End of Silence

I was listening to Howard Stern this morning just before I got to work when he mentioned a USA Today article about pharmacists refusing to fill birth control prescriptions for religious reasons. DazeReader has a bunch of related stuff today (unfortunately I can’t link directly to the post).

I don’t have time right now to write a decent post about this, so I’ll use abbreviated profanity. WTF? No word in the article about what CVS thinks about the possibility of losing a bunch of business because of this. Are we now going to have to have pharmacies for those who believe in birth control and those who don’t? I think everyone should vote with their wallet. I’m not going to patronize a pharmacy whose pharmacist decides not to sell me something based on their own morals. They’re entitled to them, but if it’s going to make a hassle for me to fill a fucking prescription, then that’s not right. If they don’t want to do it, then find another fucking job.

Beyond just the inconvenience of it all, where is this going to lead? I’m married with two kids. As of now, my wife and I have made the decision not to have any more kids. The reasons for making such a decision are personal and unique to each family. Is that pharmacist going to raise and provide for the extra kids that I have because I can’t get birth control? Some of the women in the article missed days because of the pharmacists decision. They could end up pregnant. It only takes one day. Damn.

Found via Josh Marshall, a 2004 election blue-red map weighted for population density to counter all of those “look at all them red states” arguments.

And some Boston Globe debunking of some of the post-election marriage/values debate, which is a pointless discussion. I still want to research the exit poll that everyone’s quoting placed “moral values” as one of the issues in the election. Who conducts the poll? Who decided that was a choice? What were the other choices? Why was it added? You get the idea.

EDIT: More input on the
“moral values”.

Ezra links a few bits of advice. I think the Paul Waldman comments underestimate the characteristics that generally go along with being a candidate from the South. It’s not THE factor, but so many things go with it as a general rule that it’s probably safe to say that type of candidate will fare better.

Locally at least, Lloyd Doggett won fairly handily. I can look forward to his representation for another two years. David Van Os lost his race. It’s somewhat heartening to see that Barack Obama kicked the junk out of Alan Keyes.

When I heard this morning that the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had overturned rulings yesterday from two different U.S. District judges, the first thing I wondered was who appointed the judges to overturn the ruling. I have my answer and, unfortunately, it falls along party lines. The two judges who overturned the rulings were appointed by Republican presidents.

Aren’t judges supposed to be impartial? While I’m not familiar with the Ohio law, it seems to me that the polling officials should be the ones to decide whether or not to challenge a voter’s eligbility, not some partisan observer, whether they’re Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green or whatever. There shouldn’t be any partisan people screwing with the voters in the polling place. Period. Anything else just seems wrong to me. WTF?

I’ll qualify the subject line of this post adding the Trey Parker/Matt Stone rule. If somehow you’re too brain dead to have actually researched the candidates, stay the fuck home.

I’ll be interested to see how the Technorati: Votes page turns out by the end of the day. I oppose Bush and, tentatively, I support Kerry even though I ultimately decided to vote Libertarian this year. I had to defend my self this morning to a co-worker. I’m once again reasoning the same way I did in 2000. I really am not happy with either candidate in the presidential election. While I’m also not thrilled with Michael Badnarik, it’s certain that he won’t win and keeping my vote from Kerry won’t affect the electoral votes for Texas. Those votes are going to Bush. My Libertarian vote is a protest to both the two-party-system and the electoral college. The Libertarians generally have a reputation for being a little too out there for most people and I totally agree. However, I think some of the more moderate viewpoints are legitimate. What I really need is a party that mixes the Libertarians and Democrats.

I voted Libertarian in a few of the local races, but generally went for the Democrats. I withheld my vote from the elections with only one choice. Can anyone explain to me what the point is of including a race with a single choice on the ballot? This always annoys the crap out of me. Do they do this in other states?

My polling place was slightly more crowded than usual, but not too bad. I can’t possibly fathom how you could be, but If you’re registered, are on the fence and need a nudge one way or the other, read this.

Oh yeah and this is just marvelous. I’m hoping there’s some Chicken Little disease going on over there, but I guess you can’t be too safe. Is anyone in charge of the machines actually going to listen to them?