Good Reads July 13 2009

Haven’t been blogging of late, but here’s some good reads to tide over folks who still travel here:
WriteChic: Man Murdered by Health Insurance Companies (Obama should read this EVERY DAY until Health Care Reform passes).
DailyKos: Health Care – If you think you’ll always be insurable, Think Again.
Crooks and Liars: Hard Hitting Advertising on Health Care [...]

The Compelled Birth Movement

I get email! A reader (Liz) took issue with my post “The Problem With Calling Abortion Murder“.

The Problem With Calling Abortion Murder

Let’s say I said administrators at a school were routinely picking out high school students teachers didn’t like, and killing them.  Let’s say in addition, they had the full complicity of our legal system.  Would you be in the streets protesting?  Would you be writing articles or blog posts?  Or would you be in that [...]

Brief Update and Two Recommended Posts

Shortly (I hope) I’ll be announcing a new education blog related to my nonprofit.  In the meantime I’d like to recommend two exceptionally insightful posts…

Movie Idea! A Proposal

Movie idea!  A man is about to be deported to Canada, and to keep his high powered job, orders his assistant to marry him, or he’ll fire her.  Afraid of losing her job, she complies, and through a series of endearing mishaps falls in love with her boss.
Switch the roles and its an instant romantic [...]

Fox, The Simpons, Family Guy and Rape: WTF?

Being a fan of Family Guy, I read this piece from Jessica @ feministing back in October:
The most recent episode, I Dream of Jesus, featured this conversation with Peter and a waiter (Peter is trying to get the waiter to give him a jukebox record he likes):
Peter: Can I have that record? I [...]

Time to Put the PUMA Out For the Night

sm77 at PUMA blog the Confluence sums up their irrelevance in a goodbye post (emphasis mine):

To think we waited 8 years PRAYING for a Democratic President.  Well now we have one and I still feel the same.   But as a true, firebrand, loud and hellacious liberal who endured the Dubya years, my job is to [...]

Republican Confluence Doesn’t Get Palin

The Confluence has become a hotspot for closet Republicans looking to slash Democrats from within.  But their latest bit of chicanery is inexecusable.  They are defending Sarah Palin!
Do you see the problem with the way the Democrats are arguing this time? Sarah Palin and her husband are NOT SCARY to swing voters. Neither is Barack Obama, Joe Biden, [...]

Obama and the Anti-Choice Whisper Campaign

Most of America doesn’t like what Sarah Palin represents.  She’s so extreme on abortion she’d favor mandatory birth even if her own daughter were raped.  That simply isn’t in line with the American public.
The Republicans know this, and they’ve begun an urgent whisper campaign to paint Obama as a baby-killer to try and push Obama’s [...]

Analyzing Governor Sarah Palin

If we were to sum up McCain’s politics since 2000 a single word would suffice: hypocrasy.  The same can be said of Governor Sarah Palin.  She was picked primarily to shore up support in the conservative Christian community.  Because of this, I don’t think either of her scandals around pregnancy will really hit home (or [...]

Tell Health and Human Services to Protect Women’s Health

Fight back against the administration’s disastrous move confusing birth control with abortion.
Via Feministing:
This administration has, time and again, put its political and ideological concerns above the best interests of the American people.
They are, however, a very serious threat to women’s health and to existing patient protections that ensure that even in the face of religious [...]

What Smart Republicans Are Thinking: Judges

Behind the battles over party unity, Republicans are keeping their eyes firmly on the Supreme Court.  Stinerman over at Swords Crossed has a post that should be required reading for anyone who supports a woman’s right to choose, separation of church and state, and workers rights:
A common argument for McCain that has been used to [...]

Immaculate Rape

Immaculate Rape (noun) – Rape in which there is no rapist, merely a victim who may be found culpable due to one or more of the following: ingestion of alchohol, wearing of revealing clothing, living in a society that permits sex outside of marriage, being near a male in the throes of the evolutionary perogative.
Immaculate [...]

Fat Princess: I’m Not Offended (And Neither Are You)

Not to be outdone by nintendo’s awesomogyny (mysiogyny that’s totally rad cause its in video game form), Sony has delivered a subtle fuck you to positive body images (Feministing).  Shakespear’s Sister has had a little back and forth with Jim Sterling of Destructoid:
Finally, the brilliant Jim Sterling of Destructoid manages to exemplify the perfect, hilarious [...]

Electing the Judiciary: McCain on Reproductive and Gay Rights

With all the talk about Obama’s position on reproductive rights, its easy to look past McCain’s.  That would be a lasting mistake.  Straight from his campaign website under the heading “Overturning Roe v. Wade:
John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who [...]