No No Really No: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Died.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Rosh Hashanah, on Friday 18th September, aged 87, of pancreatic cancer complications: she died at home surrounded by her family, and I don’t feel quite so bad knowing my first thought was “Now Trump can put a third justice on the Supreme Court”, when I found that practically, Ginsburg’s last thought was almost the same: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”

When Antonin Scalia died on 15th February 2016, the next Presidential election was over eight months away.

In other news

Well, I called it correctly six months ago when Barack Obama came out in support of same-sex marriage.

Yesterday Maryland and Maine made history: the first two US states to authorise equal marriage by referendum vote.

Committed to Parkview

Things I love about America, right now.

Your singers.

(Some of them are dead.)

So You’re Staying Up To Watch The US Election.

Of course, we may not know the results til next October. Or not for years. (Jill Stein will not win, but if Obama loses, is as likely to be blamed for Romney’s “victory” as Ralph Nader was blamed for George W. Bush’s “win”.)

It might be President Obama’s biggest broken promise: closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

But it might be former President Obama’s biggest regret: not cleaning up US elections in 2009.

The American elephant

On Thursday night the BBC allowed Question Time to be primarily about the US elections, with Colleen Graffy speaking for the Republicans and Jerry Springer actually sounding more left-wing than a Democrat ever would.

Neither Colleen Graffy nor Jerry Springer, who are white, mentioned anything about the elephant.

From Cracked.com, 5 Random Factors That Determine Whether You Succeed in Life:

So then things took a turn for the oddly specific. Black men who had rounder faces were perceived to not only earn more money but have higher positions within their companies. The crazy part was that those ridiculous predictions were right! The black guys with baby faces really did earn more money than their black counterparts who were more facially chiseled. Can you guess why? If your answer started with an “r” and rhymed with “fascism” if “fascism” had a long “a” sound, then you’re right. One of the researchers put it this way:

To function effectively as an African-American male in the U.S. it helps to have a disarming mechanism.

Eleven years after 9/11: torture

Nor is the war on Iraq all that Blair should perhaps answer for. There is the torture and extrajudicial imprisonment of “terror suspects”, too. Written as an appendix to Eleven Years After 9/11 about how Blair lied the UK into war with Iraq.

On Thursday 30th August, the US government announced that it had

closed its investigation into the alleged torture of more than 100 detainees held by the CIA in overseas prisons, and the deaths of two men who died while in CIA custody, without prosecuting anyone.

The Justice Department’s announcement Thursday that it would not bring charges in the deaths of terror suspects Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi formally ended a multi-year probe by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham into the CIA’s controversial “enhanced interrogation” program.

(Update, 15th October: But this post at Empty Wheel suggests that there may be still some US legal action against torturers, in a whistleblowing case about another known instance of torture in US custody.)

In 2003 and 2004 the Bush administration discussed and approved a list of “enhanced interrogation techniques” which were to be permitted for use by the CIA. The evidence for these meetings has been public since October 2008. The approval of torture techniques by the US administration was illegal under the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Maldives are rubbish

The Maldives: beautiful, unspoiled islands surrounded by clear blue water, perfect for diving holidays.

They are 2000 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, only 200 of which are inhabited, 87 of which are tourist resorts. 394,451 people live on 113 islands: 28% of GDP, more than 60% of foreign exchange receipts, and 90% of the government’s revenue comes from import duties and tourism-related taxes. It’s a tiny country which, in effect, sells beauty and a dream tropical island paradise to people who are rich enough to pay for it.

The visitor may take the opportunity to stroll through the lanes of the village, observing children playing contentedly beside the wooden huts and village women weaving and creating traditional handicrafts utilizing natural materials such as palm leaves, coconuts and reeds. Visitors can also visit schools and mosques in the idyllic villages. Tourist advert

Invisible Obama & Dirty Harry

For almost 12 cringeworthy minutes, Eastwood engaged in a clunky, awkward and depressing debate with “Invisible Obama,” who viewers were encouraged to believe was sitting on a cheap stool stage left.

…

— Invisible Obama (@InvisibleObama) August 31, 2012

A few short hours after the speech, a Twitter @InvisibleObama emerged, tweeting “…”. That was retweeted more than 4,200 times. Dirty Harry is responsible for getting an ellipses retweeted more than 4,200 times.

President Obama, 2009-2017

Barack Obama will be a two-term President.

How do you know?

Because he came out in support of same-sex marriage two days ago.

What?

Yes, well. Let me explain.

Barack Obama and David Cameron have little in common. But they are politically on the same page.

Murdoch, Salmond, and the Swamp of Destiny

On Tuesday 13th March David Cameron proved himself a brilliant game-player – albeit the kind that buys cheat codes.

He left the country for a state visit with Barack Obama.

Early that morning the Metropolitan Police arrested Cameron’s life-long friend Charlie Brooks and Rebekah formerly-the-CEO-of-NI Brooks and four other News International employees. By the time anyone knew about this, David Cameron was safely on a British Airways plane, mid-Atlantic.

As Fleet Street Fox notes, the convenient timing of this arrest just when David Cameron could not be ambushed with questions about his friendship with Charlie, Rebekah, and the horse, must be purely coincidental, and:

It is entirely coincidental that a public inquiry currently scrutinising relations between the police and members of the trade under examination has heard in recent days of senior coppers who have not been doing their job properly.

How it works: contraception

In the UK, all pharmacies are required to abide by the guidance of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) that a pharmacist has a right to refuse to sell the contraceptive pill (or emergency contraception) on the grounds of religious or moral beliefs.

Access to effective methods of contraception (including education in contraceptive methods and strong societal encouragement to use contraception except when intending to conceive) is shown to be the only effective method of preventing abortions.

Rising contraceptive use results in reduced abortion incidence in settings where fertility itself is constant. The parallel rise in abortion and contraception in some countries occurred because increased contraceptive use alone was unable to meet the growing need for fertility regulation in situations where fertility was falling rapidly.

From Boots the Chemist:

This is something that nationally affects all pharmacies, and not just Boots. The guidance however, is clear in that where a Pharmacist chooses not to sell or dispense, we expect that they explain this to the patient as sensitively as possible and that they’re directed to an alternative source for the medicine.

Whilst we appreciate that this isn’t great for any of our customers we have an obligation to respect the code of ethics to which all Pharmacists work to. I can, however, share with you that the GPhC are looking to review this particular area of their guidance and once this review has taken place we’ll support all our Pharmacy teams with whatever the changes could mean for them.

Most women are born with two ovaries and all the eggs she’ll ever have. Post puberty, most women go through a predictable hormonal cycle of roughly 28 days, during which one follicle on one ovary will ripen and release an egg, which travels down the Fallopian tubes. Since the dawn of recorded time (literally – there are recipes for contraception in some of the earliest written records in the world) the objective for everyone who enjoys heterosexual intercourse has been to solve the problem of women having unwanted pregnancies as a result. (There are records of abortions being performed even earlier than contraception.)

How the Pill works: Hormones in each pill, progestin and estrogen, restrict the follicles on the ovary from growing, and thus stop the woman from ovulating. No egg, no pregnancy.

Emergency contraception works the same way only more so