Shorter Question Everything
Everybody should have a gun, according to the gun happy set, but apparently the thing that must really be regulated is vaginas. Vaginas are really really scary. Such a threat that they require massive amounts of regulation, even for people that are born vagina-carriers.
Maybe it’s like marijuana and other things that just grow right out of the ground and don’t require (for the most part) to be purchased and therefore make a lot of money for a select group of people. Sort of like how the NRA is a shill for the gun lobby.
Maybe we need a Vagina Lobby.
• My Guns Are Less Regulated Than My Uterus: In Alaska, many of us need guns to fill our freezers, but if you need a 30-round clip you’re a pretty poor hunter. If you are hoarding automatic (yes, they are legal) or semi-automatic weapons, you need Viagra. I’m not advocating for no guns. I like mine and am not about to give them up. But in this country, my uterus is more regulated than my guns. Birth control and reproductive health services are harder to get than bullets. What is that about? Guns don’t kill people — vaginas do?
• HB5711 – Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Signs Extensive Anti-Choice Bill Into Law: Urghhhhh. Fancy meeting you here, HB5711. No big surprise, as it had already been predicted that this would come to pass, but yesterday Gov. Rick Snyder signed a severe abortion bill passed by the Michigan House earlier this month, which involves an OCD-level regulation of abortion facilities (e.g., if a clinic’s doorways aren’t wide enough, the state can shut them down), the mandatory screening of all women to determine whether or not someone was forcing them to get an abortion, banning telemedicine to prescribe first-trimester medication abortions and regulating disposal of the fetus. “To be screened for coercion is a reasonable thing,” Snyder told The Detroit News. “It is really a question of women’s health and safety.”
• Video from Maine as first gay couple gets married, crowd goes wild
• President Obama went a step further on Saturday in his public views on same-sex couples’ marriage rights than he has done in the past, with a spokesman stating that Obama supports the planned Illinois legislative measure to allow same-sex couples there to marry. The move is the first time Obama has endorsed a legislative effort to allow same-sex couples to marry. More than that, it is a break from Obama’s past statements about state legislative efforts, in which he as recently as October described as a “conversation” — but declined to state his preferred outcome.
• Anonymous Rallies for Justice for 16-Year-Old Rape Victim: This is a sad, seedy, predictable story about small town protectionism, only in this story, rape protectionism meets Internet warriors for justice. Silencing victims? Not so fast, little town. Anonymous is in Steubenville, Ohio today, protesting the local authorities handling of the rape scandal. They’re outside the local courthouse wearing Guy Fawkes’ masks and chanting, “Rape is wrong!” Also, in case little town is still confused, “Rape is not a sport.” What’s all the fuss about? Well, on August 11, football heroes in Steubenville, Ohio were accused of raping a 16-year-old high school girl. They also allegedly videotaped and photographed said girl while she was unconscious. Naturally, some of these tapes and photos were shared online, thus further humiliating the victim but also incriminating the alleged perpetrators. Too many in the small town rallied around the boys as if mentioning the word rape were the real sin.
Canada
• Justin Trudeau Visits Theresa Spence, Attawapiskat Chief On Hunger Strike For Idle No More Movement
• An anti-government movement known as Freeman on the Land has become a ‘major policing problem’ in several provinces, according to a threat assessment by Canada’s spy officials. The report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service lists Freeman members among ‘domestic extremists’ who associate with issue-based causes, such as environmentalism, anti-capitalism, anti-globalization and far-right racism. Its adherents fall on both the left and right wings of the political spectrum, but “at the core” of the movement is the belief that “government operates outside of its legal jurisdiction and therefore Freeman members do not recognize the authority of national, provincial, or municipal laws, policies or regulations,” says the report, titled Canada: Biannual Update on Terrorist and Extremist Threats, which was prepared in April and released under federal access-to-information laws.
• A federal government department says there is no evidence that missing personal information about thousands of Canadians has been used for fraudulent purposes. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada says an employee reported on Nov. 16 that a USB key containing personal information, including Social Insurance Numbers, of about 5,000 Canadians was missing. The department, which handles a variety of files including pensions, old age security, employment insurance and childcare tax credits, says all those affected have been contacted.
In other news
• CIA Global Response Staff: The rapid collapse of a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya exposed the vulnerabilities of State Department facilities overseas. But the CIA’s ability to fend off a second attack that same night provided a glimpse of a key element in the agency’s defensive arsenal: a secret security force created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Two of the Americans killed in Benghazi were members of the CIA’s Global Response Staff, an innocuously named organization that has recruited hundreds of former U.S. Special Forces operatives to serve as armed guards for the agency’s spies. The GRS, as it is known, is designed to stay in the shadows, training teams to work undercover and provide an unobtrusive layer of security for CIA officers in high-risk outposts.
• One of the hallmarks of so-called hard-right “patriots” is their immutable adherence to the Constitution and all of its tenets, and yet they reserve the most important right, that of free speech, for themselves. After the tragic massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, television personality Piers Morgan spoke out against the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment and the Wild West mentality of many of its supporters, and because he was exercising the Constitutional right of free speech, a phalanx of patriots demanded his immediate deportation for expressing his opinion.
• Israelis shoot down NRA’s claim that the Jewish State uses more weapons to keep schools safe: When it comes to Israel and school shootings, Wayne LaPierre doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Israeli security experts said Sunday. Such shootings are very rare in Israel and have been associated with terror attacks, not crazed gunmen, they said. Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said the situation in Israel was “fundamentally different” from that in the United States. “We didn’t have a series of school shootings, and they had nothing to do with the issue at hand in the United States. We had to deal with terrorism,” said Palmor. “What removed the danger was not the armed guards but an overall anti-terror policy and anti-terror operations which brought street terrorism down to nearly zero over a number of years,” he said. “It would be better not to drag Israel into what is an internal American discussion,” he added. “There is no comparison between maniacs with psychological problems opening fire at random to kill innocent people and trained terrorists trying to murder Israeli children,” said Reuven Berko, a retired Israeli Army colonel and senior police officer.
• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said Saturday that there was “no possibility” of persuading President Bashar al-Assad to leave Syria, leaving little hope for a breakthrough in the standoff. He also said that the opposition leaders’ insistence on Mr. Assad’s departure as a precondition for peace talks would come at the cost of “more and more lives of Syrian citizens” in a conflict that has already killed tens of thousands.
F.D.Brightly
Today in things that are regulated more heavily than guns
Shorter Question Everything
Everybody should have a gun, according to the gun happy set, but apparently the thing that must really be regulated is vaginas. Vaginas are really really scary. Such a threat that they require massive amounts of regulation, even for people that are born vagina-carriers.
Maybe it’s like marijuana and other things that just grow right out of the ground and don’t require (for the most part) to be purchased and therefore make a lot of money for a select group of people. Sort of like how the NRA is a shill for the gun lobby.
Maybe we need a Vagina Lobby.
• My Guns Are Less Regulated Than My Uterus: In Alaska, many of us need guns to fill our freezers, but if you need a 30-round clip you’re a pretty poor hunter. If you are hoarding automatic (yes, they are legal) or semi-automatic weapons, you need Viagra. I’m not advocating for no guns. I like mine and am not about to give them up. But in this country, my uterus is more regulated than my guns. Birth control and reproductive health services are harder to get than bullets. What is that about? Guns don’t kill people — vaginas do?
• HB5711 – Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Signs Extensive Anti-Choice Bill Into Law: Urghhhhh. Fancy meeting you here, HB5711. No big surprise, as it had already been predicted that this would come to pass, but yesterday Gov. Rick Snyder signed a severe abortion bill passed by the Michigan House earlier this month, which involves an OCD-level regulation of abortion facilities (e.g., if a clinic’s doorways aren’t wide enough, the state can shut them down), the mandatory screening of all women to determine whether or not someone was forcing them to get an abortion, banning telemedicine to prescribe first-trimester medication abortions and regulating disposal of the fetus. “To be screened for coercion is a reasonable thing,” Snyder told The Detroit News. “It is really a question of women’s health and safety.”
• Video from Maine as first gay couple gets married, crowd goes wild
• President Obama went a step further on Saturday in his public views on same-sex couples’ marriage rights than he has done in the past, with a spokesman stating that Obama supports the planned Illinois legislative measure to allow same-sex couples there to marry. The move is the first time Obama has endorsed a legislative effort to allow same-sex couples to marry. More than that, it is a break from Obama’s past statements about state legislative efforts, in which he as recently as October described as a “conversation” — but declined to state his preferred outcome.
• Anonymous Rallies for Justice for 16-Year-Old Rape Victim: This is a sad, seedy, predictable story about small town protectionism, only in this story, rape protectionism meets Internet warriors for justice. Silencing victims? Not so fast, little town. Anonymous is in Steubenville, Ohio today, protesting the local authorities handling of the rape scandal. They’re outside the local courthouse wearing Guy Fawkes’ masks and chanting, “Rape is wrong!” Also, in case little town is still confused, “Rape is not a sport.” What’s all the fuss about? Well, on August 11, football heroes in Steubenville, Ohio were accused of raping a 16-year-old high school girl. They also allegedly videotaped and photographed said girl while she was unconscious. Naturally, some of these tapes and photos were shared online, thus further humiliating the victim but also incriminating the alleged perpetrators. Too many in the small town rallied around the boys as if mentioning the word rape were the real sin.
Canada
• Justin Trudeau Visits Theresa Spence, Attawapiskat Chief On Hunger Strike For Idle No More Movement
• An anti-government movement known as Freeman on the Land has become a ‘major policing problem’ in several provinces, according to a threat assessment by Canada’s spy officials. The report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service lists Freeman members among ‘domestic extremists’ who associate with issue-based causes, such as environmentalism, anti-capitalism, anti-globalization and far-right racism. Its adherents fall on both the left and right wings of the political spectrum, but “at the core” of the movement is the belief that “government operates outside of its legal jurisdiction and therefore Freeman members do not recognize the authority of national, provincial, or municipal laws, policies or regulations,” says the report, titled Canada: Biannual Update on Terrorist and Extremist Threats, which was prepared in April and released under federal access-to-information laws.
• A federal government department says there is no evidence that missing personal information about thousands of Canadians has been used for fraudulent purposes. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada says an employee reported on Nov. 16 that a USB key containing personal information, including Social Insurance Numbers, of about 5,000 Canadians was missing. The department, which handles a variety of files including pensions, old age security, employment insurance and childcare tax credits, says all those affected have been contacted.
In other news
• CIA Global Response Staff: The rapid collapse of a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya exposed the vulnerabilities of State Department facilities overseas. But the CIA’s ability to fend off a second attack that same night provided a glimpse of a key element in the agency’s defensive arsenal: a secret security force created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Two of the Americans killed in Benghazi were members of the CIA’s Global Response Staff, an innocuously named organization that has recruited hundreds of former U.S. Special Forces operatives to serve as armed guards for the agency’s spies. The GRS, as it is known, is designed to stay in the shadows, training teams to work undercover and provide an unobtrusive layer of security for CIA officers in high-risk outposts.
• One of the hallmarks of so-called hard-right “patriots” is their immutable adherence to the Constitution and all of its tenets, and yet they reserve the most important right, that of free speech, for themselves. After the tragic massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, television personality Piers Morgan spoke out against the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment and the Wild West mentality of many of its supporters, and because he was exercising the Constitutional right of free speech, a phalanx of patriots demanded his immediate deportation for expressing his opinion.
• Israelis shoot down NRA’s claim that the Jewish State uses more weapons to keep schools safe: When it comes to Israel and school shootings, Wayne LaPierre doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Israeli security experts said Sunday. Such shootings are very rare in Israel and have been associated with terror attacks, not crazed gunmen, they said. Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said the situation in Israel was “fundamentally different” from that in the United States. “We didn’t have a series of school shootings, and they had nothing to do with the issue at hand in the United States. We had to deal with terrorism,” said Palmor. “What removed the danger was not the armed guards but an overall anti-terror policy and anti-terror operations which brought street terrorism down to nearly zero over a number of years,” he said. “It would be better not to drag Israel into what is an internal American discussion,” he added. “There is no comparison between maniacs with psychological problems opening fire at random to kill innocent people and trained terrorists trying to murder Israeli children,” said Reuven Berko, a retired Israeli Army colonel and senior police officer.
• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said Saturday that there was “no possibility” of persuading President Bashar al-Assad to leave Syria, leaving little hope for a breakthrough in the standoff. He also said that the opposition leaders’ insistence on Mr. Assad’s departure as a precondition for peace talks would come at the cost of “more and more lives of Syrian citizens” in a conflict that has already killed tens of thousands.