Feh.
Gmail’s down again.
It’s been down for at least fifteen minutes.
Archive for the 'Rants' Category (8)
Those aren’t raindrops…
Not really something that I wanted to cross of my List of Firsts, but whatcha gonna do?
- First time head pooped on by bird:
Tuesday 28 March 2006 @ 17:47 PST
Let our voices not be silent, nor our bodies idle
Posted at Molly Saves the Day:
For the women of South Dakota: an abortion manual
Why is she posting this information? As she says in another post:
When my friends and I began to discuss the way the wind was blowing regarding Roe — and the fact that there might not be abortion-friendly laws in the United States, especially in red states, soon, several commented that within a few years, there would of course be setups built to handle it — safe illegal clinics, another Jane network, newsgroups developed for the sole purpose of transporting women, et cetera. But even as this idea soothed us a little, it also suggested something horrible: that for a few years, there would be a service gap that would kill many women unlucky enough to get pregnant during those lean years.
I am posting this now so that the information is available for anyone who believes it is needed where they are, as a hedge against these laws. No woman should be caught in a gap, forced to give birth or attempt self-abortion.
Brava, Molly.
He signed it. The bastard actually signed it.
S.D. Governor Signs Abortion Ban Into Law
[AP] PIERRE, S.D. - Gov. Mike Rounds signed legislation Monday banning nearly all abortions in South Dakota, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973
U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure was necessary to save the woman’s life. It would make no exception for cases of rape or incest.
/stunned and dismayed
[EDITED TO ADD:] Planned Parenthood is asking for help in what’s surely going to be a Supreme Court battle over this anti-Roe v. Wade.
We will be judged by the company we have kept
This is an embarrassment. From the Human Rights Watch website (emphasis added):
In a reversal of policy, the United States on Monday backed an Iranian initiative to deny United Nations consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, a coalition of 40 organizations, led by the Human Rights Campaign, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called for an explanation of the vote which aligned the United States with governments that have long repressed the rights of sexual minorities.
…
In voting against the applications to the NGO committee, the U.S. was joined by Cameroon, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Votes in favor of consultative status came from Chile, France, Germany, Peru, and Romania. Colombia, India, and Turkey abstained, while Côte d’Ivoire was absent.
Ah, we’re teaming up with such happy, shiny comrades-in-oppression as Iran and Zimbabwe. From elsewhere on that page:
As the U.S. government acknowledged in its 2004 country report on Iran, Iranian law punishes homosexual conduct between men with the death penalty. Human Rights Watch has documented four cases of arrests, flogging, or execution of gay men in Iran since 2003. In its 2004 country report on Zimbabwe, the U.S. government noted President Robert Mugabe’s public denouncement of homosexuals, blaming them for “Africa’s ills.” In the past, Mugabe has called gays and lesbians “people without rights” and “worse than dogs and pigs.”
[via John Wick]
If this had been an actual emergency
We just had a mass mock evacuation of our building, and I was not impressed.
See, I think it would be a good idea to somehow alert people in the building to the fact that we’re having an evacuation.
It’s a little less inspiring, I’ve discovered, to have somebody else — not even in the building — ask me while we’re on a conference call if there’s an evacuation going on. (He’d heard the news from somebody else via IM.)
When my response, following a look around at our still completely-populated floor, is “I dunno,” something is not working quite right.
It was essentially a 15-minute exercise in congregating in one of our parking lots, then racing everyone else for the slow-ass elevator to take us back to our respective floors.
Justice is blind (and needs a new watch)
I got summoned to jury duty this week, and each evening I’ve gone to the jury commission’s website with a twinge of dread that my jury pool number would be ordered to report.
Well, last night, group 615 — my group — got the call.
So I worked from home this morning and made the trek down to the courthouse.
It’s not located in Cracksville by any means, but I did have more than one homeless guy urban survivalist badger me for spare change.
Once at the courthouse, I got to stand in a security queue (bag searches, metal detectors) that, I swear, rivaled some of the TSA’s finest examples of inefficiency.
Some time later — hours or epochs (or, okay, minutes) I cannot say — I made my way to Room 307, the Jury Assembly Room. Give me your tired, huddled masses and I’ll do you one better by adding bored to the mix.
Some random employee (she said her name, but none of us moved to write it down; it’s not like she’s gonna get on our Christmas card lists) came in and explained what the jury selection process would look like, what our obligations would be if we were picked, et cetera.
And then she played the video.
You know the one: California is the greatest state in the union; it’s our civic duty — nay, privilege! — to bring meaning to the entire justice system as jurors; many people who’ve served on juries have enjoyed the experience so much that they keep in touch with their fellow jurors; yadda yadda yadda.
I should point out that I don’t inherently disagree with the “civic duty” part. Hell, I think a real trial could be interesting to compare to Mock Trial and far too many seasons of the Law & Order family of shows.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna ridicule the process of The Process. And here’s where that ridicule comes in handy:
After summoning us, preaching to us (in their completely secular way, of course), and making us wait (and wait), they announce that both of the courtrooms that might’ve needed our presence are not, in fact, ready for us.
And so: “Jurors dismissed; you don’t have to come back for twelve months.”
I’m proud to have done my civic duty. It gave me a great opportunity to catch up on some homework be a key part of the American legal system.
Terrible day
Ugh.
I should’ve stayed in bed.
