The House passed an anti-abortion bill in Louisiana by a margin of 85-17 that goes as far as rejecting exceptions for rape and incest.

http://www.leesvilledailyleader.com/articles/2006/06/02/news...

The bill contains language allowing for medication to be used to block fertilization, therefore apparently eliminating the need for exceptions.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco says she will sign the bill when it comes to her desk, but at a rate of 85-17, it seems that the bill is nearly in place.

What has happened to abortion rights? Have we been sleeping? With all the women who have had abortions and those who haven't but support the right, how has progressed this far? I mean, I'm really wondering here. This is insane. According to the article, 11 states have introduced similar bills. Where is the outrage? I'm sickened. Is there anyone out there listening?

I don't know if this has been posted here yet, but I thought I'd pass it along as it is the most frightening information I've seen in months.

From Savage Love (Dan Savage):

STRAIGHT RIGHTS UPDATE: After tossing nearly half of last week's column away on a straight rights update, it was my intention to give it a rest. In fact, every time I write one of these I think, "Banning abortion, evicting unmarried straight couples and their children, moving to ban birth control—things can't get any worse, can they?" Oh, but they can: Not satisfied with meddling in the lives of the relatively small percentage of women who are pregnant, the American Taliban is moving to regulate the lives of all American women.

"New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves—and to be treated by the health-care system—as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon," reports the Washington Post. "[T]his means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control... [I]t's important that women follow this advice throughout their reproductive lives, because about half of pregnancies are unplanned and so much damage can be done to a fetus between conception and the time the pregnancy is confirmed."

Color me paranoid, but ordering American women to regard themselves as "pre-pregnant" because they may harm a fetus they don't know they're carrying opens the door to prosecuting women who harm their fetuses by failing to regard themselves as "pre-pregnant." How long until "women should... refrain from smoking [and] maintain a healthy body weight" becomes "women must..." Does that sound paranoid? Well, so did a war on contraception once.

Oddly enough, Bush's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't urge straight men to regard themselves as existing in a perpetual state of "pre-fatherhood." Smoking, obesity, asthma, and diabetes could seriously hamper a man's ability to do the heavy lifting that comes with fatherhood. But Bush's CDC doesn't seem that interested in regulating the behavior of all those fat, smoking pre-fathers out there.

Gee. Isn't. That. Weird.

There is a bright side in the CDC's announcement: If we're going to regard all females as pre-pregnant, then we can, as my friend Gomez points out, regard all virgins as merely pre-fucked.

mail@savagelove

I don't know if this is national, so I thought I'd post it up.

Dairy Queen has a commercial where a young couple is daydreaming over some ice cream. The man dreams the soon-to-come baby is a boy and the woman dreams that *she* is holding the video camera and coaching the birth while the man suffers labor and yells into the camera "You did this to me!"

heh.

Bill Napoli, the South Dakota state senator who gave a very explicit example of who should now be able to get an abortion in South Dakota, sucks. I am helping G00gle b0mb him with this, and you should too. Click the link!

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/billnapoli/

And since I didn't know what G00gle b0mbing was, I'm gonna assume some of you don't either. It's when you link to something a million times so that it becomes the first result in G00gle. So, when you search for Bill Napoli you'll get the link about napoli being a new name for brutal rape as a result. Right now it's the first thing that comes up when you search for his name.

Click through! Repost!

ETA: someone pointed out that it's best not to use the proper spelling of "G00gle" in these posts since then they can write algorithms to disallow the results. So I've edited the entry.

When NYC shut down this week due to the transit strike, there was a lot of namecalling and blame placed upon the TWU (transit worker's union) for daring to strike during the holidays, holding out for more money than they deserved and daring to strike at all.

Mayor Bloomberg went as far as to call the TWU and its leaders *thugs* to further label a group of people fighting for their rights to better pay/benefits and the rights of future hires to those same benefits. The media reported all the things the union wanted, with special emphasis on what many Americans would consider more than enough. $50K? Yes, in most areas of America this is plenty to live on, but it isn't here in the city. Raising a family on it is a small advantage over the poverty level. Someone has to work the subways/buses and those someones have families to raise.

By this coverage, the TWU suffered a huge hit to their image, but hardly anyone reported that two years ago, the MTA (metropolitan transit) kept TWO SETS OF BOOKS!! and cried poor to the people in order to raise the rates. Recently (about two months ago) it was found to have a BILLION dollar surplus. This is city organization that gets grants from the state and city to rebuild the subways. If anyone was a *thug*, it would be the robber-barons of the MTA earning a profit off the commuters, money from the government to rebuild and trying to withdraw money from its workers. It should also be noted that the MTA did not show up to the bargaining table until one hour before the contract expired.

This fascinating blog takes Bloomberg to task for his unlawful practices while making his fortune.

"Bloomberg is a total hypocrite

It's ironic to hear the mayor, for one, bleating about the rule of law and how "no negotiations should proceed until this illegal, selfish strike ends." This is the same law-abiding civic leader who bragged in "Bloomberg on Bloomberg" (p. 59-60) that breaking the law was just part of his inspired path to riches.- The New York City Transit Strike: It's About Respect...and Solidarity by Michael Hirsch..."

http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/12/bloomberg-is...

Blood Simple

(this was the article I could not finish in time for BAM...it lacks *pop and finish*)

How many times do we cut our finger and immediately put the finger into our mouths? It's a funny question because it relates to blood and we have many negative reactions to blood. We fear it, are threatened by it and sometimes it makes us a little sick to our stomachs to see too much. Yet over half the population sees blood 12 times a year for 30-35 childbearing years and those women are considered the more likely to have faint-hearted reactions to seeing it.

Sometimes blood equals death, but for women of childbearing age, blood equals life or at least signals the ability to create life. Menstruation happens at the end of a fertility cycle each month for women but is considered impolite and unpleasant to talk about. It is a time when cultural or religious dogma teach us that we are physically unclean and leads to our need to hide our menses from society. Even the term, hygeine products, teach us that we must keep our status hidden by protecting society from odor and the site of blood. Most girls fear that they will bleed accidently and be caught not with their pants down, but with blood on them. Odor, if it exists at all, must be masked with perfume and absorbtion must be maintained with wings and coatings and super-sized tampons. Some males and females prefer to keep themselves from sex, even when AIDS contraction is out of the question because of their fear of the mess of blood.

Menstruation is big business. Of the 240 million americans, over 125 million are women all of which will experience menstruation from menarche at approximately age 12 to menopause at approximately 50. During those 28 years, with the exceptions of pregnancies and skipped periods, they will deal with it 12 times a year and buy 360 boxes of tampons or pads in their lives. This generates a constant revenue of approximately $1000 per woman equalling $1.25 billion dollars in the US alone. There are alternatives to big market tampons and pads that include the more environmentally correct sponges, fabric pads and menstrual cups, all of which can be washed and reused.

The hot topic these days is menstrual suppression. In the fall of 2003, the FDA approved Seasonale, a birth control pill set up to limit the amount a periods a woman gets to four a year. In this heated debate is the argument whether suppressing the menstrual cycle is healthy overall for women.

Drs. John Rock and Gregory Pincus developed the Pill in the 1950's. It was designed to introduce progesterone into the body for three weeks thereby preventing the ovaries from releasing an egg and stopping the uterus from building a bed of tissue for the fertilized egg to attach. Essentially it worked by creating a "pregnancy", using the hormone developed by the body to stop another egg from being released while the body was already in pregnancy. If fertilization does not occur, the uterus sloughs off the extra tissue and blood and releases it, which is the definition of menses. The development of the Pill incuded a week of placebo which would allow breakthrough bleeding and the accompanying symptoms of a real menstruation. This "faux" period was created to make women more comfortable with the naturalness of their regular cycle. It was also expected by Dr. Rock, a devout Catholic, to be approved by the Church as it was an extenuation of the rhythm method. It did not kill sperm or mutilate the organs or frustrate the process like a diaphram. If the rhythm method worked by avoiding the fertile periods of the menstrual cycle, the Pill extended that period indefinitely. Dr. Rock knew then that the Pill could be taken without interruption and avoid menses altogether but he found it important to maintain what was normal.

The Catholic Church never did get on board with the Pill or any other artificial methods for birth control and it took 40 plus years for someone to merely remarket the Pill without the placebo week so that women could take it continuously for 84 days before having a break for bleeding. It's chemical makeup is exactly that of the Pill and yet the debate is just starting to heat up.

Many women find the idea of four periods a year to be a blessing and are signing up to take Seasonale or merely manipulating the current version of oral contraceptives as doctors have been quietly instructing their patients for years to avoid periods during an important event such as a wedding or a vacation. The Society of Menstrual Cycle Research issued a position paper in June 2003 against widespread use of Seasonale. They feel that not enough research has been done on bone density, blood clots and strokes as well as attitudes, concerns and preferences of women on this subject. Curiously, they do not recognize that during the 40 plus years the Pill has been available, women have been taking it for upwards of 15 years and have only had the "faux" periods that occur while ovulation is suppressed. And controlled studies with women taking placebos only would be useless as any subject would realize in a month that she was taking the real thing. Their position is based on what they believe is normal. But what really is normal?

The truth is, in the past, women did not begin menstruation as early nor did it last as long as menopause started much earlier. As birth control was not practiced regularly (children were the destiny of wives) or was ineffective, pregnancies and breastfeeeding limited the number of times a woman had her period. In this age, American women have on average 2.2 children and don't necessarily breastfeed or they cut the time of breastfeeding shorter and have far more periods than their historical counterparts. A study was done in 1986 by Beverly Straussman in Africa with the Dogon tribe of Mali where birth control is not used at all. What she found was that between a late menarche and early menopause, women were pregnant and breast feeding much of the time and only had approximately 100 periods in their lifetimes. This is in contrast to the 350-400 times of Western women.

Also argued is ovulation itself can incur pregnancy as the ovary bursts through the uterine wall which needs to be repaired each time. As women age, cell division slows down giving cells more time to deviate and turn cancerous. Women who take the pill for ten years cut the risk of ovarian cancer by 70% and her endometrian cancer risk by 60%. These cancers are relatively modern diseases, part of a century in which women have come to menstruate 400 times in their lives. [John Rock's Error, Gladwell dot.com]

Dr. Nelson Souscasaux, GYN, argues that since the Pill creates only faux periods, one or two "real" ones whould be taken per year in order to "renew" the uterus. Though he concedes that menstrual suppression is necessary in the case of endometreosis, he believes continuous use will contribute to female attitudes towards menstruation as unnecessary and unpleasant. He recommends psychotherapy as an alternative to suppression, as if women must menstruate in order to feel fully female.

And that's the case for the argument: it's natural and must be endured and if you can't get with it, you need therapy. What a crock! Women who responded on the bulletin board at MUM (Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health www.mum.org) overwhelmingly embraced the idea of less periods. They envy men who don't have to have them or put up with them. When women pursue careers and are not interested in lifelong pregnancies and breastfeeding, menses gets in the way. A significant drop in production for women (i.e. sick days) is a direct result of the pain and uncomfortability of menstruation which inhibits their ability to compete with men in the workforce. A recent survey (fully funded by Barr Laboratories, makers of Seasonale) resulted in numbers as high as 75% interest in finding out how to suppress periods with birth control. Letters to MUM mirrored the high proportion of women who'd love to live without their periods and find it absurd that a period is any definition of womanhood. They aren't ashamed and don't need therapy, they just don't want headaches, backaches, bleeding, irritability and aggravation. Who would want that? And why is tolerating it even thought of as necessary due to *nature* except to continue to cripple women in their pursuit of lives beyond having children? I think it falls right into line with pregnancy as punishment for having sex and periods are a constant reminder that women should remain slaves to biology.

I haven't been here much lately. haven't read or blogged or responded but it's not this site or any other I write on, it's me. I'm a tiny bit flatlined lately and it's bugging the piss out of me.

I just don't seem to have the fast wit I'm known for or the ability to respond quickly and intelligently to my debators and shut them down for their illogic and irrationality. I search for words in my head as I write and find only ones that are adequate, but not telling. I couldn't get my article done for Bitch and Moan b/c it just didn't pop. I couldn't feel the insides of me rushing to get my words out so that my essay gave a good read.

I got into a firefight with friends on a message board. I know these people in person. The debate was a conservative v liberal response to social programs. It got ugly, just awful as I heard that people on welfare are junkies and losers who made bad decisions in their lives and they (my opponents) should not have to pay for it. At each turn of the discussion, I just couldn't call them out and shut them down they way I'm used to, the way I can. when I read that the guys who attempted to rob Bernard Goetz should have been killed by target practice or dragged through the streets, my stomach turned. When I pointed out that this type of talk is similar to what I found on white power boards, the racism was denied (how could they be racist, they were jewish and sicilian) and how dare I suggest it. Which is fine, but my counter arguments just didn't carry the punch that they used to and would have had my opponents backtracking some in the past.

The weird is, I often start heated discussions on this board and I have no problem maintaining friendships with people who share different opinions/beliefs, but this is one area where I'm not sure I feel comfortable with them anymore.

Anyway, Abilify has saved my life and I've returned to work, so it might be the stress of returning and getting into the rhythm of things that has dulled me a bit. I was so excited to be free of the depression I'd suffered from that I joked "Where have I been all my life". I think I'll come back and if has to be slower, than it shall. I'll just learn to struggle with that and be happy that I'm not struggling with suicide thoughts.

By the way, being so free of depression has given me new insight into the coldness I've felt while struggling the last few months. Now I know why people got angry and dismissive when i tried to explain suicidal thoughts. Life is a comparative cakewalk and if you don't feel it, you CANNOT get it. That said, I'm currently not feeling sympathy for people who complain about their day to day lives and all their stress. I kinda just want to tell them to fuck off, they got it easy. But that's kind of mean, I guess. ;-)

JUST A REMINDER...
30 days from today, cell phone numbers are being released to
telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls.YOU
WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS...

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:
888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a
minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years.

PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS

You have to call from the number you want blocked or on the web go to
www.donotcall.gov

from The National Vanguard

(having trouble with my cut/paste in AOL today. They updated to crap!!)

Rising Stars: Prussian Blue
Announcement; Posted on: 2004-12-11 21:13:42

The lovely and talented Gaede twins now have their own Web site...
by Ann Hendon
photography by Kelly Parsell

They're smart. They're sweet. They're pretty. They're multitalented instrumentalists and singers. They're twins. They're loving sisters to the new baby in the family. They beat neocon radio talk show hosts at their own game. They're just twelve years old. They make beautiful, soaring, harmonious music together -- music with a pro-White slant. They're the daughters of National Vanguard writer and activist April Gaede. And they are the most talked-about duo in the burgeoning Euromusic scene: They are... Prussian Blue.

Prussian Blue now have their own Web site, where eager fans can listen to a sample cut from their upcoming CD, Fragments of the Future, download pictures of the twins performing at the National Vanguard Folk the System 2004 festival and at Gathering of the Gods, order a DVD, or add an entry to their guestbook.

National Vanguard Northeast Regional Coordinator Rich Lindstrom said of Prussian Blue:

"Imagine the hard sell that the ADL and the SPLC will have when confronted with these angelic looking young girls who are wise to their anti-White schemes. I see an avenue opened up to family-oriented White men, women, and children that has not been opened before.

"These gals will be breaking new ground, and will also capture the imagination of young boys and girls all across the world. The impact could be huge and their influence will encourage 'copycats' ...creating an entire genre of pro-White music. ...I'm hanging on the edge of my seat with anticipation."

They sing songs about wanting to stay white. they were home-schooled, so consider that in your thoughts. Nice white-supremist parents.

Invulnerability.

We forget what it's like to be teens. We forget that teens don't think anything bad will happen to them. They won't die and their parents won't die and they won't be hurt badly or have to suffer from uncurable diseases.

Witness skateboards and half-pipes, drugs and alcohol, driving while intoxicated or racing or driving wildly just to get the girls excited. They engage in sex because they witness it in every story they see (where noone suffers for it and not one character stops mid make-out for a condom) and because their hormones are racing and it doesn't worry them that they might get AIDS or another STD or pregnant, because they see themselves as individuals, apart from statistics. Even if they did see the statistics, they think they will be the exceptions, not the rule.

Remember how we thought our first boyfriends would be our last? We would love them forever and we could get married and survive life or when they broke our hearts, we thought we would never survive?

It isn't until later, when we get caught by our bad behavior through our own experience or one of a close friend, do we begin to understand that something unwanted, something bad could happen to us and perhaps we might want to consider elbow and wrist pads or calling our parents when we are drunk or using protection.

Teen don't know that they are vulnerable and that's a strong enough reason to play with the fire.