Archives for December 2009

Thank you to our readers who voted for us in the Canadian Blog Awards. We made it to the second round! Please vote for us again (we’re in the “political” category).

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Andrea adds: Thanks to Brigitte for noticing these things!

Quite seriously, yesterday just after the Olympic torch passed through in Ottawa, we got stuck in traffic behind a horse drawn carriage. Today it is snowing in that pre-Christmas kind of way. I’ve just finished writing some Christmas cards. But what’s the point here, you may ask?

Made me think of buying a PET-P t-shirt on a two-for-one Christmas sale, is all.

Right. So I was wrong about Diane Francis, very, very wrong. Far be it from me to not admit when I’ve made a mistake. I said she wasn’t an idiot, but in this interview with Laura Ingraham she displays a good dose of idiocy with a splash of just plain ole’ sad.

By the way, I do love Laura. This interview doesn’t show it, but she’s actually a very funny talk show host. And funny, non-shrill women in the public arena truly are a gift.

See the story here. The bill passed without opposition, which doesn’t tell me much since I know roughly zero about politics in Uganda – either politicians there are trying to crack down for real or they’re just pretending to care. It’s also not clear what effect, if any, such a bill will have in practice, since:

Female genital mutilation is illegal in more than a dozen African countries, although laws are rarely enforced.

Not sure what good a law that’s not enforced does to these poor girls. If you know more than I do about this situation (which, in the immortal words of Clint Eastwood, doesn’t narrow the field very much) please add your bit in the comments.

I’m not going to lie. I felt a thrill when I read this news story and found myself thinking (very unlike me) that $200 per ticket isn’t really that much, is it?

You could be offended by ads for this agency that helps people cheat. Or you could simply marvel at how dumb people are. I’m against the ads, but I have a hard time getting steamed. That cheating on a spouse is bad is something everyone agrees on for the explosive, agonizing, emotional problems it creates. On other marriage-related topics you won’t find two people on the street with the same opinion. But this one?

Cheating. There ain’t no rehabilitation for that word. Everything in us balks at the idea of somehow saying that’s a good thing, or could help a marriage, or would do anything other than tremendous harm.

I say Sign Up Idiots! Bring it on. I’m waiting for the young entreprising computer programmer wearing pajamas in his basement who hacks into the system and reveals who all is on the list. It’s bound to happen. Then we can take the four million some odd “members” and ship them off to an uninhabited Arctic Island (though I hesitate to foist these losers on the polar bears). It’s merely a question of which island, and whether they get to take a coat.

Yes indeed. Why? Because it’s the time of year when you can get two People for the Ethical Treatment of People t-shirts for the cost of one, simply by entering the discount code of “Christmas” at checkout.

It is a wonderful life, after all.

Here’s something I wasn’t expecting: According to a recent report by the World Economic Forum, there seems to be a connection between a country’s abortion restrictions and its maternal mortality rate – the less restrictive a country is, the higher the rate of maternal mortality.

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  A new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows that countries with restrictive abortion laws are often the leaders in reducing maternal mortality, and those with permissive laws often lag. According to the report, the pro-life nation of Ireland has topped the global rankings once again with the best maternal health performance.

[…]

Both Ireland and Poland, favorite targets of the abortion lobby for their strong restrictions on abortion, have better maternal mortality ratios than the United States. Ireland ranks first in the survey with 1 death for every 100,000 live births. In recent years Poland has tightened its abortion law and ranks number 27 on the list with 8 deaths per 100,000. In the United States where there are virtually no restrictions on abortion, the maternal mortality ratio is 17 out of 100,000 live births.

Other regions of the world show similar trends. The African nation with the lowest maternal mortality rate is Mauritius, a country with some of the continent’s most protective laws for the unborn.  On the other end of the spectrum is Ethiopia, which has decriminalized abortion in recent years in response to global abortion lobby pressure. Ethiopia’s maternal death rate is 48 times higher than in Mauritius. South Africa has the continent’s most liberal abortion laws and also a high maternal mortality ratio of 400 deaths per 100,000.

Chile, with constitutional protection for the unborn, outranks all other South American countries as the safest place for women to bear children. The country with the highest maternal mortality is Guyana, with a rate 30 times higher than in Chile. Guyana has allowed abortion without almost any restriction since in 1995. Ironically, one of two main justifications used for liberalizing Guyana’s law was to enhance the “attainment of safe motherhood” by eliminating deaths and complications associated with unsafe abortion.

The full report, which I don’t have time to read at the moment, is here. I am both surprised and puzzled – surprised because I would have thought maternal mortality rates had more to do with a country’s overall health and wealth outcomes than with its abortion law or lack thereof. And puzzled because the story doesn’t say anything about what could possibly account for such a relationship (which I am not assuming is causal; it could be, or maybe there’s something else at play, I just don’t know). Maybe the full report explains things a bit better but even if it doesn’t, the numbers quoted above are interesting enough to make us pay attention. What if reducing the number of abortions (if I had my druthers, we’d accomplish this through a change in the culture, not a change in the legal system) really did help improve outcomes for mothers?

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Andrea adds: Abortion is profoundly unfriendly to women–this remains true in spite of a successful public relations campaign to the contrary. So these sorts of result, however casually related, don’t surprise me.  True care for women shouldn’t involve abortion, no matter the prevailing zeitgeist, because abortion is not compassionate or caring.

Wow! I never would have thought…

Differing roles in prehistoric times have evolved into different shopping styles, U.S. researchers say. “While women spent their days gathering food, often with children, men were hunters who made specific plans about how to catch and kill their prey,” The Daily Telegraph reports. Prof. Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan, who led the study, said:

“When gathering, women must be very adept at choosing just the right colour, texture and smell to ensure food safety and quality,” he explained. “They must also time harvests … In modern terms, women are much more likely than men to know when a specific type of item will go on sale. Women also spend much more time choosing the perfect fabric, colour and texture.”

In prehistoric times, men had to hunt for specific items, which meant they had to be clinical in their approach as they are now with shopping. “Men often have a specific item in mind and want to get in, get it and get out,” he said. “It’s critical to get meat home as quickly as possible. Taking young children isn’t safe in a hunt and would likely hinder progress.”

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Andrea adds: Oh for Pete’s sake. Why so many researchers devoting themselves to dumb projects?