acerbic

I found these on one of the PUMA-associated websites. Slate also ran an interesting article about Clinton supporters who are planning to sit this one out or vote for John McCain. This story has been kicking around for quite some time now, but I find very little discussion about the worst legacy of a McCain administration; The Supreme Court.

Listen up PUMAs; there are 9 Supreme Court Justices and they break down like this:

Crazy Right Wing

John “Big Chief” Roberts: Age 53

Sam “Scalito” Alito:  Age 58

Clarance “I Don’t Like Black People. At All.” Thomas: Age 60

Antonin “Big Tony” Scalia: Age 72

Middle Of The Pack

John Paul “George & Ringo” Stevens: Age 88

David “Hackett-Jacket” Souter: Age 68

Anthony “Little Tony” Kennedy: Age 72

Crazy-Out-Of-Touch-Elitist-Tax-And-Spend-I-Hate-America Liberals

Steven “Tyler” Breyer: Age 70

Ruth “Who’s Bader Than Me?” Ginsberg: Age 75

OK, for those of you who still think voting for McCain is a good idea, let me simplify. All the young dudes are on the right. The old people are all in the middle or the left. Look at Kennedy. That poor bastard’s been cheating death just to see a president elected who can read something more complicated than “My Pet Goat.”

This means campaign finance, environment, civil rights, government wiretapping, war powers, detainees, gay rights, gun control, all of it can get blown up if the court decides to take the case.

The Democratic congress will roll over for McCain. They will confirm his appointees. You are delusional if you think otherwise.

If you’re a woman and thinking about voting for McCain you are, in effect, saying “Please John McCain, this is my uterus, and I want you to tell me what to do with it.” 

If that’s what you’re really after, knock yourself out. It doesn’t matter to me because if Grampa gets elected, I’m getting a vasectomy.

More anger geared at the religious types.  I am doing some scouring of designs for work, and looking at big corporate sites, but, y’know, cool ones… Unlike Dell, which sucks and is boring.  GM, Apple, etc.  Good stuff.

I surf to Pepsi’s site, thinking that they are an enormous corporation, but also have some interest in keeping their finger on the pulse of the younglings of our nation and the world.

And I see this big red area in the left-hand corner, stealing your eye from every other design element on the page (none of which are particularly great anyway, but that’s not the point.) “False Rumor Alert.”

Hmm.  Pepsi’s not campaigning for President (whatever Slate says), so I’m wondering why they need to Fight The Smears, too? I click.

And apparently there’s an email forward going around – has been going around for years – telling people to send angry letters to Pepsi because they left the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Double-Yew.

Tee.

EFF.

YOU PEOPLE HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR TIME??? THAN WRITE PEPSI ABOUT THIS??

Not to mention that this whole thing is really distorted entire out of proportion – Dr. Pepper had a can that had THREE words from the Pledge after 9/11 – and that’s what started this whole mess.  Three words.  And you’re not satified enough that one of the three isn’t GOD, so you have to WRITE LETTERS?

I’m going to pray right now.  To God, Jesus, the more enigmatic Holy Spirit… or Ganesh, or Ahura-Mazda, or whoever, to take care of these people.  Or at least make them unable to get to the polls on all important voting days from here on out.

Maggie Gallagher annoys me. She annoys me a great big heap. Of course, that means I read her column with a religious devotion. Most weeks, I start some kind of post rebutting her latest  insanity. Usually I get so irritated that I can’t finish it.

This week, however, I can’t let it pass.

Her column is here. Go ahead and read it, but I will summarize. A lesbian in California wished to be artificially inseminated. Her doctors, being devout Christian types would not allow the procedure on moral grounds. I.E. ‘We devout Christian types don’t like gay people, and they shouldn’t have children’.

The woman sued, alleging discrimination.

The California state supreme court ruled that the doctors cannot deny the procedure because of their moral objections.

Ms. Gallagher’s column is making the point that this ruling is an infringement on the religious liberties of the doctors. Variations of this issue have been bouncing around for a while. Pharmacists refusing to sell birth control..ect.

This is not an issue of religious freedom. This is an issue of professional responsibility. Allow me to make a few analogies:

A criminal defense lawyer has a client who is accused of murder. This lawyer opposes murder on moral grounds. (Wasn’t there something like…thou shall not kill?…anyway). During the course of the trial, the lawyer doesn’t give his client a proper defense. Let’s say, in the extreme, the lawyer doesn’t cross-examine a single prosecution witness or call a single defense witness.

After all, this lawyer has a religious objection to murder. Hell, most people, religious or otherwise, have an objection to murder.

Isn’t this lawyer just following his beliefs? Sure. But the state bar association has another word for this type of activity; disbarment. If you don’t act in your client’s best interest, you can lose your job. Religious concerns do not factor in. At all. If you don’t wish to be in those kinds of situations, do not go to law school, or at the very least, practice another kind of law.

A second example; a man joins the Marine Corps and is sent to Iraq. Let’s say while he’s there he undergoes a religious transformation and becomes a Muslim. Then, suppose he is sent to the front lines and ordered to take out an enemy position.

He decides that killing fellow Muslims is wrong. He informs his superiors that he’s not going to follow orders. Again, this man is following his religious beliefs.

And the Marine Corps would call it treason.

No one forced these doctors to go to med school, and no one forced them to work at The North Coast Women’s Medical Group for crying out loud.

My message to these doctors:

Do your job. This is exactly what you signed up for. Don’t like it? Go do something else.