the point he is trying to make is nonetheless very serious.

Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.

"We need to see what we are doing," said Hagan, who called Hood's proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill "homophobic."

Hood's bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.

To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."

However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims.

Just as "Hood had no scientific evidence" to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said.

Found via Pandagon, which you should pop in and read for its funny commentary. Thanks, Pam...

Getting even and shutting up

I know that we 'Murkins spend too much time with our noses in our own newspapers and don't pay enough attention to what else is going on in the world. So let me see if I can even report this correctly: 1,600 female workers in two UK hospitals win an equal pay settlement of 300 million pounds--and they don't want to talk about it. This settlement (not an award) included back pay since 1997 and now includes a pay structure equal to men's. No one wants to make a national issue of it, the union is keeping mum and not pushing for equal pay for other female employees, despite the fact that "the pay gap between men and women is actually growing." The women involved in the settlement that were interviewed in the Guardian article are jubilant at their own good fortune, but circumspect about how it may translate to other workers. The article implies that the disparity in pay between male and female workers is huge enough that if word gets out, it might crash the system. Don't take my word for it; read it over and tell me what you think. Perhaps it's the very idea of universal health care and the employment structures it might necessitate that makes me confused.
(hat tip: Josef K over in the postless comment thread of Twisty's blog.)

73 gigs

Bad news, boys: the RIAA says that ripping CDs for use on an mp3 player is not necessarily "fair use". In their recent filing, they also said that "Similarly, creating a back-up copy of a music CD is not a non-infringing use....". So whatever good reason you had for that external hard drive, it's time to come up with an even better reason.

On the other hand, this man can say anything he wants

Did you know that Barack Obama has a podcast? I haven't tuned in yet, but I'm thrilled. I wonder if the sound quality is good enough to distract me at the gym when I'm on the hamster wheel. This man (if we're lucky) is the future of the Democratic party.

And did I mention how I shook his hand once?

Oh, Bill. We'd love you even more if you'd just stop talking.

How is it that our Mr. Clinton can be so energizing and so aggravating at the exact same time? This is from the NYTimes.com's report of Coretta Scott King's funeral.

Of the four presidents, Mr. Clinton was the obvious favorite of the crowd. A huge cheer went up as he reached the open area near Mrs. King's coffin, and the crowd gave him a thunderous standing ovation when he approached the microphone with his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. Clinton was followed by the far more formal remarks of Senator Clinton, who until then had stood silently nodding her head as he spoke.

Mr. Clinton began by saying, "I'm honored to be here with my president and my former presidents." Then he paused briefly and gestured toward Mrs. Clinton, his unspoken words seeming to suggest that he wanted to say future president, too. When the crowd began cheering, Mr. Clinton laughed and said, "No, no, no."

Can there now be even a smidgen of doubt that she's going for it? In my perfect world, there would be no war, we'd use budget surpluses to shrink the deficit, give everybody health care, and I'd probably vote for Hillary in a primary. In the real world, I don't think she can win. If Bill keeps talking about it, the Dems might be paralyzed by the idea long enough to lose another election. Why can't he just stop talking already? It's the same problem that Gore and then Kerry had: you can't win with him, and you can't win without him.

Going too far

See? It's February, and still the "choice" posts roll in. Yes, here at the Tally Ho we will keep blogging these issues all 12 months of the year!

Annoying detritus from work: Catholics for a Free Choice has just released a survey which shows 35% of Catholic hospitals in New York, South Carolina, California, and Washington State do not provide emergency contraception (those states have "EC in the ER" laws, saying that hospitals must provide EC to female sexual assault victims upon request. (It does make me pleased that almost 3/4ths have SANE-trained nurses who specialize in collection kits and testing/treatment for sexual assault. If you have the time, it's worth reading the full report.) This is relevant to everyone in those states because as hospitals consolidate, the closest/only hospital may be a Catholic hospital, even if the patients and medical staff are not Catholic. In many cases, the hospital's stated EC policy diverged from the day-to-day availability. Again, it's worth remembering that EC will inhibit ovulation, but not implantation, which puts it on par with other hormonal birth control (page 3). (found via Kaiser DWHPR)

Next, a report from San Antonio saying that Mexican pharmacies are stocking EC and customers are "mainly young, even teenaged, women who buy the pill, and that some of those women are from the United States." Gasp! They're buying a drug that an FDA committee has already recommended for over-the-counter use! And they get it so easily! With only a "short trip" across an INTERNATIONAL BORDER! (I'm sorry, I can't restrain the sarcasm.) Which do you think is easier: going to the drugstore down the street for condoms and foam, or crossing the border to Mexico to get EC? My opinion is that if teen girls are taking the trip to Mexico for EC they probably need it to avoid pregnancy (duh) when they can't find a confidential doctor and/or aren't in relationships where they can negotiate condom use. Anyone who's taken EC knows that it is a last-resort drug with some pretty nasty side effects. Perhaps someone who lives in that part of the world could clue me in on how much of a short/easy trip this might actually be.

Finally, AlterNet reports that some female soldiers have died of dehydration because they are afraid of being assaulted or raped by male soldiers if they use the latrine after dark.

[former Abu Ghraib commander, Col. Janis] Karpinski testified that a surgeon for the coalition's joint task force said in a briefing that "women in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the port-a-lets or the latrines were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and in 120 degree heat or warmer, because there was no air-conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep."

This kind of puts to rest the theory that women shouldn't be in combat because male soldiers would be so devastated if they got hurt. It's a pretty horrible story. (Hat tip: Phoenix Rising.)