Further to what I was talking about yesterday, this story is another example of how Republican politicians are out of step with how most people (including most ordinary Republicans) actually see the world. It also makes me bloody angry that such bastards not only exist, but manage to get elected. I feel I ought to place a big “This is not satire!” banner at the top of stories like this.
The US state of Colorado is trying to pass a law that would fund HIV tests for all pregnant mothers (with the option to opt-out), many of whom might be carrying the disease without being aware of it. This would enable steps to be taken to prevent the disease from being passed on to the unborn child. When such steps are taken, the chance of the child being born HIV+ is about 2.5%, as opposed to 26% without treatment. (Medical stats from here). Of course, revealing the presence of HIV would be of great importance to the mother’s own health also, not to mention anyone she might have inadvertently infected in the future. What could be more important than protecting mother and baby from harm?
State Senator Dave Schultheis opposes the law, stating:
We do things continually to remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior, quite frankly, and I don’t think that’s the role of this body.
As a result of that I finally came to the conclusion I would have to be a no vote on this because this stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part, and I just can’t vote on this bill and I wanted to explain to this body why I was going to be a no vote on this.
“What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,†he said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.â€
Yep, that is a elected Republican State Senator publicly saying that he hopes babies get AIDS so that their mothers feel guilty. The leader of his party in the State Senate is standing by him. The very same party that opposes abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, feels quite comfortable with refusing to provide medical assistance to babies in order to punish their mums. They also seem to be unaware that many people have contracted HIV through blood transfusions, and other accidents that may not have involved any breach of the moral code they seek to enforce.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision has “settled” the issue of abortion for now. At the present time, that is the law of the land. However, the current legality of abortion in our country and in our state does not make void the immorality of the issue. If unborn children are indeed unique human beings, they deserve the full protection of the law. The issue is not the rights of the mothers but rather the humanity of the children. If these children are indeed human before birth, then their right to life outweighs their mothers’ right to choose.
All life is precious, from conception to natural death. Because life begins at conception, I am strongly opposed to all forms of abortion, including emergency contraception. The crimes of rape and incest are heinous and therefore should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The inconvenience for the mother in the coming nine months, and the resulting life care of the child must be recognized. Nevertheless, all life is precious even when it results from tragic circumstances. Thus rape and incest do not justify creating a second victim.
How does that square with his attitude on protecting the unborn from HIV? If the rights of the mother should not be taken into account when it comes to whether or not they have to have a baby, why should the mother’s “moral crimes” be used as a reason to punish the child? State Senator Schultheis’ positions are a logical and ethical mess.
Meet Bobby Jindal, the new face of the Republican party. Currently the Governor of the state of Louisiana, he was picked to do the official Republican response to President Obama’s address to congress, yesterday.
Now, depending on your politics, different things will have leapt out at you in what he said. The thing that stuck out most for me though, was this line:
“While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a “magnetic levitation” line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called “volcano monitoring.” Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.”
The US has the third highest number of active volcanoes in the world. The $140 million is earmarked for “U.S. Geological Survey facilities and equipment, including stream gages, seismic and volcano monitoring systems and national map activities.”, so is actually for earthquake as well as volcano monitoring. Does anyone, of any politicial persuasion, truly believe that keeping an eye on volcanoes and earthquakes is a waste of money?
1906, the “Great San Francisco Quake” kills 3000 people, through both the direct tremors, and the subsequent fires that raged through the unprepared city.
1980, Mount St Helens in Washington state erupts, killing 57 people.
1989, the Loma Prieta quake kills 63 people and does an estimated 13 billion dollars of damage to the state of California.
It is true that Louisiana does not have any active volcanoes to speak of, so on a very simplistic level it might seem reasonable for the Governor of Louisiana to be against having to pay towards mitigating against their destructive potential. Of course, all US states pay towards things that do not necessarily directly benefit themselves. Reconstruction of hurricane-ravaged Louisianan cities, for instance. In any case, if the Yellowstone caldera were to blow (unlikely in the near-term, but on the whole I’d like to know someone is keeping an eye on it), it would most certainly be noticed in Baton Rouge.
Mr Jindal has no real chance of stopping seismic detection programmes, thankfully, but the way that he, and those like him, find science to be a source of punchlines, is just one reason why his party is often considered to be incapable of real change. Intellectually incurious, like the line John McCain overused in the Presidential campaign about studying bear DNA “”I don’t know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money”. They think that science is a waste of money, because they do not understand that research, be it about bears or volcanoes, is the first step to creating real-world applications that use that knowledge to make a difference to our lives and the world around us. Understanding volcanoes helps saves lives and property, and also grants us a little peace of mind if we live in an area prone to such things. Understanding bear DNA might help us to protect them from population decline (if you happen to care about that), but can also lead to advances in medicine. Maybe bear genes holds the secret to solving male pattern baldness, the fight against which is no doubt dear to many elder statesmen. The point is, you do not know until you look. That’s rather the point. Science tries to find things out, instead of taking things on faith. It will take many years to repair the government watchdogs, who had their science and reality based staff replaced by ideologues over the course of the Bush administration, and as it has turned out, these agencies work a lot better when science, rather than blind conviction, is their guide.
In 1996, Bobby Jindal wrote an article about an exorcism he took part in, called “Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare”. Not only did he believe that a demon possessed his friend, and was banished through the power of exorcism, he also credits the intervention with curing his friend’s cancer. Now, I am the last person to discount the possibility of extreme weirdness taking place. I do, however, also acknowledge that if faith-healing does exist, it is extremely unreliable, and thus would make a very poor foundation for a health-system. Neither would I recommend a prayer-based defense strategy (though that would at least be quite cheap). I am sure that Mr Jindal would be against relying on god to defend nation’s shores, if only because it would financially inconvenience many of his campaign contributors, but he is a strong proponent of teaching creationism in schools, and a passionate foe of evolution. If, like many of his associates , he views natural disasters as manifestations of god’s wrath, it would follow that there is little point in monitoring them, as they will occur according to god’s will, and will kill whoever he wants them to. Is this why he does not want us to monitor them? Someone ought to ask him directly.
The Republican party needs to find a leader who can appeal to the mainstream. They need to find someone within their ranks that will not come across as either deceitful, deluded, or wilfully ignorant. Neither Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, nor Michael Steele is up to that task.
27th of February Update:
Seems it’s worse than we thought. The story he told in his address about the sheriff and the boats turns out to have been a total lie.
Jindal had described being in the office of Sheriff Harry Lee “during Katrina,” and hearing him yelling into the phone at a government bureaucrat who was refusing to let him send volunteer boats out to rescue stranded storm victims, because they didn’t have the necessary permits. Jindal said he told Lee, “that’s ridiculous,” prompting Lee to tell the bureaucrat that the rescue effort would go ahead and he or she could arrest both Lee and Jindal.
But now, a Jindal spokeswoman has admitted to Politico that in reality, Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone “days later.” The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.
This is no minor difference. Jindal’s presence in Lee’s office during the crisis itself was a key element of the story’s intended appeal, putting him at the center of the action during the maelstrom. Just as important, Jindal implied that his support for the sheriff helped ensure the rescue went ahead. But it turns out Jindal wasn’t there at the key moment, and played no role in making the rescue happen.
Given how badly Governor Jindal was panned by conservative commentators when they thought his speech was true, I suspect his time as de-facto leader of his party is over. That lasted, what, 4 days? Who’s up next?
Ahoy! For whatever reason I’ve not much felt like posting recently. Given that I rather fancy watching some Colbert report, and that means posting it here, I thought I’d better write a proper post first!
I’ve not logged into WAR since I went to visit my Dad over Christmas. His computer can’t handle it, so I took EQ2 along, figuring I’d have a fiddle around with the Frostfell events during any break from filling my face with food, watching Sci-Fi (a great weakness of both me and my Dad!), and arguing geopolitics.
I only played maybe three or four hours during the week I was there. When I got back to Norwich, I just kept on logging into EQ2.
So, I keep meaning to log into WAR. I don’t hate it, and my subscription is still running. I do also still quite want to become the greatest Engineer on my server, but you can only really play Warhammer Online during prime-time, because you can do very little of interest on your own.
EQ2, on the other hand, I can always be doing something that feels fun and productive. It is, of course, not productive in any world-improving sense of the word, but it is at least fun! Maltheas has done more quests than anyone else of his level on any server, and I take a certain amount of satisfaction in that. I can chat to people I like, and shut the idiots out. I can turn off all the global chat channels without missing out on anything I need to know. In WAR, I have to work with those idiots, which I find a little stressful, and I think that is probably what is causing me to hesitate when my mouse-clicker is hovering over the WAR icon. I just have enough negativity to contend with at the moment without foolish Order faction nonsense. I do need to get back to it though, seeing as that’s what all my friends are playing at the moment.
Apparently today is known as Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. I have been a bit on the rubbish side since I got back, as may have been concluded by my lack of posting. Amongst other things, the war in Gaza has made me rather miserable. How reasonable the Israeli PR folks make it sound to kill a thousand people, including over 300 children. Cluster bombs and white phosphorous have been rained down upon one of the most densely populated places in the world. In a sane universe there would be prosecutions for that sort of thing.
Tomorrow things change. Change for the better, perhaps. I am filled with hope and dread, for I find it hard to place my faith in anyone, god or man, and deep down I expect to be disappointed. Yet deep within, there is a small voice which whispers “Cometh the hour, cometh the man!”. Our world is teetering on the edge of multiple precipices, and it is now that we need a hero to lead us through all the sacrifice and joyous endeavour that will be necessary. If Obama can do that, and lives up to all our hopes, what a story that would be for future generations. If he turns out just to be another politician, then I’m doubtful of there even being many more generations.
Think happy thoughts. We’ll find out very quickly which path he will tread.
Folks in Britain have recently been blocked from watching the Colbert Report on the official Comedy Central website. Apparently FOX has just bought the rights to show it here, and does not want us to be able to view it online.
However, I have discovered that if you use the embed links kindly provided on the Comedy Central site for the very purpose of putting on your own blog, the embedded video can be viewed from any nation, including Britain! To watch them, however, I need to embed them somewhere. That somewhere is here. Henceforth, as a public service, I’m going to try to remember to embed the whole damn episodes worth of clips every day. The Colbert Report is bitingly superb satire, a vital part of feeding my addiction to US politics, and I’m not about to let Mr Murdoch stop me from being able to watch it without a fight. You can find the clips below: