Lost among the daily political badgering and GWB's Freudian assurance of an all-conscripted military, there are certain lesser issues that go unnoticed by the nation. Let's begin with health insurance. I have for a long time attempted to find a proper analogy to represent the deplorable state of health insurance in the United States. I mean, having the best doctors and the top technology is all fine and good, but fairly useless if I need to donate a kidney to pay for the broken arm I happ...

http://www.teamindia.net/index.php?action=fullnews&id=32471 "A sex-starved husband in China dialed the emergency number 999 because his wife refused to have sex with him." I don't even think I need to elaborate on this. You all can just read the line, check out the article, and leave a comment. However, this is a fantastic new attempted solution to an age old problem...

Link A clinic in the Netherlands has begun performing mercy killings of terminally ill newborns. It's pretty easy to jump the gun and see the horrible side of this, but I think any and all good that could come of it has to be weighed as well. I do not know the exact guidelines for performing the mercy killings, but it seems that alleviating pain and suffering is the criteria, as well as the consent of the parents, of course. The matter is complicated, of course, by the application of...

So ten states have banned gay marriage, and in one fell swoop, reverted themselves back to the middle of the 20th century, when discrimination was law and equality a myth. This is the saddest thing I've ever heard. There are people dying in Iraq, there are people without jobs, there are children without healthcare, and the huge issue that people are voting on is whether individuals can love whoever they want? Does this seem wrong to anyone else? We're legislating who people can love? N...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DEAD_VOTERS?SITE=WIJAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT It is one day before the election, and I am just getting around to truly looking at the story behind a headline that caught my eye. It appears that an elderly woman has died two days after casting her vote early for the upcoming presidential election. The question on everyone's mind is, of course, should the vote be counted? Now, I am not looking at this from a political point of view. On the...

Just very briefly: There is a law in Rome that fines local Romans for pointing out the sites to tourists. This, apparently, is to protect "professional" tour guides, who have to sit for an exam. And the world continues to be shocked at why people aren't friendlier with one another?

Link Imagine the following scenario: Idiot goes to the zoo. Idiot happens on the tiger cage. Idiot climbs fence, approaches tiger exhibit, reaches hand in. Idiot gets bitten. And now, to test for rabies, they might have to kill the tiger, which happens to be one of only 800 left in the world? No. This moron damn well better volunteer himself for the rabies shot, because there is no reason that an animal should die for a person's stupidity. Kill the tiger? Kill the idio...

Link Delegate John A. Cosgrove of Virginia has introduced a bill to the Virginia House of Delegates, proposing that the Code of Virginia be amended. The amendment would make it a crime for a woman who has a miscarriage to wait more than 12 hours before notifying authorities of the fact that she had a miscarriage. So my first question is, What kind of a moron is this man??? This idiot wants to make it a CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR for a woman who has gone through not only the physical but excr...

Link An art show in New York has been shut down because of a portrait of President Bush that is comprised of monkeys. Let us not discuss that the gallery was private and has the right to exclude anything that it considers offensive. That is all fine and good. Take the piece down, though, not the whole show!!! There were many more artists who worked hard on their pieces that have now lost exposure because some idiot thinks its offensive to create a likeness of the president out of mon...

I am enjoying the 5 PM news here, and I see a lovely video clip of President Bush talking about how he is overweight. He uttered two sentences, one which said that he was a bit overweight, and one which said he fully intended to trim some inches off his waistline. These two sentences took a full minute to deliver, as the words had to struggle their way through the nervous staring and idiotic grinning that our president seems to require whenever he speaks. Either way, I just think it wo...

YOU GO TO WAR WITH THE ARMY YOU HAVE??? ARE YOU FRIEKING KIDDING??? Q-Why don't we have enough armor? A-You go to war with the army you have. Hypothetically: Q-Why did we go to war with no guns and tri-corner hats made out of last Sunday's sports section? A-You go to war with the army you have. Q-Why did we go to war with nothing but swiss army knives and camouflaged Schwinns from 1983? A-You go to war with the army you have. Q-Why did we go to war with pop guns, broken beer...

Link So it appears that 99.8% of the complaints that have led the FCC to crack down on "indecency" have come from one group, the Parents Television Council (PTC). This is fantastic. So apparantly the vast public outcry against the media's indecency is nothing more than the vast isolated outcry of one special interest group. I truly feel comfortable now that I know the FCC's hunt was spurred by a minority that happened to be offended by something the rest of us really didn't care about...

http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/20040329pornp6.asp Ok so a 15 year old girl who took sexually explicit pictures of herself and distributed them to people she met online has been charged with sexual abuse of children, and possession and dissemination of child pornography, proving once again that in certain places people are not willing or not able to use logic when interpreting a law. I do not know the exact wording of the child pornography laws, and its one in the morning and I ha...

So its 2AM and I'm just reading some random news stories before going to bed and I come across this and I have to vent somewhere. The Boy Scouts of America have kicked a retarded boy out of his troop, citing that his behavior endangers him and others or some such bull like that. The great thing is that, as a private organization, the Boy Scouts have the right to exclude whoever they want. And I'm not saying they shouldn't have that right. The right to be stupid is what makes this countr...

Link Comedian Mitch Hedberg has died at the age of 37. This is Philomedy, observing a moment of silence, and posting a quiet bit of reverence for the man I consider to have been the funniest, most absolutely brilliant comic that ever set foot on this Earth. If you are not familiar with him, I suggest you google his name, as his web site's account has been canceled. That's all I have. Mitch will truly be missed. RIP