Rebekah Speights, of Dakota City, Neb., is selling the presidential McNugget on eBay to raise money for a church summer camp.

A check of eBay on Wednesday shows one bid for $100. The auction ends next week.

Speights says the McNugget almost became a snack during a visit to a Sioux City McDonald’s three years ago. Her children didn’t eat the chicken and she was about to toss it when she saw Washington’s resemblance.

Speights stashed the McNugget in her freezer. Now says she’s selling it to raise money for the Sioux City Family Worship Center. The church is raising $15,000 to send 50 children to summer camp.

At least she doesn’t seem to be taking this seriously as a sign from The Founding Fathers, a group that certain American seems to revere almost as much as they worship their god.

Kandace Hagen photo from The Charlottetown Guardian

abortion. It is not that the government won’t fund them, but they don’t support them either. The process that a woman must follow in order to have Medicare pay for the procedure is to see two doctors, and then drive to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. The cost for the drive is at least $100 for gas and tolls, and that doesn’t include the cost of a hotel, a necessity as the drive both ways in one day is tiring at the best of times, not does that include the cost of food. The minimum cost for an abortion is over $200, and probably closer to $300. If you have the money, and don’t need the Medicare to pay,  you can visit a private clinic; a trip that would cost the same, plus the cost of the procedure. This seriously impairs the ability of lower income women to have access to abortion.

PEI is a very conservative province–we were the last to allow same-sex marriage and Sunday shopping was only implemented your round at the start of  2011. Thus politicians, and even individual doctors, are fearful for their careers if they support women’s rights on abortion.

A young women from Charlottetown, Kandace Hagen, has almost single-handedly brought this back into the news in the few months. Now she has been nominated for a $1,000 award sponsored by the Government of Canada provided through the Canadian International Development Agency, and  the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation. The details of the campaign are here.

This is a vote driven process, and currently Kandace is in second place. She was leading until a local ‘pro-life’ group started to publicize the event and encourage supporters to vote for someone, anyone else. There is no registration required to vote, all you need to do is pledge to do something to support the cause of the candidate. Personally, I pledged to blog, as I have in the past, in the support of women’s rights. Others have simply pledged to support the work for her organization, PEI Reproductive Rights Organization (PRRO).

Show your support for Ms. Hagen and her fight for women’s rights here on PEI by adding your pledge here.

A battle has been brewing between the left and right in the pro-foetus anti-women  campaign. One group is supporting environmental measures that will be pro-health for everyone, including mothers and foetuses.

Early attempts at this strategy occurred in 2011, when the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) sought in a media campaign to rally “pro-life” supporters against coal power plants. Other similar “broadening” of the term has attempted to include global warming, alleged U.S. torture practices, loosened immigration controls, and single-payer (government controlled) health care.

As can be imagined, the right wing anti-choice for women is also against environmental regulations.

As leaders of the pro-life movement, we reject that portrayal as disingenuous and dangerous to our efforts to protect the lives of unborn children.

The term pro-life originated historically in the struggle to end abortion on demand and continues to be used in public discourse overwhelmingly in that sense. To ignore that is at best sloppy communication and at worst intentional deception. The life in pro-life denotes not quality of life but life itself. The term denotes opposition to a procedure that intentionally results in dead babies.

In stark contrast, most environmental causes promoted as pro-life involve little threat to human life itself, and no intent to kill anyone.

Lest you think this is a small fringe group, the letter was signed by a large number of leaders of right wing Christian groups.

• Kim Andrews, Missouri Eagle Forum
• Sara L. Anderson, Executive Vice President, Bristol House, LTD
• Dr. Herman Bailey and Dr. Sharron Bailey, Hosts, Herman & Sharron Television Ministry, Christian Television Network
• J. Matt Barber, Vice President, Liberty Counsel Action
• Gary L. Bauer, President, American Values
• E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., Founder and National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
• Rev. Pierre Bynum, Founder, Pro-Life Action Churches of Maryland, Inc, Chaplain, Family Research Council
• Nancy Clark, Director of Women’s Ministries, Elim Fellowship; President, Evangelical Women Leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals
• Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., Executive Director and Senior Fellow, The Beverly LaHaye Institute
• Marjorie Dannenfelser, President, Susan B Anthony List
• Rev. Barrett Duke, Ph.D., Vice President for Public Policy and Research, Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
• Rev. Bryan Fischer, Director of Issues Analysis, American Family Association
• Tim S. Goeglein, Vice President for External Relations, Focus on the Family
• Rev. Wayne A. Grudem, Ph.D., Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies, Phoenix Seminary; Board Member, Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
• Donna Hearne, Convener, Educational Policy Conference
• Rev. Peter Jones, Ph.D., Director, truthXchange, and Adjunct Professor and Scholar in Residence, Westminster Theological Seminary, Escondido, CA
• Rev. Richard Land, Ph.D., President, Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
• Jan Markell, Founder, Olive Tree Ministries
• Tom Minnery, Senior Vice President, Focus on the Family
• Marilyn Musgrave, Vice President for Government Affairs, Susan B Anthony List
• Penny Young Nance, Chief Executive Officer and President, Concerned Women for America
• Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
• Rev. Joey Pipa, Ph.D., President, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
• Kelly Shackelford, President & CEO, Liberty Institute
• Robert F. Schwarzwalder, Jr., Senior Vice President, Family Research Council
• Eugenie Smith, President, Eagle Forum of Alabama
• Ginger Soud, Eagle Forum of Florida
• Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman, Liberty Counsel
• Mark Tooley, President, Institute on Religion and Democracy
• Kelley Wesley, Pregnancy Center Advisor, former Chief Executive Officer of Sanctity of Life Ministries
• Tim Wildmon, President, American Family Association

Here’s the pertinent quote again.

The life in pro-life denotes not quality of life but life itself.

With this document, they have put in writing their lack of consideration for anyone’s health, including the foetuses they claim they are attempting to save. They don’t care if a pollutant if teratogenic; their entire concern is forcing women to carry that foetus to term.

While I disagree with the left wing evangelists, a group that, in this context includes Catholics, I can at least appreciate the  consistency of their arguments. Their campaign is may be against the rights of women, but they at least support the health of the mother (except where the mother might die, then her health is irrelevant). The right is hypocritically against the rights and health of everyone except big business.

Can I despise the actions of one group more than the  actions of another?

Today’s story of paedophilia in the pulpit comes from a Florida church where the answer to having a sex-offender in the pulpit was to ban children from the congregation. Again, I normally tend to think that keeping children out of church is a positive step, but it is the message this action sends that makes it so obnoxious.

In 2009, Darrell Gilyard pleaded guilty to lewd conduct and lewd molestation. The victims were underage girls in his congregation at Shiloh Baptist Church.

In the past few weeks, Gilyard began preaching at Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on the Northside…

Since joining Christ Tabernacle on North Davis Street, the congregation has had to adapt to changes. Under the terms of Gilyard’s release, court documents show he is not allowed to have “unsupervised contact with children under 18 years old.” The church agreed to ban children from Sunday service.

Most of the sermons I have ever heard talk about actions and how to put morality behind those actions. Whether I agree with that morality or not, it is generally the role of pastors to provide  that leadership to their flock. The congregation in turn, attends a particular church because they support their  pastor. In this particular case, the congregation essentially said that Gilyard was suitable as a moral leader and authority to the community.

I would not accept any known paedophile as a moral authority on anything. Of course, neither he nor his supporters are ‘true’ Christians.

There’s no shortage of products with catchy names that promise to calm the nerves. Whoever came up with Chill Pills – herbal and B-vitamin capsules produced by New Roots Herbal – deserves a gold medal in marketing. Then there’s Stress Shield, Relax-All, Ex-Stress and more than 2,000 other supplements for stress at Amazon.com.

One of the newest products, Profect, is a “shot” of fruit-flavoured protein (25 grams) that its maker, Protica, claims “can help relieve the side effects of stress.”

What all of these products have in common are product development and marketing plans that are not based on anything other than the desire of these companies for profit. There is no research that shows these are either effective or harmless. It is, of course, possible they could be either, neither, or both. We just don’t know. The companies themselves are under no incentive to provide answers. The rules are such that weasel words that skirt closely around explicit medical claims are enough to avoid the types of regulations that actual pharmaceutical companies must follow.

While there is some evidence that specific nutrients and botanicals may have a positive effect on stress, studies “haven’t necessarily shown that giving these to everybody will confer a benefit,” says Devon Christie, a doctor at Connect Health Centre for Integrative Medicine in Vancouver.

Herbs may interfere with prescription drugs or cause nasty side effects, she points out. Panax ginseng, one of several herbs believed to reduce the stress hormone cortisol, may cause hypertension, diarrhea and vaginal bleeding, she says.

Quality control is lacking in many of the factories that package these products, and dosages and even ingredients can vary considerably from what appears on the package label.

Drop the woo and talk a walk; it’s more effective and has fewer potential dangers.

Save cash on supplements and go for a brisk walk instead. Even with 10 minutes of exercise, “you’re releasing the hormones in your body that are associated with stress relief and those endorphins, the feel-good chemicals,” Dr. Christie says.

Medical doctors are trained in understanding the body’s response to stress and recognizing deficiencies in vitamins and minerals and the symptoms of other diseases. If you suspect something is wrong, and walking doesn’t help, don’t head to a herbalist, head to your doctor’s office.

Anatomical Cross-Sections in Paper

These pieces are made of Japanese mulberry paper and the gilded edges of old books. They are constructed by a technique of rolling and shaping narrow strips of paper called quilling or paper filigree. Quilling was first practiced by Renaissance nuns and monks who made artistic use of the gilded edges of worn out bibles, and later by 18th century ladies who made artistic use of lots of free time. I find quilling exquisitely satisfying for rendering the densely squished and lovely internal landscape of the human body in cross section.

Head and torso

Female Torso

Life size chest cross section

Cross section of head

via Jerry James Stone at his  Discovery Channel blog

A few days ago, one of Republican candidate Rick Santorum’s biggest supporters weighed in on this debate.

Foster Friess, the retired mutual fund executive from Wyoming who has been basking in the spotlight recently thanks to his six-figure donations to a ‘super PAC’ backing Santorum, made the remark in an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.

“This contraception thing, my gosh, it’s so inexpensive,” Friess said. “You know, back in my days, they’d use Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

Anyone with a bit of common sense can see the misogyny in that statement, as well as the nostalgia for a mythical past.

The Not So Secret blog has an answer to Friess, where the author describes how Aspirin, or other pill like objects such as M&Ms, are not only incapable of preventing pregnancy, but can actually be used to facilitate sexual pleasure. Thus, in the absence of proper contraceptives increase the chance of pregnancy.

Read further at your own risk (or pleasure)

There are levels of difficulty, some of which would be difficult at my age and level of flexibility.

The Beginner positions:

1) Doggie With Aspirin: On your hands and knees, squeeze an aspirin between your knees and let your partner penetrate you however s/he wants to. It’s easy to keep the aspirin safe in this position.

2) Missionary With A Headache: After a long day saving souls, even the most devout missionary will want to lie face down on a comfy bed. But, a devout missionary will never cease to serve, and if your partner has needs, just lay in bed, face down, and squeeze an aspirin between your knees. If you keep it safe by not letting it drop, then you can go ahead and swallow before sleeping soundly.

Intermediate positions

1) Jackknife: Lying flat on your back, stretch your legs straight up in the air at a 90-degree angle. Hold an aspirin between your knees and press your legs together tightly so it doesn’t fall out. You will notice that, in this position, your entire core is contracted, meaning that you can easily do kegels while being fucked. Sure, it’s great exercise, what with all that leg flexing and kegel squeezing, but it also makes sex feel better for both you and your partner. Rumor has it that this will activate your G-Spot while squeezing a penis even tighter. Obviously, if you’re being fucked with a dildo, your partner won’t care about the kegels, but you will! (This is good advice, even if you’re the type of brazen hussy who likes to fuck without an aspirin between your knees.)

While you’re at it, have your partner push your legs down towards your chest, keeping them straight and tight, and you’ll get a killer hamstring stretch. Again, if you’re sore after all the stretching and flexing, just take the aspirin in the end.

2) Tipped Chair: Very much like the jackknife, but with knees bent. The benefit here is that although the aspirin will stay safe and sound between your knees, your lover can push your knees all the way to your chest, which will bring your ass up, but kind of pushes your girlie-bits down, again providing maximum G-Spot potential. This also increases the spankability factor, which may be necessary, seeing as you are obviously a bad girl, finding a way to fuck while employing the tried and true aspirin-between-the-knee chastity measures.

And one advanced position

1) Windmill: Start in the jackknife position, but have your lover push your legs down to one side, then up towards your head, then over to the other side, then back up again. Essentially, you are making a giant circle with your legs, all while holding them tight and protecting that sacred aspirin. When you find a spot you both really like, just make tiny circles there for a  bit, then resume the pattern. Play with this, as it really changes the pressure and sensation for both you and your partner as your body changes positions. This is a good one.

Of course, Friess is correct in stating that the only effective method of birth control is abstinence. However, even if he and his ilk had their way and sex was reserved for married couples, without contraceptives we would return to the status of previous generations where women were relegated to popping babies out at regular intervals with all of the associated health risks.

In the interview with NBC, Friess continued

“I get such a chuckle when these things come up,” he said. “Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed. We have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex. I think it says something about our culture.”

Our culture is undoubtedly infused with sex, but the religious right is the only group who is obsessed with controlling the sex lives of the rest of us. Any amount of thought at all reveals these people as advocates for white male privilege with a desire to return women to their station of the 19^th century and before.

Friess later apologized, and Santorum distanced himself from the remarks, but it seems to me that the damage has been done. But then, I’m not an American voter.

This one I found on Google+

And for those who care, here are Erwin Schrödinger’s own words as he explains why quantum events at a microscopic scale cannot be directly translated to the macroscopic level.

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a “blurred model” for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

Of course, scientists being curious by definition, two researchers from the Division of General Practice at the University of Bergen decided to assess the efficacy of some of these methods. The example they chose was garlic and their animal model was leeches: not un-dead, but bloodsuckers nonetheless. They published their results in the Dec 10^th edition  of Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen (translation from the original Norwegian).

Abstract
Vampires are feared everywhere, but the Balkan region has been

Generalized mouth of Hirudinea

especially haunted. Garlic has been regarded as an effective prophylactic against vampires. We wanted to explore this alleged effect experimentally. Owing to the lack of vampires, we used leeches instead. In strictly standardized research surroundings, the leeches were to attach themselves to either a hand smeared with garlic or to a clean hand. The garlic-smeared hand was preferred in two out of three cases (95% confidence interval 50.4% to 80.4%). When they preferred the garlic the leeches used only 14.9 seconds to attach themselves, compared with 44.9 seconds when going to the non-garlic hand (p < 0.05). The traditional belief that garlic has prophylactic properties is probably wrong. The reverse may in fact be true. This study indicates that garlic possibly attracts vampires. Therefore to avoid a Balkan-like development in Norway, restrictions on the use of garlic should be considered.

So there it is. If you suspect your roommate or hook-up is a vampire, don’t use garlic. Of course, if you don’t suspect your potential hook-up is a vampire, don’t use garlic either.

via Disco Blog

Apparently, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the US has been concerned for sometime about the DRAC1SUC3 virus.

Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, the man appointed by the CDC to “hunt down and destroy” the vampire virus, said that while dangerous, DRAC1SUC3 has never really been a threat to society as a whole until recently. “For the most part vampire related incidents are usually very low. Around Halloween you see a small uptick, but this type of disease likes to stay in the shadows and out of the limelight,” Van Helsing said. “But sometime around November of 2008 we witnessed a surge, or outbreak of vampirism throughout the country. Our studies have shown that this outbreak predominately affected teenage girls and closeted homosexuals.”

The CDC says the problem is under control for now and that the disease has fallen back into a dormant “in-between” period, just as it did in 2008. If the disease does resurface the CDC will be ready for it this time, Van Helsing said.

“We won’t be fooled again. We’ve seen how this virus works,” the doctor said. “It explodes in a quick, overly emotional, lust-crazed display of vampire love only to die out, remain dead for a few months, then rise again.” And while it may appear the threat is gone, the virus is actually still simmering under the surface, boiling over inside the loins of the millions of infected, Van Helsing said. “Based on our research, we believe the next outbreak will occur in June of this year. We are putting out this statement now so that the public can be ready for it.”

The CDC recommends the ingestion of garlic as a preventative measure, but they base this solely on a lower incidence of the virus in Italian communities. Give the results of the Norwegian study, this decreased incidence is more likely due to some other aspect of this particular group.