So for those that may wonder why I may be a bit erratic the next few days … I got trigger point steroid injections into my swollen back muscles. 12 painful muscle shots in the back. I will also have to dump and rest the blogging computer. When I was doing the updates on the reset I had to restart it a few times during the install and it screwed up some of the settings and installation. The start menu is messed up and the power sleep settings wont set properly, plus some other things. Hugs. Scottie
By my dogs that love gravy I love Barry’s post. I can not think of a better way to present the facts. The most needed facts about trans people, facts about pride parades, and about young people knowing who they are. Please read the post. Also please subscribe to Barry’s blog, he present things with a view point that is often refreshing compared to what we normally hear about things. In honor of Barry, Best wishes. Scottie
This maybe one of his most important videos about Christians not forcing their beliefs on others. When I was getting ready for my left hip replacement the PA who was processing me was clearly Christian. She wore crosses and all the ornaments of her faith. When we got to my stay in the hospital she said “And of course you will want a visit from the Chaplin, what Christian denomination would you prefer”. Absolutely none I said. She wouldn’t accept it but then kept asking if I was willing to have this sect / denomination visit. I was getting pissed. Ron stepped in and told her if any clergy enters that room, Scottie will claw his way out of the bed to drive them into the hallway … No way is anyone of any religion welcome. She was upset and angry. She got her revenge. She failed to send my pain medication requirements to the hospital so I went from early afternoon to midnight with no pain medication after surgery, and it was not the fault of the nurses. They called her and the doctor, then just kept called him. Finally he answered at midnight and was so angry. WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME, MY PA HANDLES THESE CALLS. They told them they couldn’t get in touch with her, she was not answering and I was in horrible pain from serious surgery. He told them to put me on my home medications which was the plan as my pain doctors were handling it, so soon I got morphine and other drugs. She got her revenge, no hate like Christian spurned. When I went for my follow up I learned she had been fired. I hope my 10 hours of horrible pain was worth it to her.
I recommend going to the linked article. It has a lot of information on the lawsuit and how petulant the two men are. Here are some quotes. Much more at the Salon link. Hugs. Scottie
Even though the plaintiffs suing for the right to flunk female students for abortion include boilerplate arguments in which they feign concern that abortion is “killing,” the legal filing makes it clear that what really outrages Bonevac and Hatfield is that Title IX prevents them from controlling the private lives of students. Along with their anger about abortion, they grouse about not being allowed to punish students “for being homosexual or transgender.” They also argue they should be able to penalize teaching assistants for “cross-dressing,” by which they appear to mean allowing trans women to wear skirts.
As Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day wrote, the language of the legal complaint is “downright petulant.” The picture painted is of two men obsessed with controlling student lives based on what they’re packing inside their underwear. It should be common sense that college students should be graded on their performance in class, not whether or not their professor resents their sex life or sexual identity. Alas, because the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Texas banned abortion, it’s created a pretext for every busybody who wants to spend less time grading papers and more time working himself into an angry froth over the imagined sexual exploits of his students.
Even though Bonevac and Hatfield work in Austin, Texas, they filed their lawsuit 486 miles away in Amarillo, Texas. The reason for this is not mysterious: Donald Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. The right-wing judge has a long and frankly unhinged history of screeching at top volume about the evils of “sexual revolutionaries.” (Yes, that does sound like a compliment, but he doesn’t mean it as such.) It takes very little to draw Kacsmaryk’s sexualized condemnation. Premarital sex, for instance, makes one a “sexual revolutionary.” Using contraception within marriage also makes one an irredeemable pervert. In his legal writings, Kacsmaryk is very clear that sex is only for procreation within marriage, and anything outside of that should draw legal sanction. He has not weighed in on whether there should be restrictions on what sexual positions are legally permissible within the procreation-only marital sex, but give him time.
“Pregnancy is not a disease, and elective abortions are not ‘health care,’” University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Bonevac sneers in a federal court filing with professor John Hatfield. Instead, Bonevac writes, because pregnancy is the result of “voluntary and consensual sexual intercourse,” students should not be allowed time off to get abortions.
If the students disobey and miss class for abortion care, the filing continues, the professors should be allowed to flunk students.
Even though Bonevac and Hatfield work in Austin, Texas, they filed their lawsuit 486 miles away in Amarillo, Texas. The reason for this is not mysterious: Donald Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. The right-wing judge has a long and frankly unhinged history of screeching at top volume about the evils of “sexual revolutionaries.”
Bonevac [screenshot above] can be seen in the October 2016 video below expressing his devotion to Trump.
Judge Kacsmaryk, a former lawyer for an anti-LGBTQ hate group, was exposed last year for failing to disclose millions in stock holdings.
Kacsmaryk was previously exposed for failing to disclose virulently anti-LGBTQ interviews and acting to hide his authorship of an anti-abortion article ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing.
More recently, he upheld a ban on drag shows at a Texas university. Kacsmaryk’s ruling to ban abortion pills is pending before the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the issue in March.
Two male Texas professors are suing to flunk students who get abortions.
Their reason? The students had "consensual sexual intercourse."
Remember folks, if you find out during a wanted, planned pregnancy that the fetus is dead and CHOOSE to terminate, that’s an “elective abortion.” These people are as ignorant as they are cruel.
Whenever marriage equality comes up, they all scream about how gay marriage means the end of the human race bc children. So now they want to make it impossible to get an abortion, which means more people will be using contraception. Then they want to eliminate contraception to increase births, many of which will be unwanted. But that’s the best I can figure their plan is.
Ali also sent me this link on March 1st, and while it is more something Ten Bears would post at his blog (link will be below, one of the new ways that WordPress is messing up blogging in classic is that if I include a link it wipes the entire classic part out and changes it to a block) I will post it here to clear my tabs. Hugs. Scottie
(Photo by Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
February 29, 2024
Increased numbers of preterm babies, higher incidence of respiratory disease and death, and more children in hospitals are some of the health outcomes the world is facing from the impacts of extreme climate change according to a comprehensive assessment of climate change and children’s health.
A new study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment identified which particular climate-driven extremes are linked to certain detrimental health impacts for future generations.
The study led by Dr Lewis Weeda, a researcher with The University of Western Australia and the Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre at Telethon Kids Institute, and Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology, Corey Bradshaw, from Flinders University shows that the risk of a preterm birth will increase by 60% on average from exposure to extreme temperatures.
The researchers reviewed the results of 163 health studies from around the world to inform planning by governments that could mitigate and improve health outcomes for future generations against the impacts of climate change.
Bradshaw says the global data revealed a worrying increase in preterm birth rates that could cause lifelong complications for millions of children around the world.
Corey Bradshaw
“We identified many direct links between climate change and child health, the strongest of which was a 60% increased risk on average of preterm birth from exposure to temperature extremes,” he says. “Respiratory diseases, mortality, and morbidity, among others, were also made worse by climate change.
“The effects of different air pollutants on children’s health outcomes were smaller compared to temperature effects, but most pollutants still had an effect of some type, so the news is concerning. The children’s health issues we identified depend on weather extremes — cold extremes give rise to respiratory diseases, while drought and extreme rainfall can result in stunted growth for a population.”
Most of the analysed studies were in high-income nations, despite the fact that children in lower-income countries are most likely to go without adequate access to healthcare, infrastructure, and stable food supply.
The researchers warn that health risks vary across continents and depend on socio-economic circumstances. The research revealed that even advanced economies would not avoid the impacts of climate change on children’s health.
“Given that climate influences childhood disease, social and financial costs will continue to rise as climate change progresses, placing increasing pressure on families and health services. For example, asthma has been estimated to cost as much as US$1.5 billion due to a single fire season in the future,” Professor Bradshaw says.
Geography also dictated the health impacts of climate change. For example, in Australia, extreme temperatures have led to an increase in premature births on the East Coast, Northern Territory, and Western Australia and enhanced respiratory issues in Queensland, while similar temperatures have caused higher mortality rates in South Africa.
Dr Weeda said action is required to protect children from climate-related disease.
“The development of public health policies to counter these climate-related diseases, alongside efforts to reduce anthropogenic climate change, must be addressed if we are to protect current and future children.”
“Finding solutions and implementing climate adaptation and mitigation policies would positively impact multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Climate change is universal and adversely affecting all countries and people, and we must prepare societies for mounting threats to child health.”
The Science of the Total Environmentpaper is titled ‘How climate change degrades child health: A systematic review and meta-analysis.’
Conventioneers listen to speeches during the Texas GOP Convention Friday, May 24, 2024 in San Antonio. Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune
Republican Party of Texas delegates voted Saturday on a platform that called for new laws to require the Bible to be taught in public schools and a constitutional amendment that would require statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties.
Other proposed planks of the 50-page platform included proclamations that “abortion is not healthcare it is homicide”; that gender-transition treatment for children is “child abuse”; calls to reverse recent name changes to military bases and “publicly honor the southern heroes”; support for declaring gold and silver as legal tender; and demands that the U.S. government disclose “all pertinent information and knowledge” of UFOs.
The party hopes to finalize its platform on Wednesday, after Saturday’s votes on each proposal are tabulated.
Passed by delegates at the party’s biennial convention, the platform has traditionally been seen not as a definitive list of Republican stances, but a compromise document that represents the interests of the party’s various business, activist and social conservative factions. But in recent years — and amid a party civil war that’s pushed it further right — the platform has been increasingly used as a basis for censuring Republican officeholders who the party’s far right has attacked as insufficiently conservative, including Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, and U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzalez, R-San Antonio.
As the party has drifted further right, its platform has done the same. In 2022, it called for a referendum on Texas secession; resistance to the “Great Reset,” a conspiracy theory that claims global elites are using environmental and social policies to enslave the world’s population; proclamations that homosexuality is an “abnormal lifestyle choice”; and a declaration that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected.
Many of those planks were also included in this year’s platform, which was debated late into Friday night and presented for a vote Saturday afternoon.
One proposal asserts that illegal immigration is the “greatest threat to American security and sovereignty” and calls for the state and federal governments to devote all available resources to deporting undocumented immigrants.
Perhaps the most consequential plank calls for a constitutional amendment to require that candidates for statewide office carry a majority of Texas’ 254 counties to win an election, a model similar to the U.S. electoral college.
Under current voting patterns, in which Republicans routinely win in the state’s rural counties, such a requirement would effectively end Democrats’ chances of winning statewide office. In 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott carried 235 counties, while Democrat Beto O’Rourke carried most of the urban, more populous counties and South Texas counties. Statewide, Abbott won 55% of the popular vote while O’Rourke carried 44%.
However, some attorneys question whether such a proposal would be constitutional and conform with the Voting Rights Act because it would most likely limit the voting power of racial minorities, who are concentrated in a relatively small number of counties. (The party’s platform also reiterates its previous calls for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act).
The platform also takes a step further some of the party’s previous calls for more Christianity in public life. The 2022 platform proclaimed that the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian principles,” for instance, and demanded the repeal of federal prohibitions on political activity by churches.
The 2024 platform goes significantly further: It urges lawmakers and the State Board of Education to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance,” and supports the use of religious chaplains in schools — which was made legal under a law passed by the state Legislature last year.
Though more subtle, another proposed plank could also aid Republicans’ ongoing attempts to further infuse Christianity into public education. This year’s platform also calls for Thomas Jefferson’s “Letter to the Danbury Baptists” to be included in the list of “original founding documents” to be taught in history classes, along with the U.S. Constitution or The Federalist Papers. Jefferson’s Danbury letter is often cited by activists such as David Barton, a Texas pastor and self-described “amateur historian” who has spent decades arguing that church-state separation is a “myth” that has been used to shroud America’s true Christian roots — a claim that has been thoroughly debunked by actual historians and experts, many of them also conservative Christians.
The new platform comes as Republicans increasingly embrace once-fringe theories such as Christian nationalism, which argues that the United States’ founding was God-ordained, and therefore its institutions and laws should reflect conservative, Christian views. Barton’s ideas have been a key driver of that movement, and were repeatedly cited by lawmakers last year during debates over the chaplains bill and in legislation that would have required the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms. Barton’s group, WallBuilders, was also an exhibitor at this year’s Texas GOP convention, and the party has increasingly aligned with two far-right, fundamentalist Christian billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks.
The draft platform also leans into the Texas GOP’s open hostility toward Texas House leadership and Phelan, with positions that would weaken the power of the House speaker and distribute power to the GOP caucus in the House as a whole. One plank advocates for limiting the speaker to two consecutive terms. Another calls for a discharge petition process, which would allow members to send bills to the House floor for a vote even if they haven’t passed the House committee process.
On Friday night, the convention elected former Collin County GOP Chair Abraham George as the next party chair, a vote that is expected to continue the party’s trajectory. During his candidate speech on Thursday, George called for the party to fight Democrats, radicals and “RINO” Republicans who go against “everything we stand for.”
During a speech on the convention stage on Saturday, former gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Don Huffines carried a printed version of the platform with him. He noted that Republicans have controlled the Legislature and the governor’s mansion for two decades, but the party still struggles to secure its priorities.
“We could get any piece of legislation done anytime we want, but, every session, we struggle to get our platform into law,” Huffines said.
I thought Jon’s part was incredibly spot on and correct. Plus very funny. The man has the touch of comedy for sure. That part ended about 14:13 when the other guy came on. Him I did not find funny even though he had a couple good lines. Hugs. Scottie
Jon Stewart discusses conservative cancel culture following Harrison Butker’s controversial commencement speech, and Michael Kosta weighs in on Nikki Haley reluctantly endorsing Trump, Trump’s bogus assassination claims, and the close of the hush money trial…with no testimony from Trump. #DailyShow#Comedy
(Photo by Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)February 29, 2024
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/0a90a146a42951fe20e608a941fc993d/0524%20GOP%20Convention%20EH%20TT%2023.jpg)
Scottie's Playtime 