Good grief!

GovTrack: Senate Record: CHILD CUSTODY PROTECTION ACT--Continued (109-s20060725-10): "You wouldn't want your children to drive home from the hospital after having surgery, but this legislation will result in young women driving themselves after having a medical procedure."

And should children be electing to have any surgical procedures, let alone ones that might impair their ability to drive, without their parents' knowledge or consent? That's why they're minors, babe. And if the pregnancy is as a result of incest or abuse in the home, is the answer to have a "caring adult" help the child terminate the pregnancy so that they can remain in the home without the parents ever having to know what happened? If they're being sexually, emotionally or physically abused, take them from the home! Remove the parents' rights to call the medical shots! Then play the "caring adult" role.

Ugh. Senator Murray, you employ weird logic.

on Rep. Jim McDermott, WA

Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress): "Whereas the right of families to choose both the number of children they hope to have and the timing of the births of those children is a fundamental human right;"

Wow, that is blissfully ambiguous and could mean all kinds of things that I wouldn't want it to mean, if it were a bill I would feel comfortable supporting.

And I'm seriously wondering where the idea that this is a fundamental human right came from. Like, it isn't listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I'm not saying that it isn't. I'm just saying that I'm not clear on the precedent for the statement that it is.

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is an ongoing summary of the events of this conflict at Wikipedia.

Perhaps even more telling

Impact on mortality of the AIDS epidemic in northern Namibia assessed using parish registers.: "OBJECTIVES: HIV spread rapidly in Namibia in the 1990s. As in most of Africa, however, few data exist to document the impact on mortality of AIDS. Such data can contribute to knowledge of the epidemiology of HIV infection and inform the development of programmes to mitigate the impact of the AIDS epidemic. DESIGN: This study analyses death records from the registers of eight Evangelical Lutheran parishes in northern Namibia. The dataset covers the experience between 1980 and January 2001 of 4680 couples who married between 1956 and 2000 and their children. METHODS: We examine trends in post-neonatal and 1-4-years mortality, and the age-standardized death rates at age 20-64 years of both men and women. Poisson regression for rates is used to smooth the data and test for statistically significant discontinuities in the trend. RESULTS: Post-neonatal mortality increased more than sixfold and 1-4-years mortality more than threefold between 1991 and 2000. By 2000 adult mortality for women was 3.5 times, and for men 2.5 times its 1993 level. The increase in adult mortality was concentrated at ages 30-54 years for men and 25-49 years for women. CONCLUSIONS: The pattern of mortality increase by age is consistent with the hypothesis that it is entirely due to AIDS. While not widely available, parish registers exist elsewhere in Africa and are potentially a low-cost source of data for study of the impact of AIDS on mortality and demographic trends more generally."

Bra free

Medical Research on Bras and Breast Cancer and Fibrocystic Disease: "A study of almost 5000 women, half of whom had been diagnosed with cancer. Breast cancer rates are related to the number of hours per day that women wear bras. More hours of bra wear per day had higher rates. Women who wore bras 24 hours per day had a breast cancer rate 125 times higher than braless women. More red marks and grooves left by bras were reported by women with breast cancer."

Your Quiz Score: Libertarian

I like the Libertarian website, anyway. It linked me to a quiz to find out where I stand politically: It said that I'm a Libertarian. Here's my place on the political map.



LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.

I don't like the word Libertarian though. Sounds too much like libertine.

The Progressive Party of Washington

The Progressive Party of Washington: "If those dwelling in the same household want the right to make medical descisions together, pay taxes as domestic partners, or even to marry, as long as they are not first degree relatives [emphasis mine]--it is not up to the state to interfere."

Hey ... it's either up to the state to interfere or it's not. You can't have it both ways. Annoyingly inconsistent. And all those spelling errors weird me out. Makes me a snob, I'm sure.

Constitution Party of Washington State

They lost me at doing away with minimum wage.

Reform Party of the United States of America

This is the platform that I have resonated the most with so far. The "immigration" section has some bumps in it but I see what they're getting at. I'm all about the "employer liability for illegal workers" thing; that's a definite plus. But I'm disappointed that there's no mention of USCIS reform, since they talk about reforming other federal agencies. It's all very well and good to say "Expel the illegals!" if you have a system that makes legal immigration process sensible. But I was a Canadian who tried to do the legal route myself but had to hire a lawyer and call a congressman just to get my basic green card to be here with my American-born citizen spouse. The current system is so convoluted and broken that your average Joe (or Jose, as the case may be) can't navigate it unless they have pots of money to piss in a hole, years to put their life on hold while waiting for "due process" and an incredibly strong grasp on the English language ... which will still do them no good when dealing with forms where the instruction guide doesn't match the line numbers and the "application requirements" vary depending on what each individual USCIS officer had for lunch.

American Heritage Party

OK, I just got all weirded out reading the AHP Platform. I don't even know where to start. I went back and forth between agreement and "what was that!" all the way down. I'm more than a little weirded out by juxtaposing the claim that a party is advancing Christian ideals with the front-page statement "Imagine a political party that is unafraid to attack socialism at its secular, unbelieving, religious roots!"

Like, they've never read Acts 4:32-35.

State Offices Subject to Election

I quickly found my list of what's up for grabs. And it looks like Representative Rick is due for another election. I also have to look into Senator Maria Cantwell. She failed the first test too.

The first test

Oh dear. It looks like Rick failed my first test. Maybe the guy never actually read the bill before he voted on it. Which still wouldn't get him out of my ethical doghouse.

At this point in my research, I suddenly wonder who is up to be voted for in this election. I know that not every position is voted on every year. So, what is it important that I find out and about whom? My next quest begins.

C-SPAN: CONGRESS GUIDE --

I found a website where I can discover how Senators and Representatives have voted. This is what I was hoping to find, to help me with my "litmus test" of sensibility and compatible ethics.

Congressman Rick Larsen - Issues Section

I like that Rick Larsen supports importing cheaper drugs from Canada. Not that I've given it tons of thought or anything. Just that the argument that Canadian drugs might not be as safe as American ones is so asinine that it makes the rest of the argument about Canadian drug importation suspect, in my mind.

My dad is a Canadian pharmacist. The drug companies are currently economically blackmailing Canadian pharmacists against exporting meds to the US. They have threatened to cut off sales to individual pharmacies whose wholesale demand for any particular drug suddenly(suspiciously) increases. Which would, in practice, destroy that pharmacy's business outright. If you can't provide a whole list of drugs to your regular customers because the makers of those drugs refuse to sell to you, you lose those customers. And you don't get new ones.

I guess I'm just pissed off at drug companies trying to dictate government policy and personal purchasing power.

My elected officials

As my current permanent residence is in Bellingham, WA, that's where I'll have to register and vote. Which is fine. Then, I should be talking to the Harrises to see what's up and how they think I should be voting, on a local scale.

FEDERAL
UNITED STATES SENATE
UNITED STATES SENATOR POSITION NO. 1 - Maria Cantwell

UNITED STATES SENATOR POSITION NO. 2 - Patricia Murray

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
REPRESENTATIVE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT NO. 2 - Rick Larsen

STATE
GOVERNOR - Christine Gregoire

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR - Bradley Owen

SECRETARY OF STATE - Sam Reed

STATE TREASURER - Michael Murphy

STATE AUDITOR - Brian Sonntag

ATTORNEY GENERAL - Robert Mckenna

COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC LANDS - Douglas Sutherland

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION - Terry Bergeson

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER - Mike Kreidler

LEGISLATIVE
LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT NO. 40
STATE SENATOR DISTRICT NO. 40 - Harriet A Spanel

REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICT NO. 40 POSITION NO. 1 - Dave Quall

REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICT NO. 40 POSITION NO. 2 - Jeff Morris

WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL
COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICT NO. 1
POSITION AL - Ward Nelson

POSITION B - Dan McShane

COUNTY COUNCIL
AT-LARGE - Seth Fleetwood

WHATCOM COUNTY
PUBLIC UTILITY DISTRICT NO. 1
COMMISSIONER DISTRICT NO. 1 - Robert E Ebright

CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION
COUNCIL DISTRICT NO. 1

PORT OF BELLINGHAM
COMMISSIONER DISTRICT NO. 1 - Scott L Walker

PROSECUTING ATTORNEY - David Stuart McEachran

COUNTY EXECUTIVE - Pete Kremen

COUNTY ASSESSOR - Keith M Willnauer

COUNTY AUDITOR - Shirley A Forslof

COUNTY SHERIFF - Bill Elfo

COUNTY TREASURER - Barbara J Cory

JUDICIAL
STATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE
POSITION NO. 1 - James M Johnson

What's crazy is how few of these names I actually recognize. Sure, I didn't have a right to vote last year so it didn't really matter. Maybe I should have gotten a head start, though.

I do know the name Rick Larsen. His office helped me with my immigration issues, when my green card was MIA. Of course, I feel inclined to vote for him! I'm wondering about his politics. But I feel strangely inclined to vote for him, regardless. I just have such thankfulness for the intervention of his office in my citizenship proceedings. Which I should. Which is the point, I guess. And ... darn it all ... it's working.

Citizen Sni

I have decided to blog my investigation into the US political system, as it pertains to my upcoming exercising my new-found right to vote. I became a US citizen in April and realize that I don't know enough about voting to actually pull it off. So, I'm going to track how difficult voting really is, for the immigrant citizen. I will log information that I find online, my primary information source, and record it as it influences me, one way or another.

I begin, on Independence Day, to attempt to be an American.


image plucked from: www.wisopinion.com/ blogs/whatsleft/