Virginity tests...coming soon to the US

Reports that Egyptian military officials used stun guns on women and subjected them to "virginity tests" is disturbing to many people in the modern world. However, before you insist that it "can't happen here" in the US, remember that right-wing religious whackos in our country spent over a billion dollars of federal taxpayer money promoting "abstinence only" sex education, which turned out to be a complete failure. One can imagine that, in a nightmare scenario, under president Palin, the next version of Abstinence Education 2.0, might involve having to prove that one was abstinent. After all, even Palin's own daughter Bristol fell off the abstinence wagon, and straight into a pile of unprotected sex, so I would imagine that Palin would want to be conducting frequent checks of her younger daughters, to make sure that more embarrassments don't occur.

Of course, the US already does poorly enough on standardized tests, and virginity tests share one key feature with standardized tests in that they are not particularly reliable. Still, though, one can only imagine how badly many of our girls would fair on virginity tests, even if they could be made more reliable. As the joke goes, the only test some of these girls are able to pass is a pregnancy test. In fact, I dare say that our would-be fearless leader Sarah P would have been no more able to pass a virginity test during high school than her daughter(s?). However, joking aside, efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, and propaganda campaigns against contraception are pushing the US backward, in the direction of Egypt, instead of forward, toward a modern, progressive, 21st century future.

Coburn's jihad against NSF after fail on planned parenthood

Republicans failed in their fact-free religious crusade to "defund planned parenthood", but now religious looneys are at it again, this time attempting to nitpick and ignorantly mock the National Science Foundation in what looks like a preliminary effort to cut funding for research and development. Fundamentalist christian Tom Coburn, who unfortunately also holds a public office in this nation higher than dog catcher, seems to think that trying to pick on science nerds will resonate with his ignorant constituents who probably are still harboring resentments about failing high school chemistry, and who have a vested interest in denying that anyone really needs that "egghead science stuff".

Religious people can insist all they want that religion and science are not at war, but it is clear that they often feel threatened by science, and perhaps, therefore, conclude that it would be safer to eliminate those pesky scientists altogether. Otherwise they risk having more embarrassing discoveries, like natural selection and radio-isotopic dating, which contradict articles of faith for bible literalists.

The $3.8 trillion dollar federal budget was held up by Republicans over the $75 million received by Planned Parenthood, of which only about $2 million (of their own private funds), was used to help low-income women get abortions. Now Coburn thinks that he might be able to save a whopping few more million dollars, if they consult him first about every one of the approximately 45,000 proposals that NSF receives annually. That way, if he thinks it sounds silly, like a shrimp on a treadmill, then he can put a stop to it, by God, and save tax payers some minor pocket change. Ever heard of the saying, "penny wise is pound foolish". New dictionaries may want to include a picture of Coburn next to this phrase.