Not everything in the world is gloom and doom, and I need to be reminded of that. Perhaps you, too? Here are a few good news from the past week:
First, a ruling from the US Appeals Court:
The state of Washington can require a pharmacy to deliver medicine even if the pharmacy’s owner has a religious objection, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, the latest in a series of judgments on whether religious believers can opt out of providing services.
The ruling, from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, came in a case filed by pharmacists who objected to delivering emergency contraceptives. The 9th Circuit overturned a lower court that had said the rules were unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year allowed closely held corporations to seek exemptions from the Obamacare health law’s contraception requirement.
Ze Bolds are mine.
Note the reference to the Hobby Lobby case in the last paragraph.
Second, this article reminds us that unplanned pregnancies among teenagers are down, that contraceptive use is not down, and that:
The study found that teens who waited until they were in their late teens (18 and 19) before having sex were more likely to use contraception the first time they had sex, possibly because they were more educated about sex and pregnancy, said Martinez, the study author. And female teens who did not use contraception the first time they had sex were two to five times more likely to have a baby during their teen years.
As an aside, the article has a somewhat misleading title:
Teen sex rate lowest since the 1980s, contraceptive use remains high.A better interpretation can be found in the body of the article:
Even though the current CDC study reported a 25-year low for teen sexual activity, the time between 1988 and 1995 is really what is responsible for this decline, when there was increased education about sex in response to the HIV epidemic, and the rate of sexual activity has not changed much since then, Lindberg said.
Ze Bolds, they are mine, again.
Now remember that before you learn how Russ Limbaugh interpreted this study. I presume you need a laugh today, right?
Third, this is certainly not good news, but it reminds us that all those who advocate voluntary compliance to safety and health rules in the food marketplace and all those politicians who have served to cut back on health inspections and the enforcement of health rules probably have some ethical responsibility for crimes of this type:
I wish the knowledge of the importance of health inspections wasn't something that so easily slips down the memory hole while the taxes necessary to pay for them always look like a thing to cut.Federal court officers are recommending what attorneys are calling an "unprecedented" sentence of life in prison for a peanut executive convicted in a salmonella-poisoning case.
Former Peanut Corporation of American owner Stewart Parnell was convicted last fall of selling truckloads of peanut butter from his southwest Georgia plant to food processors even after they tested positive for salmonella.
Food containing the tainted peanuts was blamed for killing nine people and sickened more than 700.
Fourth, I love this loonie piece about the horrible Europeans, all so feminized and effete (that means men, women only matter as producers of children) that they will never face up to the Russian Bear. Neither can they squeeze out more than the very rare single child per family, and they spend all their money on food, drink and clothes while living in shoe boxes.
Imagine writing that on the basis of what sounds like a tourist trip to some place like Italy! I mean, tourist places are full of tourists, on vacations. They eat and drink a lot and sit about and neither march around with a machine gun nor train in private militias, right? — I could do something similar about Murka if I didn't care about insulting actual people.
As an aside, the birth rate among white Americans is about the same as the average European birth rate, just to give you the first step on the road to dissolving the evidence the author quotes. But it's more fun just to read the piece.
Fifth, this piece tells us about who might be latching onto the teats of the government welfare sow. It's a salutary reminder of the fact that some piglets doing that are pretty rich.
Sixth, a very happy and free cow who lives in a shelter for farm animals.
