:: Health, Rights - 1; Men in Funny Hats, - 0

Imagine living in a country where public health matters are decided without interference by a gaggle of old men wearing funny hats....

Agence France Presse -- English January 29, 2008
Brazilian carnival-goers to get access to morning-after pills
DATELINE: BRASILIA, Jan 29 2008

The Brazilian city of Recife is to distribute morning-after pills to women during carnival after public prosecutors on Tuesday rejected a Catholic Church lawsuit claiming the initiative promoted sex and provided abortions."

"The pill has no abortive effect, as the archdiocese claims, and its distribution is in no way an incentive to have sex," the prosecutor who made the decision, Ivana Botelho, told AFP.

On top of its legal defeat, the church has come under fire from the Brazilian government for attempting to sway public health policy.

"The (Recife) mayor's office is right and the church is wrong, again," Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said Sunday, as the issue was coming to a head.

"The morning-after pill is used with medical guidance and is a matter of public health, not religion," he said, adding that he believed the church was alienating youths with its stance.

The archiocese for Recife, one of the Brazilian cities most famous for its wild carnival celebrations alongside Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, on Monday lodged its suit with the public prosecutor's office.

It was seeking to block the distribution of the contraceptive during this year's pre-Lenten carnival, which begins on Friday and runs to Tuesday of next week.

The verdict allows Recife officials to go ahead and hand out the pills from stationary and mobile health posts which will also provide medical consultations.

The municipality says its aim is to "guarantee the sexual and reproductive rights of women who have been victims of sexual violence or who have had a failure of contraceptive methods."

Morning-after pills must be used within 72 hours of unprotected sexual intercourse. They work by blocking fertilization.

According to the newspaper Pernambuco, the archbishop at the center of the storm, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, is not prepared to back down on the issue, and had threatened excommunication to any church-goers who use the pill. Read more!

:: "The Daily Dish" (of hot, steaming crap)

Andrew Sullivan stars in his own horrorshow: "I Am Moron."

Who would have thought that celebrity gay blogger Andrew Sullivan would ever find a point of agreement with Saudi fundamentalists on a social issue?

Long story short: Sullivan's latest column argues that Hillary's candidacy violates the spirit and intent of the 22nd amendment to the Constitution. That's the one that limits a President to two terms of office:

We also confront the issue of the 22nd amendment. I don't like it, but it's there. In fact, we may have the 22nd Amendment to thank for our current predicament. Bill Clinton should have been able to run for a third term in the full light of day under traditional democratic rules. Instead, we now have to grapple with re-electing him to a third (and even fourth) term via his wife. Yes, they narrowly fit the letter of the Constitution, but they sure do violate its spirit and intent.

Because, as the Saudis know so well, wives are not individual people. They are simply an extension of their husbands (or fathers, or oldest male relative). Legal rights apply to the man of the house; the little lady falls under his jurisdiction. Women don't need identity cards or passports, because it would be redundant - they are already listed as part of the nearest male's collection of chattel. And running for office? If you have a husband / father / brother in office, its redundant as well. You belong to him; he's an office-holder; therefore if you were elected to office it would mean your owner is occupying two political seats. And that just wouldn't be fair now, would it?

But maybe Sullivan has a point with regard to Constitutional intent. The 22nd amendment was added in the 20th century, but if you think about the Framers' Intent (cue dramatic music) you'll remember that they saw no reason for women, or slaves, to have the right to vote. Why bother, when they would only be reflecting their master's will? To allow a man's property to vote would be to violate the principle of 'one man, one vote.'

And so, in America's greatest throwdown on the role of women in society in the last thirty years, Sullivan enters the fray riding an enormous pig - a sexist pig.

Bareback, of course.

*photo, left: Andy and the pig he rode in on

Read more!

:: How Ignorant Is He?

Mike Huckabee is so ignorant there may be no need
for the writer's strike to end.

I just want to make sure you see all of Mike Huckabee's evolving responses to the Bhutto assassination. I laughed really, really hard. I think you will too. The New York Times has a decent summary:

Explaining statements he made suggesting that the instability in Pakistan should remind Americans to tighten security on the southern border of the United States, Mr. Huckabee said Friday that “we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities, except those immediately south of the border.”

Asked to justify the statement, he later cited a March 2006 article in The Denver Post reporting that from 2002 to 2005, Pakistanis were the most numerous non-Latin Americans caught entering the United States illegally. According to The Post, 660 Pakistanis were detained in that period.

A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security, however, concluded that, over all, illegal immigrants from the Philippines, India, Korea, China and Vietnam were all far more numerous than those from Pakistan.

In a separate interview on Friday on MSNBC, Mr. Huckabee, a Republican, said that the Pakistani government “does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists.” Those borders are on the western side of Pakistan, not the eastern side.

Further, he offered an Orlando crowd his “apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.” His aides said later that he meant to say “sympathies.”

He also said he was worried about martial law “continuing” in Pakistan, although Mr. Musharraf lifted the state of emergency on Dec. 15. Mr. Huckabee later said that he was referring to a renewal of full martial law and said that some elements, including restrictions on judges and the news media, had continued.

Mr. Huckabee’s comments on the situation in Pakistan were not the first time he has been caught unprepared on foreign policy matters. Early this month, after the release of a National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Mr. Huckabee said that he was not familiar with the report, even though it had been widely reported in the news for more than 30 hours.

Read more!

:: I Don't <3 Huckabee

I just don't feel I can point out often enough what a yahoo Huckabee is. But today, the lovely and talented Ann Telnaes did my job for me!

And please, can someone please explain and real, substantive difference between Hilary and Obama, besides style? Anyone? Buffy?

P.S. You are not allowed to use universal (or nearly) health care as an example. Read more!

:: There's Conservative, and Then There's Just Plain Dumb, and Then There is Evil - and Sometimes All Three"

Zippy’s post below "There’s conservative, and then there’s just plain dumb" describes Mike Huckabees weird-ass answer to a softball question about the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and TB.

[And really, who doesn’t support the Global Fund? No one, that’s who. The Global Fund has so much support that they're richer than many countries; hell, they're probably richer than Jesus. Of course you say you support the Global Fund, you nitwit, and then talk about the great work they are doing to prevent malaria and tuberculosis. Or you say you support the Global Fund, and add something about how America needs to use its moral influence to ensure their policies don’t do harm along with good. For the love of Rhoda, is it that hard?]

Not surprisingly, I had what you might call “a reaction” of my own to the news about Huckabee. It seems that not only did he support quarantines back in the day -- he continues to support them now. (Yes. Still. Now. I’m not making this up. To paraphrase the best line in Blair Witch Project– I’m not that fucking creative.) That Huckabee doesn't do the obvious thing and say "yeah, changed my mind about the whole quarantine thing - a bit too Castro, IMHO" is really just so fucking typical of these people. (And by “these people” I mean our homegrown corn-fed proto-fascists).

Huckabee refuses to recant his position, but has indicated he would like to lie about it now.

As a Senate candidate in 1992, Huckabee told the AP in a questionnaire that "we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague" if the federal government was going to deal with the spread of the disease effectively. "It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents," he said then.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Huckabee denied that those words were a call to quarantine the AIDS population, although he did not explain how else isolation would be achieved. "I didn't say we should quarantine," he said. The idea was not to "lock people up."

Huckabee acknowledged the prevailing scientific view then, and since, that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact, but said that was not certain.

"I still believe this today," Huckabee said Sunday, that "we were acting more out of political correctness" in responding to the AIDS crisis. "I don't run from it, I don't recant it," he said of his position in 1992. Yet he said he would state his view differently in retrospect.

Huckabee also stated in 1992 that HIV/AIDS research was receiving too much federal funding.

Now, even the most obtuse moral relativist – someone who would just as soon see male hairdressers and florists burnt at the stake so long as it was approved by a local majority vote - could see how Huckabee’s ideological take on this issue ran counter to our interest in public health. If a quarantine were justified because AIDS, like “plague,” could be spread by casual contact, thereby causing mass fatalities – wouldn’t you want to spend more on research, not less? I mean, who says “we have an epidemic of deadly plague sweeping through America’s cities, and we’re spending way too much on stopping it”? That is not a rhetorical question, by the way. For real – you only say that if you have no problem with the impact of the plague on the afflicted population. Or if you are a moron. Or if you are a complete sociopath.

From the sound of things, Huckabee may well be all three. So I guess that’s my answer to your question, Zippy.

The Washington Post has a good editorial about Huck and the plague, thereby illustrating the “broken clock is right twice a day” principle. Shockingly, its worth a read.

My prediction – which I shared with Scientist-at-Large before I saw this article, thank you very much –is Huckabee will meet with Ryan White's mom for a mushy photo op and it will be "no harm, no foul" according to the MSM. (And if Mom White says something negative about Huck, or refuses to meet with him at all, watch for the obligatory “Cindy Sheehan” hatchet job). Meanwhile the base will get the message, sub rosa, that should the opportunity arise he’ll be first in line to stick it to the homos.

Read more!

:: There's conservative, and then there's just plain dumb

This is priceless. In a house stop in New Hampshire, Mike Huckabee is asked whether is "Christian beliefs" would keep him from supporting prevention programs advocated by the Global AIDS Fund. While he never actually says no, he does spend a great deal of time talking about how asking someone who is HIV+ to have safer sex is like asking someone to drive not as drunk as they would otherwise. Or to please not be quite so violent with their partners.

Well, gosh, that sure cleared it up for me.

Our friends at Pandagon and Pam's House Blend had fun with Huckabee's '92 statement that AIDS patients should be quarantined. I was willing to knock that up to being an ignorant redneck -- I mean, we were already well into the epidemic, but frankly, a lot of poor Southern states were totally behind the ball then and now.

And it's not like I was cheering for Huckabee either -- sure, he's a charming, rock-music-loving Baptist preacher man, but I'm pretty sure he's well convinced that I'm going to hell for any number of factors of my lifestyle (the drinking, the sex, the belief in a woman's autonomy).

But now I'm quite quite he's truly evil. Let's sum up, shall we?

• AIDS patients should be quarantined (watch him defend it here)
• Marriage equality will destroy civilization
• Being HIV+ and using a condom is like beating your wife a little less
  

Oh, and he's willing to admit evolution into the classroom as "the prevailing scientific theory" but he thinks students should be exposed to others.

Wow.

So tell me, do any of the other Republican candidates rival this one for the Ignorant Redneck award? Read more!

:: Sending my donation today!

Mondays are hard. Getting out of bed at an ungodly hour after a lovely weekend. Dashing your recycling to the curb before the truck goes by. And then there is just no decent news in the newspaper.

But this morning, buried in the front section of the Times, I found this tidbit:

Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.

Oh, please don't tease me! Really? You Promise?? I will send Rudy my $20 today if it will help split that vote! It's as if the Wingnuts were truly trying to prove that they are out of touch and out of step with the real world. Even yahoo Gary L Bauer thinks this is stupid:

“I can’t think of a bigger disaster for social conservatives, defense conservatives and economic conservatives than Hillary Clinton in the White House,” Mr. Bauer said.

Please, my sisters, send your donation to Giuliani today! It will piss off Dobson and Perkins (frankly, worth it in its own right) and you could help split the GOP! Read more!

:: Amnesty, Aguilera and the Birth of a Hoax

An anti-choice group has duped the press into promoting a hoax

to hurt Amnesty International

This is how a hoax is born. Today’s topic: Christina Aguilera, Amnesty International and the Vatican-sponsored boycott of Amnesty.

[For more about this intensely solipsistic boycott, see Zippy’s post "Oh, I forgot that human rights were only for boys" and "Irish Times Column on Amnesty and Abortion"].

On June 19, 2007, a sad little group called Rock for Life sent out a press release called “Musical heavyweights duped in the name of Darfur; CD raises cash for pro-abortion Amnesty International.”

Washington, D.C. — "The human suffering going on right now in Darfur is horrific," said Erik Whittington, American Life League's youth outreach director and director of Rock for Life. "To add insult to injury, however, using this tragic abuse of human rights to raise money for a pro-abortion organization is hypocritical and beyond belief."

“Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur,” a double-disc CD whose proceeds will support Amnesty International, hit record stores on June 12. Featuring covers of John Lennon tunes, the CD is loaded with music heavyweights including U2, Christina Aguilera, Avril Lavigne, Green Day and many more. As part of the fundraiser, Yoko Ono donated the rights and publishing royalties from Lennon’s songs to Amnesty International as well.

We will be educating not only the youth of America on Amnesty International’s pro-abortion policies,” said Whittington, “but the artists as well. We intend to send information on Amnesty International and its support for abortion to all of the artists participating in this project. Hopefully, they will stop supporting Amnesty International and its advocacy of the greatest human rights abuse of all time – abortion.

The press release appears to serve the dual purpose of threatening Amnesty with repercussions and rewarding them by promoting their fundraising CD. No small feat, that, but despite the creative messaging the story got no traction until Monday, when the Times (UK) ran an article called “Pro-life Rockers Clash with Amnesty.”

The second paragraph of this article is:

The group [Amnesty] has been accused of “duping” the singers Christina Aguilera and Avril Lavigne, who have both made statements against abortion and are among contributors to an Amnesty CD released to raise money for survivors of the atrocities in Darfur.

Hmmm. It would appear that Rock for Life’s effort has paid off – two of the artists on Amnesty’s CD are pro-life and now feel betrayed because they were tricked into raising money for a pro-abort group. Wow - good work, kids!

But wait a sec – what’s this? Rock for Life’s own website lists Aguilera as “pro abortion” with the mysterious notation “March for Women’s Lives.” So who is right – Rock for Life, or Rock for Life?

Here’s what I think: a reporter asked Rock for Life’s Erik Whittington if any of the musicians on the CD actually felt duped, and Whittington threw out two names. Either he didn't bother to check his own website first, or he gambled on the reporters being too lazy to do any fact-checking. If so, that was a good bet because the reporters didn't check the facts. Way down in paragraphs 11 and 12, we read:

The views of singers who have contributed to the album - who also include George Harrison’s son Dhani - on Amnesty’s change of heart are not yet clear.

But Aguilera, 26, is a devout American Catholic. She is reportedly expecting her first child and has taken part in a television show in which she interviewed a teenager who had kept her baby rather than have an abortion.

The “evidence” that Aguilera is offended is based not on any she has said - instead, it is inferred from the information that she is (1) a "devout" Catholic, (2) a mother, and (3) once talked to teenager who had a baby.

Of course, the reporters don't tell us that:

1. Aguilera participated in the 2004 March for Women’s Lives;
2. Aguilera’s videos are not the work of a “devout Catholic” [no link; you know what I'm talking about], nor is there any evidence that she has called herself that; and
3. Aguilera interviewed the baby-bearing teenager, among others, as part of an MTV special on sexual and reproductive health and rights in advance of the 2004 elections (and you know what a bastion of conservative thinking MTV is, especially on the topic of sex).

The Times interweaves its bit of myth-making with the unfounded claim that Amnesty will face serious repercussions because its policy change has offended the Catholic church. It exaggerates the influence of the church’s directives on ordinary Catholics and, by doing so, actively contributes to the pressure campaign to punish Amnesty. And it allows Rock for Life to claim a wildly popular celebrity as an ally without any evidence and against all probability.

And then, the step that is essential to mythmaking takes place: subsequent news stories quote the incorrect original article, and repeat its claims as if they are factual. Hey, if you attribute a claim to its source, you don’t need to do fact-checking, right? No, you’re off the hook because you’re not reporting on facts; you are reporting on what another reporter said!

The following day WorldNetDaily ran with “Pro-life rock stars 'duped' by Amnesty: Anti-torture group's new support for abortion called betrayal of musicians on fundraising CD.”

The article includes a pic of Aguilera and states:

Amnesty International, which formally announced two weeks ago a new worldwide policy backing women's right to abortion in some cases, is being charged with having "duped" pro-life pop stars who contributed their time and talents to a CD released to raise money by the anti-torture group for victims of violence in Darfur.

"The human suffering going on right now in Darfur is horrific," said Erik Whittington, American Life League's youth outreach director and director of Rock for Life, an organization of anti-abortion musicians.

"To add insult to injury, however, using this tragic abuse of human rights to raise money for a pro-abortion organization is hypocritical and beyond belief," he said.

In particular, Whittington accused Amnesty of deceiving singers Christina Aguilera and Avril Lavigne, who have both made statements against abortion, according to the London Sunday Times.”

As you can see, the first paragraph uses the passive voice to make it sound as if the singers themselves are angry with Amnesty, and doesn't clarify the matter until paragraph four. And Aguilera's appearance on the MTV special in which she talked to a former teen mother has morphed into "made statements against abortion."

And Rock for Life doesn't need to another thing, because the celebrity factor of the story sells itself. The word is out: organizations that support the right to choose will face serious consequences.

By now the WorldNetDaily story has been picked up by a slew of online publications, and I doubt any of them will do their own fact checking. The claims will be repeated until they become “true” and voila! instant celebrity support for the Amnesty boycott. In fact, I just received my first email from an Aguilera fan (yes, I know an Aguilera fan) who was disappointed that she has taken such a reactionary stand on Amnesty, and I've seen a few blog entries / comments deriding her as a hypocrite for calling herself "devout" when she so manifestly (again, the videos) is not.

I really hope Aguilera is offended by this misuse of her name and makes a statement of support for Amnesty. And I hope she commits to doing a special fundraiser for them, because it would be great if Rock for Life's adventures in mythmaking resulted in more, not less funding for Amnesty - not to mention sending the message to these liars that yes, the truth actually matters.

Epilogue

I was just catching up with The Daily Howler and saw this paragraph, which I think bears repeating given that I ascribe bias to the reporters from the Times and WorldNetDaily.

We’re all accustomed to analyzing the press corps’ work in terms of bias. That’s an important type of discussion, but it sometimes obscures the astounding incompetence of this least-capable cohort. And let’s be clear: The mainstream press can survive such blunders because they alone, among American professions, control what is written about themselves. In other professions, clownish incompetence gets discussed in the press. But when the press corps bumbles in its time-honored ways, nary a word is spoken.

Indeed.

Epilogue II

I just contacted the good people at the official Christina Aguilera website - http://www.christinaaguilera.com/ - and asked whether Aguilera has said anything about abortion, Amnesty, etc. So far the replies I have gotten indicate that she hasn't said anything about being anti-abortion, about being displeased with Amnesty, or even about being a devout Catholic. Some of the fans say she even went through a phase where she took to calling herself "Xtina" to emphasize, oh, well, you get the picture. And yes, I had to join the fan club to get access to their fan forums. This is what my life has become.

Epilogue III

Several hours later, a growing number of conservative, pro-life and even completely neutral sites have picked up the Times story and running it as if Aguilera and Lavigne were the ones who said they feel duped by Amnesty. They are also repeating the bit about Aguilera having made anti-abortion statements. And no one is doing their own fact-checking. Of course. These are links to some of the stories.

• "Christina and friends blast Amnesty International"
  
• "Rockers may abandon Amnesty International"
• "Unexpected Pro-Life Activism: Artists Slam Amnesty's Abortion Shift"
• "Pro-life Bloggers Clash with Amnesty" - and this is on an important Sudan activism hub website, with no fact-checking, no clarifications and no way to comment. Nice.
• "Amnesty and Abortion"
• "Pro-Life Rockers CLASH with Amnesty"
• "Well It Wasn't a Joint Statement" ("You know it is an odd day when the USCCB and Christina Aguilera both issue statements against Amnesty International for their change on abortion.")
• "Pro-life Rockers Clash with Amnesty's New Abortion Policy"
  
• "Pro-life Activism from Unexpected Quarters: Artists Slam Amnesty's Abortion Shift"
• "Cardinal Resigns from Amnesty Over Abortion Row"

Read more!

:: Oh, what a beautiful MORRRRRNING!

I don't know where to begin. I had tears in my eyes. I ran around in circles. I was 8 in the morning and I just didn't know who to call. Was it the first sonogram of my niece/nephew to be? No, it was not. It was the news of AG Gonzalez' resignation. It was like a gift. I couldn't believe it.

I had hoped and dreamed this day would come (actually, my real dream was that he would be indicted, but as this White House has shown again and again that they are not troubled by such small concepts as "the law" or "ethics").

I also couldn't believe that they released the news first thing Monday morning, allowing evening news broadcasts plenty of time to build their stories.

I realize that there's not much to say here that hasn't already been said. But please. Hold forth. Say it anyway. Read more!

:: What Would Molly’s Mother Do?

DC can be a bit of an echo chamber and it is sometimes hard to tell if what is playing here is also playing in Peoria. That is when I turn to my friends and family outside the Beltway and ask "what the fuck?" I call it the molly's mother test. I know this superb fundraiser and she would often joke that she tested her mail and messages out on her mom. If her mom understood it and thought it was compelling then other “regular” people might as well. Who is your “molly’s mother”? I think my molly’s mother is failing me because when I saw that Rep. Tancredo has announced he is running for president all I could think was - who is giving this guy money? Is there really a constituency for Rep. Tancredo’s crazy ranting? Read more!