Here are a few articles that have been taking up space in my dock for a little while — I keep meaning to blog about them, but don’t find the time. So, without further ado…
Texas Pharmacist Refuses Pill for Rape Victim
A Texas pharmacist was disciplined for refusing to fill the prescription of a rape victim seeking a morning-after pregnancy-prevention pill, the pharmacy chain that employed the man said on Tuesday.
Kathryn Allen, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood (news – web sites) of North Texas, said the situation could have been avoided if hospitals in the state mandated emergency contraception in sexual assault cases. Other states stipulate that hospitals must make emergency contraception available to victims of sexual assault, but Texas does not.
“What this pharmacist did was truly outrageous. It forces the woman to relive the assault,” said Allen, adding that the prescription in question is essentially a high dose of birth control pills that prevents pregnancy.
What do you suppose rabid anti-choice women — the kind who throw fake fetuses at women outside family planning clinics — do when they are raped and impregnated? I’ve never heard that story before. I’m just interested.
Fee Fever
Credit card issuers are turning up the heat again on cardholders with hikes in late payment fees, expedited payment fees, and balance transfer fees. MBNA, the nation’s second largest issuer and market leader in high cardholder fees, has raised its late payment fee to $49 on some accounts. As of January 1st, MBNA raised its maximum late payment fee from $39 to $49 on customers in its “GoldOption” program. The “GoldOption” program is a separate line of credit offered to MBNA credit cardholders, and to some non-MBNA customers. It was marketed last year under the “Vanishing Debt Program.” Customers with past due “GoldOption” balances below $100 will be assessed a $15 fee, and those with past due balances between $101 and $1,000 will be assessed a $39 fee. However, those with balances over $1,000, the vast majority of “GoldOption” customers, will be hit with an unprecedented $49 late fee.
Well, that’s the way to make your debt vanish — mounting $49 late fees, capitalized and added to your balance until you’re paying high interest on the fees themselves.
The SWIPE Toolkit
The SWIPE Toolkit is a collection of web-based tools that sheds light on personal data collection and usage practices in the United States. The tools demonstrate the value of personal information on the open market and enable people to access information encoded on a driver’s license or stored in some of the many commercial data warehouses.
The English-Bush Lexicon
Like all good Americanians, we at Corporate Mofo support our President, George W. Bush, absolutely 110%. After all, much as in the movie Independence Day, he, and his skills with a fighter jet, are the only things standing between us and scary, landmark-destroying aliens! The same goes for the members of his cabinetry: We pray daily for the welfare of Vice President Dick Cheney’s left ventricle, and that the wisdom of Solomon may be visitated upon Attorney General John Ashcroft, and also for a Constitutional amendment so that Arnold Schwarzenegger may become President after President Bush’s second term.
Yet, we are recognizing that there is a communicationating gap arising between our government and the people of our country. Often, the White House’s policies am not making much sense to the American peoples. So, to make the messages more clearer, we are here presenting a guide explaining President Bush’s policies to the pubic-at-large.
NPR, PBS audience holds most accurate views of Iraq war, says new study
Pubcasters welcomed a study released Oct. 2 [2003] that showed people who turn to public broadcasting for news have the most accurate views of the Iraq war among media consumers.
The study, conducted by the polling firm Knowledge Networks and the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes, also highlighted differences between public broadcasting and its competitors. Fox News Channel and public broadcasting, for example, consistently landed at opposite ends of the spectrum of opinion. Fox viewers were almost four times more likely than public broadcasting’s consumers to hold misperceptions about the war.
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh seized on the study as a chance to mock NPR and PBS Oct. 8, the same day an irate Bill O’Reilly walked off NPR’s Fresh Air [story]. O’Reilly later told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he took a beating on Fresh Air because NPR and the “far left” are waging a “jihad” against Fox.
The study found that two-thirds of about 3,000 respondents held at least one of three misperceptions:
- Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or proven to be supporting al-Qaeda;
- Weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; and
- International popular opinion favored the U.S. war against Iraq.
The study then broke down respondents by their primary news sources. Public broadcasting’s consumers consistently were the best informed, while Fox viewers were most likely to misperceive.
Education and political affiliation fail to account wholly for the differences. Republican Fox viewers, for example, were still more likely to hold misperceptions than Republican NPR and PBS subscribers.
Further, “48 percent of Democrat supporters who watch Fox News thought the U.S. has found evidence of a direct link to al-Qaeda, but not one single respondent who is a Democrat supporter and relies on PBS and NPR for network news thought the U.S. had found such evidence,” the study said.
After Fox viewers, CBS viewers were the most likely to hold misperceptions, yet CBS is more often accused of liberal, not conservative bias, noted Steven Kull, PIPA’s director and the study’s principal investigator.
It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that I listen to NPR almost exclusively.
Rapture Letters
The rapture: When all the believers in Jesus Christ, who have been born again, are
taken up to heaven.
After the rapture, there will be a lot of speculation as to why millions of people have
just disappeared. Unfortunately, after the rapture, only non believers will be left to come up with answers. You probably have family and friends that you have witnessed to and they just won’t listen. After the rapture they probably will, but who will tell them?
We have written a computer program to do just that. It will send an Electronic Message (e-mail) to whomever you want after the rapture has taken place, and you and I have been taken to heaven.
If you wish to do something now that will help your unbelieving friends and family after the rapture, you need to add those persons email address to our database. Their names will be stored indefinitely and a letter will be sent out to each of them on the first Friday after the rapture. Then they will receive another letter every friday after that.
Need I even comment on this?
Telephone World Sounds and Recordings
A collection of recordings that are representative of the late Jane Barbe, known unofficially as “The Telephone Lady”. Mrs. Barbe, who died in July 2003, had produced many telephone company intercept recordings, as well as lent her voice for used in automated intercept systems, operator assisted dialing systems, and voice mail systems. This collection is representative of the period from 1973 to 1985.
Isn’t it amazing what you can find on the internet?
