Happy 119th birthday to my beloved Idaho.

Esto Perpetua!

…she screwed up.

Idaho Representative Shirley Ringo, that is.

I just fired off this email:

Rep. Ringo,

I was just reviewing the recently-passed Idaho midwifery licensing bill,
and am distressed to see you voted in favor of it.

I realize it’s too late to do anything about it now, but wanted to point
out a key factor that I hope you failed to consider, and didn’t
actually actively impose upon your constituents:

There are no doctors in Moscow that will attend a vaginal breech
birth. The only alternative for women seeking to deliver a breech baby
naturally, with a professional in attendance, was midwifery care. You
have now helped take that choice from us, and ensured the birth
experience for many Moscow women will be reduced to Cesarean section – a
procedure that often causes neonatal respiratory distress, difficult
recoveries for both baby and mother, damaged breastfeeding
relationships, difficult future pregnancies and births, and so on.

I delivered a healthy baby girl at home on January 10th of this year.
For several weeks in late pregnancy, she was breech. I would have chosen
to proceed with my homebirth had she remained breech. You have now taken
that choice from me when I have my next child. Since I do not believe in
submitting to major surgery when breech births with skilled
professionals have positive outcome rates comparable to vertex births, I
will be left with the option of fighting hospital staff while in labor,
birthing unassisted, or trying to find an illegally practicing midwife.

Which option would you choose, Rep. Ringo? What happened to my body, my
choice?

I fail to understand how a representative who believes I should be able
to terminate a pregnancy with an abortion does not believe I should have
equal control over my birth process. Safe, accessible abortions… but
not safe, accessible birth?

For the record, my midwife opposed the bill – so don’t bother telling me
it was the consensus of Idaho midwives. This bill was junk, pushed
through before the medical lobby could get the chance to outlaw
midwifery and homebirth completely. The midwives who worked on this bill
shot themselves in the foot, so as to avoid letting doctors pull the
trigger.

Rep. Ringo, you and I probably see eye-to-eye on very little
politically. That said, I thought I could trust you to stand up for
women’s choice. By voting to pass mandatory midwifery licensing, you
have proven I can’t trust you at all.

Laurel [Mylastname]
Moscow

Here’s the bill. It is a colossal bunch of crap and passed overwhelmingly. Midwives are now subject to an up-to-$1,000 yearly licensing fee. Considering the going rate for midwifery care around here is about $1,700, a $1,000 license is a big chunk o’ change. This bill will almost certainly put some smaller practices out of business.

In addition to the aforementioned outlawing of midwife-attended breech births, the bill also outlaws midwife-attended postdates (42+ weeks) births, multiple births, births with maternal BMI of 40+, vaginal birth after more than one c-section, and several other criteria. It also requires dual-care with a doctor for several conditions.

I also like the part where midwives are required to provide, as part of their initial informed consent materials, information about the procedures, risks, and benefits of homebirth. (Hey, at least they acknowledged there are benefits!) When I pre-registered at the hospital in case of an emergency transfer, I was not presented with any information about the procedures, risks, and benefits of hospital birth. Go fig.

Man oh man, very few things get me in such a tizzy as the government claiming ownership of my body. RAWR!

Idaho Sovereignty: Passed the House 51-17-2. Not sure when the Senate will hear it just yet. (Rep. Trail voted for it, Rep. Ringo against. Not surprising.)
http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/legislation/2009/HJM004.htm

Also, Montana has a bill in committee to allow:

“…THE STATE OF MONTANA AND POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS TO CONDUCT VARIOUS FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS IN GOLD, GOLD AND SILVER COIN, ELECTRONIC GOLD CURRENCY, OR LEGAL TENDER OF THE UNITED STATES; ALLOWING CERTAIN PERSONS CONDUCTING VARIOUS FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS WITH THE STATE OR POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS TO CONDUCT THE TRANSACTIONS IN GOLD, GOLD AND SILVER COIN, ELECTRONIC GOLD CURRENCY, OR LEGAL TENDER OF THE UNITED STATES; REQUIRING THAT CERTAIN FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND OTHER PERSONS INVOLVING CERTAIN TAXES, FEES, AND CHARGES ON CIGARETTES AND TOBACCO PRODUCTS BE CONDUCTED IN ELECTRONIC GOLD CURRENCY; REQUIRING THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION TO ADOPT RULES FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF PAYMENT BY AND RECEIPT BY THE STATE AND POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS IN GOLD, GOLD AND SILVER COIN, OR ELECTRONIC GOLD CURRENCY; PROVIDING AN APPROPRIATION; AMENDING SECTIONS 7-6-201, 7-6-2111, 7-6-2603, 7-6-4302, 17-1-111, 17-8-301, 17-8-304, AND 30-2-511, MCA; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE AND APPLICABILITY DATES.”

http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/billhtml/HB0639.htm

Mike and I were sitting here working on his résumé. I was jotting down some notes on changes he needed to make.

Me (trying to remember): “Humvee… That’s… H…M…M…W…V?”
Mike: “Yeah.”
Me (now trying to decode): “Highly mobile… multi-wheeled vehicle?”
Mike: “Yup.”
Me: *makes wow, did they really need an acronym for that? face*
Mike: “I know. It’s like… as opposed to what, Highly Mobile Combat Unicycle?”

Bwaha. In totally unrelated news, Changeling finally came to Pullman! Off to the cinema we go. And it’s snowing. A lot.

Cold.

Forecast for Idaho Palouse
Updated: 9:17 am PST on December 11, 2008
Winter Storm Watch in effect from late Friday night through Sunday morning…
Rest of Today
Partly sunny. Patchy fog in the morning. Highs in the lower to mid 40s. Light wind.
Tonight
Partly cloudy. Lows in the mid to upper 20s. Light wind in the evening…becoming southeast 5 to 10 mph overnight.
Friday
Partly sunny in the morning…then cloudy with rain or snow in the afternoon. No snow accumulation is expected. Highs in the upper 30s to lower 40s. Southeast wind 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 50 percent.
Friday Night
Rain in the evening… then a chance of rain or snow and areas of light drizzle or freezing drizzle overnight. Lows in the upper 20s to lower 30s. Breezy. Southwest wind 10 to 25 mph. Chance of precipitation near 100 percent.
Saturday
Snow. Snow may be heavy at times. Heavy snow accumulations possible. Highs in the lower to mid 30s. South wind 10 to 15 mph with gusts to around 25 mph. Chance of precipitation 90 percent.
Saturday Night
Snow showers likely. Heavy snow accumulations possible. Lows 12 to 16. Chance of precipitation 60 percent.
Sunday
Much colder. Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of snow showers. Highs 11 to 15.
Sunday Night through Monday Night
Mostly cloudy. Lows 6 below to 4 above zero. Highs 11 to 13.
Tuesday through Wednesday
Partly cloudy. Highs 18 to 24. Lows 3 below to 3 above zero.

I’ve been planning on pre-cooking and freezing a boatload of food for when I have the baby, so Mike will only have to toss things in the oven… I think I just found the perfect weekend to spend cooking.

…it’s SNOWING!

Random fact about your humble blogger: I hate winter unless it snows. Cold and grey and miserable? Not my thing. Cold and snowy? Totally cool.

Last winter was awesome – it was like 14 degrees for two months straight and we had about three feet of snow. I wish it would do that again!

Okay, I have been sick for ten days now, finally went to the doctor this morning, and he has me drugged up on codeine. By drugged up I mean I took one Tylenol-3 and am high as a kite. (Yes, yes, this is confirmed safe for pregnancy.) This is why being anti-drugs to the point I don’t even usually take Advil is awesome. One Tylenol-3! Whee!

The downside is I am now incapable of properly articulating my incredulity (and outrage) at H-S Precision, Inc. having chosen to promote their business with a ringing endorsement from none other than Lon Horiuchi.

Hat-tip to Commander Zero, Ahab, Uncle, War on Guns (who actually called H-S to confirm), Tam and a billion others.

Lon Horiuchi. Seriously.

The next day, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot Randy in the back while he, Harris, and Weaver’s 16-year-old daughter Sara were outside, attempting to retrieve the body of Sammy Weaver, which was placed in a shed after being recovered the previous day. As the three ran back to the house, Horiuchi fired again, but this time hit Weaver’s wife Vicki in the head as she held their 10-month-old daughter Elishiba at the door. Vicki Weaver collapsed on the floor, dying instantly with her bloody but uninjured daughter in her arms. A Justice Department review later found the second shot was unconstitutional and the lack of a request to surrender was “inexcusable”, since Harris and the two Weavers were running for cover and could not pose an imminent threat. The task force also specifically blamed Horiuchi for firing at the door, not knowing whether someone was on the other side of it, along with those who had decided on the special rules of engagement allowing shots to be fired with no previous request for surrender. [WIKI]

Are they STUPID? I am not alone in thinking Horiuchi ought to be in prison, or perhaps in front of a firing squad, so I cannot imagine what idiot at H-S thought associating their business with him was any sort of a good idea. Somebody there is either very, very ignorant (and unaware of Google) or a very provocative asshole.

Either way, H-S better have a really good explanation for this, fast, or they’re on the fast track to Zumboland. I can’t imagine their .gov customers even like Horiuchi enough to want to actually associate with him, you know?

Also – as neighbor Joe points out, McMillan is a great alternative for high-end stocks made by a company that doesn’t suck. (I have a feeling Joe might my special indignation about Horiuchi, considering he’s rather a persona non grata in our home state of Idaho.)

I went to the Starbucks in our Safeway store to get my free coffee after I voted. While I was standing in line, I looked over at the kiosk that has all the Safeway coupon fliers on it. There was a sign on the side correcting a mistake in the ads. It said, in effect:

The club card price of Lucerne milk was incorrectly advertised this week at $1.99. While that price is available in Washington, state law in Idaho prohibits us from selling it for $1.99 since it’s below Safeway’s cost. Thus, Idaho club card price is actually $2.19. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Mmmm. I love a little price control with my coffee, don’t you? Well, get used to it.

DOOM.

Okay, I know I said I was signing off the election stuff, but this doesn’t really count. Check out what showed up in the UK’s Daily Mail:

PETER HITCHENS: The Zombie and the Third-World Marxist … How the American West views the presidential race

They tell me that about one person in 50 on the streets of Moscow, Idaho, is legally carrying a concealed pistol. A lot more have them in their cars. I rather approve of this, though I don’t think I’ll join in.

Many of those packing heat are women combining a hard, practical feminism with a conservative view of the right to bear arms.

The important thing is that you don’t know who is armed and who isn’t, and nor do potential rapists and muggers. I am sure this arrangement improves everyone’s manners no end.

It is certainly a very polite place and shoot-outs here are a good deal rarer than they are in gun-controlled London or Manchester.

…

MORE

It’s really a fantastic article, but I’m probably biased because I feel like I’m in on all the inside jokes.

For the record, picture #1 is inside Tri-State, where we don’t shop because they are anti-open-carry.

But this?

That’s Sure Shot, our go-to gun shop, and we flippin’ LOVE that sign. I just about died when I saw that picture in the article.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I love our weird little town.

We’re three days from doomsday. Even if Obama loses, we still get The Lesser Evil, and that makes me sad.

At this point, I feel like somebody who votes for Obama is very deliberately attacking my way of life.

Time and again I’ve heard leftists say “Nobody is trying to take your guns.” And maybe this year, for a lot of Americans, that’s true. But it’s not true for me. I own the exact guns they want to take. And even if they don’t come knocking on my door for them this year, they’ll certainly do their best to ban spare parts, and magazines, and ammunition. So yes, liberals, you are trying to take my guns – first by destroying the industry that allows them to exist, then by destroying my ability to maintain them, and eventually you’ll get around to kicking down my door for the hunks of metal themselves.

Obama has said a lot of mealy-mouthed things lately about the 2nd Amendment but his record and years upon years of past statements indicate he is, without a doubt, my enemy. And even if he isn’t actively pushing for anti-gun legislation, you cannot look me in the eye and tell me the man would veto an assault weapons ban.

And you cannot look me in the eye and tell me the man has any interest in appointing Supreme Court justices who are good judges. That’s the qualification John McCain cited in the last debate – good judges, not idealogues. No, Obama thinks the court should be engaging in redistributive politics and the Warren Court didn’t go far enough.

If Obama is allowed to nominate the next Supreme Court justices – with Democrat majorities in Congress backing him up – it’s game over. That court is the only thing standing in the way of the complete destruction of the Constitution.

And what, you really think the government will roll back the clock on wiretapping, that it’s all going to be hunky-dory as long as the Republicans aren’t in charge anymore? No – as I’ve said all along, the thing that scares me most about what Bush has been up to isn’t what is happening with Bush at the helm… It’s what will happen with that precedent and somebody like Obama at the helm. Now, instead of wiretapping to advance the War on Terrah, we’ll get Obama’s goon squads wiretapping you and me because I dared to speak out here. Because I have black rifles. Because I’ll be protesting wealth redistribution.

I can’t understand how anyone can listen to that man and hear the American dream. He’s talking about actively destroying the American dream, punishing those who are most successful and rewarding those who do least. He wants to destroy the incentive to achieve, to what end? So everyone feels good about themselves? So we can all starve together, instead of having any haves and have-nots?

So yes, while I fear a McCain presidency will perpetuate ass-backwards foreign policies and continue to expand government in ways a Republican administration never should, I at least don’t feel like he’s gunning for his fellow Americans.

Now, all that said: I don’t really think appropriate voter behavior is a black-and-white issue. Here in Idaho, McCain is projected to win by about 30%. That gives us the luxury of making a statement without directly contributing to an Obama win – so I’ll most likely be writing in Ron Paul. If I were in a swing state, I’d probably vote for McCain. While the lesser of two evils is still an evil, in this case the potential to prevent Obama nominees on the SCOTUS is worth damn near any cost.

I think the worst part of this, for me, is feeling so powerless. My way of life will be under seige, and I have but one vote in a state with four electoral votes. I don’t want his healthcare. I don’t want his welfare. I don’t want his tax plan. I certainly don’t want to be protected from my own firearms. I just want to be left alone, to own my guns, to advance my socioeconomic status as I may, to raise and educate my children without government oversight, to speak freely on my silly little blog, and to get where it’s possible for me to get without either government handicap or handout.