Montana's Attorney General says health insurance plans that do not cover contraceptives for women are discriminatory

McGrath says insurance companies must cover contraceptives

By MATT GOURAS
Associated Press
HELENA -- Health insurance companies must include coverage for prescription contraceptives such as birth control pills in prescription drug plans, and failing to do so constitutes sex discrimination, Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath said Tuesday.

Yay Montana!!

Our South Park Characters

Once I saw Coffee In My Veins' South Park likeness experiment, I had to give it a whirl. M. and I spent pretty much all evening creating who we would be on South Park. You know, I actually have a tee shirt that says "Kiss My Ass" on it (in cursive rhinestones).

Plan B and the FDA - it's not over!

I wrote in an earlier post about Dr. Susan Wood's efforts to publicize what really happened at the FDA when emergency contraception came up for review for over the counter status. It looks as though Henry Waxman is investigating (finally! somebody!) what was obviously the political hijacking of clear scientific evidence.

In other news, Tennessee is going down the abortion-ban trail. It's all the rage! (Who knew there were two s's in Tennessee? I've never typed that word before, and apparently for good reason).

Men lobby for more rights

For those of you who haven't been following the latest efforts of the "men's rights movement" to co-opt Roe v. Wade, I have two links for you. The first is a lively discussion on Twisty Faster's blog:

Roe-v-Wade for men my ass

After you have digested the absurdity of it all, you can open this cartoon from women's e-news.

It would be more funny if it wasn't so threatening. This is exactly the kind of thing that with enough P.R. exposure can change the terms of the argument, diluting and minimizing the gravity of reproductive rights for women.

Spring Break in Austin means...

Goodness me, has anyone taken a look at the sxsw day shows this week? It seems every year there are more than the year before. I am thinking of just walking out of my front door and see what I bump into - I wouldn't have to walk very far! I am going to take a super laid back approach this year, but there are a few things I have on my free show list and if it happens, it happens:

Militant Babies at Lovejoy's Wednesday
The Ponys at Yard Dog Thursday
Charlie's Holy Happy Hour at Lovejoy's Friday (because he can make me smile and cry in the same set)
Bloodshot Records Party at Yard Dog Friday
Von Iva (Liz Davis, of 7 Year Bitch, is their bassist!) at The Peacock Friday
Rogers Sisters at Ruta Maya Friday
Visqueen at Lucky Lounge Friday
2 Cow Garage at Jovita's Saturday
The Long Winters at Jovita's Saturday
Rogue Wave at Homeslice Pizza (yes!) Saturday
Sonic Boom Records Party at the Longbranch Saturday

It seems the Charles Attal party is going to be down the street from my house at the old hire.com building on Academy...though I'm not on the invite list this year. I've only heard Secret Machines are playing, who I saw a couple years back when Joan Jett played. And did you see that Sleater-Kinney is playing a snooty-patooty invite-only show at the Guerrero Warehouse on E. 6th Tuesday night? It's the film festival closing party. Hmph!

Where are you going to be?

A blog devoted to cupcakes

For my cupcake-lovin' friends (sbkt and silver zephyr, hello!), here is a cupcake blog I tumbled into today. It has lovely photos of cupcakes and the occasional link to a recipe. Speaking of cupcakes, has anyone seen the "designer" cupcakes at disneyland - oops I mean whole foods on 6th & Lamar? They look cool but they're gigantic, which detracts from the cute factor.

Confusion at the voting booth

Defamer found the best explanation yet for the inexplicable results of the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Bane of My Existence

So after eyeing it for years as something my cats would surely love, seeing as how they spend a lot of time drinking out of the bathroom sink faucet, with my new salary increase in hand I spent the $50 on this drinking fountain for my cats, and they hate it.

They won't have anything to do with it. It's the sound it makes, apparently. And possibly the taste. There's a little motor inside that pumps the water, and they just don't trust it. They can deal with a vacuum cleaner, but not the water pump. I even took all other water sources away to make them drink out of it, but then I felt bad because they so clearly loathed it. Okazaki Fragment took to drinking scuzzy water sitting in bowls in the kitchen sink, rather than use the fancy water fountain (did I mention it is filtered water, too?). I spent lots of time repositioning it, cleaning it, everything short of drinking out of it myself, to get them to use it.

The fountain has now been discarded into the closet with all of our other clutter, and now we're back to wasting water by letting it drip out of the sink off and on. (I've tried putting it in glasses for them a la Malcolm and Angus, but that's not good either). That's $50 I can't get back.