After Tiller

It'd be very good to pass some kind of major pro-choice initiative in the time to come, just to demonstrate that attempts to achieve political goals in America through acts of terrorism will be frustrated. Repealing the Hyde Amendment, perhaps? Or passing more powerful laws against intimidation at abortion clinics? I don't know what can be done, and Obama has plenty on his plate, so I doubt he'll be able to take on much new stuff. But you've got to show people who are willing to kill (and die) for various things that killing will have the opposite of the effect they want on our political system.

George Tiller, RIP

Via Jeff Fecke, here's a comment that illuminates the late-term abortion debate by making clear what George Tiller, recently murdered by an anti-abortion terrorist, did for a living:

In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn’t be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.

We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies. I could describe in great detail the procedures and the pain and suffering that everyone is subjected to in these situations. However, that is not the point of the post. We can all imagine that this is not something that we would wish on anyone. The point is that the pain and suffering were only mitigated by the compassion and competence of Dr. George Tiller and his staff. We are all diminished today for a host of reasons but most of all because a man of great compassion and courage has been lost to the world.

We want there to be doctors who do things like this. Because of anti-abortion violence and intimidation, there are only a few left. George Tiller was murdered for being one of them.

Sex With Ducks

Via Amanda, this is delightful.

Reality Imitates Satire

When I wrote about Sotomayor's pro-Yankee bias making her unfit for the Supreme Court, I thought it was pretty clear I was joking. However this fellow seems to think this is a legitimate issue.

I don't even know what to say. Words cannot begin to describe what just happened.

California Demise

As Eric points out, "Californians only get back 78 cents for each dollar of federal taxes, ranking it 43rd of 50 for money tossed back into the state." I'd seen those numbers before, but I hadn't thought of them in the context of the California budget crisis. It's going to be hard to balance your budget when 22% of the money you send to DC doesn't come back.

I wonder to what extent the hideous proportional underrepresentation of California in the US Senate is a factor in this. In any case, part of the story has to be that California is an expensive state, which causes a bigger tax bite that isn't matched in the spending you receive. If you want to look at the tax/spending tables, they're here.

I've been daydreaming that we somehow get a federal bailout of California on which the state agrees to stop having idiotic political institutions like supermajority requirements for tax increases, in exchange for a big federal loan that they'll pay back in the future. There are probably a dozen reasons why this is impossible, but it would make lots of things better.

Let me take this opportunity to mention that California's flag looks like it was designed by a drunk person.