Oklahoma Doctor Refuses To Provide Rape Victim With Emergency Contraception →
ThinkProgress reports: “An Oklahoma emergency room doctor refused to provide emergency contraception to a 24-year-old female rape victim because the medication violated the health provider’s personal beliefs… ‘I will not give you emergency contraceptives because it goes against my believes,’ the doctor allegedly told the rape victim and her mother, Rhonda. ‘She knew my daughter had just been raped. Her attitude was so judgmental and I felt that she was just judging my daughter.’
Oklahoma law shields providers from offering the perfectly legal medication under a ‘conscience clause’ which could significantly hinder women’s access to contraception services.”
This is sick. You might have to carry your rapist’s child because MY beliefs say so? In what universe is that OK? Whatever happened to “first, do no harm” – and I mean the living, breathing patient in front of you, not a maybe baby conceived by a rape. The religious right whines about secularism intruding into their beliefs, but what is more intrusive than forced pregnancy?
This woman was luckily able to get EC at another hospital. Other people might not be so lucky.
I cannot stand that this is a reality for even one victim, and it kills me that it is true for so many. You do not deserve to be a doctor if you refuse to help patients.
If your religious views are more important than serving the public and doing what is best for the patient in front of you instead of the lump of cells that has not yet formed, then choose another profession. Otherwise, you are not helping people.
Openly gay Latina wins Texas congressional seat
(Courtesy Mary Gonzalez)
Mary Gonzalez told them she was the best candidate to represent them and El Paso voters agreed, but along the way, the 28-year-old doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin broke her share of barriers.
The eleven states that execute the most prisoners are also the ones who did the most lynching. Now factor in that the whole justice system is waited against men of colour. they tend to be charged more harshly, tend to get harsher penalties, they are more likely to end up on death row statistically than white men who did identical crimes. The pardon system is dramatically weighted against them. I do not think the fact in my first sentence is an accident.
Update: 11 year old trans girl lost appeal →
The above article is an update. Her mother went to appeal to keep her out of the psychiatric ward and lost. She will be institutionalized because of her expression of her gender. She will be held until she conforms to male gender and then released to foster care, not her mother who was supporting her.
Please, if you haven’t signed the petition, sign it, reblog it, ask your friends to sign it. We’ve managed to get 40K signatures for a pageant model, we’ve only gotten 11K for a little girl about to have her life ruined. Lets get on the ball and spread the word.
I literally just repeated the f-word until I ran out of breath.
Let me catch my breath. I may go on a cursing spree again as soon as I get it back.
Seriously people…
WHY THE FUCK AREN’T PEOPLE REBLOGGING THIS??
Hemp is Truely a billion dollar crop. With many uses ranging from clothing, to fuel, to even food. 4.1 acres of Trees = 1 acre of hemp to make paper, and trees need years to grow, hemp grows ~90 days. Want to stimulate our economy and drive prices lower… Well Hemp is one way to go.
HISTORY FACTS
*Hemp has been grown for at least the last 12,000 years for fiber (textiles and paper) and food. It has been effectively prohibited in the United States since the 1950s.
*George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp. Ben Franklin owned a mill that made hemp paper. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper.
*When US sources of “Manila hemp” (not true hemp) was cut off by the Japanese in WWII, the US Army and US Department of Agriculture promoted the “Hemp for Victory” campaign to grow hemp in the US.
*Because of its importance for sails (the word “canvass” is rooted in “cannabis”) and rope for ships, hemp was a required crop in the American colonies.
INDUSTRY FACTS
*Henry Ford experimented with hemp to build car bodies. He wanted to build and fuel cars from farm products.
*BMW is experimenting with hemp materials in automobiles as part of an effort to make cars more recyclable.
*Much of the bird seed sold in the US has hemp seed (it’s sterilized before importation), the hulls of which contain about 25% protein.
*Hemp oil once greased machines. Most paints, resins, shellacs, and varnishes used to be made out of linseed (from flax) and hemp oils.
*Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on hemp oil.
*Kimberly Clark (on the Fortune 500) has a mill in France which produces hemp paper preferred for bibles because it lasts a very long time and doesn’t yellow.
*Construction products such as medium density fiber board, oriented strand board, and even beams, studs and posts could be made out of hemp. Because of hemp’s long fibers, the products will be stronger and/or lighter than those made from wood.
*The products that can be made from hemp number over 25,000.
SCIENTIFIC FACTS
*Industrial hemp and marijuana are both classified by taxonomists as Cannabis sativa, a species with hundreds of varieties. C. sativa is a member of the mulberry family. Industrial hemp is bred to maximize fiber, seed and/or oil, while marijuana varieties seek to maximize THC (delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana).
*While industrial hemp and marijuana may look somewhat alike to an untrained eye, an easily trained eye can easily distinguish the difference.
*Industrial hemp has a THC content of between 0.05 and 1%. Marijuana has a THC content of 3% to 20%. To receive a standard psychoactive dose would require a person to power-smoke 10-12 hemp cigarettes over an extremely short period of time. The large volume and high temperature of vapor, gas and smoke would be almost impossible for a person to withstand.
*If hemp does pollinate any nearby marijuana, genetically, the result will always be lower-THC marijuana, not higher-THC hemp. If hemp is grown outdoors, marijuana will not be grown close by to avoid producing lower-grade marijuana.
*Hemp fibers are longer, stronger, more absorbent and more mildew-resistant than cotton.
*Fabrics made of at least one-half hemp block the sun’s UV rays more effectively than other fabrics.
*Many of the varieties of hemp that were grown in North America have been lost. Seed banks weren’t maintained. New genetic breeding will be necessary using both foreign and domestic “ditchweed,” strains of hemp that went feral after cultivation ended. Various state national guard units often spend their weekends trying to eradicate this hemp, in the mistaken belief they are helping stop drug use.
*A 1938 Popular Mechanics described hemp as a “New Billion Dollar Crop.” That’s back when a billion was real money.
*Hemp can be made in to a variety of fabrics, including linen quality.
LEGAL FACTS
*The US Drug Enforcement Agency classifies all C. sativa varieties as “marijuana.” While it is theoretically possible to get permission from the government to grow hemp, DEA would require that the field be secured by fence, razor wire, dogs, guards, and lights, making it cost-prohibitive.
*The US State Department must certify each year that a foreign nation is cooperating in the war on drugs. The European Union subsidizes its farmers to grow industrial hemp. Those nations are not on this list, because the State Department can tell the difference between hemp and marijuana.
*Hemp was grown commercially (with increasing governmental interference) in the United States until the 1950s. It was doomed by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which placed an extremely high tax on marijuana and made it effectively impossible to grow industrial hemp. While Congress expressly expected the continued production of industrial hemp, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics lumped industrial hemp with marijuana, as it’s successor the US Drug Enforcement Administration, does to this day.
*Over 30 industrialized democracies do distinguish hemp from marijuana. International treaties regarding marijuana make an exception for industrial hemp.
*Canada now again allows the growing of hemp.
ECOLOGY FACTS
* Hemp growers can not hide marijuana plants in their fields. Marijuana is grown widely spaced to maximize leaves. Hemp is grown in tightly-spaced rows to maximize stalk and is usually harvested before it goes to seed.
*Hemp can be made into fine quality paper. The long fibers in hemp allow such paper to be recycled several times more than wood-based paper.
*Because of its low lignin content, hemp can be pulped using less chemicals than with wood. Its natural brightness can obviate the need to use chlorine bleach, which means no extremely toxic dioxin being dumped into streams. A kinder and gentler chemistry using hydrogen peroxide rather than chlorine dixoide is possible with hemp fibers.
*Hemp grows well in a variety of climates and soil types. It is naturally resistant to most pests, precluding the need for pesticides. It grows tightly spaced, out-competing any weeds, so herbicides are not necessary. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop.
*Hemp can displace cotton which is usually grown with massive amounts of chemicals harmful to people and the environment. 50% of all the world’s pesticides are sprayed on cotton.
*Hemp can displace wood fiber and save forests for watershed, wildlife habitat, recreation and oxygen production, carbon sequestration (reduces global warming), and other values.
*Hemp can yield 3-8 dry tons of fiber per acre. This is four times what an average forest can yield.
HEALTH FACTS
*If one tried to ingest enough industrial hemp to get ‘a buzz’, it would be the equivalent of taking 2-3 doses of a high-fiber laxative.
*At a volume level of 81%, hemp oil is the richest known source of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (the “good” fats). It’s quite high in some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid (GLA), a very rare nutrient also found in mother’s milk.
*While the original “gruel” was made of hemp seed meal, hemp oil and seed can be made into tasty and nutritional products.
Prepared by the North American Industrial Hemp Council, October 1997
Ron Paul’s heartfelt positions on the issues coincide with ours.
New Wikileaks cables reveal U.S. targeting Julian Assange
THE WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange remains the target of a US government criminal investigation and the subject of US-Australian intelligence exchanges, Australian diplomatic cables obtained by the Herald reveal.
Australian diplomats have closely monitored the US Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks over the past 18 months. The embassy in Washington reported ”a broad range of possible charges are under consideration, including espionage and conspiracy”.
The diplomats dismiss Mr Assange’s claims that the US investigation is politically motivated retribution for WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked US military and diplomatic reports. They instead highlight US prosecutors’ claims that the alleged leaker, Bradley Manning, dealt directly with Mr Assange and ”data-mined” secret US databases ”guided by WikiLeaks’ list of ‘most wanted’ leaks”.
White privilege conditions white people not to see white rage. However, it makes them hyper-aware of Black threat. Newt Gingrich is white rage personified. And for it, he gets loads of applause. So is Jan Brewer, but usually we think of white rage in masculine terms. Gender stereotypes condition us not to see white women as being capable of this kind of dangerous emotional output. We reserve our notions of female anger for Black women. Such hidden race-gender logics allow Brewer to assert that she “felt threatened,” even though she was trying to handle the situation “with grace.” Now look back at the picture: who is threatening whom? Couple white rage with white women’s access to the protections that have been afforded to their gender, and you have something that looks ironically like white female privilege. Yes (yes, yes), the discourse of protection is based upon problematic and sexist stereotypes of white women as dainty and unable to care for themselves, and yes, these stereotypes have caused white women to be oppressed by white men. But remember, gender does not exist in a racial vacuum. It is performed in highly racialized contexts, and history proves that what constitutes oppression for white women in relation to white men, dually constitutes privilege for white women in relation to Black men. (I’m not spoiling for a fight today, so anybody who feels uncomfortable with such assertions should probably go read some Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics and then try again.) What I know is this: 100 years ago (less than, actually) a Black man even standing that close to a white woman would’ve gotten him lynched. (Seriously, I just discovered that even accommodationist Booker T. Washington was beaten in New York in 1911 for talking to a white woman.) And I know that if a Black woman had wagged her finger at Bush II or even Bill Clinton, we would have seen her faced down, handcuffed, with Secret Service swarming. When your race and gender grant you opportunities to be treated with dignities that others don’t have or conversely, to heap indignities on those people, that is what we call privilege.
Unchecked white rage has always been dangerous for Brown and Black folk in America. Jan Brewer’s Arizona is not safe for Brown people and by implication, not safe for Black people (Presidents included). Not only has she terrorized and racially profiled immigrant communities, but she has gutted one of the model Ethnic Studies programs for high school students in this country. If there were ever a time for Black and Brown solidarity, it is now. And hell, lest we forget, Arizona is not even safe for white women. It is the vitriolic racial climate that Brewer’s anti-immigrant, anti-Latino policies have helped to foment that led to the violence against Gabby Giffords.
Crunktastic, White Women’s Rage: 5 Thoughts On Why Jan Brewer Should Keep Her Fingers to Herself, Crunk Feminist Collective 1/27/12 (via racialicious)
Fantastic post.
(via fatbodypolitics)
Though cesium levels are 10 times the norm, tuna is still safe to eat. Cesium, by the way, is a pleasantly sweet. Homer voice <on> “Mmmmm, delicious radiation…”
Radioactive bluefin tuna crossed the Pacific to US
ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer May 28th 2012
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.
“We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that’s still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.
Voter Purge, Minority Voting Rights Flashpoints Of New Showdown In Florida →
Janell Ross ~ 05/27/2012~ Huffingtonpost
Florida officials made it clear Friday that the state will continue to purge as many as 182,000 suspected noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls — despite a coalition’s call to stop the process or prepare for court.
n the last three weeks alone, the Florida secretary of state’s office has identified and started to purge what it says are at least 50,000 dead voters from the state’s rolls and stripped out about 7,000 convicted felons. Officials at the same time are defending a more controversial plan to remove as many as 182,000 suspected noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls.
“Florida has a very shameful history of purging minority voters based on false information before presidential elections,” said Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, director of voter protection projects for the Advancement Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that works to protect voter rights.
The Advancement Project is one of the five organizations in the coalition that warned Florida last week to discontinue plans to purge alleged noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls. It also called on the Department of Justice to temporarily halt the purge and investigate the state’s actions.
“What’s happening now, is not only illegal but it’s inaccurate, Culliton-Gonzalez said. “There are actual citizens on these lists. So, what’s happening is completely counter to the fundamental principals of our democracy.”
Florida often grabs national attention because the state is home to 11.3 million voters and wields 29 electoral votes, but the apparent showdown in the state is part of a broader battle over voting rights and participation leading up to the 2012 presidential election. Since last year, nearly three dozen Republican-controlled state legislatures have considered or passed laws creating new photo ID requirements for voters. Some also shortened early-voting periods, restricted early voting sites in churches and other locations where many minority voters typically cast ballots, andcurtailed organizations that register voters. While some of the changes have gone into effect, many remain on hold pending court decisions.
Early this year, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s staff worked with the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to identify nearly 3,000 alleged noncitizens who also are registered to vote, said Chris Cate, Detzner’s spokesman. The voters in question were not citizens at the time they applied for a Florida driver’s license.
However, many people become citizens between scheduled license renewals, voting-rights advocates say.
till, on May 7, Detzner directed county-level election officials to begin notifying these individuals that they would be purged from voter rolls unless they provided proof of citizenship within 30 days. The state’s warning letters described the individuals as potentially ineligible voters and advised recipients that casting a ballot is a felony.
The letters are consistent with state law, Cate said.
“Nobody should be OK with ineligible voters being on the rolls,” he said. “We’re simply trying to address that. And we aren’t more concerned or doing this because this is election year. This isn’t an election year issue. This is a voting integrity issue, something we worry about all the time.”
In the weeks since the first letters hit Florida mailboxes, several newspapers reported on citizens who received a letter. And in mid May, one county election official who is also a Republican, tweeted a picture of himself with a letter recipient and the man’s U.S. passport.
Detzner could not be reached for comment Friday. But in a statement released earlier this month, he said the presence of just one ineligible voter on the state’s voting rolls represents a real threat to the integrity of the voting process.
A Republicanappointed in January by Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Detzner did not initiate the purge. In 2011, Scott, also a Republican, asked Dentzer’s predecessor, former Secretary of State Kurt Browning, to determine if noncitizens were voting in Florida. Browning’s efforts uncovered the 182,000 possible names.
But Browning, a Republican, was unconvinced of the list’s accuracy, concerned that asking voters to prove their citizenship interfered with the voting process and would generate plenty of media attention in a state already known for problem elections, the Miami Herald reported. In Florida, like most other states, individuals essentially swear to their citizenship and can face perjury and felony voter fraud charges if it is later discovered that an individual lied, Browning said he told the governor. Scott wanted to move ahead.
In September, Florida began an ongoing quest to access a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) database that includes information about individuals who have become naturalized U.S. citizens. The DHS refused to give the state access, Cate said. The Secretary of State’s office will instead pay the agency that grants Florida driver’s licenses, which has access to the DHS database, at least $90,000 to run all 182,000 names, Cate said.
“Believe me, if we had this information a year ago, or two years ago we would have acted on it then,” he said.
Timing matters. The National Voter Registration Act requires states to make every effort to monitor and maintain clean and accurate voter rolls, said Sarah Massey, media director of Project Vote, part of the coalition and a Washington, D.C.-based national nonprofit that works to empower, educate and mobilize low income and other marginalized and under represented voters.
But the same law also says efforts must take place 90 days or more before a federal election begins, Massey said. Florida voters are set to vote in a primary Aug. 14 that includes candidates seeking congressional seats — meaning the state has missed the three-month deadline.
Beyond the timing of the purge, in an initial list of nearly 3,000 voters, black and Latino immigrants were disproportionately represented, the coalition of advocacy groups said in a statement Thursday. A Miami Herald analysis found nearly 60 percent of the people on the list to be Latino. Hispanic voters constitute just 13 percent of the state’s electorate, according to federal data.
The situation has some voting rights advocates talking about the role voter purges have played in previous presidential contests.
“In 2000, thousands were purged [from the rolls] in Florida and thousands couldn’t vote,” said Massey, a spokesperson for Project Vote about the election that pitted former President George W. Bush against then-Vice President Al Gore. “We had an election that was ultimately called by the Supreme Court and that just can’t happen again.”
by kelly1412
if korra and azula fought who would win
i think korra but azula is scrappy and fucking nuts
Page 1 of 17
